Does Thrust to Weight Ratio play too big of a role in how an SSTO will function?

[ocean wigeon]

I'm curious if I should worry too much about keeping it over one or not, since it doesn't technically need to be, but seems to work better when it is.

[jovial verge]

As long as you can keep accelerating the lower twr the better. So the amount of engines you need is more determined by drag then weight

[ocean wigeon]

wait, LOWER?

like less thrust per weight?

[jovial verge]

Yep

[ocean wigeon]

what???

this does not brain

[jovial verge]

Cuz less thrust means fewer engines and fewer engines means less dry weight

Here's my 83 seat ssto on 4 engines.
https://youtu.be/o6jDO_yZHoE

[ocean wigeon]

i suppose that makes sense

[jovial verge]

If you're only making an lko ssto you can afford a few more engines, if yore going further tho less is sometimes more

[ocean wigeon]

i've succesffuly made one that got to orbit, and then just barely landed on the moon

luckily had a drill system installed

[jovial verge]

Nice you can now go pretty much anywhere apart from Eve and probably Tylo

Also show image please. Always looking for inspiration

[ocean wigeon]

this is the iteration that made the moon trip

Sustained minor damage on the moon landing

Just enough to screw up kerbin re-entry

Wasn’t able to recover the craft, but I was able to slow down enough to eject both kerbals and get them back safely

[jovial verge]

nice

no nerva engines?

[ocean wigeon]

Nope

The tutorial I watched was clearly just for low orbit sstos

I did not realize that

So I didn’t include a nerv until I realized that all the long ranged sstos have one

I just shut my computer off so if I remember tomorrow I’ll send a pic of the more recent iteration

[jovial verge]

ok cool

[ocean wigeon]

this is the latest version. haven't tested this exact one yet but i did test one with only one nerv engine and it worked really well

[jovial verge]

I'd be interested to see the cg change when it's empty

It looks like it would shift backwards

wanna see what I'm working on?

[ocean wigeon]

that's very possible

sure

it keeps drifting a lil side to side (not one side in particular, which is what confuses me) when i pitch up or down

its weird

[jovial verge]

like roll or yaw?

[ocean wigeon]

roll

i added more stabliziers

im thinking adding a canard could possibly help at well

[jovial verge]

two things you can do:

1. isolate elevon actuation. Tail does only yaw for example, so you should disable roll and pitch....
2. give your wings a slight dihedral

[ocean wigeon]

my wings already do have a very slight dihedral

[ocean wigeon]

good idea on the first one tho

[ocean wigeon]

i could try increasing the angle

[jovial verge]

also this is what I'm working on

[jovial verge]

nah, try 1. first

[ocean wigeon]

this didn't work very well, but after adding two more rapiers, and smore stabilizers, i've got an attempt that's going pretty good so far

[ocean wigeon]

holy

that thing would eat my spaceplane for breakfast

[jovial verge]

It doesn't really work yet it's gonna take me a long time to finish this one

[ocean wigeon]

yeah

that's the fun of it tho

[jovial verge]

(if I'll ever finish it)

[jovial verge]

damn

[ocean wigeon]

i got this one to hit the 400 m/s required to get the rapiers to go full thrust

thank you matt lowne for that tidbid of advice

[jovial verge]

are you doing this in career mode?

[ocean wigeon]

yes

lol

lots of reverting and quicksaves

so like

kinda but not really

[jovial verge]

so you probably don't have all the wing pieces unlocked

[ocean wigeon]

cost is a factor, but since the plan is to recover the craft, and i reload most of the time it doesn't work, cost really is only a temporary factor

[ocean wigeon]

ill ss my tech tree in a min but im pretty sure i only have like 2 or 3 of the last nodes done

i just haven't played around with all of the existing wing options yet

well i have... but not successfully

[jovial verge]

do you have any mods?

