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Zylark

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  1. Size is not a quality in and by itself - in KSP at least. Unless you're Whackjob or just want to test your PC to the breaking-point. It is about having the right size booster for the payload you wish to get into orbit. I tend to make a selection of boosters to kick stuff into orbit and save them as sub-assemblies. That way, when done making some payload, and knowing its weight, I can select the correct booster from the sub-assemblies and just plug it in under the payload. Maybe add some strutting if the payload is some multiple-module ungainly wobbly thing - if not then just hit launch knowing I got enough oomph to get it to orbit without trouble. Added benefits are keeping payloads reasonable, as there are weight concerns that if exceeded will cost a bit more for the booster - or if exceeding the max of my heaviest booster, would require designing a new heavier booster plus the near endless loop of "simulating" launches before getting it right. Currently I got four booster designs, ranging from <06 Tons to <60 Tons - can be exceeded only if the payload got its own propulsion to finalize getting to orbit. So far no need to go bigger.
  2. Main problem with Dres is that it is so tiny with a gravity-well to match. So to get an intercept you need to get very close. My approach is to get to a high Kerbin orbit - around 30.000km, wait until the approximate launch window give or take a couple of weeks either way and then just eyeball it until I get a little flicker of an intercept. That means I'm in the ballpark. Then I use the Maneuver Node Editor of MechJeb to make very fine adjustments until I get a stable intercept. Any intercept will do. After performing the initial burn, about halfway out I make some small adjustment to get a better intercept (or regain it should it disappear whilst en route - happens often especially with crewed vessels using powerful engines, less so with small probes using low-thrust engines), preferably even a Pe marker. Repeat that as I get closer still.
  3. Why make do with a SUV when a Learjet will do the job better and faster - at a slight increase in cost... Quite a bit happening in this installment. The probe to Moho finally got underway. Also did the final adjustment for the first Duna Probe, which is now getting close to its' target. Then of course got the little auxiliary mining operation en route to its' Mun destination. By means of the Fuel Truck giving it a nice push from Kerbin to the Mun. Main reason being, it got a DockingPort Sr at the top that interface nicely with the same port at the base of the Miner. A feature not present on my two little Shuttles - and the two landers that do have such a port on the top haven't got the fuel capacity to haul the cargo that far. Oh, and yes, a little bit of mystery cargo there hidden in the Fairing still. It's a brand new transport for our friend Cambald. To go visit some anomalies and do sciency stuff. The rover Cambald rides in now is all fine apart from a couple of details such as speed and being very dangerous to ride going any faster than 10m/s. Low gravity means any bump will make the thing go flying, tumbling and crashing with a bang. It is a very nice rover though, I see a future for it at some other location - but for now - Cambald is soon getting a new ride. On the way down with the luxury ride. It cost well near 180k. Featuring 6 small nuclear reactors, four Argon-electric thrusters at 3.8kN each, all the science gear you'd ever wish for, Life support and even a bit of RCS for fine control. Down safe under robotic control. All that remains now is for Cambald to change vehicle and then go exploring. Meanwhile, the new miner also got set down to its intended location on that rather steep hill. To keep it as even keeled as possible, not all landing legs are out and the one engine + fuel tank left on it (detached the other two) is full of fuel to act as ballast. Not quite evenly upright, but close enough. Produces Substrate at a very good rate, and Minerals at a pretty decent rate. Which is good news for Mun Base once those resources get transported over. --- Funds are down to about 2.2 million. So not even slightly worried. Also, the MSL Feynman is now working on its final experiment before heading back to Kerbin.
  4. ...or go get the Universal Storage mod. Not only does it shrink very significantly both the Goo container and the Science Jr pod, they even get put into small wedges which you can fit four of inline on a 1.25m vessel - eight on a 2.5m vessel. Stack them and you can fit even more. Also comes with wedges for the Dmagic Orbital Science mod plus various utilities and fuel storage.
  5. I know, not very relevant in game-play terms, but very interesting nonetheless: Gives a good walk-through of the advantages of nuclear engines and how they work.
  6. If jumping from planet to planet, from a moon to another moon or going from a planet to a moon, Mechjeb is pretty much useless. You're better off setting up the maneuver node manually and just use the Maneuver Node Editor of MJ to fine tune it. Rendezvous Autopilot can be a time-saver *if* you and your target is in more or less the same orbit. If your orbit differs by say 100km or more you're probably better off using good'ol Hohmann Transfer.
