Hello! newbie intro with some questions

[Tazin]

Well, i've been drawn in. I can't play anything else, i stay up until 2am and wake up at 7am to take the kids to school before work. Oh, sorry, my name is Emilio, i am 35, married, two kids, construction company owner, i live in Argentina. I am addicted to KSP.

Before the questions, this is how i play: i have Kerbal Engineer Redux, Waypoint Manager, and Kerbal Alarm Clock. Nothing else. KER i find essential, while the other two are convenient. I understand MechJeb does maneuvers automatically, plus some more things, but i haven't installed it yet.

I am playing Career on my first playthrough. It's a good thing i think, since if i had all the parts from the beginning it would have been mind numbing. I have raided the mun and minmus, set up modular roverized bases on each, set up a nice 5 part space station orbiting Kerbin. I am proficient with rendezvous, docking, understanding WTR and DeltaV, ejection angles, etc. I use the cheat sheet on the wiki for DeltaV planning, and KER in flight assistance for ejection angles and stuff. I have never in my life used the SPH or the runway for more than fooling around.

Now the questions:

- I am planning my first trip to Duna, but i can't find the minimun WTR needed to lift off from Duna with my return vehicle.

- Does it make sense to set up a drill and converter on my lander, so that i land with fuel tanks almost empty and generate the fuel needed for return?

- I think nuclear propulsion is the best for transfer and orbital stages?

- If i set up a drill and fuel converter on the Mun, what is the best way to transfer the produced fuel to a ship? it seems docking in the Mun surface is very complicated, especially aligning docking port height, i haven't yet figured out a way to dock vertically from underneath a ship . . . Is it even desirable to produce fuel on the Mun? i have plans to keep my transfer stage parked and fueled on the Mun, and launch from Kerbin only my landers and/or payloads, dock with the transfer on the Mun, and work from there. Is this overly complicated? Nuclear transfer stages are pretty expensive so i would like to reuse them if possible.

- If i put a drone core and enough parachutes on each section of my booster stage, i can recover those empty tanks and engines. Is there a way to activate the parachutes automatically once those parts reach a certain altitude?

- if i want to post pics on the forums, can i embed them from my dropbox public folder?

I think that is enough for now! thanks!

[micha]

Welcome to the forum, Tazin.

1 - You can use KER to switch the body that KER is simulating when designing your rocket in the VAB. Select Duna and all the technical readouts (eg, TWR) will change to suit.

2 - It's a valid gameplay option, yes. But you'll need to see whether your lander is lighter with the return fuel or with the drill/converter and thus which is cheaper / more efficient overall.

3 - The nuclear engines are very efficient, so yes, very good for transfer stages.

4 - A lot of people use the Klaw to "dock" on the surface, but beware the Kraken. Alternatively you can use KAS/KIS (mods) to connect pipes between ships. Minmus is considered a better option as a refuelling base due to the MUCH lower DV required to get to/from orbit.

5 - Don't know

6 - Don't know; imgur albums are supported by the forum though which is what most people seem to use.

Have a fantastic trip to Duna! And let us know how you get on

[Starhawk]

Hello Tazin, and welcome to the forums!

In the VAB, you can set KER to show you TWR based on the gravity of your destination. Just click the button that says Kerbin and set it to Duna.

Whether taking a drill makes sense is part of the mission planning. The mission which includes the drill would be a very different one than the mission without it. (I don't know which would be more efficient.)

Nuclear propulsion is probably overkill for a Duna mission. It tends to be best where you need really crazy amounts of dv, like Jool or Moho missions.

The Mun mining operation sounds fairly complex, but some players enjoy doing complex logistics. The real downside to your plan of leaving from the Mun is that timing launch windows is much harder and you lose gains you would have from the Oberth effect if you do your ejection burn deep in Kerbin's gravity well.

Not sure about the parachutes question.

You can embed pics from most photo sharing services. Don't know about dropbox specifically.

Happy landings!

Ninja'd

[GehringGame]

Well I can help you out with at least some of these questions! EDIT: I see some other answers were posted while I typed - so this is mostly redundant. Kudos to fast and helpful forum-goers.

- I am planning my first trip to Duna, but i can't find the minimun WTR needed to lift off from Duna with my return vehicle.