/are you comfortable with stock compatible mods

[ocean wigeon]

I haven’t delved into mods quite yet

I’ve been thinking about installing some cosmetic ones cuz I want coloring options

[jovial verge]

there is this mod called rcs build aid, that lets you know your dry cg amongst other quality of life tools

it basically lets you dial in your center of lift and center of mass for best performance easily

[ocean wigeon]

Hm. I’ll keep that one in mind once I start with mods

[jovial verge]

but yea you want your center of lift close to your center of mass

[jovial verge]

and you want your control curfaces to be a good distance away from your cg

[ocean wigeon]

ye i've been working on that

[jovial verge]

that looks pretty good

[ocean wigeon]

i'll also note that the big wings do not have fuel in them

[jovial verge]

can you show me your aero tab, so I can see what you've got in there

[ocean wigeon]

despite the fact that they apparently have tanks for it

which is odd

[jovial verge]

put fuel in them it's free fuel tanks

[ocean wigeon]

i got both dlcs and this is what my tech tree looks like

[jovial verge]

so you have basically all the aero pieces you might wanna use bigger controll surfaces

[ocean wigeon]

i've been thinkin bout that

[jovial verge]

also canards are great

I find it best to make a nice clean and simple design with a pair of wings and eighter canards, horizontal stabilizer or nothing

I'll show you some of my smaller ssto's

btw for mining ssto's rocket ssto's are arguably better

[jovial verge]

nice

here this is my smallest sste

red dot is empty cg

[ocean wigeon]

oo very clean design

[jovial verge]

and the next smallest would be:

[jovial verge]

both canard designs

[jovial verge]

this should work great

[ocean wigeon]

my approach to these kinds of designs tends to be somewhat unorthodox

[ocean wigeon]

should

[jovial verge]

you call this ourthodox?

[ocean wigeon]

depends on whether my pilot kerbal that i am totally not responsible for decides to do their job correctly

[jovial verge]

also I'm using FAR so I have different aerodynamic considerations

[ocean wigeon]

i mean i look at that and it screams ksp experienced player

i look at mine and it says

did chat gpt make this shit

ooh, something i am proud of tho

[jovial verge]

it comes with practise

[jovial verge]

I would try removing the doubled engines

[ocean wigeon]

couldnt manage to get a big drill in there nicely

[jovial verge]

really??

[ocean wigeon]

but small one wouldn't reach ground

so i made this

[ocean wigeon]

i prolly could've with a hinge, but idk lol

i think what i made looks cool at the very least

[ocean wigeon]

atm it isn't producing enough acceleration fast enough without em, but ill play around with it and see

[jovial verge]

this is where I've put mine

[jovial verge]

reduce drag

[ocean wigeon]

wait where's the air intake?

[ocean wigeon]

ah nice

[jovial verge]

It has 1 engine pre-cooler

[ocean wigeon]

lol easier said than done, but yeah, i've been workin on that

[ocean wigeon]

ah ok

[jovial verge]

actually not the most optimal solution (I could save like 0.1 ton there)

[jovial verge]

do you know the engine nose-cone trick?

[ocean wigeon]

anything immediately visible that could reduce drag here?

[ocean wigeon]

where you hide a nose cone very slightly inside the back of the engine to trick it into thinking the back is more aerodynamically sound than it is?

[jovial verge]

yes

[jovial verge]

yes

[ocean wigeon]

alr, hit me with it

[jovial verge]

you only need 1 shock-cone intake

[ocean wigeon]

decrease amount of intakes?

doesnt one intake power 4 engines tho? i have six so i'd need at least two

[jovial verge]

1 intake powers up to 6 maybe 7

[ocean wigeon]

really

interesting

[jovial verge]

yea you just gotta start of at like 30% throttle until you reach ~20m/s

next thing you can do is angle your wings slightly up

and the next thing is not use mk2 fuel tanks

they have terrible drag in the stock game

also they have worse fuel/weight ratio than pretty much any other tank

[ocean wigeon]

only ones i have are on the front and the back

[jovial verge]

in fact all mk2 pieces are kinda bad 4 drag

[ocean wigeon]

that's ironic

[jovial verge]

but you can skip this part

[ocean wigeon]

considering it's meant to be for hypersonic jets

[jovial verge]

yea well that's stock ksp 4 ya

Ideally you would do something like this

also I told you this before, but the best mining ssto's in my opinion are actually rockets

[ocean wigeon]

that is oen odd looking craft

*one

[jovial verge]

they have more dv and are Tylo capable

it's a (nsfw ||but plug||) shape

[ocean wigeon]

lol

[jovial verge]

but yea it can go anywhere (except Eve and Jool) with 22 people for 109k funds

[ocean wigeon]

so far so good

still having the weird side to side behavior tho

[jovial verge]

ok Ima give you a pro tip:
3x adjustable ramp intake (radial) can feed 1 rapier
1x adjustable ramp intake can feed 2 rapiers
1x shock cone intake can feed 6x rapiers

[jovial verge]

did u isolate controls?