  7. I've not had quite as many problems as you running RT - but I've had my fair share of duplicate vessels going kablooie forcing a revert to a previous save. I'm also rethinking keeping RT in my career. The concept of the mod is great, but it would seem it have not gotten much love and attention lately, so the bugs are pretty bad when they do crop up.I also keep backups of all saves... Should anything happen - which it have, and backups have saved my bacon more than once. Basically I copy paste the latest persistent save to a separate folder. I got five of them backup folders, save_1 through save_5. Plus I alt-tab now and again to make backups. Not to mention a near compulsive disorder regarding making quicksaves. Or put in slightly other words: I've had my share of problems, and the current version - at least with all the mods I am running - is not entirely stable.
  8. At this stage KSP is pretty much a bare-bones framework of a game. Which if I remember correctly is part of the dev team strategy. First make a feature, add in just enough assets to make it work, tweak and refine. Additional assets and features to be added as development progresses. Meanwhile, impatient players use the great ability to mod the game to flesh out or add new assets and features according to how they see fit. Which have resulted in some pretty impressive work and I might add a much more enjoyable game compared to playing stock. Some mods features even make it to the core game, by 'accident' (squad going "now why didn't we think of that?!") or it have always been somewhere on the agenda just not been done yet. Spaceplanes is a good example. They'll also do some career tracking of Kerbals (like final Frontier perhaps?), a Connected Living Space feature is in the works as well I think. New and improved Navball. More to be announced I'm sure once 0.25 is out the door. On my short-list of really needed features are something akin to: - Kerbal Alarm Clock : Never miss a node when warping - Kerbal Engineer Redux / MechJeb (sans autopilot?) : Fine control and plenty of crucial information - Procedural Fairings : Making ungainly things look cool on the launchpad. Throw in a better atmosphere and aerodynamics model, and we're golden - Open Resource System + Karbonite / Kethane : In-situ resources is a must - Station Science + Dmagic Orbital Science : Making stations be more than fuel-depots - SCANSat : Mapping out places before visiting them. Especially useful for sniffing out resources Still early days, will be interesting to see where this game is headed. And even should some favourite feature be missing for the stock game when the final DO-UNTIL statement is written, there will always be mods. Making the game what you want it to be
  9. Before you attach the boosters to kick it up into orbit, whilst in the VAB check out your Center of Mass. Whatever side the CoM is heavier on, you attach ballast to the opposite side. Easiest done by bolting on a radial decoupler with a large truss and at the end of it a fuel tank that tilts the CoM a little over the Center-point. Then drain that fuel tank of a little fuel until the CoM-ball is centered. Then just proceed to strut up your ballast, bolt the boosters back on and away to orbit you go
  10. There is minerals in dem'dar hills! Aight - doing some prospecting to flesh out the resource harvesting for all the machinery at Mun Base. A little off-site drilling operation is needed to supply my Base with Substrate and Minerals. Off and away with the prospecting crew - Jeb as the experienced pilot and Cambald to man the rover. Down on the ground Cambald transferred over to the prospecting rover. Distance to the most promising site is a bit off - on a pretty steep hillside to boot. Substrate is not all that hard to find... Minerals on the other hand is very scarce in comparison. My selected site however is quite rich in both. Flag planted as a future reference. The picture is a bit deceiving. It looks nice and flat and all, but that is just a trick of the camera angle. In reality the site is on a 25 to 30 degrees slope. Which roughly translates to the rig I intend to land there to mine out those vital resources, need a pretty wide separation for the landing legs so as to not topple over when touching down. edit: Hmm, 10km back to the lander. There is plenty of Life Support left in the rover, so perhaps go visit the nearby anomaly and see what it is. As for where to park the rover when all done, I'm thinking doing so at Mun Base. That way, Jeb can get back to Kerbin post haste whilst Cambald goes sightseeing. --- Funds are still at about 2.4 million. Made a pretty penny during this mission, as I had contracts both for planting a flag and do science on the Mun.
