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[Eric Blank]

Here we are;



Jeb didn't survive, but he definitely enjoyed it.

[True-Chaos]

anyone know what's causing this issue or had seen it on the mod section before?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

it's either one of distant object enhancement, environmental visual enhancements or planet shine

While not one of your options... I've had Scatter cause that when I'm running in OpenGL mode

[KingofstarrySkies]

I made another LF-only SSTO spaceplane! It can now dock and deliver small cargo!


(click for imgur album)

And that probably sums up my disposition towards any flight assist plugins. For me, making a spacecraft, flying it, identifying the issues it has, painstakingly remaking it, and flying it again, is the perfect KSP experience. Every launch is unique, every design is a unique building experience. I don't need shortcuts through my favorite parts of the game.

Right, this image alone has inspired me to hurry the fuck up on fixing my laptop so I can get KSP and get to space-ing.

[Eric Blank]

Download FAR if you want to go really fucking far, got it. O_o

[Lightningfalcon]

Making a VTOL is really, really hard. You have to look at the centers of thrusts, weight, and lift all simultaneously, and from multiple angles.    It can take off, but you can't use SAS, and you have to maintain very, very precise control.  The moment I make a mistake the whole thing goes into an uncontrollable spin.  I haven't lose anyone doing so yet, because it has yet to go high and the engines are all pointing downwards, but it is still not recoverable.  In addition, Infernal Robotics is being weird, and no matter what I do it won't save my settings from the spaceplane hanger. 

[Aqizzar]

I made another LF-only SSTO spaceplane! It can now dock and deliver small cargo!

I like the five ramjets with low and high altitude scoops.  But just nuclear engines for space propulsion?  Obviously that's enough to get from the top of the atmosphere into orbit, but is there a trick to your approach angle or something?  It looks like you were going almost vertical at that stage, but I would have thought you'd be maintaining shallow flight as long as possible to build up lateral speed.

[KingofstarrySkies]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So, FTL travel in KSP is a thing. Just download FAR and somehow break all the things. She's traveling at 1 petameter per second, roughly.

The wake of her superluminal flight did not treat Kerbin kindly:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

EDIT:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm getting consistent at FTL travel. Slower, but still going stupid fast.

I'm waiting for someone to mod in the Time Vortex.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Making a VTOL is really, really hard... It can take off, but you can't use SAS...

Why can't you use SAS? I use SAS on my VTOLs.

[Lightningfalcon]

Making a VTOL is really, really hard... It can take off, but you can't use SAS...

Why can't you use SAS? I use SAS on my VTOLs.

Because the whole thing just flips over if that happens.  Right now it is a series of fuel tanks with an inline cockpit, four rapier engines mounted on those VTOL things from Infernal Robotics, and two nuclear engines in the back.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I made another LF-only SSTO spaceplane! It can now dock and deliver small cargo!

I like the five ramjets with low and high altitude scoops.  But just nuclear engines for space propulsion?  Obviously that's enough to get from the top of the atmosphere into orbit, but is there a trick to your approach angle or something?  It looks like you were going almost vertical at that stage, but I would have thought you'd be maintaining shallow flight as long as possible to build up lateral speed.

With LV-N's, the trick is actually altitude. No matter how you slice it, you can't exit the atmosphere on turbojets going faster than 1300m/s, and you can't use turbojets above some 22km. So what you do on ascent, is buy yourself time to accelerate using the Nervas' very low thrust.

My ascent profile looks like this:
From runway, fire turbojets at half throttle. Take off and pitch up 40 degrees.
Maintain half throttle until about 4-5km. Punch it to full throttle to begin accelerating. Maintain pitch.
At 10km, stage to fire NERVAs. They're almost fully efficient at that altitude and every little bit helps. Adjust pitch to 45 degrees.
Keep going until your turbojets run out of air, then turn them off and close all intakes. With a properly built design you'll be flying at at least 1200m/s. Keep full throttle on the NERVAs.
Adjust pitch to be slightly above your prograde vector. Once you clear the bulk of the atmosphere at some 45km, adjust pitch to be halfway between your prograde, and your trajectory normal vector.
Keep adjusting your pitch to be somewhere between the prograde and the normal as you reach apoapsis. You'll reach some 120-125km, still going at about 1200-1300m/s.
Continue doing this as you start losing altitude. If everything goes right, you will eventually circularize at some 90km.

