BentRim

I am trying to plan a Mun outpost to fulfill a contract. Can a group of landers close to each other fulfill a contract or do they need to be physically connected with docking ports?

As always I appreciate everyone's attempts to help. This one has me stumped. I've done my best to try to understand what each of you have suggested. I can't seem to figure out how to get the orbit matched to the target without an interaction with Ike. To make matters worse in my frustration and not thinking I reached up and hit F5 rather than F9 and overwrote my decent save, so I now have much less dV available and am in a coplanar orbit with the target rather than a polar orbit of Duna. My bad for not creating a proper named savepoint. Live and learn.... All is not totally lost if I can't complete it, the ship has a scanner on it and I can maneuver it into a proper polar orbit of Duna to get some science.. This game is always a mental challenge for me. UPDATE: WooHoo... I finally got it. Starting from the image below which was coplanar, I set a node on the AN an rotated the orbit to 90°. My thoughts were that position would minimize the possible interactions with Ike. Since the prior orbit had the proper shape I then lowered the Ap and Pe to the proper distance once that was done I waited until Ike was on the opposite side and rotated the orbit back to coplanar. What I was missing and not thinking about properly was that the Ike encounter was always going to be there and that it simply needed to occur after the target orbit was achieved ... The Ike encounter also throws the craft into a nice polar orbit of Duna so with a little adjustment it will be in a good orbit to activate the scanner and get some science as well. I had worked on this for days and got tunnel vision and wasn't thinking clearly. A good nights rest and a thread review helped tons.

In this case, I cannot figure out how to complete it. The orbit of the contract is the opposite direction of Ike and crosses paths twice. I am now coplanar and orbiting Duna outside the contract and not withing Ike's SOI. When I lower one apsis to touch the contract orbit I then enter Ike's SOI before I can get to the periapsis to lower the other side. I'm considering calling this one quits as I have wasted an entire earth day trying to figure it out. Hate doing that though... I guess I just assume there must be something significant that I am missing again. Does KSP really generate contracts that are truly impossible?

I have come across a few of these Satellite contracts that I can't figure out how to complete. In this case I am to position a Satellite in a specific orbit of Duna which happens to cross paths with Ike. I've tried nearly everything I can think of the manuever this into proper position but it always ends up having an interaction with Ike. Currently I have the sattelite in a Polar orbit of Duna with a good save point to try different things. I had the same problem with a Kerbin contract that had the Satelite crossing the Mun path, I finally gave up. I feel like I'm missing something pretty significant. Can anyone offer any suggestions?

Ah, I see now... I have only played KSP in career and don't have everything available yet so my knowledge and thought process is based on only the technology I have used so far in my personal career. I guess I really need to go into sandbox for a bit and see what all the other parts do that I haven't played with yet. I appreciate your patience with all my novice questions...

Thanks for the replys. I was just trying to get a feel for the best way to handle the situation and I guess there really isn't a "best" way. @bewing Could you elaborate a little more on how you gather the boosters and get the fuel out of them? I have a station around Kerbin with some large tanks that could use refilling and if I could do that by gathering debris it would be helpful. Always learning something new.

I am using the dV map to build ships to travel to Dune and Eve. My current build can get to an 80km Kerbal orbit on the first stage and has about 80 m/s dV left over after reaching orbit. I then try to set a maneuver node to get an encounter with my target but it inevitably takes much more dV than I have remaining in that first stage. Would I be better off to just separate my lift stage and waste that fuel so I can try to make my transfer in one burn, or should I use that little bit of fuel to get it started and then plot a second burn after the tanks are emptied, or should I rework my lift stage to not have as much fuel and drop it before reaching LKO? Not sure what the best choice is. Tell me your opinions and techniques.

@Drew Kerman I am relatively new to KSP (250 hours) and am at the point where I am building ships to get to Eve and Duna. Most of the time I use a brute force technique and just overbuild excessively to get there. I am now trying to build more efficient craft using KER data and the dV map. I read the link you referenced and am trying to understand the purpose of using the NRAP test weight rather than just building the stages all at one time and how that relates to the data KER displays with respect to dV.

Thanks for the quick replys. I don't really have a destination in mind. I'm just trying to understand how to read the KER data. My intention was to build a very simple ship to take a scientist to my space station in Kerbin Orbit. What I usually do is build a massive ship that has a ton of parts and lots of fuel left over that ends up wasted. I'm trying to learn to be more efficient in my builds. I guess I don't understand how to use KER properly. ETA: I do see now that KER was set to Mun and switching it to Kerbin changes my TWR to 0.65 Knew it must be simple.

I am trying to gain a greater understanding how to build ships more efficiently and how to use dV maps to plan missions. I have KER installed so that I can see the information as I build the craft. I built a simple ship just to test some things and I am trying to understand why it won't lift off. It seems if the TWR is greater than 1 it should at least launch. What am I not understanding?

Excellent tip @Snark I really struggled with the stock node tools and found that Precise Maneuver made node planning much more manageable.

@PLADand everybody else. You guys have convinced me that I'm not as smart as I think I am.... I have to disect each little bit of information and try to make sense of it. I truly appreciate all of you taking the time to share your knowledge. It makes me realize that there is not just a simple answer and it also makes me think of how complex KSP really is and what it takes to design a program like this.

I believe what you and @bewing are describing is essentially the same thing. I was able to use this technique to get much closer to my intended target orbit. I have no background in programming at all and don't see my skillset ever progressing to the level that I would be trying to mod the game myself. I do enjoy learning however and the fact that this "game" really challenges me to use my brain and learn rather than "shoot, reload, shoot more" has been what's kept me interested. My Kerbal journey is certainly a work in progress. Thanks to you both for your help.

I was not aware of that. It makes sense now that I think about it and that explains why I see them change as I switch focus. I think I am envisioning what you are trying to describe. I will give it a shot. I was hoping to somehow use the numbers given in the orbit data to get it spot on.

I am working on fulfilling Satellite contracts around Kerbin. What I normally do is launch to the east and establish an equatorial orbit. I then adjust orbit size and inclination to match the contract and then fine tune the Ap and Pe. I find this very easy to do. But I figure there must be a more fuel efficient way to do it. What I would like to do is plan my launch around Kerbin closer to the inclination of the target orbit for the satellite. When I review the contract terms I see that the only data other than the orbit size is the Longitude of the Ascending node. In this particular case that number is 339° When I go to my map screen and then look at the target orbit for the contract I see that the An and Dn are at ±116° Can someone offer advice on how to better plan my launch using this data so that I can be more efficient and not have to adjust my inclination as much.