Technically you only need a TWR of >1 to lift off. You will probably find that >1.5 feels more comfortable. You can check TWR of a craft with any reference body with KER. Just bring it up in the VAB and set the reference body to Duna.

- Does it make sense to set up a drill and converter on my lander, so that i land with fuel tanks almost empty and generate the fuel needed for return?

Depends. It's not usually efficient to integrate it into your ship (although it can be if you are doing a lot of biome hopping). However, if you plan to leave it on the surface for future missions then I think it's a great plan. Using ISRU effectively means planning the minimum amount of fuel to reach your destination so that carrying the extra weight of the mining equipment doesn't get too expensive. Ideally you can generate all of the fuel you need for a return trip.

- I think nuclear propulsion is the best for transfer and orbital stages?

Usually. If you are using something roughly the size of an orange tank then the Nerv becomes the best choice.

- If i set up a drill and fuel converter on the Mun, what is the best way to transfer the produced fuel to a ship? it seems docking in the Mun surface is very complicated, especially aligning docking port height, i haven't yet figured out a way to dock vertically from underneath a ship . . . Is it even desirable to produce fuel on the Mun? i have plans to keep my transfer stage parked and fueled on the Mun, and launch from Kerbin only my landers and/or payloads, dock with the transfer on the Mun, and work from there. Is this overly complicated? Nuclear transfer stages are pretty expensive so i would like to reuse them if possible.

I try to design surface vehicles with a standardized docking port height in mind so that surface docking isn't too challenging. If you want to transfer fuel without mucking about with docking then there are some mods that can help. Kerbal Attachment System is probably the most widely used.

Launching from the Mun is a valid plan, especially if you drop down into Kerbin's gravity well and give your trajectory a nice kick. Minmus is an easier location to refuel from because of it's low gravity, you just have to plan a little more to account for the inclination and great orbital distance from Kerbin.

- If i put a drone core and enough parachutes on each section of my booster stage, i can recover those empty tanks and engines. Is there a way to activate the parachutes automatically once those parts reach a certain altitude?

You can have the chutes activate through staging when the booster detach. Mods like this one can help you recover stages that would otherwise be automatically deleted when they leave physics range.

- if i want to post pics on the forums, can i embed them from my dropbox public folder?

Actually, I'm not sure on that. Haven't messed with it. I use Imgur which I know can embed albums here. I'll wait for someone else to answer this.

Edited June 30, 2015 by GehringGame

[Tazin]

Duh, i had not realized i could change the body in KER. Thanks guys! Well i went ahead and tried the recovery of the boosters with a drone core and parachutes activated through staging, it works! what's more, i realized that you can recover almost 100% of the cost of the booster stage, since they land pretty much on top of the space center. For each side rocket costing $6080, i recovered between $5974 and $5800. I guess rocket fuel es free? lol. To test if Dropbox works, here's a pic of my test rocket:

[GehringGame]

Yeah you can recover stages with drone cores attached, that's the workaround that we have at the moment. If you get far enough away for them to switch to objects on rails though you'll need to switch back to them to control their descent. Otherwise the game will delete them once they get below a certain altitude, even with parachutes attached.

I can view your dropbox photo, so it does work!

[Tazin]

umh you mean even with drone cores attached, the game will delete them below a certain altitude? or is that if they drop without the cores?

[HoloYolo]

umh you mean even with drone cores attached, the game will delete them below a certain altitude? or is that if they drop without the cores?

Render distance in atmosphere is 22.5 km, so they probably landed before that distance so he could recover them

[Joshwoo70]

- If i put a drone core and enough parachutes on each section of my booster stage, i can recover those empty tanks and engines. Is there a way to activate the parachutes automatically once those parts reach a certain altitude?

- if i want to post pics on the forums, can i embed them from my dropbox public folder?

2. Don't do dropbox for images. Use imgur (i was one scolded on another forum when i changed my dropbox link to dl=1

1.no you cannot without any mods. (Use stage recovery.)

Have a nice day!

[Superfluous J]

If you can get your payload safely into orbit before the lifter would be deleted, you don't need a probe core on it; you just need to follow it down.

Of course, with no probe core you can't automatically pull the chutes and with KSP's new habit of totally destroying chutes it's a bit difficult to deploy them in space and hope. Better to spend the $700 and 1/10th ton for a probe core.

Personally I usually just let them get destroyed.