Travelling to other planets

[Knas]

I know theres alot of tutorial and alot of other threads likes this, but none of those helped me.

Hey everyone.

As the title says I'm having issues going to other planets. Without bragging I can say I make decent ships that should be possible to get to other planets. My problem is getting inside it's sphere of influence. By "it" I mean Duna since people says it's the easiest to go to.

I have already landed on the Mun over 5 times and landed on minmus once. So I think im ready for interplanetary. So when I'm using this manvuever node I do get an intercept. I burn the way it tells me to burn. But I don't get inside of the sphere of influence of Duna. I don't know what I'm doing wrong really. I watched alot of tutorial videos but didn't find them any helpful. Can anyone give me some tips for this or link a good explaining video? I'm also using this: http://ksp.olex.biz/

To calculate angles.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Knas

[MrKicker]

http://ksp.olex.biz/

This gives your a in depth guid and a calculator.

http://i.imgur.com/9xvAsIT.png

Usefull chart to have.

[dave4002000]

So when I'm using this manvuever node I do get an intercept.

Are you actually getting an encounter node with the little circle showing an SOI change? Or are you just getting the two blue arrows that show your closest approach?

If you are just getting the arrows, then you need to make another adjustment burn (usually halfway through the trip) to get your approach close enough so that you get the SOI change icon.

[Tex_NL]

Not the most efficient or fastest method but by far the easiest:

First of all you want to leave Kerbin's SoI and get into a Kerbol orbit. Once in orbit around Kerbol select your target destination and if necessary adjust your inclination. Create a maneuver node and raise AP/ lower PE so it matches with your target orbit. Move the maneuver node around your orbital path until you get an encounter, time warp if you need to. Execute your maneuver node and enjoy the ride.

As I said; this is NOT the most efficient method (you won't get any benefits from the Oberth effect) and it usually takes some time warping. But it IS easier and you won't risk missing your launch window.

[Knas]

Are you actually getting an encounter node with the little circle showing an SOI change? Or are you just getting the two blue arrows that show your closest approach?

If you are just getting the arrows, then you need to make another adjustment burn (usually halfway through the trip) to get your approach close enough so that you get the SOI change icon.

I'm getting the ecnounter node with a SOI change. But when when I burn to it I never get SOI of the planet. But very close.

[dave4002000]

That is very odd, indeed. I don't think i've ever had a situation where the map screen was showing an SOI change that never ended up happening.

[Spica]

All I have to say is that you must try to get your periapsis VERY low down above the target body, for Duna, I typically shoot for under 200km, and if i want to aerobrake, I will go MUCH lower. As far as I know, this may be a problem of a target periapsis that is too high, or that you are simply not executing your maneuvers correctly.

[Knas]

I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

[Anton P. Nym]

Another issue I find is that the maneuver node system doesn't handle long-duration burns from LV-Ns or Ion engines terribly well; the burn durations it gives are far too short in the estimator, then during the burn you find it takes several seconds for one second of estimated burn time to come off the clock.

If this is what's happening I'd suggest setting the world as your target to make sure your inclination is still okay, then trying a correction burn a bit ahead of where you are in your orbit (give yourself plenty of time to puzzle things out) and try to set up another encounter there. Hopefully the burn estimate will be a bit closer this time.

-- Steve

[Knas]

Okay so I tried again, got a perfect SOI prediction, I burned at the blue marker untill is said 0.1m/s But I wasn't even near my prediction. :/

[Geschosskopf]

I pretty much reiterate what the others have said, with a few additions.

1. To avoid the node burn time error (the major cause of missed encounters IMHO). blip the throttle of the engine you'll use to do the burn. That is, tap L-SHF to start the engine up with the least-possible amount of thrust, then a split-second later hit X to kill the engine. This won't make any noticeable change in your orbit or your upcoming ejection burn, but it will reset the burn time calculator and usually put it right on the button, even for nuclear engines with 6-minute burn times.

NOTE: This pretty much a requirement for ALL ships to do burns for any purpose more than a few seconds' duration if either 1) you've never run that engine before, 2) you ran it before, but haven't run it since you docked that engine to other parts of the ship, or 3) have run the engine before but since then have changed your focus to another ship or quit the game and restarted it. All of the above things screw up the burn-time calculator, so ALWAYS blip the throttle at some point before your burn and don't do any of the above things until the burn happens, just to be sure.

