Rocket Farmer

Sorry, you missed the other option. Load up on SRBs and don’t fire the center stack until the SRBs are done. Ill try some modeling on this tonight but last time I looked more SRBs instead of drop tanks had better starting thrust (high early thrust is more efficient to get up to speed early) plus cheaper in credits.

Ok I come down on both side of this. I haven’t ever put tanks on top of my SRBs. Personally I like to do the first stage on only SRBs (I fire the main stack engines only for a couple of seconds to clear the launch pad). SRBs are much cheaper thrust so instead of drop tanks why not just use more SRBs? I do disagree with Vanamode though. Drop tanks can be very useful even within the rocket equation in a myriad of situations. 1. Using 1 Nerva. I can’t exactly cut it in half so a drop tank on it is ideal and increases DV (youvarent carry dead tanks). 2. Small rockets in the 10-20 time range. Often there are no equivalent smaller rockets to divide the work. 3. Etc

Agreed. it should be either explore or contract that gets you to those locations. at which point Jeb should note the place looks good for a launch site. Then you should be able to buy facilities at hay location (ie start from scratch). Really there should be 8-12 sites around Kerbal like this that can be developed. Some should be ridiculous (middle of an ocean, top of a mountain etc). You know Kerbal.

W

So today I was reading up on Elon Musk’s latest heavy rocket. Basically he is duct-taping 3 rockets together and using them to launch his car (yes his car) into an orbit beyond Mars...... They also say it and I quote “might” work....... Anybody else ever heard of anything more kerbal like ever?

Ok Im an arm chair rocket guy. So I do call the burn to circularize my perapsis burn because I'm raising my perapsis but you are correct it should be called my aposis burn because it occurs at my aposis. As well you are correct that I do raise my perapsis regardless during the Mun burn. Also hats off to OhioBib. I had not considered that the viewing angle from the surface was different than from orbit. On the other hand the Mun is a very wide target so that likely wouldn't matter. However there are a couple of asterisks to everybodies comments. Size effieiency: This goes back to the air hog days (1.0-1.1) but at one point it was possible to intercept the Mun with a stock no clipping air hogged engine SSTO and a very small delta v outside the atmosphere. You could almost hit the pre-requisite velocity (2200 orbit + 865 Mun transfer) near the top of the atmosphere using air breathing engines. This made for a very efficient transfer fuel wise. I haven't played with SSTOs much since then so I'm uncertain how much extra velocity you can now build but anything you manage is extra efficiency. Price efficiency: I use a more ballistic than SSTO but still one continuous burn for launching an SRB rocket early on tocthe Mun. No unlike the famous video I have never landed onche Mun only using SRBs.

@JasOn Actually that's about perfect for an efficient mun intercept. Doing a direct ascent and mun transfer in one shot saves you the delta v of doing your perapsis burn. Probably saves about 50m/s of delta v over the traditional method of getting to orbit and then doing a separate burn for your mun intercept. As well he also has the correct mun location to pull it off. I like restarting career every new update. Typically I like doing a Mun flyby very early (2-3 launch) typically with stacks of SRBs). I don't ever have the guidance system up at that point so I dead reckon the Mun. Fire about 865m/s pointed prograde just after the Mun clears the horizon will get you a nice intercept (old tip from before we had a guidance systems). Lastly the guy is using a SSTO. So how exactly will you do it more efficiently? I'm sure a true pro (which he might already be) might shave another 5% off with a different vehicle configuration and maybe another 5% with an optimum ascent profile but he is very close to optimum in my books as he has his flight profile perfect.

Personally I have a laundry list of things I would really love in the game and would happily pay for in a DLC (I bought May 14, 2013 so I'm on the hook which is fine. Also I don't use mods. I just haven't found them balanced enough for my tastes. 1. Specialty parts including A. An electric propeller. Something that would allow plane exploration of Duna and Eve. Both of these planets have atmospheres but you can hardly scratch the surface of them with rockets and wheels. Also make it work in water. Different sizes would be fine too. B. A hose reel with 50 feet of hose. For delivery of fuel or electricity. Make it so only an engineer can operate it. So badly needed. C. Folding wings. A crane with a swivel. More options for space station parts or landed buildings. Space base infrastructure. 2. Another gas giant. Something with rings, or a storm etc. With planets including: a. A oxygen atmosphere but with mountains that extend out of the atmosphere. Maybe a lopsided planet to cause this to occur. b. A Gilly or slightly larger planet just outside the gas giants atmosphere. Imagine sitting on a moon with a planet filling the entire sky. c. A rock garden cluster of small moonlets (at least 6-8 ) all clustered together with little space in between. They could even be gravityless as long as you designed a harpoon or anchor for holding a ship down. D. An elevator planet. A planet with an atmosphere that has a really elliptical orbit meaning you could enter its orbit close to the gas giant and then ride it up to the outer edge of the gas giant to hop off and get into orbit of another planet or vice versa with little delta V use either way. E. a planet orbiting backwards or with a orbit out of the plane of Kerbol (like 75 degrees out). F. A water world that would require floating bases and ships to land on it (that or channeling our inner Elon Musk and pre-dropping floating platforms). 3. Upgradeable kerbals a. Upgradeable EVA suits. More thrust, carry more fuel etc. Or specialized suits for science, exploration, or survival each with their own pros and cons. B. Have More actions than just flags. Maybe go golfing, sit down, eat some snacks, wave, etc)

