It approaches a mathematical limit as more fuel tanks are added. We can calculate the limit your delta V approaches by taking the natural log of the maximum possible ratio of wet mass (mass including fuel), to dry mass (mass without fuel). The full to empty tank mass ratio in KSP is 9 to 1. (If you have a fuel tank that has a mass of 9 tons when full, that 9 tons consists of 8 tons of fuel and 1 ton of tank.) ln(9) = 2.197... You can then multiply that by standard gravity (g = 9.81 m/s^2), and your engine Isp to get the limit of your delta V as number of fuel tanks added goes to infinity. For example, with a vector engine, with an Isp of 315 s in vacuum, this limit is : ln(9) * 9.81 m/s^2 * 315 s = 6790 m/s For the skiff, with an Isp of 330 s in vacuum, this would be 7113 m/s If fuel tanks had 0 dry mass, this function would become unbounded. However, it would remain an logarithmic function, with severe diminishing returns. Back to the original question, regarding whether the Kerbin -> Eve landing -> Kerbin single stage, unrefueled plane is theoretically possible, the answer seems to be no. 7 km/s already isn't much to work with. You need to spare mass for engines, ion fuel for the interplanetary transfers, wings, landing gear, reducing this further. If you bring air breathing engine or stock prop, that further decreases the fractional mass available for fuel. You also have decreased Isp in atmospheric use of the rocket engines. Short of some radically new approach, it doesn't look possible. P.S. 'Boosters' generally refers to staged assemblies

good lord @@BradleyWhistance

@@BradleyWhistance I've been playing KSP on and off for a few years, and I finally know enough math to understand what you just said. I haven't played in a while, and I'm thinking maybe I should get back into it

Omg wow

you would reach 1, just after an infinite amount of time. I assume you can get very far in terms of delta V with every little improvement. however, you are limited by your computer

Haha, radial mount go snap.

I mean, its simple, you just keep adding fuel tanks and engines until it works I learned it from my double gravity series lol

oof

Lel

Kevin Schmida big turbofan SSTO

☐ Not rekt ☑ Rekt

How did you know that Brad's great-grandfather built wooden roller coasters at Coney Island, Rye Beach, and parks in Canada and South America?

hold my beer for 50 hours

That's going to be a really warm, flat beer

I don’t think you should drink that beer now.

this

Exactly. This, and for god’s sakes at least ONE hinge. They already have a stocklike hinge model developed for stock KSP that they dropped before putting in.

@@GrandProtectorDark I really wish they would add some electrically powered propellers. I would love to be able to fly planes on planets that have an atmosphere but no oxygen without having to use ultra-thirsty rocket engines.

It appears easy from a programming perspective, just take a jet engine, swap out the fuel requirements and give it a model. Shouldnt be too hard to do.

this is a comment from the future. ksp has propellers now

Stratzenblitz and I have been working together on exploring the KSP aero model. This video uses a completely different approach, and took me so long to complete that I actually started on this well before Stratzenblitz made his aerodynamic black magic craft. There is also some aerodynamic trickery in this craft (which will be noted and explained in the video for accuracy), but to a much more limited extent.

Actually... Yeah, that’s essentially how feathers work IRL. Each individual feather behaves like a tiny wing. So that’s pretty apt.

Squawk

yes use it again but a shorter notice would be nice because i forgot about it lol

Honestly I didn't really like waiting for it. The livestream and being able to talk to you in the chat was good. Would you ever consider doing livestreams of you just playing?

I prefer being surprised.

@@flynnbryant2589 I would! Its been something I have wanted to do for a while.

I prefer notifications to mean I can watch a video -- But livestreams would be worth prenotifications and I'd love to see you do one

He already has in Odyssey By Bill

Have you ever tried to sink in the oceans of eve? I've never managed to get even one meter down. Honestly if you made it to the sea floor you'd probably shoot upward with such force that you'd make orbit without any fuel at all.

Come on over, I have chips and guacamole!

The craft was inherently stable in that axis, so the rudder wasn't actually necessary.

MR ME at least part welding

When a video gets the cupcake seal of approval.

yes

A Canadian Guy And the kneeling plane is inspired by the TTC buses... JustTorontoThings

But i wanna be bill

Guessing that they just don't provide enough thrust for their fuel consumption

@@doas6311 that's the opposite of what they are supposed to though, they are meant to be super efficient in atmosphere, you could use atomics in space and earospikes in atmosphere

@@Dragon74213 The Aerospike does have the best TWR at sea level on Eve. Problem is, its TWR is bad, and the Vector/Mammoth engines have better Isp during a lot of the ascent anyway. They also are not very compact.

