arise257

Does anyone else just add tiny fins at the front of boosters they need to clear outward? You can even control the speed at which they peel outward from the stack by increasing the angle of incidence of those fins.

It's easily one of the most useless parts in the game. They should either eliminate it or make the joint connection so stiff and stable that you'd never need to add struts -- and make it lighter.

Without cost as a factor here are my thoughts: Small, flat decoupler: I use this every/anywhere I can, and usually only on rockets. It hardly weighs anything, fits on almost every surface, and can hold on to any other part. I use this part 95% of the time. Medium decoupler with standoff: I only use this for the standoff feature, so that I can clear bulging stacks or other radially attached parts. I use this part 4% of the time. Large, flat decoupler: It's too heavy, decouples (by default) too forcefully, and does nothing that the small decoupler can't with a little thoughtful strutting. I'm curious about whether or not parts jiggle as much when held by it, but the weight of the decoupler always keeps me from investigating (or caring). I never use this part. Small hardpoint: I only use this on airplanes, but very rarely since I almost never need to jettison parts from them. I use this part <1% of the time. Large hardpoint: Again, only on airplanes, even more rarely than the small ones. I use this part <1% of the time.

I'm gonna complete five contracts in one go: Rescue Will Kerbin from LKO so that he can join a "school bus" of 7 other Kerbonauts on their way to a... Munar flyby, to complete a spacewalk contract there. Next is... Solar Orbit, for science and a space station contract in said orbit. Then they... Fly to Ike and Duna to fulfill exploration contracts and... Establish a Duna Space Station to complete the final contract. I should be able to generate a sick amount of cash and science with this mission. Wish me luck!

You could design something like this as a lander: Stack it on top of the mobile laboratory. I made this back in the pre-1.0 days, but it still works fine. Some aspects of it are overdone and could be removed to save mass, but it has the nice wide stance for low-gravity landings and enough dV to get you down to the surface (from Mun/Minmus orbit) and back to Kerbin in one go. As for your design, it's not horrible, just overbuilt. You don't need that much fuel to get where you're going with that lab because you're wasting a lot of energy hauling extra weight. The first stage of your center stack is the right size, but you don't need the second stage. What is currently your third stage can become the second stage (with a Skipper) under your lab/lander to push it the rest of the way to the Mun. Get rid of all that stuff sticking out on the sides. Take the legs off the lab and pack 3-4 radial chutes instead -- being sure to leave yourself just enough fuel to soften your landing with a power-assist from the engines. Get rid of the heavy pod on top and replace it with a lander like what I've made above. It's heavier than the pod, but if you lighten the whole launcher you can gain significantly more utility (and science for less total mass) by being able to land on the Mun while your mobile lab stays in orbit. EFFICIENCY!

If you make it to space with that, you've earned ALL the gold stars for piloting.

Well said. Another reason that was just plain wrong is the "efficiency" argument: If you assume the only function of a space station is research, and to a far lesser extent, refueling, then this is almost ok. However, I look at space stations as an opportunity to consolidate many launches into one. It's obviously far more efficient (and dramatically less expensive) to combine several vehicles in space, then send them as an exploration package, rather than flying each piece to the destination individually. For instance, my Minmus mission included 3 landers, 2 fuel modules, the lab/core hub, and a power boom with 4 popcorn-style satellites. I moved 11 vehicles, stripped Minmus of science, and completed several satellite contracts in a single trip. From an efficiency standpoint, you'll never in your life come close to that without a space station.

Generally speaking, as I move through the science tree, I prioritize new science instruments over most other technology. If you're consistently adding new science parts, you're consistently collecting new data, which makes further gains easier to attain. If I remember correctly in my current career game, I didn't launch to Minmus (or Mun) until I had the barometer, thermometer, goo, and Science Jr in tow.

Oh, I missed that detail. Once it goes green, like you said, he should be good. I second the call for screenies!