So I started a new career with the 1.2 preview normal difficulty totally stock. I have acutally found it quite easy (payouts seem higher). As typical launch 1 was suborbital, launch 2 achieved orbit but the magic happened with launch 3. Typically with my 3rd launch of a new career I don't have guidance yet as I typically can't afford the update for it so I achieve orbit, point for he mun and do a 860m/s burn and figure it a flyby and return when I get out there. This time however with the higher payouts I could afford the guidance system so I thought I would put the game through its paces. so I preplanned 5 separate burns. 1. Was my traditional burn to the mun for flyby. About 860 delta v. 7km passing distance. 2. After just passing the Mun I did a course correction of 130 delta v to send me towards Minmas. 3. Mid course correction of 12 delta v to get my vertical approach to Minmas set (5km passing distance). 4. A 330 delta V burn after just passing Minmas to again pass it (polar route 5km passing distance). 5. Which shot me back to Kerbin which I hooked around to again intersect the Mun (7km flyby polar route). I did a 97 delta V burn at this point to lower my kerbal perapsis to 55k. 6. 7 orbits slowly and safely degrading my apoasis reeled me into a nice easy kerbal landing. I managed this without solar panels, on the small sized rockets and boosters and 30 parts over 45 days. I think the tweaks to the planning software are awesome for multiple burns (no twitchy lines that through out calculated burns 40 days later). I knew I had 1,445 Delta V (thank-you excel math) and I knew the plan took 1,429. Before I left Kerbin I knew how much the entire burn would be and that I could pass the Mun twice, Minmas twice and do a high pass on Kerbin to boot.

"I think you're seriously underestimating new players. The fact that they can't slam a plane into the ground with a 10m/s vertical speed, or have to move the plane over a few meters is certainly within the grasp of most minds, particularly the kind that pick up KSP. " Personally I have logged a couple hours on KSP. I have made SSTOs that could land a small payload and return from Minmas or land on Ike without refuelling. I got good enough that I used SSTOs fairly regularly and had no issue landing on the runway from orbit. That said last night I couldn't get a basic level airplane off the basic level runway last night. I reverted to my old standby from pre 1.0x when you didn't get landing gear for quite awhile in the tech tree. I used gantries for takeoff and parachutes for landing and didn't even bother with landing gear. The basic landing gear are very difficult to use.

For me it's my Jool 5 mission. I've designed it at least 5-6 times (always with some remaining technical difficulties) but have never pulled the trigger and sent it out. Duna, Eeloo, Dres missions etc I can do in my sleep but for some reason hitting all 5 Jool moons has always alluded me. So tonight I do it. I am going to design a Jool 5 mission from scratch including 1 multi purpose lander to hit all 5 moons, one aircraft for Laythe, rovers and small landed bases for Laythe, Val & Tylo, and small orbital space stations for each moon plus Jool. All in 1 aircraft. I shall not rest until all Kerbals have been returned to Kerbin from this mission!

While that is interesting I think Microsoft Hololens would be better. Imagine launching rockets off your living room table. Doing landings onto your floor. Doing docking maneuvers while you walk around each space craft to check angles. The possibilities are endless.

Please enlighten me how fairings don't work? They seem to work fine in my game. Also cargo bays are nice for lifting rivers too. The new cargo bay opening is particularly handy for unloading and reloading rovers. If those 2 fail then design an aerodynamic rover and fly it up. Kerbal for me is about figuring out how to do something with what I have. Rovers onto other bodies isn't that difficult with the tools given.

