Traches

I've been planning on making a "rocket launching with FAR" tutorial for awhile; it's all planned and outlined, all I have to do is record it. I'll try and get it out in the next week or two.

Some threads, like this one, are so far outside the realm of what KSP will ever be that the only way the suggestion will exist in game is as a mod. "There's a mod that does that" is a more polite and helpful response than "No, that's not what the game is meant to be."

Celem's right-- moho is hard to get to, especially as a first time target. You've got a hefty plane change to deal with, no atmosphere to aerobrake in, and a huge dV requirement to get there. Try going to duna first! Then, go to dres to learn how do deal with differing inclinations. You'll have an easier time with Moho after that.

+1 for UI improvements.

You should have been issued a full set of keyboard actuators that can accomplish exactly this.

It's personal preference really-- a high orbit will require more dV to reach from the surface, but it might be easier to intercept and you will be able to time warp faster. Have you considered using a polar orbit? It'll let you hit all the biomes with the least dV, but timing becomes important.

I think he's asking if there's a way to do it more efficiently than that-- a brute force plane change like you describe will take tons of dV. You basically have to cancel out your orbital velocity in one direction and add it back in another.

You have a couple of options-- Burn prograde until you have an elliptical orbit and do your plane change at apoapse, which will cost less than the overall plane change. Use a couple gravity assists from Ike to change planes (but I don't think Ike's gravity is strong enough for this to be a good option) Or, time accelerate until your orbit lines up with duna's orbit around the sun, and leave duna in the retrograde direction like you normally would. Plan your ejection burn to push your periapse down to kerbin's orbit, to where you get the white approach markers. Time accelerate down to the white marker, place a maneuver node, and play with the pro and retrograde markers to try and get an intercept. If you're too far away, wait a year and try again till it works. The important thing is that you do your burns where your orbit intersects kerbin's-- so you'll always pass through that point, and you're adjusting how long it takes you to get there in order to meet up with the planet. Good luck!

I'm no expert on the subject, but here's what I know-- Launching to orbit from atmospheric bodies is determined experimentally AFAIK. Launching to orbit from non-atmospheric bodies would require orbital velocity at your chosen altitude, plus whatever it takes to get there. I'm not sure about the math to figure that part. Transfers from one body to another are assumed to be hohmann transfers, explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit The map that floule linked doesn't add extra for plane changes along the way, but some of them give a "maximum plane change dV". If you want to calculate your own dV map, I'd start by spending time reading about orbital mechanics on wikipedia.

Easier in that it takes less fuel, assuming your rocket looks like a rocket. I promise, if you install FAR, you'll have a whole lot harder time getting your typical creations into orbit. Give it a shot if you don't believe me. If the lower dV to orbit bothers you, ferram made a companion mod for FAR called Kerbal ISP difficulty scaler-- it makes the game harder by making your engines less efficient. You can scale it anywhere from "FAR-> Stock KSP" (A rocket that barely makes orbit in stock should barely make orbit with FAR) to "FAR->Real life" (Which is one way to play KSP on hard mode.)

If you're okay with using mods, kerbal alarm clock will solve the issue of warping past your maneuver nodes. It'll even let you plan a node, set an alarm for it, switch to another ship for faster time warp purposes, and then when the time comes it'll drop you out of time warp, let you jump back to the original ship, and restore the maneuver node. It's one of those mods that should be part of the stock game TBH. You can also edit your save file to fast forward time, much like you described in orbiter. Just google "KSP save file editing", there are several guides on it. All that being said, I agree with you-- the altitude restrictions on warp are really a pain sometimes (though clearly necessary for several technical reasons.) For such a necessary mechanic, the stock game wouldn't hurt from timewarp getting a little sweet dev love!

By the looks of that dV measurement... You're planning on landing on every single joolian moon, with a single probe? With a 10 ton payload? I won't say it's not gonna happen, but I will say it's going to require a ship so big you'll be looking at a slideshow the whole time. 19,000 m/s dV with enough thrust for Tylo & Laythe will be really hard to do. You'd be much better off sending a single small probe off the main package for each moon. If you are going to stick with a single ship, you'll have to cut its dry mass down to almost nothing. I'd ditch the goo and material bays, just go with the sooper tiny experiments.

I have a whole bunch of subscribers from a couple of FSX guides I made years ago, but for KSP so far I've only made the remotetech guide in my sig. I'm planning out a guide to launching rockets with FAR installed, mostly with the intent of un-teaching all the bad habits and misconceptions the stock aero model gives you.

You could fix that pretty easy! Burn retrograde for a little while, lower your periapsis a bit (which will reduce your orbital period to where you will orbit slightly faster than the planet's rotation) Then time warp till you're in a place you like, wait till apoapse and circularize again.

Doesn't look like you have a connection, you just have a dish pointed at it. Does the relay satellite have a directional antenna on it pointed back at your probe?

Are you being serious?

Would make the challenge a lot more fun. With the stock model, it basically comes down to who can hurl a mk2 cockpit the fastest.

Nice satellite constellation! Those look awesome. You should be able to go to the mun unmanned without mainsails though. How big is this rover? Life in KSP is a lot easier if you build light!

You could put a decoupler or some other non-fuel-crossfeeding part between the engine and the last tank, and then run a line from the furthest forward tank to the engine. That should (I think?) cause fuel to drain from the aft first, keeping your CG forward and and therefore stable. Or you could manage your fuel manually, turning off tanks and transferring it around in flight. Edit: I looked right past the VTOL bit! (derp.) You could still use cleverness with fuel lines and decouplers to control your fuel burn. Manually transferring it around might work too. The RCS build aid mod would be very helpful here.

While it's funny, I have to disagree. Much like alcohol, Hyperedit has a time and a place as long as you don't abuse it. Hyperedit responsibly!

You take off work today Ferram? Nice work getting every one of your mods updated for .23 before it had been out even a full day.

That's not very many struts? Woah... Anyway if your launch TWR is more than about 2, you're putting a lot of stress on your rocket and might want to back it off a bit.

What's your TWR? Looks pretty high.

I hear the weldit mod will go a long way. Breaks stuff like DRE and FAR though

I know a few girls that line would totally work on.