Kiershar

I'm not exactly sure how to perform a perfect gravity turn but i can tell you what i do. At slightly more than 10k (past the light blue section), i tilt the pitch to ~70 degrees toward 90degrees heading. Then, when im out of the slightly darker blue i slowly tilt all the way to 30degrees and let my apoapsis rise to my target orbit. After that, fast forward to 20seconds before apoapsis, set ship pointing at 10degree pitch 90 heading and burn until periapsis is fine. Do that a couple times and check your remaining fuel after reaching target orbit. Then you can benchmark your gravity turns and refine it by making it smooth.

That's what I'm suspecting too, but i guess the odds are very slim. I'm starting to think its something else entirely, but likely just a glitch.

Last week I was arguing in favor of direct ascent (which is what you're talking about) and was proven wrong. Circularizing will get you better result for less fuel. Likely the problem you have is not executing your gravity turn properly.

You were tracking the wrong object. Like i said, there's a visible arch but the moving object is -directly- below when you load the persistence.

Your comparisons are not good. Why is there 2 nuclear engines on a 12t design? You are complaining about thrust, yet the setup with the 2x 909 has less TWR than with 2x nukes... mk1pod 1tons + 3 x 400L fuel (2.25t, empty 0.25t) = 7.75t 7848 * LN(Full nuke 10t / Empty nuke 4t) = 7191 delta-v, 0.6 TWR full 3825.9 * LN(Full 909 8.25t / Empty 909 2.25 = 4970 delta-v, 0.606 TWR full There's no way the 909 is better than the nuke. If it is, it's because you over-designed your craft to fit it. The only legit pro-909 argument is that it's shorter, but even then its real easy to get around that.

Looked like a cluster of glittering pixels, like when you are scrolling far away from your ship.

I don't know... if the first stage can't handle an extra 1.75 of weight maybe its a bit too minimalist. I find it very hard to justify using the lv-909; the only time i set them up is when the mission is so easy i'd rather do my burns faster than having extra fuels for contingency. If you restrict your first stage a lot then maybe the lv-909 is better in that situation, but that's with an artificial restriction that you set on yourself.

When i chased it it seemed to be directly below me at first, going slightly faster. Chase started a bit before the edge of the dark side. While chasing in the dark side it seemed like it was getting away until about 3/4 into the dark side it stopped/landed and i proceeded to retroburn. Overshot the landing zone by a little but the object was firmly below me when i took its coordinate. While losing altitude and killing lateral velocity the object disappeared.

I calculated the delta-v of multiple setups with the lv-909 and the only reason to use it would be for very slightly better TWR, and if its TWR you need there's a lot of better options. Of course, if your plan is to just go somewhere and land wherever then end the flight, any engine will do.

There's one arch nearby in the save but it's not that. I chased it around the moon for at least a third of the circumference before it landed.

I think the worse is when you have crafts on every planets and then you try to target a planet to be able to pan the camera better and it switch you to a craft on that planet. So frustrating, i keep having to remake new saves because of that issue.

There's really not much atmosphere on Duna. The atmosphere is very thin starting, starts at maybe 15km. I do aerobraking at like 12km... so unless you are already rather slow i doubt chutes are gonna be enough by themselves. Aerobraking at 25km does almost nothing! I found that a 60 thrust nerva is good enough to land 20 tons of stuff on Duna. TWR above 0.40 and its pretty much safe.

Don't think there's a limit beside lag. One time i had a moon base with 12 EVA kermans, 3 rovers, 2 rocketcrafts and nice pile of 30+ debris stacked with my bulldozer. Flew one last ship at that base and the lag became so bad i had to end a couple flights.

Definitely not a debris. I work very hard to design my crafts and pilot them so no debris are flying around, ever. Including for trips to jool. I measured the distance by reloading multiple times and then burning like a madman in the general direction of the UFO. It's flying very close to ground level from my perspective so i just noted the altitude. Here's the save and stuff, not sure how it works so i zipped the whole folder. If you check it out, select ScoutLander mk3, the last flight from the radar station; the object is directly below.

If the mission is not easy, nuke engines are gonna be needed. Definitely the best engine, makes the poodle and lv-909 obsolete because of the better specific impulse. Can land with it if you angle swept wings under as lander legs, better impact resistance than legs too. The only thing it can't do is bring you out of a strong atmosphere and achieving orbit post-lift off.