[ocean wigeon]

si

[jovial verge]

even on the main wing?

[ocean wigeon]

si. tails are set to do only yaw, and everything else is set to do everything but yaw

[jovial verge]

good enough

[ocean wigeon]

i do have one medium reaction wheel onboard, is that maybe the culprit?

it could also just be my shitty ass flying

[jovial verge]

idk

[ocean wigeon]

i suppose it makes sense that trying to roll while going that fast would fuck up the plane

[jovial verge]

the only thing that I can think of rn is that some parts aren't 100 percent streight

[ocean wigeon]

it's more stable than previous iterations if i don't touch anything tho

[jovial verge]

I don't think stock game does adverse yaw

[ocean wigeon]

yeah i did have that issue where my lift was pointing ever so slightly backwards

found the dumb wing piece that was responsible and smited it to hell

[jovial verge]

nice

btw where are you planning on going with this thing?

[ocean wigeon]

wait i'm supposed to have a purpose for my ssto?!

rn im honestly just screwing around to see what i can make

[jovial verge]

no just asking

[ocean wigeon]

and tryna get higher delta v

ideally, i want it to be able to go most places

probably mostly kerbin's moons and duna

but i also don't wanna limit it to just that

[jovial verge]

if you can get to Minmus with a minning ssto you can go pretty much anywhere (again except Tylo, Eve and Jool)

[ocean wigeon]

ok i just had engines auto-toggle at about 20km, usually they do that at around 30...

[jovial verge]

if you wanna go to Duna I find it's more challenging/rewarding to do it without refueling

[ocean wigeon]

i have about 800 mps left of oxidizer

[jovial verge]

disable auto toggle

[ocean wigeon]

i say left, but i mean in total

since it just started burning it

[jovial verge]

that's actually a decent amount

you wanna go at least 1500 m/s before you toggle

[ocean wigeon]

at the rate im going i should be able to get an apoapsis in space and then switch to nervs to burn for orbit

[ocean wigeon]

currently just under that

[jovial verge]

another pro tip: use flags

guess what engine this is

[ocean wigeon]

hm

i honestly have no clue

not like i can see it lmao

[jovial verge]

Nerva

[ocean wigeon]

ah sweet

i just shoved mine a lil bit into the body only the back half actually sticks out

looks better/has less of a chance of smashing into the ground when i take off

[jovial verge]

yea I doo that too sometimes

[ocean wigeon]

i don't mind being a lil cheat-sy when it comes to offsetting

i want it to be realistic at least

alrighty, 66km apoapsis with no more oxidizer left

[jovial verge]

like this

[jovial verge]

you've got this your Nerva have great twr

[ocean wigeon]

toggling the engines a lil later should improve that, but i have plenty of fuel left for nervs

[ocean wigeon]

ye i got 3300 mps

this is sick

i appreciate the help btw

[jovial verge]

np this is fun 4 me

[ocean wigeon]

same :D

im actually an aero student

so this kinda stuff is funnnn

applying school knowledge to ksp and vice versa feels very satisfying

[jovial verge]

damn you should definitely get FAR then

another way to do Nerva

[ocean wigeon]

my aero teacher lost his mind when i showed him that slamming a wheel into the ground really hard produced an infinite amount of thrust

and when i attached a docking port to the front of his car, stood on the roof, and held another docking port infront of it on a fishing rod and the car moved

[jovial verge]

bruh

[ocean wigeon]

this ksp knowledge goes hard

[jovial verge]

🗿

well with FAR you gotta do stuff like area rulling

(not actually that important, but it's there)

