Claw

Yep, this is what I do as well. Most of the time you can set Minmus as your target, and you'll get the "location at intercept" tags. So you can slide the node around till you get a descent (out of plane) intercept. Then, like Temstar said, pick a point somewhere halfway out to Minmus and give a little correction burn to intercept Minmus at a better angle. This gets a bit harder to do when Minmus is at it's high/low point relative to Kerbin because the flags are less likely to show up.

Nice job, and welcome to the forums! If you have general questions, this forum link is a good place to post and get answers. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/15-Gameplay-Questions-and-Tutorials Also, here's another challenge you can try out with the Aeris 4A if you want. Land it on the Mun. It takes a bit of finesse since there's no air. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/73256-Land-on-Mun-with-Aeris-4A

Kasuha was making a stock challenge. Even if you only loaded the asteroid mod, you'd need another mod to grapple it. Also Kasuha, thanks for not forcing use of the welding mod. I'm gonna have to give this a try out.

I must say... If you've only been playing a week and you designed/flew/landed this thing on the Mun, then you're already doing really well! There will always be all kinds of tweaks and modifications people do to their landers, but if you aren't having problems flying/landing this then stick with your gut feelings. If you haven't landed this one on a slope yet you might find it's a bit top heavy, but it still looks great. If you're looking to land at the same spot on the Mun, I usually start by getting into a fairly low, circular orbit. Then I drop my PE so that it's a few km above my target area (around 3 to 5km or lower depending on skills/practice and terrain clearance). As you approach the landing spot (near PE), burn retrograde to kill horizontal (orbital) speed. The altitude available due to setting your PE height will allow you time to reorient as the camera flips and you can lower yourself to the desired spot. As you get better, some people descend fairly ballistic and aim the trajectory at the landing spot, then burn hard right before impacting the ground. I find this a little harder to start off with because the planet/moon rotates so it's a bit harder to "aim" the ballistic landing spot in the right location. Also, timing the engine burn is rather unforgiving. Too early or late and it turns into a mess... If you're thinking about making a Munar base, a lot of people also use wheeled rover movers to get all the parts together. Here's a thread discussing a modular Munar base with rover assembly. There are lots of ways to do what you want. Try them out and see what works best for you. Good Luck! EDIT: Oh yes. And the thing I wish I knew about when I was first exploring the Mun and trying to figure out how to land.... Quicksave (F5) & Quickload (F9) (if you didn't know already...) Quicksave will save your game right where you are. Quickload will go back to where ever you last quicksaved. So if you want lots of practice landing, get your lander into a good orbit right before you're ready to practice. Then quicksave. Now you can practice multiple landings at different approach styles without having send multiple new missions.

Wow. The fact that you got within 50m using GOAP is pretty awesome. I didn't even try to lithobrake.

No Way! You definitely don't need skippers to get to the Mun. Although I will agree that Minmus is a better target to aim for first if you are having a hard time. It takes a little bit more fuel to get there, but everything else after that is easier (and requires less fuel). Anyway, there are tons of videos out there if watching videos helps you out. Here is a by a fairly popular KSP player, but he goes to Minmus in this one. It's a bit long at 38 minutes.Here is another video of someone going to the Mun with the demo version, which might be handy if you are still early in the tech tree. Plus this video is only about 9 minutes long. Like EtherDragon said, a big key point (in my opinion) is to go with very little equipment with you. Once you get some practice, it gets a lot easier and you can bring more stuff. And don't worry, this game is certainly not easy for everyone to start off with. Once you get more experience/practice, it gets easier to design. GOOD LUCK!!

I'm not sure if this is a challenge or a request for help...but here is Bill and Bob, safe on Kerbin.

Wait. What? I don't think KSC mission control would approve of that sort of building.

You might want to consider if using jet engines is acceptable. They change the payload mass fraction by quite a bit and put jet boosted rockets at quite an advantage in this. (Unless that's what you're looking for.) Also, is your intent that one ship does as much of this as possible. i.e. You launch one ship in orbit and do all of what you propose? Or do you make one design and are allowed to launch multiple copies on several missions? You might want to add more details on using ion engines. Someone could just slap an ion on the side so it's technically "in use" but have a NERVA (or other) as the main engine, which I don't think you intended. Do you need to land on the body to get the points? Or just obtain orbit, or pass through the SOI? For example, how do I get the +20 for going to Minmus? Just some things to think about.

Yes, renaming save directories works just fine. I have done it many, many times. You can also create multiple copies of a single save game and simply rename the folder (before you try something catastrophic in that save...). I have not yet run into any problems doing that.

Usually when I see this question, it turns out that people are asking one of two things: The first question, You want to RCS have keys mapped like EVA keys. If that's the case, you can do that as others have suggested by editing your settings on the main menu. The second question I see is that you really want to fly a ship like a kerbal flies: always oriented to the camera so that pressing "up" is always "up", pressing "left" is always "left" and so on. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Your ship won't "autorotate" to the camera orientation like a kerbal can. So you'll either have to manually reorient your camera constantly or reorient your ship so it matches your camera. The other thing you can do (and more painful initially) is change your kerbal EVA settings in the main menu so that they don't automatically rotate to match the camera. That way you get used to flying an EVA and docking in the same way, orienting your mind to the part instead of orienting the part to the screen. Like I said, it's a painful learning curve to start off with. Anyway, probably isn't the answer you were hoping for. Good luck!

I'm not sure if you actually figured it out, or if you're giving up. But Cruzan has a few good, basic VTOL videos and instructions here. EDIT: Dang it, always getting ninja'd by Taki. At least I agree again.

