My favorite addon of late has been Sputnik's X-20 Dynasoar. It's got all the fun of flying a winged spaceplane, combined with the fun of flying a Titan launcher, and some cool Cold War missions to do, including a "Space Marines" scenario in which you drop a squad of troops using Douglas Paracones, BattleTech-style.
One of the things I noticed while trying the alternate upper stage scenarios is that when using the Chariot upper stage with its flourine-hydrazine motor, the thrust is too low and the launch autopilot can't keep you out of the atmosphere before orbit insertion. Only way around it is to do a manual launch and loft the vehicle in a high arc to give the Chariot enough time to accelerate to orbit speed.
The "inspect the Soviet satellite" mission is lots of fun, too.
With the recent projects of the Black Dart, Hyperdart, etc, and the attendant ASAT weapons, I think it'd be cool to see a way to work the X-20 into those scenarios. Since it can carry a variety of payloads, there's room for fun there.
Just thought I'd start a plain old Orbiter thread for a change.
One of the things I noticed while trying the alternate upper stage scenarios is that when using the Chariot upper stage with its flourine-hydrazine motor, the thrust is too low and the launch autopilot can't keep you out of the atmosphere before orbit insertion. Only way around it is to do a manual launch and loft the vehicle in a high arc to give the Chariot enough time to accelerate to orbit speed.
The "inspect the Soviet satellite" mission is lots of fun, too.
With the recent projects of the Black Dart, Hyperdart, etc, and the attendant ASAT weapons, I think it'd be cool to see a way to work the X-20 into those scenarios. Since it can carry a variety of payloads, there's room for fun there.
Just thought I'd start a plain old Orbiter thread for a change.