[ocean wigeon]

i should clarify when i said aero student i meant upperclassman highschool aero

not college aero

so like

general knowledge of aviation principles

[jovial verge]

ok

[ocean wigeon]

but maaaaybe not quite yet like actually super qualified

[jovial verge]

also the aero forces actually change with speed and mach number

unfortunately there is no ground effect

[ocean wigeon]

AAH the word derivative still scares me

like i know how to do em

but like

ah

why

[jovial verge]

you don't have to do them, the mod does them for you

[ocean wigeon]

how about you find the rate of change of your own slope Mr. Derivative, thank you very much

oh in that case

it quite literally does

:D

[jovial verge]

you just gotta look for green numbers instead of red ones

[ocean wigeon]

seems a little complex for my current game knowledge, but definitely something i've heard about and will try for later when normal ksp starts to get dry

[jovial verge]

like this thing becomes unstable above mach 10 at 20km

[ocean wigeon]

that's a lot less green

not good

D:

[jovial verge]

you'll never go 3000 m/s tho so all good

[ocean wigeon]

at least not in atmo

[jovial verge]

also I was very sad to learn you can't do supersonic wave surfing : (

[ocean wigeon]

aight so i got an apoapsis just above 70k but didn't quite get enough speed going to hit the orbit. reloaded a quicksave and im gonna disable auto toggle

[jovial verge]

hmmm

welp try again

[jovial verge]

also if you don't know what I mean read this it should be interesting for you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_lift

[ocean wigeon]

bro that sounds gnarly

[jovial verge]

cool ay

not moddelled in ksp even with FAR. Understandably so but still 😠

Do you have a favourite plane, preferably a lesser known one?

[ocean wigeon]

great question

not my all time fav, but i really do like the P-38 lightning

one of those old ww2 planes

very neat

also like a lot of aviation fans

i love the A-10

[jovial verge]

yea cool plane, not the most aero tho

[jovial verge]

not very aero, but yes cool plane

[ocean wigeon]

typical for older planes, no?

[ocean wigeon]

doesnt matter if it's aero if it has the brrt brrt

[jovial verge]

not really

[ocean wigeon]

interesante

[jovial verge]

so the P-38 was like the firs ww2 fighter with the exhaust powered turbochargers. They were quite bulky so less aero at low althitudes

still an amazing plane for it's time

But I was thinking more lesser known planes

[ocean wigeon]

yeah i figured

im really searchin the memory banks looking for something that isnt just like "boieng 737" or "F22" cuz that kinda stuff is like the most common

oh there was this wacky plane that we talked about in class that like wasn't symmetrical or something?

i forgot what it was called

one min

[jovial verge]

here I'll give you one I like and it's not well known Lauk Cygnus flying wing aircraft

[ocean wigeon]

thats insane

[jovial verge]

boomerang?

[ocean wigeon]

yes! that mf

so weird

but also so cool

[jovial verge]

Rutan has quite a few cool designs

here another one: Perlan 2 Glider

again this is not modeled in ksp : (

[ocean wigeon]

AcKSTUaLLY A GLIdER AnD a PLaeN aRe DIffErent

lol

[jovial verge]

no mountain waves

[ocean wigeon]

damn

gliders are especially funky

this one is relatively well known but still: concorde

droop snoot

w

[jovial verge]

I like the Akoya also

[jovial verge]

the snoot would droop

[ocean wigeon]

yo that's so like utopian lookin

[ocean wigeon]

i love that video so much

[jovial verge]

ever heard of the me 309?

or how about this goofy plane: SNCASO SE.100

[ocean wigeon]

I don’t believe so

That’s pretty cool

[jovial verge]

or this transforming byplane

[ocean wigeon]

Ok, the only other planes I can think of that would be near the top of my list are the Flying Fortress, the sr-71, and probably whatever that massive Ukrainian plane was that the Russians destroyed a couple years ago

[jovial verge]

Antonov 225

[ocean wigeon]

This big boi

Ye

[jovial verge]

you beat me to it

I made it into an ssto in ksp

[ocean wigeon]

Just an absolute beast

[ocean wigeon]

Screenshot?

