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Yobobhi

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I've returned Kerbals from Mun and Minmus, and I've gotten them to Duna (landed), Eve (orbit), and a couple of the attendant moons, without returning from there. I just built what is hopefully a good long-range ship that can get there and come back (posted a picture in another thread)... we'll see. I still consider myself a fairly noob player. I have docked a few times by hand, but it's really a pain in the butt, so now I let MechJeb do it. Similarly, calculating transfer windows is too much like work for me, so MechJeb does that too (but it is interesting to do it yourself a couple of times). :-)

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I am certainly a noob, but still love playing. This is all great advice for newer players - stay local and figure it out! Just today I completed my first Mun fly-by and I was absolutely excited. I now I have to figure out how to rescue a Kerbal stranded in orbit, but am looking forward to it.

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  • 2 months later...

Congrats.

Personally I've done returns from the surface of everywhere but Tylo or Eve. Just haven't had the time. You don't have to be cautious. Sometimes going for broke is better learning. My first mun landing couldn't get back into orbit so I did a complete redesign with Excel to assist with the Delta Vector math (I play totally stock). After a successful recovery I looked at the recovery lander and figured out from the maps that I could manage a Eeloo landing and return with it. I actually pulled it off giving me the confidence to try other things. In 0.25 I had an SSTO that without refuelling could return from landed at Minmas, Gilly or Duna's moon. I haven't played with SSTOs much in 1.04 yet.

Best tips I have.

Accurate return: if you are coming into kerbin from the mun or farther after I have done my primary burn for kerbin I determine exactly how long till I would land on kerbin (drop a maneavour node on the surface of kerbin). Then as kerbin does 1 full rotation every 6 hours I fast forward to the nearest multiple of 6 hours from landing on kerbin (6, 12, 18, 24 etc). I then look at the map as it shows exactly where I will eventually land. I then adjust with little fuel cost to land where I want to. I can always land within 20km of the space centre this way.

To explain it further. If you are exactly 6 hours from landing on kerbin your tragectory line points where you will land (with a little fudge for air slowing you down). In the 6 hours you travel kerbin will rotate exactly once so you will land at the same spot your line is pointing to 6 hours before. If you are 12 hours away it will rotate twice etc. Although with heating I now do multiple passes I used to use this for direct returns from Jool with less than 1 DV spent to ensure you land where you want.

2nd tip. To dock a small vessel to large vessel is easy. Use your Mac ball and get the ends close and the strength of the magnets will straighten the little ship up enough to dock it.

3rd tip. 2nd tip doesn't work with 2 large ships. Both must be in a perfect line to each other. To make his much easier orient both ships exactly perpendicular to your orbit (if you are orbiting around kerbin direclty east then line one up due north and the other due south. Dock them in this orientation. The reasoning is otherwise their angles restive to each other will constantly be changing making lining them up almost impossible. This is easy to see visually. Get the 2 craft near each other and orient their ports together while not perpendicular to your orbit. Fast forward a bit and watch the angles change. Then orient both perpendicular to your orbit and fast forward again and both will stay exactly lined up.

Last tip. If you play totally stock and want to do missions to other planets use excel. The DV formula is easy to find. The engineer most people use tells you what your DV is. Excel lets you quickly work backwards. I design my return vessel, then my lander, then the transfer and lastly the lifter. As I chain the excel formulas together if I decide I also want a rover I simply add its payload weight and see what it says I now need for a lifter. After a couple of times it literally takes me about 3-4 minutes to plan a efficient Duna run.

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  • 5 months later...

I put a rover on minmus, one of the biggest wastes of time ever XD just slipped around without really touching the ground...

I land on the mun/minmus fairly well, my rendezvous is satisfactory, and got two ships on the mun 100 meters of each other. Also fine at hopping, made a mun base like that. I'm planning a big refuel post for LKO and a duna base, and just got my orbit only probe to duna today for the first time, first attempt too :cool: (scanning for potential base locations).

I've got most of kerbin scanned and a nice geostationary network... And a heap of failed SSTOs. ~envying y'all~ 

:)

 

Edited by Chicken_Cabbage
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I think I'm still a KSP noob; I've clocked over 300 hours but that has mostly been dicking around. I have been to Minmus many times and have a standard rocket with enough Dv to 'take stuff' (like a rover or little portion of a base) there and come home. It seems like a big chasm between this sort of level and making a return trip to Duna. So now I'm back to designing planes.

Maybe docking and making a refuelling station will be my next aim. It will help get an inefficient rocket to Duna I suppose, although I'd much rather address the root cause of making my rockets better rather than refuelling half way there :P

2 hours ago, Chicken_Cabbage said:

I put a rover on minmus, one of the biggest wastes of time ever XD just slipped around without really touching the ground...

I found a solution:

2016-02-23_00022%20%28Small%29.jpg

A mini rocket thing!

Edited by Stewcumber
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Transfer window planner and kerbal engineer are 2 mods that take the guesswork out of interplanetary travel. One tells you when to go and what angle, the other tells you if you have enough dV to make it there and back. Duna isn't much more than minmus, you can do it easily if you get your timing and fuel right. Any ship that can make it to Minmus in one piece and refuel there (orbit or isru)  can go nearly anywhere. Moho is harder just for the pure dV required, and Eve returns are basically KSP end boss battles, but mostly the rest is just getting windows right.

Edited by Jetski
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