Can i get to the moon & land in the demo?

[EventHorizon]

Hi,

I have tried a few times but run out of electricity & cannot control the ship on its final insertion manouvre (@ mun). Someone mentioned solar panels but demo has none.

Any other known method?

Thanks

[thetommygunyeah]

Here, watch this. It's a great video from Scott Manley showing you everything you need to know

[EventHorizon]

Thanks

So im in a bit of a situation. I've approached the moon from the wrong side after getting to far ahead of it, ejected my last stage to find i just have a pod left :/. Im going in hard @ 300m/s, can i use the little thruster thingy's on the pod to save me??. Altitude is less than 10k.

Im thinking my little kerbin is soon to become an ex-kerbin.

[grim5000]

if you only have the command pod left, and no fuel tanks, you`re out of luck. even if you have rcs thrusters (what i think you mean, could be wrong), you don`t have any fuel to use them. i suggest ending flight and restarting. when you look at the map, at some point during your mun approach the path should switch. when that happens, turn your rocket around to burn retro grade (i`m going to assume you know how) and slow your speed down. i recommend 100 meters a second, and just burn every once in a while to that point. when you get to around 7500 meters slow down to 50m/s. and when the altimeter gets to 5000m, press c to get cockpit view and use the radio altimeter, and try to cancel out as much horizontal velocity as possible to the retrograde marker in the center of the blue half of the nav ball. as you get closer to the ground, try to keep you speed under 10m/s for landing. also, make sure you arent wasting fuel. you want to have enough to be able to get back.

hope this helps.

[Chruschtschow]

Im thinking my little kerbin is soon to become an ex-kerbin.

At least, you can collect now both the Kerbal Lost and the Impactor badge for the Mun! ;-)

[grim5000]

acidently reposted what i said earlier. don`t know how to delete this

Edited April 20, 2013 by grim5000

[capi3101]

It is possible to get to the Mun and land in the demo; getting that down is what ultimately convinced me to buy the full version.

I am confused as to why you would need electricity in the demo; the only command pod available is the Mk-I (so it's manned missions or nothing). If you run out of fuel (and yes, that CAN happen), you're pretty much s.o.l.

Here's what I'd suggest: take the command pod, stick a stack decoupler under it, then throw on a SAS module (not ASAS) and an RCS fuel tank followed by a T-400 and an LV-909. Add a set of four landing legs and enough ladders for you guy to get all the way down. Then add a stack decoupler, followed by two of the T-800 tanks and an LV-45. Put on a set of 6 radial decouplers and attach two T-800s, a winglet and an LV-30 to each. Make sure to strut that sunuvabitch up tight, add add RCS thrusters as you see fit. Finally, on the bottom of both the LV-45 and the LV-30s, attach stack decouplers and a set of 7 RT-10s. Strut them up and add another set of winglets, and you've got yourself a rocket that will make it there, down, up and back. Then you just gotta worry about not screwing up the landing.

Key to that: start your braking burn around 6,000 and go IVA occasionally ("C" key) to take occasional glances at your radar altimeter; it'll give you a good idea of the elevation of the deck. Don't try suicide burns until you get good at actually landing. Watch your fuel, though; with the design I've laid out here, be thinking of heading back to Kerbin when the T-400 gets to 90 units of fuel; when it hits 80. you need to abort; when it hits 75, you can still make it back but you're going to have to fly it very carefully, and when it hits 70, you might as well land because you're not making it back no matter what...

[EventHorizon]

Made my 8th attempt tonight. Built rocket as per Scotts guide. Almost made it but ran out of fuel coming into land on mun . I think i must be wasting fuel with inefficient vector changes & i need to leave earth exactly due east. Each time i launch on a scew i have to burn to correct this.

That said with each attempt im getting closer to a successful landing & more familiar with the interface/controls. Plus i learn something new on every attempt. Addict is the word .

Edited April 21, 2013 by EventHorizon

[CalculusWarrior]

The trick is to burn as little as possible when transferring. I would suggest adding an ASAS unit to your ship, and letting that point you in the correct direction, by hitting 'T'.

