flipmcf

Short answer: Yes. But at that point, you have to do the math. Finding these max/mins are beyond my patience really. But they do exist. I had to calculate this stuff when I took Astromechanics in college, and I don't get the enjoyment out of it that others might. There is a minimum eccentricity to gain efficiency, but since KSP gives us periapsis and apoapsis altitudes, not semi-major and semi-minor axis, there is a bit of a math hoop to jump through before you can even measure eccentricity. (math people? help?) However, if you just play with the idea, you'll get a feel for it.

To quote Neil Stephenson - all the times he has said it in all of his books: "Plane change maneuvers are expensive" The answers here are the most efficient - change your inclination so it can reach the latitude that your landing point is at, then wait for the landing point to rotate below and intersect your orbit. However, you have another trick to reduce deltaV: the biecliptic transfer: In a nutshell, burn to bring your apoapsis very high, so you're doing only a few tens or hundreds of m/s when you reach it. At that point, do your plane change, and at the periapsis, re-circularize your orbit. All three burns combined will save you about %10 DeltaV - but only if your ellipse has an extremely high eccentricity. http://i.imgur.com/8x7GFJU.png Here's some more links: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/23ri7a/how_to_do_a_bielliptic_inclination_change/ http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56983-What-is-the-most-efficient-way-to-make-large-orbital-plane-changes/page2

Update: At 0.25 now Day 73. Kerbs are off to Duna in a really flimsy craft. It will be nice to get them home if possible. Moho Low Orbit and High Orbit complete - was not impressed with the science output. Captured an Asteroid - Very impressed with science output (1000!) Looks like the days are accelerating now that Kerbal and the Moons are complete. No Dead Kerbs yet - but Duna may take the life of Jeb and some other red-suited Kerbal who'se name escapes me.

Sticking to probes as much as I can, Manned flights when necessary (surface samples, EVA reports, etc) I doubled-up with a gravity scanner to grab the last few Biomes left on the moon while starting my crew reports. Update: Day 52. One Tier 7 unlocked and 2.2K sci in the bank for another Tier 7. I'm done landing on Mun and Minmus - just got back with the Sci Jr. from Minmus. A slew of probes are still on their way. 15 days away from a Moho lander, 26 days from Eve (fuel probs?) 35 days from my first Duna probe - which will be followed by many more. One of the 4 probes on it's way to Jool is taking a fast route, and will be there in 140 days - the others are on Hoffman orbits and will arrive in 260-ish days Going to probably start the hab research now. No dead Kerbs. No Mods. A few tricks I've learned: Wait for Minmus after you have the 2.5M heat shield, that way you can get everything but an image scan of Minmus in one mission, including 3 goo containers and the seismic probe for a landing. You just got to line up re-entry very far from Kerban before the probe runs out of battery. The medium-range antenna placed near the top of a craft is awesome for up-righting to get it pointed to the sky for takeoff. Just 'extend antenna' and go full throttle when you get pointed at the sky. This was used to accomplish the 3-goo mission to Minmus. Who needs landing gears? Getting surface samples from all the biomes on the Mun is very tedious. Set up a moon refuel base early and leave your lander in orbit for re-use. I also waited to surface sample the last biome until I could bring a Sci-Jr along. However, docking-juggling the Sci jr onto the lander and then back onto the command module was quite a chore. Have a 'Transport' that can refuel in orbit and stay in space to shuttle between Moons and Kerban. No need for a heat shield - allows fuel transfer. I had a separate ship that docked with this transport to suck the science off of it, re-up propellent and life support, then re-enter Kerban. This way, I was able to get 6 biome samples from the mun in one, long, tedious, agonizing mission, where I had to send an extra orange tank to the moon for fuel. Jeb stayed in space for probably more than 10 days.

Correction - Tier 6 complete. Was wishful thinking.

Well, I'm back playing this again. Didn't keep track of my modifiers, and I don't think I have an entry yet. I'm at Tier 7 I think - Can't remember. I haven't unlocked any techs that cost 1800 yet, but unlocked all the 380's - can't remember what level that is. No kerbals dead. No mods. All Minmus biomes are sampled, and I've got 5 Moon samples - so I got room there. A slew of probes have been launched to other planets, but none have arrived yet. Day 37...... I love this mod. Vanilla is so boring and easy.

Looks like time to take a break for First Contract! Just before I hit Tier 7. Taking on this challenge with my first BTSM play through is very frustrating. I love it. I'll be back.

I'm really not sure if it's possible to do the Apollo Style Landing with the mass restrictions. I can do it now that I have the 1000ton, but at 500 ton, I haven't figured it out.

Not that I want to make my life any more difficult than it has become... I was looking at RemoteTech: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/83305-Development-Resumed-RemoteTech-2 http://remotetechnologiesgroup.github.io/RemoteTech/ Adding this to BTSM would add an additional layer of realism and pain. Anyone looked at it? Anyone tried it with BTSM?

Ok. Here's my Official "Team Effort" I accomplished this with a testing lander. Unfortunately, it's a single-stage lander, so it's not going to be used for the mun landing. (that's what testing is about, right?) The lander was left in orbit, as planned, and Dodbin joined Jeb for reentry in the Command Module. Also, it just so happened that Jeb saw KSP from orbit, and decided to go in for a KSP landing. It was a bit tricky, ended up with a decent angle somewhere around 70 degrees, but fortunately, it was from low orbit and low speed. He also nearly crashed the Command Pod with the detached engines. Sweaty moment there. Sacrificed another eight prototype solar panels to the gods of the upper atmosphere. Hope they're not too expensive because we're going through them like hot cakes.

Does this require that both the LM and CM must be launched at the same time, or can you do two launches, one for LM and one for CM? The Rendevous I'm performing will be done with a test LM and CM in two separate launches, and it would be nice to, if possible, leave the lander in orbit and promote it from "Testing" to "Production" These kerbs are on a tight timeframe, so any time I can save is worth it! EDIT: Nevermind, the lander I did build is only one stage, so it can't be production... but the question is still valid.

Ok then.... Off go the kerbals into deep space to do reports. They are so brave to give their lives for science! As the Kethane mod so rightfully pointed out, they are a renewable resource after all.

Question: If you loose a kerbal on Tier 5 (no Survivor II), but Don't loose a Kerbal while on Tier 6 (Survivor III) do you qualify for Survivor III? Or is it once you loose a Kerbal, all Survivor bonuses are invalid from then on?

just took a break and loaded up my Kethane modded instance. Vanilla is incredibly easy after playing BTSM for a few days.

Heh. I have a piece of paper with the positions of all the planets drawn, and live off of http://ksp.olex.biz/ Ever noticed that when you plot all the optimal positions of all the planets with Kerban as the start of the journey, and The Sun at the origin, it resembles a golden spiral? Gotta do the math for that one. There's something fundamentally funky and culty with phi. Update - I've gone as far as I can, and working on the manned moon missions. One tech away from completing Tier Prototype Solar panels make great sounds when you carry them into re-entry! So far, 21 points and 25 days (24.475 if I was to enter now)