  11. Bigger must be better! Things are going slow. Basically just expanding on my Mun Base and Resource Station. The Resource Station got a much wanted additional Karbonite tank and another hub for future expansion. At the far end is also my new little Fuel Truck. Also bolted on some more storage for various equiptment and life support the Mun Base will produce. Mun Base got a couple more greenhouses and a factory. Not much to go now before it is complete. One or two more batches, and it'll be done. There is a slight problem however. First, the site of it do not produce much minerals or substrate. The former is important for manufacture of parts and stuff, the latter for getting food and oxygen production up. Due to the lack of substrate, I'd had to resupply the base with more food and oxygen to keep it going for a while more. Basically bought some time. What I will need to do is make an auxiliary mini-base or two. Finding some site full of substrate and minerals would be great, but through some cursory pondering over the maps, such a thing is not very common. One site looks promising for minerals with an ok supply of substrate. The very rich in substrate sites are not that rich in minerals however. So I guess, coming up is some Mun rover action, to find suitable sites for plonking down some tanks with drills attached... In other news, the MSL Feynman is soon done with its very important Minmus science mission. Can't wait to haul that thing back home and collect the treasure of science and funds both
  12. For my big SRBs I put one Sepatron near the top of the booster in a upwards pointing 60 degree angle or thereabouts. This pushes the SRB down and out whilst at the same time not burning more than a fraction of a second on any given spot on the fuel tank of the main booster. Works every time. One little piece of advice though, if doing the separation after the gravity turn - try and release radially mounted boosters sideways rather than having one each over and under the central booster. Makes the separation much more predictable - especially if also using chutes that trigger with the separation and sepatrons.
  13. Wait - you connected 6-7 modules using ordinary docking ports using no extra strutting or support _AND_ had the engines at the back? And the thing did not snap in half during acceleration? It must have been as wobbly as a Jello model of the Empire State Building!
  14. Keeping them orbits clean! (Photobucket have reset my monthly 10gb allowance, so pics in old posts are back up) Waiting for my Mobile Science Lab to get done doing its' business around Minmus, it got decided that to give it a warm welcome back to Kerbin, some cleaning had to be done. Got the SS Asinum back from the Mun after its' tugging mission and parked it at the Transfer Station. Pretty soon the old booster that delivered the 2nd Cyclotron to the MSL Feynman emptied out most of its' bounty of spare fuel at the Transfer Station as well. Left just enough in it to de-orbit it and recoup some precious funds. Now, me and Elon Musk need to have a serious chat - I am sure he is an avid KSP player and use it to prototype his SpaceX designs and naturally follows this thread. Landing a booster stage is no big deal - just add parachutes. Landing Legs, control systems and powered landings just complicates matters to no end. Gimme' a call Elon old mate, and I'll give you some pointers. We'll talk salary later... Another little thing crowded my LKO - well, eccentric and rather high KO as it happens, but nonetheless. The failed Dres Probe. Sent up the Derelict Deorbiter again - this time more chutes added as the last landing was a tad hairy. Cought up with the Probe, and caught it in the claw. In full disclosure, it did *cough* take me three attempts this time around... It just wouldn't bite the first two times. And down safe under a much more comfortable final descent of 4m/s as opposed to last time that went down so fast it almost bounced up again. --- Funds are at about 2.45 million. Got nearly 90k for the spent booster, and some 50k for the probe. No worries though, will soon be spending a fair bit - Mun Base only got 90 days left of food and oxygen, so need to light a fire under getting the place self sufficient.
  15. Well, keeping a profit can be a bit of a challenge, and the various contracts can be a nice distraction from your grand plan of conquering the known universe. Having budgetary constraints doesn't make things easier per-se, but it doesn't really make things harder either. It does make going through a career more interesting on the other hand.