Exactly. When it comes to eve, raw TWR is more important. Your margins for useful payload are very small, successful eve rockets can barely lift their own dry mass, let alone any cargo. So to use aerospikes, you need to build a rocket capable of carrying a lot more dry mass for the exact same amount of thrust... which is hard when you’re talking about a planet where every pound of dry mass hinders you this much. Any fuel savings you’d have from using the more efficient aerospikes is immediately pissed away by having to lift the extra dry mass the engines. This same principle is also why I jump to vectors and mammoths instead for just about everything atmospheric. The same principles apply on Kerbin too. Aerospikes USED to be very commonly used in KSP, espescially in SSTOs where they were paired with panther jet engines. They were also often the goto engines for Eve. They were very good. The reason nobody uses them now is that they’ve suffered “power creep”. All these new fangled engines have been added, all of which have stats that essentially make aerospikes superfluous. The aerospike hasn’t really had any stat upgrade to keep up and compete with the new engines. To put this into perspective, back when the aerospike was used often, the biggest engines in the game were the mainsail and the skipper (2.5 meter engines). There were only 2 jet engines, the one often used was the panther. There was no Rapier, there was no Vector, there was no Mammoth, etc. In that kind of environment, using an aerospike makes A LOT of sense. Most of the traditional rocket engines only had slightly better TWR, and were quite inefficient. The only real downside to the aerospikes was their small size, small total thrust, and lack of gimbal. Nowadays, want an SSTO? Just use rapiers, don’t need to do rocket/jet pairs anymore. Want a rocket? Use something with good TWR to get you out of the atmosphere, stage, then use something with high efficiency once on orbit (just like real life rockets). The aerospike has little place in the real world too. It’s a complex and heavy engine type. It’s only worth spending that kind of effort on it under one condition: If you are using the engine for 100% of your propulsion needs on a trip, and if you are going to be getting the engine back. In other words, a rocket powered SSTO. It was developed specifically for this purpose, to be used on the X-33, the only project that got anywhere close to actually achieving SSTO purely on rocket power. That project was canceled, and no rocket powered SSTO projects have since replaced it. Instead, the space industry has since settled into using traditional multistage rockets. And thanks to the Sabre engine (the real world engine the rapier is based on) and the Skylon space plane it is intended for, there may NEVER be a place for the aerospike engine in the real world. The Sabre engine is a jet rocket hybrid that has a very high TWR (for a jet engine), can operate in most ranges of atmospheric flight (unlike most jet engines which typically have very limited ranges), and can take a space plane up to 20% the speed and altitude required to achieve orbit in air breathing mode alone. In other words, if the Sabre engine proves to be as good when it finishes development as it appears to be on paper, there’ll be little point in making rocket powered SSTOs... Which means little point in making aerospikes. Who knows, maybe it’ll be worth it if we ever attempt to make launches from the surface of Venus, given how incredibly thick and oxygen deprived that atmosphere is. But that’s a long way off.

@@hatman4818 Additionally, the vector engine is much more compact than the Aerospike, and has massive gimbal range. On the other hand, the Aerospike looks nice...

What is a trabuco?

Fun?

Bradley Whistance when I saw a notification from you and then realized it was an eve ssto, I freaked out. Then I realized it was a premiere and I wanted to jump off a bridge

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/op-dZ8aIl9_cqWQ.html I mean... that does look like fun =)

Hydrux premieres are stupid, you get a notification, then it stays unwatchable for a while, and its just stupid

@@boudewijnb Perhaps KZfaq should have gone with an opt-in approach for those particular notifications. While I did have fun chatting with everyone during the stream, I appreciate the feedback. I may start up on twitch again.

That means it's no longer stock though.

I've also had little luck with part welding aside from structural parts. The problem is different part types will have different properties that all then get applied to the welded part. I tried welding several Big-S wings together, and combined they had way too much lift compared to the sum of the individual wings. Maybe procedural wings and fuel tanks would help.

I'm sure you can! =0

But stock? No way.😞😞😞

I did consider this! If undocked at high speed, it can cause excessive stress in the bearing. At low speed, it glides well anyway, so it simply isn't necessary.

Correct. The difference is this time I took off from Sea Level, which is somewhat more difficult than taking off from the mountain, even if you leave enough fractional payload to make it to Kerbin afterwords.

Valeriy Proklov Bill found his Ithaca

nah man its an iron sword

😃😃😃😃😃

No, I'm going redo it with one more pair.