It sounds like the contract is asking you to activate the Swivel when you reach a certain altitude and speed range. Your problem is that you're getting to the altitude, activating it, then getting to the required range of speed. You need to be within ALL the contract parameters BEFORE you activate the engine. Try that and tell us if you're successful.

Don't spam struts, they're draggy. If you use them, connect one end as close to the tip of your wings as possible, and the other to the fuselage. You may need two per wing to keep things stable. From the width and number of segments to your wings, I'd assume you're getting some floppiness. A good way to check for it (without turning) is to crank up the physics warp. If your wings bow up or down, add some struts.

Blackrack, you might want to add the EVE Ocean shader trick from this post to the front page: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/103963-wip-scatterer-atmospheric-scattering-v0021-03122015-ocean-shaders-get-them-while-theyre-hot/&do=findComment&comment=2307022

My biggest problem in the game isn't the style/aesthetics of the parts, but the construction within certain classes of parts. For instance, I don't understand why we have about 20 different types of wings and 15 different tanks instead of creating them procedurally. I think it would be much better if the build process for a wing went something like: Select wing shape (rectangular/triangular/sweep) --> Select Fuel (L/OX/Mono/None) --> Select texture --> Form dimensions w/ mouse --> Commit to part or tanks/fuselages: Select tank shape (cone/cube/drum/polygon/sphere) --> Select Fuel (L/OX/Mono/None) --> Select texture --> Form dimensions w/ mouse --> Commit to part That alone would dramatically expand the aesthetic foundations/horizons of any design. Almost no one would create identical crafts with those two changes. Sure, any craft becomes less reproducible for newbies, but it frees everyone to create more "alien", "cartoony", or "realistic" designs, all without violating the concepts of a Kerbalized universe.

Practice makes perfect, but once you get your first piece down, targeting it and orbiting to a convenient point of descent with the rest is all there is to it. It's really just like trying to land precisely on Kerbin, with less gravity and thinner air -- maybe even a little easier since the parabolic path of descent is less affected by air and gravity. If you want to make it easier, you can put wings on the base modules to give them a bit of maneuverability -- affix them to radial decouplers so that you can get rid of them you land. You can also put wheels on your modules so that you can drive them up to each other.

Can't emphasize this point enough. I spam decline contracts until I get an offer which matches up with existing missions. Right now I have 3 missions lined up involving Duna, and I'll accomplish every one of them in a single launch.

So, I see this bit of advice get tossed around a lot, and while I agree with the physics of it, I don't agree with it on a practical level. As Val correctly mentions, placing your 2 rear wheels directly under the center of mass often results in tail-strikes due to the engines being mounted behind that point. Placing a "training wheel" near the engines can introduce additional challenges. For one, it just looks ridiculous. Secondly, that wheel can still strike the ground and depending on your speed or terrain, damage your craft or bounce you off-course. My approach is to keep the wheels back as far as possible toward the engine, wing-mount them for a wide stance (floppy wings get strutted first), and use surfaces toward the back of the plane to raise the center of lift and point its vector somewhat downward. While gears under the CoM are always more efficient from a torque perspective, the high and rearward lifting surfaces of my method provide the torque necessary to overcome the inefficiencies of rear-mounted gears. I also mount my wings with an angle of incidence in order to produce additional lift in front of the CoM. Here's an example of one of my designs: The cowls over the engines in both designs use airflow to push the back of the plane toward the ground, raising the front of plane earlier than if they weren't there at all. The thin, leading edge of the wings which extend toward the front of these planes are mounted at an angle of incidence, as described above. All in all, this produces spectacular lift from runways or bumpy terrain with a greatly diminished risk of tail-strikes. The single-engine version shown gets off the runway at 45m/s. Those home-made canards up front don't even pitch up or down, I only have them there for roll and yaw authority. Another thing to note is that since I'm wing-mounting, rather than fuselage-mounting, the airplane naturally sits higher in the front than in the back. This ALWAYS helps get you in the air faster, and lets you ease up on the angle of incidence required to get off the ground, which makes it easier to design an airplane that's properly balanced during flight (especially the super-sonic variety). - - - Updated - - - Woah, wait... 'F' does something in the SPH editor!? Been playing for years and never known that one. I've always flipped the whole plane upside down, sunk it into the floor of the SPH, then used the lines on the floor as guides while using the Rotate Gizmo -- toe-in or toe-out gets done visually.

