Vanamonde

In order for any assemblage of KSP parts to work as a controllable ship, it must have either a capsule with crew in it, or a probe core. Cores do almost nothing by themselves, but they do allow you to operate a ship without crew, if the mission is too long, too dangerous, or just doesn't need a Kerbal for its objectives. Probe ships are smaller and cheaper than ships built to house Kerbals, but as others have noted, by can't plant flags, return soil samples or EVA reports, or send a Kerbal out to do anything. The Stayputnik is the first of the probe cores.

Hey David Hock. I moved your post to a thread all of its very own.

Since this is a video, the thread has been slipped on over to the video sub-forum. May it flourish there.

I've been sick, and so have done almost nothing in .23 so far. But today, my first experimental drone with the Rapier engine not only achieved orbit, but then landing on the runway.

I don't see any problems with your build. Are you sure the problem is fuel not getting to the engines? I see you've got it set up to spacebar1=separate stage, then spacebar2=activate engine. Are you hitting spacebar twice between stages?

Thread moved to ship exchange, with the other showcase-type-y threads.

I've seen that as an occasional glitch. I wonder: does it only happen with designs you copied over from previous versions? That's when I saw it.

Your speed determines the altitude required to accomplish sufficient braking; the faster you're going, the deeper you'll need to venture. Note that in the real world, over-doing things would result in the ship burning up or breaking apart, but since atmo affects in KSP are incomplete, this is less of a consideration.

The first post in my thread includes 3 ships. The second one can reach Kerbin orbit, and the third can do a moon surface excursion and return. Each them is built using parts only from tiers 0-3.

Katateochi is still working on this campaign, but he moved recently and it's taking forever for them to set up his home internet.

It sounds like you simply don't have enough steering authority for the size of the ship in question. This authority is provided by 4 kinds of devices: SAS from capsules and reaction wheels (though you said you don't have the reaction wheels yet), steerable fins (not all of them are, so check their VAB descriptions), RCS (which works only poorly in atmosphere), and engines which have a pivoting "gimbal" mount and therefore have "thrust vectoring" capability as listed in their VAB descriptions. Very small ships can get by with nothing but the capsule's inherent SAS, but as your design gets larger, you'll need to add more of the other devices to retain control.

As Sirine suggests, place two sets using 4x symmetry.

I like cold weather, so I kind of want to live on Vall.

As OP is now a courant, thread closed.

It's not asparagus. Sylon00 seems to have given himself the project of seeing how many inappropriate places he can land my newbie moon rocket. I'm curious, Sylon00, are you even trying to get those guys from Duna home again?

The first and most important question: does this happen without the mod installed? Second question: what do you mean by "it tilts"? Does it lurch suddenly and then hold that heading? Something could be breaking (hit F3 to see the failure report), or maybe the ship is too large to rest on the pad without launch clamps. If it tilts slowly while climbing, it may simply be too big for the steering power currently available from capsule, fins, and engine gimbals.

Thread moved to add-on affairs, where it is more likely to receive an informative response.

I like the look of that ship. You seem to build the way I do, for function rather than looks, which can itself result in designs with a nice visual appeal.

Hello Acea. You'll find several of your countrymen on our forum.

My mom let me stay home from kindergarten to watch people walk on the moon, live.

I'm not clear about the "orbit straight" part of your statement, as every spacecraft motion in KSP is going to be a curve of some kind. Here's a guide I wrote to getting to and landing on the moons. Maybe it will answer some of your questions?

Mechjeb's foes and friends are not likely to ever convince each other to change sides, so let's please not get into that argument again and confine this discussion to OP's question about landing precision. Mechjeb has been put forth as one method, so now does anybody have other suggestions?

Even though the atmosphere will eliminate most of your speed for you, landing with engines on Kerbin is still quite difficult because of the high gravity. The gravity means that it will be hard to keep the ship to a safe descent speed, and even if you do, more weight will be trying to compress/damage the landing gear upon contact. It can be done, but you'd probably be better off practicing engine landings in the more forgiving gravities of Mun and Minmus before trying it on Kerbin. However, if you want to practice landing on Kerbin, don't leave Kerbin. Just build a lander, put it on the pad, and practice lifiting it a few meters and letting it come down again. Expect many crashes.

Welcome to the game, and to the forum.

Hello Lolaks.