I was just doing a wheesley test contract and noticed the same issue. Internal temperatures climbed whenever I pushed over about 330 m/s (about the speed of sound) the internals started hearing up faster than the external skin. This occurred at 3,000 m above sea level so being low isn't the answer. It probably is a hard cap allowing short term bursts of speed but not long-term cruising. Alternatively maybe try going higher. I was able to get wheesleys cruising over 12,000m with an optimal flight pattern. Going higher with significant deployed radiators might help while not running at 100% thrust.

So new career mode is great. Lots of options right off the bat with little parts that can still do a lot (broke atmosphere and survived on my 2nd flight. Could probably manage that 1st flight with some tinkering. In 2 flight I also had 230k in the bank and lots of science (100+ again easy). But the best part was my 3rd flight. I opened up the first plane mode as I had a couple of science observations to get under 20km altitude. Usually this meant launching planes off gantrys and landing with parachutes (we used to not have landing gear early on). Now I built a great little plane in about 5 minutes. I assumed the little Jets would be low thrust so stacked on 4 (2 by the tail and 2 under wing). Boy was I wrong. 300m/s+ easy at the surface and huge range (only burned 5% of my fuel on a 50km flight including landing on the island runway for laughs. Short landing, quick turning etc. It's nice to see they don't cripple you early game. Really enjoyable play.

1. Submarine on Kerbin 2. Submarine on Eve 3. Catalina style aircraft to Laythe with a small built-in ISRU on the deployable and recoverable rover. - - - Updated - - - 1. Submarine on Kerbin 2. Submarine on Eve 3. Catalina style aircraft to Laythe with a small built-in ISRU on the deployable and recoverable rover.

For me with the recent announcements about 1.05 I think a dock with the option of launching a water based vessel when you finish design would be awesome. Personally I think it would also add nicely to the outbuildings. Anybody agree and/or have suggestions for other buildings at the main KSP launch site?

So does the remote tech update make t into 1.05? How about the new 2.5m cargo bay with the ramp door?

$0. Free. Actually I get paid to launch my Kerbals. I use an SSTO with a built in miner. I launch nearly empty and fly to the nearest mineable material and land. I mine my tanks full then head for orbit. Then I return and land at the same mine spot and refill my tanks. Then I return to KSC and I return the ship full of fuel.

Congrats. Personally I've done returns from the surface of everywhere but Tylo or Eve. Just haven't had the time. You don't have to be cautious. Sometimes going for broke is better learning. My first mun landing couldn't get back into orbit so I did a complete redesign with Excel to assist with the Delta Vector math (I play totally stock). After a successful recovery I looked at the recovery lander and figured out from the maps that I could manage a Eeloo landing and return with it. I actually pulled it off giving me the confidence to try other things. In 0.25 I had an SSTO that without refuelling could return from landed at Minmas, Gilly or Duna's moon. I haven't played with SSTOs much in 1.04 yet. Best tips I have. Accurate return: if you are coming into kerbin from the mun or farther after I have done my primary burn for kerbin I determine exactly how long till I would land on kerbin (drop a maneavour node on the surface of kerbin). Then as kerbin does 1 full rotation every 6 hours I fast forward to the nearest multiple of 6 hours from landing on kerbin (6, 12, 18, 24 etc). I then look at the map as it shows exactly where I will eventually land. I then adjust with little fuel cost to land where I want to. I can always land within 20km of the space centre this way. To explain it further. If you are exactly 6 hours from landing on kerbin your tragectory line points where you will land (with a little fudge for air slowing you down). In the 6 hours you travel kerbin will rotate exactly once so you will land at the same spot your line is pointing to 6 hours before. If you are 12 hours away it will rotate twice etc. Although with heating I now do multiple passes I used to use this for direct returns from Jool with less than 1 DV spent to ensure you land where you want. 2nd tip. To dock a small vessel to large vessel is easy. Use your Mac ball and get the ends close and the strength of the magnets will straighten the little ship up enough to dock it. 3rd tip. 2nd tip doesn't work with 2 large ships. Both must be in a perfect line to each other. To make his much easier orient both ships exactly perpendicular to your orbit (if you are orbiting around kerbin direclty east then line one up due north and the other due south. Dock them in this orientation. The reasoning is otherwise their angles restive to each other will constantly be changing making lining them up almost impossible. This is easy to see visually. Get the 2 craft near each other and orient their ports together while not perpendicular to your orbit. Fast forward a bit and watch the angles change. Then orient both perpendicular to your orbit and fast forward again and both will stay exactly lined up. Last tip. If you play totally stock and want to do missions to other planets use excel. The DV formula is easy to find. The engineer most people use tells you what your DV is. Excel lets you quickly work backwards. I design my return vessel, then my lander, then the transfer and lastly the lifter. As I chain the excel formulas together if I decide I also want a rover I simply add its payload weight and see what it says I now need for a lifter. After a couple of times it literally takes me about 3-4 minutes to plan a efficient Duna run.

