Kerbal Space Program

You can set action groups in the vehicle editor screen and link them to certain actions, like "disable these engines in particular" or a set of actions that function as a Launch Escape System

Thank-you!!!

YAY , i made an interstellar jet..


And now i know how to shut off the Jet Engines, it goes into ORBIT .. yay

I just came here to post my first working space plane. And then Max shows me up

Here it is anyway



EDIT: just to prove it can actually get into space

Is your's a b!tch to get off the ground too , but when its flying it's all good ??

I have to use the SAS auto stability to get mine off the runway and airborne or it tumbles round like a stunt machine and explodes before reaching the end of the runway

Mine's quite nice to handle actually. But it really does need ALL the runway to get up to speed

Mine too, i end up going taking off at the point where the runway gives way to grass ..
I need to get up to Approx 135m/s before it'll get airborne

Damn ,, i can't break kerbal orbit
I can get up there but soon run outta fuel..
I need a fueling station up here!!!!

Nice work both of you!

That is usually problem related to the placement of your landing gear. Maybe there is too much weight on the front wheel or the rear wheels are not perpendicular to the runway?
There are a couple of things you can try:
+ Move the wheels forward. The rear wheels should be not far behind your center of mass, turn the front gear around (2xD key).
+ Add a second front wheel.
+ Give the plane some 'natural' lift by putting something under the front wheel to lift the nose higher than the back.

The reason you are not getting into orbit is probably that you are not gaining enough speed, Max. For stock SSTOs there are three rules: more air intakes means more speed and less fuel; more wings mean you can point your air intakes with their 'nose in the wind' longer, your angle of attack is smaller and you can run on air breathing engines longer; more speed is better: point that nose just barely above the horizon once the air gets thin. You want to climb but very slowly!

If you want I can take a look at your SSTO and see if I can get it to fly. I just need the craft file.

I had to zip the Craft file to upload it..
So here it is The "Vixen Mark I"
I lost the original Vixen in the Pictures,
I saved the updated ship with the same name and it wrote over the original

So this is the Mark 1 revised lol..

Attached Vixen MK I.zip

Be very gentle when pulling up during takeoff or you'll flip the ship
Well be gentle pulling up anytime, it's very "Sensitive" to up/down pitching..

SAS on before takeoff,
And it almost lift's off automatically, i already have the nose raised by jacking up the front gear..
Get it up to speed on the runway Ramjets only and it floats away from the ground by itself with only a very gentle nudge on the pitch stick (Be Gentle .. lol)..
I have been running on ramjets only up to 12,000m alt, Then i level out and pickup speed (approx 900m/s)
I then kick in the booster and pull up gently (yellow circle on compass at 20-30 deg+ pitch)
Best speed achieved by me so far trying to break orbit is 2038m/s,,
I just need to work up good velocity to try and break orbit, i can get to 280,000m so far..


Alpha 1 = Ramjets ON/OFF Toggle
Alpha 2 = Booster Engines ON/OFF Toggle


Stage 3 = Ramjet Engines
Stage 2 = Booster Engines
Stage 1 = Emergency Separation of cockpit from Sub-Orbital Cruiser.
Stage 0 = Emergency Parachutes for Cockpit landing after Emergency Separation.

You made some good changes already I see!
You had the right idea, more air intakes = better for SSTOs. The radial intakes work okay in thick atmo but they really don't do that much for you in the upper atmo. It really should say that in the description. For SSTOs you want the RAM intakes. Consider all other intake types cosmetic... ;P

I tried something new and angled the front quadrupled of RAM intakes at 10° downwards:

In theory this means that while you are pitching your nose just barely above the horizon to gain speed those intakes get perfect exposure to the air flow. No idea if it really works but I think it looks neat. (KSP has some pretty interesting ideas how air intakes work internally...)

Just place a small cubic octagonal strut at a 10° angle and you can attach the 2 RAM intakes to it:


One thing you want to check every time is your Center of Lift (CoL), Center of Mass (CoM) and your thrust vector:

CoL should be behind your CoM and your thrust vector behind both and go through your CoM. This is important for stability, especially if you have a heavy plane or lots of lift.

Putting your rear gear between your CoM and the pitch control surfaces at the back makes taking off easier. The control surfaces at the rear create a downward force during take off and if your rear gear is in front of that vector you have a nice lever to get your nose up. If that is not possible for some reason (very heavy planes) you can use canards at the nose just like you did.