Aside from that, you may be ascending incorrectly. If you have the proper rocket (which it sounds like you do, if you're following Scott's guide), go straight up for about 10 km, then turn over to 45 degrees, and keep pitching down slowly, making sure your time to apoapsis is always increasing. I think he goes over this as well, but I can't remember, it's been a while since I watched that particular video.

Just follow Scott's instructions to get to the Mun, burn once, when the Mun is rising, and be sure that your nose is pointed directly onto the prograde vector. It helps to point prograde before burning, then lock ASAS, and then activate your engine. Not only does burning off the prograde vector waste fuel, but it will alter your trajectory, requiring you to expend even more fuel trying to get back on target.

Landing can be tough. Even after I had mastered the Munar transfer and rocket building, I still couldn't land for the life of me. A really handy tool to have is the Quicksave function, toggled by hitting the F5 key. As long as you aren't throttled up or about to crash, a little 'quicksaving' icon should appear in the top right hand corner. Now, at any point further along in the mission, you can return to that point by holding the F9 key. So if you are to attempt a landing, hit F5 and try to land. If you screw up, simply hold F9, and you will return to your orbit as it was before you began your descent. Mastering the quicksave function is a godsend, especially when you're first starting out.

And yes, this game is very addicting. I'm an extremely busy Engineering student, and I have to force myself not to play it when I have big tests and assignments due. So to get my space fix, I go around the forums, trying to answer people's problems

Hope this helps!

[ThatBum]

A big part of getting to the Mun (or anywhere else for that matter) is knowing when to do your trans-Munar injection from your Kerbin parking orbit, so the Mun will indeed be there when you intersect its orbit, and no wonky midcourse corrections are required. For the Mun, you should wait till the Mun is 45 degrees (or around 2 o'clock) from Kerbin, and burn prograde when the moon is just rising over Kerbin's horizon.

When landing, you should kill your horizontal speed early by burning retrograde, and falling the rest of the way with low engine power.

[EventHorizon]

Found the problem, a stray brace was holding a movable flap to the fuselage. doh.

Made it oh yeah!. Jeb is now standing outside his pod on the surface of the mun. Only problem is i cant control him ? somehow i have clicked elsewhere. How do i regain control of Jeb? I want to move him to the horizon so he can view the earth.

Also we have lost our final stage during the (amateur) landing so Jeb wont be returning home for his heroes welcome .

Edited April 23, 2013 by EventHorizon

[Deadpangod3]

Found the problem, a stray brace was holding a movable flap to the fuselage. doh.

Made it oh yeah!. Jeb is now standing outside his pod on the surface of the mun. Only problem is i cant control him ? somehow i have clicked elsewhere. How do i regain control of Jeb? I want to move him to the horizon so he can view the earth.

Also we have lost our final stage during the (amateur) landing so Jeb wont be returning home for his heroes welcome .

Time for a rescue mission?

[rkman]

Congratulations.

Use [ and ] to change focus between ships and kerbals (not sure if this works in the demo but afaik it's a standard feature). Use WASD keys to control the kerbal, hold shift to run, space to jump, R to activate the jetpack (when flying with the jetpack hold shift for up, ctrl for down wasd for direction).

"Also we have lost our final stage during the (amateur) landing so Jeb wont be returning home for his heroes welcome."

That happens to pretty much everyone on the first Mun mission.

You might be able to rescue him using a rocket with two pods, on of them empty (on the launch pad EVA one of the kerbals, then "end flight" on him).

[capi3101]

Rescue missions can be tricky; I've done it myself before using a Mk-1 and a Hitchhiker module. Lander weighed twenty tons but it worked well. The trick is getting close enough to your stranded Kerbal so that they can either walk or jetpack (two to three kilometers at the most unless you've got a hell of a lot of time). I had a thread going that mentioned how to do it; alas that it was a victim of the recent forum nuking.

I still have the .craft file of my rescue ship. I still can't post attachments but I'd happily walk you through the steps you'd need to re-create it.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Scott has lots of experience so is pretty efficient in his fuel usage. I am no slouch but still didn't do so well with the rocket he used. I ran out of fuel on a couple attempts. I had to add more fuel to the mid stage.

