ineon

Loving it. Scatterer did make Sarnus look so good. Just wish I had the time for outer planets...

Laythe and Jool both look beautiful, especially in the one where you are raising your orbit to 390km. Is it just SVE and scatterer?

Loving it. Thanks for the vicarious kerbal fun. Tylo escape was awesome. Must have been fun/exciting/terrifying.

Cool thread. I wish I had seen it a while a ago. Nice to see the Jool mission going well. I'm thinking about doing a Jool mission and looking for inspiration.

MechJeb is a mod. It add an autopilot that can (amongst other things) execute maneuver nodes for you at the right time, launch into orbit, keep you hovering at a desired altitude. There are a bunch of youtube tutorials about it, for example: As it is a PC mod, I don't think that you will be able to get it on PS4.

Scott Manley has done it (with a little help from magic slow time warp). Mechjeb is really the only way to get any accuracy on the closest distance <100m.

Mechjeb has at app for that (if you like mods). Just make sure you pick your target to be a flag next to your base unless you want to land part of your base on top of another part (and probably melt the lower half) - MJ can land within a meter accuracy on Mun/Minmus. I would also check this link out: It has got some really great ideas for making a base that you assemble on the surface of another world.

Very important if you try this: get out and push at apoapsis. @pincushionman did mention it, but I think it is worth restating. What you are aiming to do is get any part of the orbit down into the atmosphere and then let drag do the rest. Getting your PE from 85km to 55km (or something similar) should not be too difficult, but getting your current AP down would be really tricky.

You might find this helpful, I had a similar problem: Your problem sounds similar, but not exactly the same. The solution that I found worked was using the larger decouplers that keep some distance between the main rocket and the boosters.

This post claims that having ships crash loses you reputation. Does this also apply for debris? And does it matter if you are watching the debris (rather than it being on rails?) e.g. I separate a lower stage while it is in a 85*30km orbit and the game cleans up the debris when it gets too low. e.g. I separate a lower stage while it is in a 85*60km orbit. It won't get cleaned up automatically unless I go in and watch it in "physics mode" at which point I can't stop watching it until after it crashes. (I am aware that there is a Terminate button in the Tracking Station, but sometimes watching things burn up is fun too )

Another consideration is how quickly you need the ore. I assume that you are mining it to hit some biomes for science, deploy a base, get probes into different orbits, and/or plot a transfer back to Kerbin. If you have a transfer window looming then higher concentration might jump up the priority. On the other hand if the everyone is going to sit around for a few months (or years) waiting for the correct window then they might as well wait while getting ore from a convenient location.

You are in a lower orbit, but you are also ahead of the orbit (approx. 135 degrees ahead to me = 225 degrees behind). Each orbit you will catch up by a few degrees - maybe 225 degrees behind becomes 220 degrees behind, but that will make you 140 degrees ahead the other way around. So until you get to under 180 degrees behind you are still getting further away by the shortest distance each orbit. My suggestions, either: Keep going around in this orbit, once you get to 180 degrees behind the UI will show you catching up each orbit. (this might take a while) OR Raise your apo so that you are orbiting slower and let Cerzy catch you up (this will take more dv but means that you are going the quicker way around).

Absolutely, completely 100% sure about that? I also have never seen "be ready to launch from x" contracts. I don't have any "mods for contracts" either, but I do have scansat which add additional contracts occasionally even though it is a parts mod. Which agency did the contract come from?

I tried RO and didn't like it. I think the main reason that I didn't like it was there was just sooo much choice in the parts that are available and so may ways to make the wrong choice. I started in sandbox - not career or science - and was faced with all the parts in one go which was probably the root of the problem. Having said that, if I could give one piece of advice: use CKAN to get all the mods. It automatically figures out all the dependencies for mods as well as gives options for recommended mods given you just downloaded another mod. As RO isn't a single mod, but a collection of closely related mods I found this really valuable. CKAN also makes it really easy to keep the mods up to date. I didn't use CKAN before RO, tried RO via CKAN, decided that RO wasn't for me but I am now only using CKAN as the way I get mods.

This is really hard to do. If you have huge amounts of time and the ability to run and re-run bunch of launches then you might be able to do it. It is likely that you will need larger course corrections when you leave Kerbin SOI because of the inaccuracy of doing this maneuver and end up using more dV this way. As you be travelling fast passed the Mun you will only have a small window to benefit from the Oberth effect However, if you want to try it or you want to do it because it is cool (a good reason) then here is what I would do: Get mechjeb if you don't already have it Work out the escape angle that you want to achieve. You have linked to http://ksp.olex.biz/ so I will assume that you are familiar with the escape angle. Wait until the Mun is approximately at 90 degrees to the escape angle Burn from LKO to Mun SOI so that you are passing behind the Mun relative to the direction you want to escape Note this will mean going retrograde around the Mun if it is between Kerbin and Kerbol Now here is the tricky part: getting the right Munar periapsis Too high and you won't get much Oberth effect Too low and when you burn you will burn into the Mun Set up a maneuver node at or near Munar periapsis to complete your escape of Kerbin SOI Escape at the same angle that you would from LKO Good luck - you will need it. And if you do manage it post some pics here (or in the tutorials) for other to follow

Uploading a craft file might also be helpful for something like this, or at least more pictures (maybe several from in the VAB).

