Spricigo

There is something preventing you from having fewer boosters in your craft?

No such thing as cheating exist outside of a challenge. It's up to you t o decide what happens in your game. As @Cavscout74 said, the craft will not be a Single Stage to Orbit but that is it.

I think I'm too slow. let's hope @vv3k70r is faster.

So, you have the good advice from @Brikoleur and @VoidSquid if you want to build a reasonable craft. Or you can use my not so reasonable(but functional) craft you already downloaded. I don't see any reason to not have this station of you in orbit yet if that is your goal.

Increase the fairing as necessary. As long the craft remain stable, is not difficult to figure out the adjustment to the trajectory (if any needed).

If you want a craft that put 45t in orbit with 975m/s deltaV left for half the price tag, Sturdy is up to the task. Now, back to your situation: the craft in the picture have way more than enough deltaV and TWR to get into orbit and you are using MJ to handle the piloting. The only explanation: there is a saboteur messing with your craft and making it fail. Ok, ignore the joke. But yes, you craft is overpowered* not underpowered, and using an autopilot is unlike to be a problem with the trajectory. As you describe it seems the engines in the later stage are not producing (enough) thrust. The image show you have some engines inside a fairing , in this case they will not produce any trust, sometimes, because a bug, even after you deploy the fairing. *The idea is to have a craft that have just enough for the task at hand. When designing a rocket try to also pay attention to what is better to not have in the craft. Saving fund and, more important, mass comes with big benefits.

Something via URL. Make sure to grad the link to the actual file instead of something else. E.g.: https://i.imgur.com/h8sJO5o.jpg instead of https://imgur.com/h8sJO5o.

Short answer: If it is able to reach orbit increase the payload and check again. If is not able to reach orbit anymore the last iteration was the max payload. Long answer: I don't start with a rocket to later figure out how much payload it can handle. I start with the payload I want to put in orbit and then design a craft that can handle it. I start with what will be used last and work my way to the launchpad, without more than necessary for the task at the hand in each stage.Those are my rules of thumbs: For circularization as little as 150m/s with TWR ~0,2 may be enough (but, since I'm usually either using it to go further or doing with whatever I had in the previous stage, more deltaV and TWR is available most of the time). Before that a sustainer stage, likely with a vacuum engine (Above 20km there is very little atmosphere to make much of a difference) deltaV usually ranges from 700m/s to 2km/s and TWR no lower than 0,6 (measured at 15km altitude). The first stage is the exempt from the "without more than necessary" principle because extra thrust help with gravity losses and with building enough moment so the sustainer stage don't struggle. TWR above 1.5(at the launchpad) is enough to make it comfortable but having twice as much is not out of question.

There is a bug where the waypoint is underground and thus unreachable. Seems like what happened there. Open the debug menu, find the contract and complete it there

Theoretically you just need to plan a Kerbin>Tylo>Jool Capture in reverse. In practice, you already noticed, is not so easy. The issue what happens if you don't get the he encounter with Tylo right. Arrive in a less convenient time/position and you still end in orbit of Jool, let it happen when leaving and you end up in Moho instead of Kerbin.

Well, that is not listed in the contracts objectives. Most likely you encountered the same bug other have reported: the target waypoint is underground.

1st: that is not what the OP is experiencing. 2nd:you can still turn if you have an operational Reaction Wheel.

You may probably find something youlike at kerbalx and the spacecraft exchange sub-forum. But give us some details about what tech is available and the performance required (in particular, payload and orbital height) and we may come up with something.

I'd not worry that much, how they did in real life is already quite silly. *cough!*Polyus ...*cough!* Anyways: while the Center of Lift is behind the CoM, the Center of Drag is not. At least not if the craft have any deviation from surface prograde (the nose of the craft is quite a bit of extra exposed surface to the airflow ahead of CoM) So the solution is the usual: More heavy things in the front (Fuel a ballast is a popular choice, if not the most effective use of fuel) More draggy things in the rear (I'd consider adding more vertical wing parts, given that the craft don't have that much to begin with. Well, you can try the other way, removing weight/drag from where there is too much. However I suppose you put those parts there for a reason.

Well, I just just drop link for some tools that are useful for this kind of calculations and back away slowly. (That is more calculation than I care to do for my own game) I was under impression that setting KAC alarms for such events was possible. If that is not part of the challenge maybe you should take a look at that.

Without a picture, just the usual generic tip: Move heavy things further forward and draggy things further backwards.

Actually that is quite easy assuming you don't have a required velocity too. You need to meet all requirements at the time of the testing, On the flight scene, before launching your craft, find those little buttons in the bottom left: Click in the lower one and it will open the Advanced Info Tab. Now just launch your craft as you did before but this time pay attention to the Apooapsis. Cut the engines when the apoapsis is above 120km but still below 130km. That way you will be slower at the desired altitude, thus having more time to make sure all requirements are meet.

I'm so proud my influence with Jeb and Val is finally showing. Personally, I'm waiting someone modding personal parachutes/jetpack back to old functionality. (but eva propellant tanks as inventory items instead of the infinity refueling makes sense) Actually, thanks in advance for that person. Anyways, may take a while until most bugs introduced with the last update will be sorted out. So, other than hopping that it is not the case for the issues you are experiencinng, I don't see much to do.

To be fair is both a matter of angle and doing it in the right spot. Not only that, but his idea is technically correct, pointing the craft slightly down* is a way to prevent the apoapsis raising too much (or pointing up if one is getting past the Apoapsis before achieving orbit) Granted, the maneuver become less efficient because cosine losses, but it actually works. *I guess he is not pointing low enough to fully compensate the misplacement of the burn.

Oh, it will be a bit trickier under Caveman limitations. But you probably will learn more than "something" doing it.

∆This The way the OP describes it seems like he is doing the circularisation before reaching the AP. Or at least he end up doing most of the planed maneuver away from AP. Just throttle down (or even cut the engines), keeping the apoapsis a few seconds ahead.

The craft will regain full control once it gets out of the atmosphere*, so you just need design your launch vehicle to be able to get into orbit despite the limited control. Possible a good idea to aim for a higher initial orbit to have enough time to circularise/corrections. That or turn off plasma blackout. *The signal will be lost when you go fast in the dense atmosphere. But I'm not sure how fast and how dense it need to be.

Because that is exactly what is supposed to happens when you don't have a operational Command_module. "Limited control" is the actual name of that thing. It is possible to have antennas, kerbals on board and still not have a operational command module. Anyways, it don't seem to be the case, given the extra info you provided after the initial post. Considering this bit: I assume it may be a case of plasma blackout enabled in the settings. Failing that, or some other missing information, I'm out of ideas. It is not a bug that I'm experienced or read about before this thread.

Have you considered maybe I'm in a different timezone? And some have erratic sleep patterns .

This is limited control. Your craft don't have communication with KSP. You can deploy more (and stronger) relays to improve coverage, improve the planning of you maneuvers to ensure it happens when there is a signal or just disable comment in settings. It is not the case there but may also happens that the inputs get lock for whatever reasons, in this case just go to debug menu and clear input locks.