return from mun problems

[alfrank]

I've successfully gotten to the moon and soft landed on it, but I'm having many problems with the return. Let's start with launching from the mun. The instructions say to pitch over on a heading of 90 degrees. But pitching over puts me on the wrong heading and yawing to 90 Degrees doesn't give me much horizontal velocity.  I'm confused about how to do these seemingly contradictory things.

[Scarecrow71]

4 hours ago, alfrank said:

I've successfully gotten to the moon and soft landed on it, but I'm having many problems with the return. Let's start with launching from the mun. The instructions say to pitch over on a heading of 90 degrees. But pitching over puts me on the wrong heading and yawing to 90 Degrees doesn't give me much horizontal velocity.  I'm confused about how to do these seemingly contradictory things.

It is all trial and error, unfortunately.  Save just before trying.  Upon liftoff, pitch over and see what trajectory you have.  Of it isn't right, load that save and pitch over the other direction.

What I do is, during initial descent, I make sure to roll the capsule so the door will be facing east(ish) when I land.  That way, upon liftoff, I know to pitch towards the capsule door.

[Vanamonde]

Yawing or pitching shouldn't make a difference as long as you're steering toward 90 degrees on the navball. 

[Gargamel]

Moved to gameplay questions 

[king of nowhere]

On 6/4/2023 at 11:18 PM, alfrank said:

I've successfully gotten to the moon and soft landed on it, but I'm having many problems with the return. Let's start with launching from the mun. The instructions say to pitch over on a heading of 90 degrees. But pitching over puts me on the wrong heading and yawing to 90 Degrees doesn't give me much horizontal velocity.  I'm confused about how to do these seemingly contradictory things.

pitching or yawing is only a matter of how your rocket is rotated on its axis. completely irrelevant. just aim for 90 degrees.

it's not different from orbiting kerbin. what do you do when orbiting kerbin? as soon as atmosphere is no longer a concern, you aim 90 degrees. unless you want a polar or retrograde orbit, but let's not make confusion. on mun is the same, except that there is no atmosphere and so you can go for a much steeper gravity turn. also, with the lower gravity you need a lot less speed to orbit.

incidentally, as long as you pick up horizontal speed, any direction will give you an orbit. 90 degrees is just more convenient for inclination

[Kryxal]

Also, 090 is the heading, this isn't the same pointing up, you're going to be pointing fairly close to the horizon.  So long as you're not in danger of hitting terrain, it's all good.