severe leaf
for some reason at any angle the mk2 cockpits generate so much lift at any angle that i have to move any reasonably sized wings 2 meters behind the entire craft, and no amount of angling, trim, or otherwise rebalance helps
appearance is a priority and i don't want to have to move my cockpit to the back and engines to the front
whenever at any angle of positive or negative pitch the center of lift shifts in front of the center of mass by 3 meters and then the craft either rips itself apart or flips uncontrollably into retrograde
i just want a good looking craft i dont get why the mk2 cockpits have to generate more lift than my entire wings and rear fuselage
i want the craft to have an unbroken delta wing why must i move the wing to the point where it hangs off the back of the plane
this is what it would have to look like to get even off the ground
removing the canards moves the center of lift substantially forwards but at the expense of being significantly less maneuverable in low air densities and generally looking worse
i mean i could do this
and before you tell me i have done any possible combination of angling the wings and control surfaces and the cockpit
100% stock never even gone into the game files (other than to change a flag) bought from intercept games official website
and you might tell me that the reasonable solution is to make bigger wings
HOW BIG EXACTLY
ok so i redid it and the only solution is to put the inline cockpit in the middle of the plane which looks atrocious
yes for some reason it generates more lift than the wings do
and I refuse to accept that this is a good looking ssto by any stretch of imagination
the fact of the matter is that literally 50% of my sstos have this configuration and work perfectly fine
but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo this has to fail
stuck oasis
The actual SR-71 Blackbird had a longer nose but otherwise similar configuration. However, that SSTO has massive tail weight from all those engines. In other words, with that mass there, that shape is not the best...
severe leaf
im filing a bug report since this is happening to a bunch of craft that used to not have that issue
wait i dont know how to do that well ill do i tlater
hallow imp
I think the user above nailed it, you are not properly taking account of why and where your mass is moving.
your CoM is the midpoint of ALL the mass on your vessel (more or less). So imagine you have your 2 ton cockpit upfront and your 20 ton engines in the rear with your 50 ton fuel. The midpoint of cockpit+fuel+engines is totally going to be rear biased.
this is the crux of SSTO design. Managing CoM and CoL as it changes in flight is going to be a journey you spend HOURS solving in the SPH. spaceplanes are usually not simple to make because of this.
the fix here is to reduce number of engines, reduce fuel carried, move the various wings and parts around
this doesnt mean move the cockpit to the butt of the vehicle, this means that you should, for example, see if you can get away with only 1 NERV
less LFO or less Oxidizer are also options, redistributing them also works well
and yes, this is a test of patience. Dont expect to be like "aha!" in 5 minutes of staring. I test my SSTOs over and over and over and over and over and over until it finally works. Cheats help a lot since you can teleport to orbit and test re-entry for example
severe leaf
i will try to do that but i would have to remove 3 rapiers and 1 nerv and half my fuel which would make me unable to get into orbit let alone to even the mun's orbital height
and the TWR would be significantly less than 1
jool would be completely out of the question
hallow imp
your TWR should be bad, this is an SSTO. Unless you make some ridiculous beast they always have really really bad TWR
you dont do SSTOs for speed, you do them for cost saving and efficiency. It's faster and easier just to make a huge rocket with your payload at the top. Sometimes it is cheaper too depending on the payload
for reference my mk3 SSTO had a TWR (once in orbit) of about 0.15
I used 4 NERVs
pretty much your TWR should peak right after the sound barrier when the RAPIERs are at their peak performance. This is of course the time to push for orbit so it makes sense
severe leaf
with only one NERV the TWR when landing on Duna or the Mun or some large no-atmosphere body is less than 1, because it is an interplanetary craft
the thrust to weight ratio is not that far greater than 1 using the RAPIERs
also to complicate further this problem has spread
this is my old craft which used to not have the problem before
now whenever i pitch up it flips backwards similarly even though it never did such a thing previous,y
hallow imp
as you burn fuel I expect your center of mass to move. With all that weight at the back I would not be surprised if the fuel of full tanks is actually pulling the center of mass BACKWARD, behind of the center of lift. If they are that close then it will not take much for it to slip behind the CoM and cause the vehicle to flip
you're also trying to do the classic "my ssto can go anywhere" which, let me tell you, is not easy by any stretch. You are much better off making vehicles that are good at a couple things really well.
a common design choice people make is to use the SSTO as a transfer/return vehicle then deploy a lander from the cargo bay
this reduces the amount of design challenges you have to make
severe leaf
so did they add a secret update to ksp1 because i had enough deltav to go to either duna or jool with the old one
severe leaf
Wait does it count as a legitimate build if there are significantly clipped parts? I figured that the lifting body would generate as much lift as these large right triangle wings (the "Delta Wings"), so i clipped them into the back, but i am wondering if it is a legitimate solution or not