[jovial verge]

rocket ssto

[ocean wigeon]

That’s awesome

[jovial verge]

do you know this plane? Star Kraft SK-700

[ocean wigeon]

Quite the chonker

[jovial verge]

ye

[ocean wigeon]

Bro what does that thing have props on both sides

[jovial verge]

it's a push pull configuration... not that uncommon

not all that common either tho

[ocean wigeon]

The adhd engineer urge to attach both of those props to something solid on ground level and then just spin the fuselage around as fast as possible

[jovial verge]

pop quiz what are the benefits of push pull configuration

and the drawbacks

[ocean wigeon]

Stability I would assume? Since the center of thrust would theoretically be somewhere in the middle

I could be totally off tho

[jovial verge]

well yes in the case of engine failiure you still got centerline thrust

next benefit

ok I'll do it:
-reduced cross-section
-reduced slipstream effect

[ocean wigeon]

Ah I guess that makes sense

[jovial verge]

also redundancy

[ocean wigeon]

In what way?

[jovial verge]

slipstream from the front propeller that cause the plane to roll gets eventually cought by the second prop

depending on the configuration the effect varies

[ocean wigeon]

Oh ok that kinda makes sense

[jovial verge]

another cool plane: XB-42 Mixmaster

[ocean wigeon]

Ooo

I love bubble turrets at the front

#I want a modern Flying Fortress remake

[jovial verge]

This thing still holds the record for the fastest cross Atlantic piston powered flight I think

It was made in 1944

pop quiz benneffits of a pusher configuration:

[ocean wigeon]

hm

[ocean wigeon]

i mean i would assume that has to do with the fact that a piston powered plane (say that 5 times fast) isn't the most efficient way of doing things anymore?

[jovial verge]

Not for big planes, for small ones it's still the best

[ocean wigeon]

interesting

like i said, i dont know toooo much about aviation

prolly more than the average person

[jovial verge]

most cost effective I should say

[ocean wigeon]

but still not too much

[jovial verge]

but you're interested in the subject no?

[ocean wigeon]

si

[jovial verge]

so I finally secured someone I can talk to

[ocean wigeon]

lmao

i get that feeling

[jovial verge]

🤓

anyway if you can get over the hurdles of the pusher configuration it should be faster/more efficient than the tractor configuration

a good example would be the Celera 500L or the egg plane as i like to call it

[ocean wigeon]

you made any cool prop planes in ksp?

[jovial verge]

not really

[ocean wigeon]

egg

[jovial verge]

ksp doesn't like stuff stpinning very fast

I made a tip jet autogyro ssto prototype

[ocean wigeon]

what the hell

that legit looks like you told ai to combine a heli and a prop plane

[jovial verge]

I don't know where I saved the video tho

[jovial verge]

it was made in the 50s

[ocean wigeon]

weird... with sas off, my plane is just spinning very slowly to the right on the runway

no idea why

[jovial verge]

that's happens it's normal things like to slide

[jovial verge]

found it

[ocean wigeon]

oh right i forgot i had these lil buggers stuck up here for some reason

any chance that wing piece could be contributing to the instability issues?

[jovial verge]

well they push you center of lift forward

[ocean wigeon]

ye

[jovial verge]

if it's straight than no

another cool vtol idea

I'ma go sleep now its 1.30 am

[ocean wigeon]

ooh that is interesting

[ocean wigeon]

damn you in europe?

[jovial verge]

ye

[ocean wigeon]

noice

well thanks for chatting

have a good one

[jovial verge]

you too

[ocean wigeon]

made it to mk7 of this newest variant

low and behold

80km apogee with oxidizer to spare

stability issues were like 95% resolved

(heading remained 90 deg for most of the flight)

we did it bois

AND ORBIT WITH JUST ABOVE 3000 MPS TO SPARE

https://tenor.com/view/nasa-perseverance-mars-2021-rover-gif-20434758

[scarlet lance]

TURD (not on ckan) doesnt work with ckan, needs textures unlimited but has a lot of custimization with coloring

[late idol]

still trying to decide if I want part customization or restock

https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/935073537050439681.webp?size=48&name=pepenotes&quality=lossless

[scarlet lance]

turd is a blessing

[late idol]

yeah I might just ditch restock

[scarlet lance]

best choice of my life

because restock also fucks with drag and stuff