CobraA1

Nullspeeds? What's that?

Generally the same for my rockets - some of my top performers are not compatible with MechJeb - mostly because it rotates during the gravity turn, which tends to make the stages collide with each other when they separate. That being said, it can be overcome - the "Mars" rocket which I've designed to get to other future planets is in fact MechJeb compatible, and it's certainly one of my top performers.

Well, I've done the manual mun and minimus landings (and return to kerbin) manually, so I figure I've already done the hard stuff so far. For the most part, I use MechJeb for "what if?" scenarios and testing spacecraft. In fact, I'm actually using it to plan a possible future mission to another planet - assuming that KSP will have a Mars-like planet soon. I've already built a ship that has made it to a Mars-like orbit and back. I like the fact that it automates launches and provides lots of useful info.

And success! More RCS fixed the problem. Kinda odd, using RCS for one of the stages but not needing it for the Munar (and Minimus!) lander. But it works, the final problem did indeed turn out to be that I simply needed more control over my turns. Thanks for all of the advice, and I've posted the final craft and some Minimus screenshots - turns out it works fine for both. And the lander is indeed good for a return trip for Kerbin . So now I've got a rocket that can reach the Mun and Minimus under the control of MechJeb - and I'm kinda surprised it was a bit more tricky than under manual control. I guess I'm smart enough to keep an "onion" design still while releasing the stages, while MechJeb isn't. I've learned a lot - about both ship design and how to save fuel. Thanks for all of the advice!

Humm, just uploaded Apollen 4, my latest attempt. This time I went with the following: -Large 7 rocket bottom stage, two tanks high. Lots of power for lower atmosphere. Added some fins to prevent excessive rotation. -Top stage is essentially eight tanks, with six that separate when empty. Initially, I had only a single large engine, but it proved to be a tad weak, so I added aerospikes to the bottom of the breakaway tanks. -Top stage also has some RCS, which is an unsuccessful attempt to deal with an oddity I'm encountering. -The payload is what I *hope* is enough for a mun landing and return. You have to set MecjJeb for the gravity turn at 12 km - if you start the gravity turn at the normal 10km, it blows up. This particular design makes it to orbit fine, but when I set MechJeb for a mun burn, I get the strangest behavior. The rocket seems to start rotating out of control and lose speed. It's almost like a strange sort of gimbal lock? Is KSP or MechJeb not using Quaternions? EDIT: Maybe I simply don't have enough control? RCS doesn't help, but turning on the vectored rocket does. I suppose it's a massive machine, but there still seems to be some sort of mysterious force acting on it.

Well, I am trying to send a three kerbal capsule to the Mun (later Minimus). I suppose I'll revisit the design. I actually have a working one kerbal capsule design using the smaller components. It's the larger capsule/components that have been giving me a headache. I probably *do* tend to overbuild, as I never did gravity turns before I installed MechJeb. In fact, it seems to save me an entire stage's worth of fuel doing that gravity turn. I'll look at a redesign, perhaps a smaller capsule without the extra tanks, and a rocket that has more classical staging. Although I seem to recall having issues with that type of design a couple versions back with KSP.

Okay, so here's the dropbox link, includes screenshots and one of the many designs I've tried: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6ftj73unsiyp8su/EX33alEKbu Hopefully the dropbox link works, looks like they recently changed how stuff is shared.

I'll post the ship design after work (9 or so hours after this post), but the issue I'm having largely seems to stem from rotation of the outer stages after their release, which tends to collide into the inner stages. All too often, I've had the innermost stage's engine cut off before it has a chance to fire. MechJeb's gravity turn probably isn't helping, as it adds some rotation as well. I'll probably upload to Imageshack/Dropbox, as I have accounts with them already. That a mod or something?

Any advice on stage separation? I've been having troubles. Dunno if it's MechJeb or my designs, but it seems pretty difficult to design a clean separation with the large components.

x2 just seemed buggy to me, and the new warp should make future interplanetary missions easier. If you\'re approaching Kerbin with very little fuel after a mun mission, perhaps it\'s time to rethink your setup and/or strategy? I just did a Minimus mission and had plenty of fuel on the return trip. Using the small capsule, at least. My next plan is to try the larger three man capsule. That might be tougher, since you have to pretty much use the large parts exclusively. The new parts make it a lot easier to have plenty of fuel - I\'ve found that the large rockets with their large tanks can actually haul a lot of weight. Should be able to bring plenty of fuel with you into space now. At the very least, the small one man capsule is easy to take pretty much anywhere you want.

Awesome .

I think it was a tweet by Notch. Liked the game enough to purchase .

Yeah, well it was the lunar lander that lost most of the fuel, not the rocket stages themselves. I think I may have started the retro burns too early and had too many of them. Still learning .

Very nice, very creative .

Great game, thanks! Wanted to share my first successful Mun rocket. Borrowed a lot of ideas, so can\'t say it\'s 100% my own, but I did construct it myself . It\'s not really my second design, BTW - I had several attempts with the demo version of KSP, but never quite made it. I bought the game before the successful Mun landing. Dunno how much the RCS units really helped, I mostly just did a vertical landing and used the lunar module\'s main engine to shave off horizontal movement. I may need to add more RCS units if I want to be serious about having them. It\'s pretty tight on fuel, though - I barely made it back to the planet (actually used up the tanks on the lunar module). I\'ll have to look into adding more fuel in future designs - or not using as much fuel landing on the Mun. I dunno when the best times really are for the burns, I just guessed. But they made it back safely . Success! I learned a lot playing this game - how the atmosphere is a real drag (literally), how to best manipulate orbits using the least fuel, how to create rockets, etc.

Pretty unstable, but nice nonetheless .

Do you mean making any type of orbit, or a certain desired orbit? I can certainly make an orbit in a single burn. It won\'t be pretty and it won\'t be up to any sort of specifications, but it\'s functional. What I do is to turn my craft towards the horizon once I leave the atmosphere. Keep it burning long enough and keep it pointed at the horizon, and you\'ll make orbit. I don\'t even use RCS. If you\'re talking about a certain desired orbit, then what\'s usually done is that NASA pre-computes the desired flight path via computers, and everything is planned ahead of time. I suppose if you do it right and learn how to make corrections with the engines burning, you could get a certain orbit, but it may be tricky. I\'ve attached an image (and the file) of my craft to this post. It\'s a stock parts craft that can make it to the Mun (and I made my first Mun landing today! Yay! And I got back safely too ), and it can also make a single burn orbit. Not a very good orbit, but good enough for a Mun mission.