  16. How big can it get? (Photobucket still not up and running - a couple of more days and all the old screenshots should be back. Meanwhile, hello imgur ) Due to the funds windfall after upgrading the StationScience mod, a massive expansion of the Mun Base got going. Three new modules found their way in the first batch. Refinery, Fabrication and storage for refined products. But that was not enough, not by far. Another batch was soon on the launchpad, sitting on top of my 40Ton booster. After getting to orbit, Adam in the SS Asinum popped by to give this new batch a ride to the Mun. Mind you, not all is going to the surface. The two big tanks are going to the Mun Resource Station. So as to make possible transfer of various goods to and from Mun orbit by using the Logistics Module. After getting to Mun orbit, the landing party got ditched, and the two tanks promtly attached to the Resource Station. Some of the cargo in those tanks soon got sent down to the Mun Base using the Logistics Module - Basic Machinery was wanted by two modules down there, and some compost and biomass to kickstart growing Tomatoes and Kabbage. The two new modules made it down safely under their own power - the new and improved Base Landing System. Got tired of endless docking and refueling using the Base Lander, so figured, why not attach the means to land the modules on the modules themselves? Not that expensive using a couple of tanks and LV909s and then throw them away when done. Saves a ton of time, that is for sure. With a clearance of 0.02mm the Greenhouse and parts-storage module got underway. Ditched the Landing-System, and got the Machinery Plant module going. Mun Base starting to take shape - but far from finished. It houses eight Kerbals at the moment, and with only two Greenhouses it'll only produce enough food for four of them. So at least four more Greenhouses are needed as I expect the crew will grow a bit more. Also need a few more modules for making stuff I'll need later. Not so much for Mun Base, but for future bases and stations at faraway places. That way I can launch the modules dry, outfit them in orbit and then haul them off to wherever they might go. Speaking of going to faraway places. I 'hacked' the Karbonite converters and distiller to allow converting Karbonite into LiquidHydrogen (at same rate as LiquidFuel) and ArgonGas (same rate as XenonGas) in anticipation of using those resources with the Near Future Propulsion mod to get to other planets without hauling all that fuel from Kerbin at outrageous extortionate prices... Doing some design work to get to Duna and back as cheap as I can. First made one Duna Lander that weighed in at a massive 17 Tons. Not good enough. So after rethinking it, came up with this: Got all that is needed, plenty of science-gear, more than enough Life Support, just barely enough dV at a smidge under 2200 in Atmosphere. I set a hard limit of minimum 2100dV. 600 to get down, 1500 to get back up. And only weighing in at 9.5 Tons --- Funds are at a comfortable 2.3 million. Still got plenty to spend - which I will...
  17. - You'd like a pretty high orbit for your fuel-depot due to convenience in getting to it. Say you've sent up a vessel dry to a 150km orbit, before circularizing you transfer the last remnants of fuel from the booster before decoupling that and let it de-orbit by itself. With your vessel now at 150km orbit and having enough fuel to let you have around 200dV to play with, all you need is plot a course to intercept your fuel-depot which is up at 250km. Unless you really timed your launch, that means doing a few laps around Kerbin before an economic (less than 80dV) window opens. Being above 140km means more time-compression available. So rather than wait several minutes staring at your vessel going round and round at 100x, you'll spend a minute or less at 1000x. Do use Kerbal Alarm Clock to not miss your maneuver node... - For docking more or less blind, the Docking Port Alignment mod is just great. Easy to read, easy to use. - For assembling big parts my approach is to use the last stage of the booster with some RCS thrusters bolted onto it. So if say my part weighs 20Tons, I use the 40Ton booster - not the 20Ton booster. That way the last stage got enough fuel to get to where the part is supposed to go, even transfer over some fuel when done bolting it onto the Station or Big-Ship, and have enough fuel to de-orbit the stage. For smaller parts I tend to use an SSTO plus a small RCS tug. - Getting big heavy stuff to orbit cost a ton in career, so building an infrastructure that can support new missions and vessels for virtually free will greatly stretch your budget. In sandbox, it makes less sense apart from the coolness factor. - Building simple - or complex for that matter - pretty vessels is easier using parts mods. There you can get stuff like bigger batteries, nuclear reactors to provide power rather than a complex array of brittle solar-panels, alternative fuels and engines with their own pros and cons, and the list goes on.
  18. In my current Career, I got myself set up with a MKS base on Mun that amongst other things also provide a healthy amount of Karbonite. By using the Logistics module of MKS, that Kethane get transported up to my Mun Station that also refines it into LFO and Monoprop. Great thing about the Logistics Module, is that it is automatic - no need to go down to the base manually, pump over the Karbonite, then back to orbit and then process it after docking with the Station. Though I do have a vessel for just that hanging off the back of the Station from before the Logistic Module actually worked... As you can see, the Mun Station is modular. There are room for three more Jumbos' in addition to the one who is already there plus of course the central big SLS tank that came with 23.5. From this station, fuel can be transported wherever I need it, like say to my Transfer Station in Kerbin orbit. Here with a couple of shuttles and a lander attached. Much the same design as the Mun Station, but no refinery bits or Logistics Module. Plenty of places to hook up more large fuel tanks, but due to not having needed to so far, I've not expanded it quite yet. Here too I can attach four radial Jumbos' and if need be plug another large SLS tank at the end with 4 new DockingPort Sr. for more Jumbos'. This station also have room to keep 8 Kerbals happy for some time (I use Life Support mod) whilst they are waiting for some ship to take them outbound or back to KSC.