Yep, you got me on that one. I know gravity drops off, but I poorly assumed that it wasn't dropping off fast enough that it would matter much in the resulting difference (284 m/s). But it clearly did, because that's about 100 m/s too high. You are indeed correct, thanks. Incidentally, the orbital mechanics I was referring to was people breaking out Oberth. Also, there are some discussions about converting potential to kinetic, and I think I recall seeing something about the energy always being the same, no matter how you get there. That all over complicates the question, but I tried to oversimplify...

Nice Job! If you want to change the thread to answered, edit your original post. Then you can click on the dropdown and select "answered".

I didn't check your orbital velocities, but they look about right. We don't need to get all fancy with orbital mechanics to answer what you're asking... You ask about killing all surface velocity and dropping straight down. The equation for dropping straight down is: Velocity = square root (2 * distance fallen * g) So falling straight down from 36km: V = sqrt (2 * 36000 * 1.63) = ~342 m/s. Falling straight down from 120km: V = sqrt (2 * 120000 * 1.63) = ~625 m/s So yes, it will take less dV to "stop" your orbital velocity at 120km (specifically 523 - 451 = 72 m/s less). However, it will take more dV to "instantly stop" your descent from 120km (specifically 625 - 342 = 283 m/s). The ship has a lot more opportunity to speed up during the fall, and the earlier you start fighting gravity with thrust, the more dV you will spend against gravity. So it's "cheaper" overall to get your orbit as low as possible using all the usual cost saving tricks and transfers. Then once you are low, burn to kill your horizontal speed and spend as little time falling as necessary, allowing enough altitude for your skills and craft to readjust orientation and land safely.

I love it. Seats on tugs and rovers feel so much more appropriate. And I find it's just plain fun to see a little guy driving that stuff around, instead of it driving itself.

Yes, a probe core provides more than enough torque for something like that. Here is yet another example of using external command seats. It's from a challenge I just did, except I wanted to make it a bit more capable of a rescue vehicle. It weighs less than 1t unmanned (including mounting hardware), can recover on land or water, can carry two kerbals, and has 1700 m/s dV when manned. It also comes equipped with power, flight computer, and communications. The pictures show it recovering from the surface of the Mun, but that used less than half the fuel.

Haha, that looks pretty sweet.

Yes, I agree with Taki. Your navball isn't going to act how it looks like it should if it's showing all blue. I know that makes it look like a compass, but it won't really act like a compass. You're better off flipping the probe core upright so that it's pointed forward. Then when you drive, you'll have a prograde marker pointing on the heading that you're actually pointed at. For example, this is a picture of a rover that I drove from KSC to the north pole. Granted, I was heading north, but note the navball (half blue/half brown). Edit: Ahh, ninja'd. Sorry, I had this post open for a while before I posted. Glad you got it sorted out.

I'm having a hard time telling what part is actually breaking. Is it the radial decouplers that hold on the side boosters or the in-line decoupler higher up? Based on the fact that you're going 114 m/s at 4 seconds into the flight, I would guess you're accelerating a bit too hard. You might need to back your throttle down a little bit, and you'll likely have to keep throttling down as you burn off fuel (until you stage off some engines).

Rotating them might actually be your problem. If you just strap two on the sides with symmetry on and slide them down to a low point on the sides, they shouldn't block the hatch.

Here is my entry. I added a few more requirements on myself. - Must carry 2 or more kerbals - Must be capable of returning from the surface of the Mun - Must be 1.0t or less, including mounting hardware. (All stock except MechJeb.) This design is aerodynamically stable on reentry. It needed to be since the battery is very limited. A probe core provides enough torque to orient the craft during burns and to orient the heat shield for reentry. Solar panel is extendable via hand crank for when batteries are dead, and MJ acts as a probe-core interface (but isn't really needed). End result is that it weighs 0.998t and has 1709 dV when loaded with 2 kerbals. Comes equipped with a parachute, solar panel, and communications system. Is capable of recovering in water or on land and can act as a boat, sun, or wind shelter. Jeb refused to fly because it has too many frills.

I'm already here!

Yay! How long to build it or how long to get up the side? This is the third crawler design I tried. The first two I tried to have horizontal "ground" oriented wheels with a vertical "wall" oriented wheels. Those things flexed too much and were hard to steer. Anyway, for this design it took me around 30 seconds to get up the wall. Although it took me probably 5 or 6 tries though. Turns out those little windows are actually recessed and catch onto the wheels. Past that it requires some coordinated wheel/torque steering. Plus I had to time turning off the jet engine at the right time to keep from flinging it off the building. hahaha Since it's my turn, I'll leave it open for someone to post another challenge again.

Your point system seems straight forward, but I'm unclear what the overall goal is. Is something like this what you have in mind? (It's from another challenge, but is flying saucer looking...) Up to 8 crew: 4x5 + 4x10 = 60 points Cargo 2.6t: = 2.6x10x1 = 26 points No weapons, unless you count the RCS tanks as bombs. Then 10x8 = 80 points Range: It can go around Kerbin 3 times and it wasn't even full of gas (something like 11,300km) = 11,300 points? Altitude: It went to Minmus... Reach Space: Yep, +30 Other Body: If Minmus counts, +30 (unless you mean another actual planet) No escape system It went to Minmus so I have no idea how you want that factored into Range and Altitude... So there might be some gaps in your scoring system. Unless you can be a little more clear with your vision of what kind of craft you want.