This just takes me to a link that says "This project is in moderation." Imgur integrates really well with this forum and is so painfree to use. Consider uploading there? However the general advice for "My plane veers to one side and the things get explody" is to check that the wheels are on straight and not under too much stress. It is also worth checking what mode of symmetry you are using. Make sure that you are placing the wheels in "global" symmetry mode, not "part" symmetry mode (hit the F key to toggle) How rude, I would also give that plane a good talking to.

This is also useful. tl;dr: CoM shifts in flight, add more fins at the back or more mass at the front.

Have you fully upgraded the tracking station. That how I think you do it (if I remember correctly off the top of my head).

Right - then what I would do is pitch up less aggressively, maybe 8 degrees. Remember: getting into space is easy, getting into orbit is hard (Really interesting read from xkcd if you have not already seen it). Gaining horizontal speed is essential with a space plane. I've attached an album to help explain. The first image is the stock Aeris. In order for the wings to produce an upwards force the whole plane needs to be pointed up and this induces drag from the other components. In the second image I have rotated the wings up by a few degrees (and translated them slightly too...). This means that the wings will produce a little upwards force even when the nose is pointing directly prograde. This doesn't need to be much - just few degrees will do it, and too much will be just as bad if not worse.

There is whole challenge on it here:

Obvious question: what ascent profile are you using? (How fast are you going at various altitudes?) Ideally at 16km you should be travelling several times the speed of sound. The complex thing with air-breathing engines is that the more air they get the more thrust they produce (more-or-less). That means that you can get a positive feedback: More speed -> more air -> more thrust -> more speed but equally get negative feedback: Less speed -> less air -> less thrust -> less speed I am expert on planes like this but you should attempt to not climb too high until you have built up speed. Building up some speed at around sea level (maybe a bit shy of 300m/s) might get you the good push to start on the positive feedback cycle. Some other thoughts: how heavy is your plane on the runway? I think I remember hearing a good rule of thumb for getting planes into space is to make sure that you have one RAPIER for every 15t. I assume that your plane is about 30t, but it might be worth checking. Have you angled your wings up by a few degrees? This will give you some natural lift without giving you more drag.

Sounds like a cool mission. I've not tried anything quite like this, but here are some thoughts: Why bring a lander for Ike? Anything that can land on Duna will be able to land on Ike too. Sure you will spend a little more fuel on moving some half-empty tanks between Ike and LIO, but I bet you spend much more transferring a whole separate lander from Kerbin to Duna. (Having re-read I might have misunderstood, does lander = base? i.e. will some of the lander never get back to LDO? If so then nevermind on this point.) Are you doing this with KIS? This sound tedious (and possibly error prone), can you just dock the rover to the lander? You could use Infernal Robotics for epic loading and unloading and/or just KAS struts to make sure that it does not fall off. 3 stars is possible without going to another planet. IIRC: 3 stars = orbit Mun + flag on Minmus + pop your head out of Kerbin SOI for the briefest of seconds. Looks like scientist B is going to be a bit lonely, I assume that you are bringing along a mobile science lab in the orbiter. What about putting scientist C in there too? It seems like you get that 'for free' to me.

Also check out this one: I think it is a little bit old, but the ideas are still relevant. Moving the base modules from the underside is also very smart.

Background: I am looking to come back fresh to 1.1 having played some 1.0.5 and I think I want to start a new game with all the things that I have learnt rather than try to move my 1.0.5 game with all its orbiting debris to 1.1. However, I do not find the initial phase interesting (e.g. fly a Command Pod + Parachute + Flea + Goo to the shore, collect science. Now repeat for grassland, ocean, highlands, etc, now repeat that all for temperature scans once that is unlocked). Then flying to the Badlands is just plain dull. Question: Is there a way to "cheat" all science experiments from Kerbin biomes? Similarly, once I have landed on Mun/Minmus a few times is there a way to cheat the remaining biomes? I am aware of the Starting Science option when starting a new game, but then I can get all the science twice (once from starting science and once from actually doing the experiments). So an alternative would just to mark those experiments as done, and add the start with a big bunch of science. Or I am open to other suggestions...