2. Even failing to blip the throttle isn't that big a deal on ejection burns. OK, so the burn-time calculator was way off and you did considerably more than 1/2 your burn after the appointed time. No worries. PROVIDED you ejected at the proper time with more or less the right amount of burn in more or less the right direction, you won't be off very much. Just coast until you leave Keribin's SOI and wait for the SOI change to happen completely, so your blue path leads in the general direction of the target. Now you can add a maneuver node a short distance ahead of your present position to get the encounter you thought you had before. It probably won't cost you more than 20-30 delta-V.

[Slugy]

Two tips:

1) Burn so that you are half way done by the time you get to the maneuver node.

2) Watch what is happening in map view!

[TheSaint]

If you have a really long burn time (I've had burns of up to 20 minutes) another trick is to PE bump: burn at your node until just before you reach escape velocity, stop the burn, time warp around your orbit until you are at the node again (which should be at or close to your PE), then finish your burn. It makes it a lot easier to keep more of the burn on the right vector.

[MrPopcup]

Knas, listen, I know what your going through, but you must do this:

Once in Kerbin orbit, make sure that Duna is in correct angle to make your burn there, ( imagine that kerbol is a dot, and your planet is the circle around the dot, then you gotta imagine this as a clock, Kerbin must be at 3 O'clock and Duna must be 2:30 or 1:30 O'clock, at least this works for me with EVERY planet. ) then do your maneuver node, press M to view map, and bring the navball up ( in middle of screen, look at the bottom you'll see an arrow, press on it ) then follow the node marker ( blue ) and while your in map view, zoom out to see your trajectory and MONITOR IT yourself, once you see that you got lines moving ( yellow,Pink ). you said you went to mun and minmus, when you encountered them you saw those, so you probably know what I'm talking about, after you see those, press X to cut engines. and time warp, once you get out of SOI of KERBIN'S there MUST be a change in the direction your going, so once your in orbit around the sun, make a maneuver node and adjust untill you see an encounter, again monitor it until you see the encounter lines, then press X and time warp, once you reach Duna make your periapses low and time warp until you reach it, retro-burn and your in orbit!

Please excuse me on any grammar mistakes, english is my 3rd language and i'm trying my best to help you out, keep in mind it's 1:01 am and i'm sleepy..

NOTE**: I think this is by far the best explanation for you to understand, do this: get a pen and paper, write everything in steps, put it infront of you and follow them. you'll reach duna in one try, again DONT GIVE UP!

[Knas]

Okay so I got into SOI of duna! But periapis was 45million meters. I couldn't get it lower because if I did i wouldnt get in the SOI at all. So because I had nuclear engines I wasnt able to make orbit Can anyone tell me how to get low periapis?

[Knas]

EDIT: I got a orbit around Duna after a few retries :DDDDD Thank everyone for all the answer. Now wish me luck to land!! But I could still use a few advices how to get lower Periapis because it was just barely I got a orbit because my atomic engines had like 3.20 fuel left in each tank.

[MrPopcup]

1st method -It's simple, once your in sun's orbit, time warp until your close to Duna , then make the view in map show you how your path will be near duna, setup a maneuver node and play around with ( in general the blue ones, they are on left and right ) until you see it closing to the planet, also adding Velocity ( pro-grade ) or Decreasing your velocity ( retro-grade ) will however help you out.

Hope I helped you!

2nd method - do it only once in ORBIT!-- say your appoapsis is 45 Million km and periapsis of 40 million km ( or any other altitude, it doesn't matter, really. ) time warp until you reach apoapsis ( in this case 45M ) and burn retro grade to make your periapsis go lower, keep retro-burning until ( say 120 km ) then press X, time warp until periapsis and retro burn again to decrease appoapsis to 120 km ( again, just for example, you decide with your throttle level and when you cut the engine off. ) and hurray! you got a fine perfect orbit around Duna!

Edited August 6, 2013 by MrPopcup

[Knas]

Here is the final screenshot! Once again thanks everyone for the help.

http://imgur.com/aPfhybM

[MrPopcup]

Nice job buddy! keep practising!

glad I helped! mark this as answered!

go to your first post in this thread, click on edit post and go advanced in top left you should see unanswered, change it to answered and click save!

[Knas]

Nice job buddy! keep practising!

glad I helped! mark this as answered!

go to your first post in this thread, click on edit post and go advanced in top left you should see unanswered, change it to answered and click save!

Found the advanced options, thanks! I marked it as Answered