  19. It all depends upon the job to be done. For getting off the ground most my boosters are based off a central core, to which extra oomph is attached radially and dropped as they run dry. I tend to go wide rather than tall for stability. Usually I get to orbit in three stages. 1st Stage is SRBs, 2nd stage are attached LFO + engines (gets me to roughly 25km) and last central stage do the rest plus circularizing the orbit at LKO - with a smidge of fuel to spare to de-orbit the stage. In my current career I have four such boosters, for up to 6Tons, 20Tons, 40Tons and 60Tons. Only the first is a vertical design, the others are radial. The 60Ton is a full on Asparagus set-up (Core + 6 radial LFO dropped two at a time + 6 SRBs attached to the last pair). For getting to other celestial bodies, unless really early in the career I tend to assemble whatever is needed in orbit, and then get going. Right now for instance, I'm in the planning stages to go to Duna with a lightweight manned mission, three Kerbals there, land one and get back to Kerbin again. All the stuff needed is built in the VAB, then split the thing roughly in half for getting it to orbit in two launches. Once in orbit the two halves will meet up, well actually the second will catch up to the first, and then the assembled vessel will get fueled. The big cost in career mode is getting stuff to LKO. So having a reusable infrastructure of bases, stations, resource gathering (Kethane or Karbonite) and vessels to truck stuff back and forth is key to not going bankrupt. Sending up a dry module with a mass of 15Tons is a lot cheaper than sending up a wet module at 40Tons...
  20. No! Nonononononono - exceeded my photobucket free monthly bandwith of 10gigs. So, uhm, eventhough I got an update or two already in the works, I will have to delay posting it until 1st of September. Hmm, probably by then gotten so far in various projects that I'll organize it under a couple or more special topics posts. Until then, thank you all for breaking my photo-cap by reading my thread - keep it up and I might just have to pay photobucket a bit to up my limit in the future
  21. Looking good. On a side note, the Near Future collection of mods are really growing on me - especially the Argon-Electrical thrusters and all the structural parts. Oh, and the nuclear reactors. So many cool toys to play around with
  22. Good news Everyone! Since last, not only have the MSL Feynman gotten to its' destination. A nice little orbit around Minmus. First contract there even fulfilled by testing the Skipper engine. The scientists are now working hard on other experiments to get up the funds. Which, as it happens, isn't much of a problem any more. The StationScience mod upped the reward for taking on and fulfilling contracts rather significantly in the latest update. Already up to well over 2 million in funds. So had a bit to spend. Decided this was as good a time as any to remove the decommissioned module from my Research Station, and replace it with something more useful. First had to get rid of the old, used the Shuttle to push the now deprecated useless Terraformer module into a de-orbit trajectory. No chutes on the thing or anything, so it will just burn up on re-entry. Then a service mission delivered the new module, the Aeroponics one with some storage for good measure. In the same mission also upped the Kibbals supply that was running rather low, delivered a new experiments pod and picked up the two old ones for return to Kerbin and the KSC. Finally the Dres Probe got underway. Was a long slow burn - those Argon-Electric thrusters don't have all that much oomph. They do compensate in having plenty of delta-V in a nice small lightweight package however. The entire probe weighs in at around 2.5 Tons, which is pretty decent considering all that is bolted onto it. --- Funds as said is up there to a bit over 2.5 million. As the MSL Feynman get its experiments done and return them to KSC, funds will really take a huge leap upwards. Time to plan some manned mission to some planet or other... And expand the Mun base. And the Research Station.
  23. Uhm, ooops. Made a little error in my previous answer. you'll actually need about 800 units of LFO/2100dV to get down to and up to orbit again from Duna. Been a while since last I visited that place *cough*. And whilst you won't burn through more than 100-150dV to deorbit, you will burn through 3-400dV more to get the speed down to a reasonable 300m/s before you fully deploy parachutes. The (stock) atmosphere of Duna do not have the required density to slow down your lander enough before popping the chutes. Meaning if they fully deploy whilst you are still screaming down at 1km/s, the braking force of the chutes will rip your lander to pieces. Once speed is down a bit, the atmosphere is just dense enough at lower altitudes that once the chutes are fully deployed, provided you got enough of them you won't go too fast when getting close to the ground. At which point you just need a little bit of thrust to get speed down from say 8-10m/s to 4-5m/s as you touch down. As long as you got around 1500dV left when landed on Duna, you are good for getting back to orbit again. Regarding the RCS thrusters, one group is as you say enough to make you turn and stuff in all directions - but try docking where you need to move laterally or vertically - with high precision. RCS thrusters don't weigh much, and having them well balanced in two groups on your vessels will make life much easier. If using Deadly Re-Entry, then I'd hazard to guess you'll need a heatshield. I've not used that mod however so I can't say for sure. But I do know that your craft will heat up significantly when entering the Duna atmosphere. With nice flame effects and all.