Also I make it a habit of having docking ports on all manned missions. I have had to launch WAY to many rescue missions.

[Aragosnat]

The other thing others are forgetting to mention is. Let the Mun pull you in for free Delta-Vs. This happens around 4,500 km or less and it will take several passes to have the Mun reach you and then start pulling you in. It seems on the 3rd free pull you get the nose dive into the Mun if you headed east or if lucky a free ride out of Kerbin's influance. Not sure about when heading from the west. Sorry for the first post too. =^.^=

[corvus2606]

The other thing others are forgetting to mention is. Let the Mun pull you in for free Delta-Vs. This happens around 4,500 km or less and it will take several passes to have the Mun reach you and then start pulling you in. It seems on the 3rd free pull you get the nose dive into the Mun if you headed east or if lucky a free ride out of Kerbin's influance. Not sure about when heading from the west. Sorry for the first post too. =^.^=

Not quite true, if you aren't in mun's soi then it has no effect on your orbit. Ksp doesn't do n body physics.

Also as far as the rescue mission goes, I didn't think the demo allowed more than 1 active mission

[sjpateys]

Landing can be tough. Even after I had mastered the Munar transfer and rocket building, I still couldn't land for the life of me. A really handy tool to have is the Quicksave function, toggled by hitting the F5 key. As long as you aren't throttled up or about to crash, a little 'quicksaving' icon should appear in the top right hand corner. Now, at any point further along in the mission, you can return to that point by holding the F9 key. So if you are to attempt a landing, hit F5 and try to land. If you screw up, simply hold F9, and you will return to your orbit as it was before you began your descent. Mastering the quicksave function is a godsend, especially when you're first starting out

Wow! wish I'd known this before!

[Alistone]

Not quite true, if you aren't in mun's soi then it has no effect on your orbit. Ksp doesn't do n body physics.

Also as far as the rescue mission goes, I didn't think the demo allowed more than 1 active mission

You can do "slingshot" maneuvers in KSP even without n-body phsics. What he meant was that if you can get up from kerbin enough to enter the mun SOI that you can use the mun's gravity to pull you further toward it which is upward and further in an equatorial direction.

Usually just "skipping across the SOI once won't do it, but it's only a matter of time before you enter again and eventually it pulls you into a close encounter where you can either do a course correction burn / land / or be flung out much further into space.

You can use this energy to pull you in from a slightly lower shallow kerbin orbit. Other techniques about how you enter the mun's SOI can have it help slow you down as well.

If you are falling toward the mun as it is moving away from you then you will be falling for a longer period of time because of the distance it is moving while you are falling. This gives you extra dV. If you are falling toward the mun as it is moving towards you then you are falling (being sped up) for a shorter period of time, if you then use its gravity to turn your craft 180 degrees then you will be moving in the same direction as the mun and you will be slowed down for a longer period of time as the mun is still moving toward you as you are coasting away from it.

[Aragosnat]

Yes. I ment one can get to the Sphere of Influance and then sit back and wait for the Mun to pass by and pull you closer and what I posted was how close one needed to be inorder to be affected by it. By knowing that. One does not really need to launch when Mun is over head, even though it does help.

And from what I remember. The demo allows you 3 active missions. Would have to re-download the demo to make sure.

[Rainbowtrout]

To land on the Mun in the demo(Even though I haven't done it)use the Kerbal 5 rocket.

[Monkeystador]

The Kerbal 5 Stock doesnt have landing gear and i believe you wont get back easily.

Search for the Moonwalker Redux Rocket in the Spacecraft Exchange. Its build with the demo version.

[EventHorizon]

Im ok for rockets thx. Have been playin around with it & have managed to get 74,000,000,000m from the sun. 74million km. I'm wondering what it takes to get a sun escape vector?

A massive amount of thrust i guess.

[EventHorizon]

Have managed 167.7 million km from sun, still a long way from sun escape. Does anyone know if this is actually possible to achieve?

[lyndonguitar]

Best thing is to buy the full version you won't regret it