Lets start by saying awesome game. Can't wait for updates. That said I think the game should add a couple of things to get to know your kerbals better. 1. When in flight a little icon in the corner of their picture should indicate their specialty. Ie. Scientist, pilot or engineer. It is time consuming when you have 3 kerbals in a ship and I have to go back to the astronaut complex to figure out who is an engineer to repack the parachutes. 2. Lets get to know our Kerbals a bit better. In the astronaut complex there is a impersonal listing of skills for each Kerbal and what they have done. This should be accessible in flight when you click on the kerbal's picture. 3. We should get some back stories for the kerbals and why they are there (which should be on the same information tab). For the oranges interesting back stories could be written quickly and for whites I see procedural back stories being potentially quite humorous. My thoughts on Jeb's back story. Jeb grew up pondering the stars. While everybody assumed it was a desire to travel to space in actuality Jeb knew that those stars represented huge explosions that he wanted to see up close and personal. His first career running a scrap yard was just the boost he needed to bring him to the attention of the Kerbal space program. His fearlessness was perfect for a program using scrap yard materials to fly to space in. His steely nerve got him through flight school at the top of his class (we was the only applicant brave (read crazy) enough to fly scrap into space. He now embodies the kerbal space programs motto: Putting little green men everywhere.

I'm hearing you say that while the perapsis would be around kerbin the aopsis would be well past the mun so that the time it took for the ship to complete one orbit would be the same time as it takes for the mun to complete one orbit around Kerbal in (one munar month). That would be feasible even with the requirement for a encounter both when outbound and inbound (just have to match the wide angle of your orbit). Also this may not be possible in Kerbin as your apoasis might lie outside of kerbins sphere of influence. The other problem with that is that it's intensely DV inefficient. Not only would you have a very large DV burn to catch the cycler (because you are catching a much faster orbit than otherwise required) but instead of efficiently being at your aopsis (and thus slowest speed) when you hit the mun you would still be moving very fast meaning you would have to burn a bnch more DV to catch orbit around the mun. So I don't think it's speed they ar after with the cycler.

So I typically like to build my extra planetary ship in no more than 3 launches and assemble in space. As I get deeper into career my ships also get larger (100 tonne+). I also like to "do it all" in one swing. In going to Duna I will launch with 1. My main extra-planetary booster. This will push everything out and the return vessel back plus serve as a fuel wagon for multiple landings of my lander. I aim to make these reusable for the next mission as well. 2. The primary lander. This will have enough DV to land and re-orbit/ dock with my booster. In Dunas case It will also have an rover that is dropped on the first trip down (usually cradled under the legs and separately jettisoned and parachuted down while in atmosphere). As well a separate extra detachable tank that will mostly stay with the main ship unless I am going to the moon at which point it will be used to boost range and then returned to the main ship. 3. 2 satellites (with science and resource trackers!) that I will orbit around the poles of Duna and its moon. Thee are really small units. 4. A detachable space station. This will include the science lab, will have the lander left docked to it and will have decent tanks for both fuel and mono. Any excess fuel/mono not needed to return to Kerbal will be left as well for future missions. If I am leaving it manned I also leave a return vehicle behind. 5. A outbound and return vessel. This will typically be rigged for direct kerbin re-entery although recently I have also tinkered with integrating this into the main booster package and then rendezvous with a deorbitor in LKO so as not to carry the heavier weight too and from Duna/etc. 6. I also sometimes land a station on the ground as well and these I typically leave manned but again with a way for the Kerbals to get home. What does everybody else do?

As stock KSP stands its of very little value. Getting an intercept with the cycler means your landing ship has enough DV to get to Kerbal by itself. In stock the only use I could see was if you were running an ultra efficient science mission and kept the science lab and your kerbin deorbitor on the cycler while just landing a very small lander once (any more than 1 planned landing and the gains are offset by the lost science from no science lab in orbit around the target body). That way you don't have to pay the DV cost to decelerate and reaccelerate the science lab and deorbitor. If you use a mod for life support it becomes more reasonable. If you had to deal with the heavy shielding from cosmic radiation when between planets (like NASA does) it becomes a good idea. My question is more the physics of it. Can you get an orbit that on every loop intercepts kerbin on one end and Duna on the other without burning tonnes of DV in course corrections?