My experience has been that fairings have no effect on solar panels. In other words, as long as you're facing the sun with a fairing on, the light still makes it to the panels. I once forgot to remove a fairing on my rocket's way to Minmus -- I had it on there to escape Kerbin with less resistance. Still worked.

The last time I tried it, it took about half the burn time of the second tank to destroy the first. During that time, the booster had maybe half its normal output. Love or hate it, it is an intentional "fix" by the devs.

I'm working on a new design/function motif. Essentially, I'm wrapping the upper half of the engines with wing parts in order to form an aerodynamic cowl, it looks like a hood. I'm really liking the bird-like aesthetic and they are very maneuverable.

I second the call for moar solar. I recently put myself in a situation where I need to launch a separate "generator" module (basically a fckton of panels on an octocore) to my space station in order for it to run non-stop.

I think even yours is too severe for most rockets. I like using my predicted apoapsis for determining each point in my ascent because it compensates for the fact that different rockets will reach specific altitudes with different TWRs, speeds, and accelerations. On a 90° heading (East): 1,000m: 80° 5,000m: 75° 10,000m: 60° 25,000m: 45° 50,000m: 30° 60 to +75,000m: 10° Getting circular from this sub-orbital point is basically a matter of waiting until you're 30 seconds - 1 minute away from your apoapsis and burning at or slightly under 0° until you've got a low periapsis (≤ 5,000m). Kill the burn and wait again until you're 3 seconds away, then burn again until you're circular. - - - Updated - - - Another thing to be aware of is that when people give you their ascent profiles, take them with a grain of salt -- even mine. There are a lot of ways to affect control authority, drag, weight, lift, and thrust when designing a rocket in KSP. These factors are rooted in the preferences and habits of the designer. AlextheBodacious, for instance, is likely to design rockets with greater control authority in order to achieve that 45° turn at 10,000m. Conversely, my ascent profile suggests I rely less on control authority, and emphasize meticulous piloting and efficiency. Neither of us is technically wrong in our approach, because we're both making it to space -- it's just that we're doing it based on what our designs allow or require.

I've had reasonable success decelerating large craft into Kerbin's atmosphere by using aerobraking with multiple passes. If you have the control authority, pitching up (30 degrees or less) to expose more underbelly at about 45-50km up will bring your speed down a lot faster than going in prograde - I'm a patient man though, and I've waited as many as 10 passes to bring my speed down from about 5000m/s to 3500m/s. I feel like 3500 is about the fastest you can come down without most parts exploding during descent. Definitely use heat shields and radiators though, they will improve your craft's durability to a point.

Another tip not mentioned is to delay launching until the target ship in orbit is near the shoreline of the ocean to the west of the mountains near KSP. By the time you ascend, perform your orbital insertion, and circularize, the target ship should be VERY close to your rescue ship. I'm talking under 50km away, though I've come as close as 7km -- it depends on the TWR and efficiency of ascent, but is very doable. If you're within 30km, and not burning in a direction that drops your periapsis, you can literally fly straight to the stranded ship with no delay. I take these types of missions early on (even before the RCS tech node, I rendezvous like a m'fckn BOSS) because it's a cheap way to build your roster of Kerbonauts.

As far as I could tell, he was talking specifically about Kerbin, so planes are really the best suggestion in that case. I also specifically suggested hopping rovers for other planets/moons. The most basic and overarching point is it's a loser strategy (from real-world time, navigational, and cost-efficiency perspectives) to launch single-use rockets at survey sites, no matter where in the universe they are. I would consider the OP's question answered 4 times over by this point in the thread.

Swap out the Wheesleys for Whiplashes. If you don't have Whiplashes yet, you're basically screwed.