[Spaceships] Is This Legal?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not exactly sure what you're doing, but it sounds like you're working too hard.

Yep, I most certainly was. I see how to do it now (sum up the actual fuel that's going to be burned, not all of it from the start), and feel rather foolish for not thinking of it myself. Thanks for the help!

Oh, and in my first post I noted I was using chemical rockets, hence the rather low dV. It works out to 1.89 mps with the drop tank on, then another 1.08 on its own fuel, for a grand total of 2.97 mps - which isn't terribly far off from my initial 2.88 estimate.

For the OP, if you want this drop tank to be recoverable, it will need a control station (not necessarily full-sized) and pilot or AI to run it and the winged feature. Another option would be a soft-landing system - and as the tank is only ~1/10th its initial mass you could get away with an -2 SM system for that part.