The way you placed the landing gear so that the SSTOs nose points slightly upwards gives you more lift during take off, good idea!

The only real changes I made were to pull the center of lift a little bit back and replace the radial intakes with RAM intakes. All other changes were cosmetic.

PS: Quick video of getting into orbit:



PPS: The angled intakes really work!

The RAM intake at the top is angled at 10°, the RAM intake below it sits straight on the fuselage and there is a radial intake at the rear for comparison. I mean it's not a lot but I'll take it!

I'm getting better at making things ..

Introducing the "SuperSonic Flea"
I have included 2 models the MK I and MK II

The Mark I is a Supersonic Jet .. and wow it is fast, and goes where you point the nose..

The Mark II is an Orbital Version.. Added pic of me getting this tiny beast into orbit

Also added the ship's in a zip so you can enjoy them too

I haven't even worked on space planes.

Also, I noticed career mode changed, neat ones at that, last patch. What all did it add if I may ask a summary without having to go look and read?

In short:
- You can no longer spam science projects and keep getting science, there's a fixed 40% transmit cap or something like that so that you have to actually get your craft back to Kerbin and recover it to get full science value
- Mystery Goo and Science Jr. modules are no longer reusable after transmit (unless science lab module is present)
- New lab module which increases transmit value if used
- New biomes for Mun and Minmus (you'll notice that if you do a report on some Mun crater that it actually has a name now!)
- RAPIER engine which has airbreathing and rocket mode (this makes making spaceplanes incredibly easier)
- Science archives where you can see where have you been doing science

Sandbox mode is practically unaffected with the exception of two new parts being available.

I noticed they have adjusted some science costs in research tree as well. Thanks for list tho.

Oh and about "spaceplanes". Since Eve and Jool have such dense atmospheres I decided to try a glider design:







If you want the schematics:
- SPH (only the glider): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81512422/SciGlider E.craft
- VAB (glider with carrier stage): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81512422/SciGlider E Delivery.craft

Action groups are set from 1 through 7 to various experiments.

Note about aerodynamics: with the carrier stage the center of lift is so far ahead of center of mass that the whole thing will sping out of control if you start a gravity turn earlier than like 20km during lif off.

Also this is from 0.22 so I suggest to use the tweakables to empty the glider fuel tanks.

I have moved beyond sanity and installed the mod Real Solar System. It basically models our solar system in KSP. Which means you need an insane amount of delta-v just to get into orbit. My moon orbiter:


Payload 1.2 tons.


Only two more stages and we are in low orbit! =P


Transfer to the moon. 3100m/s, 800m/s to get into lunar orbit, I estimate 2000m/s to land. Not that landing will be on the menu any time soon...

And just to make it more fun I installed Ferram Aerospace Research and Deadly Reentry. Nothing makes your day more interesting than to reenter atmo with 8km/s. One slip on the controls and your entire vehicle burns up in seconds. Goo canister, parachutes or batteries attached to the sides of the rocket? Nope. Everything has to be behind a heat shield or it's toast. Hawt!

Sounds crazy so far? Na. I cranked it up to 11 and I'm playing with stock parts in the regular career mode. If you get bored with KSP because you have done it all: this is for you! It's almost as if career mode was made for RSS. You just get enough science points to get the bare minimum of what you need. I just got solar panels unlocked and send Jeb to the moon. 200 science from the EVA and crew reports! I haven't decided on what I will unlock next. I have solar panels, fuel lines and struts. I want the big fuel tanks but I need more science parts and docking ports! Tough decision ahead, that's for sure.

"I choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard." - Jeb


PS: Those pictures are really pretty, mcodl! Is your glider build for stock aerodynamics or FAR?

Col_Jessep, I have just troubles believing that your rocket didn't fall apart during launch :-D .

And yes I'm also thinking about the real solar system mod. Is the current release more accurate?

I was considering how great it would be to add another star system to Kerbal. Technically possible I think, but to prevent it from serverely skewing the physics on sides of the solar system giving unfair pull, I think it actually needs to realistically be 4x the distance from eeloo, and at that point, difficult to do even with vanilla kerbal gameplay. On top of all that, to add realism it would be nice to add a few more generic space debris within our own system, like asteroid belt at about same orbit as ceres (dres in kerbal?) and at/past eeloo, but doing that would strain the game pretty hardcore.

At any rate, interesting idea to expand the plausible yet fictional universe, yet I have a lot of games in my modding scope and that idea stretches me much too far.