This is a very inefficient ascent profile. With any other setup, you would never want to use it. However, you can't have many LV-Ns due to overheat, and you are stuck carrying a lot of dead weight in turbojets, so an efficient ascent profile doesn't leave you enough time to make orbit, and you aren't carrying any oxidizer, by design, to boost you up with conventional rockets.

[Chiefwaffles]

Wow, okay. I think the game hates me. I'm on my return trip from my first minmus flyby, when suddenly, without any thrust at all, I get a Mun encounter that sends me into a Kerbin escape trajectory.

I honestly don't even know how that's possible.

[Aqizzar]

This is a very inefficient ascent profile. With any other setup, you would never want to use it. However, you can't have many LV-Ns due to overheat, and you are stuck carrying a lot of dead weight in turbojets, so an efficient ascent profile doesn't leave you enough time to make orbit, and you aren't carrying any oxidizer, by design, to boost you up with conventional rockets.

So the takeaway here is, SSTO is very efficient from an engineering standpoint, but very inefficient from an activity standpoint.  Sounds like the design would be really hard to scale up from the utility plane you demonstrated too.

[Sean Mirrsen]

This is a very inefficient ascent profile. With any other setup, you would never want to use it. However, you can't have many LV-Ns due to overheat, and you are stuck carrying a lot of dead weight in turbojets, so an efficient ascent profile doesn't leave you enough time to make orbit, and you aren't carrying any oxidizer, by design, to boost you up with conventional rockets.

So the takeaway here is, SSTO is very efficient from an engineering standpoint, but very inefficient from an activity standpoint.  Sounds like the design would be really hard to scale up from the utility plane you demonstrated too.

You could make it efficient by actually using oxidizer and proper rockets, or RAPIERs. Trying to make orbit on LiquidFuel alone is what's making it so inefficient. But the payoff is that you have maximum fuel space for the NERVAs, and once you refuel you can go pretty far. Like, Laythe far, if you really push it, though you'd have to refuel there again for the return trip.

[MarcAFK]

This is a very inefficient ascent profile. With any other setup, you would never want to use it. However, you can't have many LV-Ns due to overheat, and you are stuck carrying a lot of dead weight in turbojets, so an efficient ascent profile doesn't leave you enough time to make orbit, and you aren't carrying any oxidizer, by design, to boost you up with conventional rockets.

So the takeaway here is, SSTO is very efficient from an engineering standpoint, but very inefficient from an activity standpoint.  Sounds like the design would be really hard to scale up from the utility plane you demonstrated too.

You could make it efficient by actually using oxidizer and proper rockets, or RAPIERs. Trying to make orbit on LiquidFuel alone is what's making it so inefficient. But the payoff is that you have maximum fuel space for the NERVAs, and once you refuel you can go pretty far. Like, Laythe far, if you really push it, though you'd have to refuel there again for the return trip.

To do list:
Set up fuel production on lathe.
Fuel tankers in orbit for refuelling SSTOs.
Make working SSTO.
Finishing screwing with MKS config files without invoking the kraken and breaking the universe.

[Lightningfalcon]

That is pretty close to my current plan.  Once I can get this VTOL working, I'm going to start my expedition.  First will be the deployment of a drone platform that will be used to find prime landing sites, along with setting up beacons.  Second will be the deployment of multiple mining vehicles.  Next will be the positioning of a space station equipped with an ISRU convertor.  Finally, VTOLs will be used to transport ore from the surface to orbit to be used as fuel, by using KIS to hopefully move ore from the miners to the VTOLs.  So far the only part that I know will work are the drone platforms.  I was able to get one into orbit around Duna with four rockomax and mainsail engines remaining.  Sadly, the actual probes were useless because it had zero capability to turn around, and while I could have turned around the rocket the platform was attached to, I had already saved after decoupling from it.