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[ank]

Yup:
Kerbin TWR 2 = Mun TWR 12

That's why you are finding such low values for TWR Nao: you are forgetting dividing by 0.166

[Spaghetti7]

Hol-ee sheet. Just did my first dock (I know, behind the times) and hell, was it stressful. It took about 10 iterations of my craft (which was just 4 empty fuselages) until I managed it, and I still have to do that again for my station plan... YAY!

[Twi]

Hol-ee sheet. Just did my first dock (I know, behind the times) and hell, was it stressful. It took about 10 iterations of my craft (which was just 4 empty fuselages) until I managed it, and I still have to do that again for my station plan... YAY!

Still haven't bothered to make a station or dock.

[Sean Mirrsen]

You'll never have had a stressful dock until you misjudge the speed of your 60-ton SSTO monstrocity and have to push RCS for all it's worth to pirouette the thing over the forest of solar panels and protruding habitation modules of your orbital refuelling depot. Fumbled approach disregarded, the docking itself went comparatively smooth afterwards.

[Spaghetti7]

Hol-ee sheet. Just did my first dock (I know, behind the times) and hell, was it stressful. It took about 10 iterations of my craft (which was just 4 empty fuselages) until I managed it, and I still have to do that again for my station plan... YAY!

Still haven't bothered to make a station or dock.

Don't. Just, stay away.

You'll never have had a stressful dock until you misjudge the speed of your 60-ton SSTO monstrocity and have to push RCS for all it's worth to pirouette the thing over the forest of solar panels and protruding habitation modules of your orbital refuelling depot. Fumbled approach disregarded, the docking itself went comparatively smooth afterwards.

Um... Yeah, I'll keep right away from that, thank you very much.

[Skyrunner]

During a ultra-heavy docking (something like fifty tons of extremely heavy, wobbly spare parts), I bumped the station and feared it would fall apart, what with all its shaking. XD

[Sean Mirrsen]

So.. in other news, I have now installed two extra mods to my usual complement of "KSPX and nothing else, if that".

First one is the FAR plugin, the one dealing with improved aerodynamics. I find that it greatly helps when you can designate surfaces to only control certain directions, as well as create flaps and airbrakes. The extra aerodynamics... well, on one hand they make things easier. For rocketry, they're a tremendous improvement (so much so that if KSP ever adopts a similar system, many rocket parts will need rebalancing), and I actually feel like an Eve ascent vehicle is now quite feasible. On the other hand.... some of its additions to realism are going to take some getting used to. Control surfaces can no longer be mounted "just anywhere". At supersonic speeds, they become less effective. The lift from wings is now modeled in such a different way that I'll have to relearn building spaceplanes. But all in all, it's a welcome change.


The second mod is the absolutely awesome subassembly plugin. It's not really a "mod" since it doesn't alter parts, but the VAB/SPH functionality it provides is... phenomenal. With it, you can build a rover in the SPH, then save it as a sub-assembly, so that you can put it on your lifter rocket in the VAB. You can save lifter stages, pusher stages, custom booster stages, escape pods, landers (unpiloted ones), anything. Anything that doesn't require crew to be in it at the start of the mission, you can save and load with this tool. It's very, very useful.

[Skyrunner]

Both seem to be very much vanilla-worthy, without any people who would argue against.

[Twi]

Both seem to be very much vanilla-worthy, without any people who would argue against.

Second one yes.
First one: Eh, some people find realism to be boring/hard/makes it difficult to make silly shaped things.

That said, I still find FAR to be cool. I'm just afraid to actually use the damn thing, I'm already a terrible enough pilot as is.\

EDIT: I have, however, done some research, Sky. This should prove to you that SSTO is hard.

For pure rocket approaches Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation shows that dead weight will prevent reaching orbit unless the ratio of propellant to structural mass (called mass ratio) is very high — between about 10 and 25 (i.e. 24 parts propellant weight to 1 part structural weight; depending on propellant choice).[citation needed]

IIRC, the ratio of total mass to dry mass of stock KSP rocket tanks is 9 (excluding the tiny tanks, which I don't remember off the top of my head). And that number is of course larger than the ratio of propellant to structure. So yeah. Pure rocket SSTOs are somewhat out of reach with stock parts. Obviously, airbreathing ones are not. I'm just not that good at piloting. :/

[Skyrunner]

I don't think SSTOs are supposed to be made with pure rocket fuel.... XD

[Twi]

I don't think SSTOs are supposed to be made with pure rocket fuel.... XD

Yes, there's a reason for that.

[Sean Mirrsen]

IIRC, the ratio of total mass to dry mass of stock KSP rocket tanks is 9

8, actually. 16 mass units of fuel to 2 mass units of tank, scaled proportionally so that no one tank is more efficient than others.

[Twi]

IIRC, the ratio of total mass to dry mass of stock KSP rocket tanks is 9

8, actually. 16 mass units of fuel to 2 mass units of tank, scaled proportionally so that no one tank is more efficient than others.

Total mass to dry mass, I said. Also I was laaaazy.

Silly Mirrsen, using numbers that weren't explicitly given to you.

[Leonon]

SSTO's are hard :<

SSTOs aren't hard, you just have to make them a little silly.

[da_nang]

Aesthetically pleasing ones are.