Andr0s

Haha, you guys are ruthless with all the "it's not that hard" comments, making me feel like an utter failure Joking aside, thanks a lot for all the advice - I can't wait to go home and try it all out. Keep your fingers crossed for me (PS: I know Squad keeps saying "no" to multiplayer, but discussions like this make me wish KSP had a spectator mode. I can just see a drinking game where everyone watches me trying to dock, heckles over TS, and drinks every time I miss.)

@Whistlehead : Thanks for the recommendation - as I mentioned in OP, I'm trying (stubbornly and occasionally painfully) to play unmodded; I will certainly add your recommended mod to the list of "must haves" once I decide to mod up. @Person & Yalin : Thanks! I definitely didn't know about navball mode switching, that should help massively. Also, I'll have to give the proper launch window a shot

Hiya y'all! I've been KSPing for a couple months now and, while I'm slowly accruing a decent list of accomplishment covering Mun, Minmus, Eve & Gilly, Duna & Ike, the hallowed art of docking seems to be eluding me. I've watched a plethora of youtube vids on the maneuver, I've gotten to the point where I can get 99.9% matching orbits (when I don't screw up and get perfectly matching reciprocal orbits, that is) but getting to that point where craft are sitting pretty much stand-still relative to one another and I can RCS over to dock is proving impossible for me (debris belt of failed docking attempt craft around Kerbin is approaching 200 pieces). I see many people are using mods for docking but, since I'm trying to "play it kosher" I wanted to know is it really that difficult, or am I just doing something wrong? (I forgot: In a nutshell, I launch one vessel, circularize its orbit at 100K, launch another, circularize at 95k, wait for proximity of first one, climb to 100k and fiddle with orbitals until I'm within <1km of other craft. It is at this point that I find myself unable to do adjustments precise enough to get perfect orbital sync needed for dock...) ~Andro

137 14 83 And a smiley to satisfy minimum message length:

My first landing was a horrid tale of screaming (me) and clawing back out of grave (Jeb); I came in for a beautiful touchdown, descent at 5m/s, legs deployed... and fuel ran out 5klicks up. I tried braking with RCS but didn't manage to slow down enough... so literally a second before the lander litho-braked, I separated the capsule with its dinky little return module, and manged to ascend from the fireball that was lander back to the Munar orbit. Return to Kerbin was totally uneventful, especially the part where I forgot the parachute.

So, having played KSP for a couple months now, I've discovered I'm slowly building up a collection of odd tricks that use bits and pieces of game to help me pull of things they were evidently not intended to do. I play stock game, no mods to date, so I do find jury-rigging and part mis-appropriation to be a fun part of game's challenge. Anyway, I thought I'd see who else came up with weird ways to do things, and what are your favorites? My favorite is, hands, down, the Munar landing beacon I usually mount engines radially on the lander; that leaves bottom of the lander free for a decoupler and a battery. Then, as I'm in final landing stages, I can decouple the battery, target it once it drops, and use it to get "true" reading on the altitude, lateral drift etc. It is pretty much the sole reason I am now pulling off <5m/s Munar landings smoothly as you please...

I have to admit Project: Munraker was a fun one for me. On a stock KSP (No MechJeb etc) it took me a weekend worth of playing - about 12 hours - to: #1 orbit Mun and return to KSC #2 drop a satellite in a nice 10K orbit around Mun #3 land an unkerbaled rover on the Mun #4 land a kerbaled craft on Mun and return it to KSC. I found Mun to be easy to achieve once I learned basics of Orbit circularization. Bring Apoapsis to Mun orbit, circularize a bit above/below it depending on whether you're trying to catch up to Mun or waiting for it to catch up to you, and you're 90% there. The fact that Mun has a perfectly circular equatorial orbit relative to Kerbin makes it an easy target. Minimus with its inclined orbit is proving far more annoying to me...

If I'm not mistaken, Manley being Scottish does make him British as well, ne? Scotland is situated on the island of Great Britain (with exception of the Shetlands, Orkneys and Hebrides, as well as being a part of Kingdom of Great Britain since... oh, 1707 I think? Anyway, back to subject. I'm seeing quite a few skeptical remarks in regards to the propulsion schema. Do we think it wouldn't work? If so, why? You gonna save me a sleepless night of trying, or watch me drown in despair?

Isn't Manley British? Maybe we can mock him into giving it a shot, for the Queen and Country, wot wot?Vanamonde, propulsion is what makes it awesome - I'm totally trying it!

Looks like I jacked the link, apologies - I fixed it now

So, IO9 just threw up this article:http://io9.com/the-union-jack-on-the-moon-1262867212 and wow and howdy, that's some insanity there - I wonder if that kind of extreme staging is doable in KSP. I guess I won't be sleeping tonight!

@Giggleplex : You Cannuckistani sure do take the fun out of things :'( Would you like to shave my Barbie dolls while you're at it?

Aerodynes are, generally, flying craft heavier than air that derive their lift from the aerodynamic features of their construction, such as wings (as opposed to aerostats which are lighter-than-air craft such as baloons, and rockets which get their lift pretty much solely from stupid amounts of directional thrust).

So, after several nights of struggle, I managed to build a single-jet aerodyne that actually lifts off in an elegant and smooth fashion, clocks max speed of ~350m/s in level flight, sets down on fields and strips equally well, and doesn't spontaneously explode whenever I try to course-change, and all of it in a 100% stock, unmodded game. I suspect this is a minor accomplishment for most of y'all but considering all the frustration preceding this small triumph, I hope I'll be forgiven for bragging a bit

Edit your initial post, it'll have the Answered/Unanswered drop-down in there. (You will have to hit "Edit Post" then "Go Advanced" to get that option, by the way.)