  24. Getting to a moon in 3 1/2 easy steps. Before getting to that, here is a nice picture of the MSL Feynman picking up the last three crew-members and topping off the fuel tanks over at the Transfer Station. With a mass of 225 Tons it was a very slow process getting it docked. Now you might say - dude you got MechJeb, why not just autodock the thing? If it was a nimble little one-piece thing then sure. But being a huge modular thing with 6 big pieces and 9 small pieces, it does wobble a bit. Not much mind you, but just enough so that autodocking would use up all the RCS fuel within the first 30 seconds of MechJeb trying to keep the nose steady - by wildly compensating up and down, side to side. so with big ships and docking in tight spaces, doing it manually is the only viable option. Now then, how to plot a course for a moon. The first step is making sure you are on the same plane as the moon. Most moons are equatorial to their home planet, Minmus isn't. So had to blow over 200dV getting that done. Next up, getting a proper maneuver node to intercept the moon. First you line up the moon, in this case Minmus, so that it hits the horizon of the planet it is orbiting. That done, you make a maneuver node right there where your orbit crosses the horizon. Then you just drag out the Prograde handle of the maneuver-node until you get a course that intersects the orbit of your target moon. You should then get the intercept-markers. Finally move the maneuver-marker a bit forwards or backwards until you get a proper encounter with a Pe distance popping up near the moon you want to visit. From there on in it is just a matter of doing small adjustments until you reach your wanted final Pe. Doing this by manipulating the maneuver-node in the map view isn't that precise, so I'd recommend using the Maneuver-Node Editor of either MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux. Those editors give very fine control. And with MechJeb, all that remains is to hit the Execute Next Node button, and you should be on course for a good encounter. Again, you may ask - dude, you got MechJeb why not just let that plot an intercept using a Hohman Transfer? Well, doing that you never know what side you end up on - prograde or retrograde. Doing it manually is more precise and gives better control of where you end up when all is said and done. Same problem exist with the Transfer to another Planet auto-plotting of MechJeb. It is just not precise enough - and it is locked to transfer windows. That just won't do in many situations.
  25. Many ways to Duna one can go! - Koda Though if it were me, I'd just as well wait until I'd gotten the DockingPort Sr or through Near Future Construction have the Octo-Girder Docking Connector. Thing is, ordinary docking ports are wobbly. Stick three vessels plus an interplanetary stage together as you intend to in order to make a little train heading for Duna, your combined craft will behave very much like a slinky. Now, using KAS you can apply liberal amounts of Space-Tape (aka struts) after assembling the thing in orbit. But I've had only varied success with that approach. For one thing it is a very tedious job and for a second, any significant twisting stress on those struts and they will snap. Other notes to heed - as others have said, no need for all that RCS. One such tank is plenty - a bit overkill actually, but if not too used to docking better bring a bit more than needed Speaking of RCS - I see your lander only got one set of RCS thrusters. Each module you intend to manuever using RCS need two sets of RCS thrusters. One above Center of Mass, and one below CoM. Preferably equally spaced so that CoM also becomes Center of Rotation. Your lander should be much lighter. And be powered by more than one little LV909. Two will do, three is better, four is overkill. You should have a Duna TWR of 1.5 to 2.5 ideally. Below that and you'll burn a lot of fuel going not very far, above that and you got dead weight in engines. With a light enough design, some 400 units of LFO (equal to the smallest Rockomax tank + a little bit more) should give you between 1700 and 1800 dV. You'll need roughly 150dV to deorbit and 1500dV to get back to orbit. The interplanetary stage will need roughly 3500dV for the round-trip when all hooked up to your other modules. Doing it with chemical rockets (like say the Poodle), you'll need to use drop-tanks most likely. To loose some mass during the trip so as to get the most out of the fuel. With nuclear rockets, it is easy enough as you get over twice the bang for the buck, uhm, fuel. With nuclear propulsion two Jumbos should be plenty. With chemical rockets you might need as many as four - certainly three. And last - try for a puller interplanetary stage rather than a pusher. With a puller (locomotive) you put stretching tension on the rest of the train, any sideways stress will equalize itself under the tension when you are burning. the construction still need be stiff though, as turning will become nigh-on impossible if not. If you put contracting tension on the other modules by going for a pusher interplanetary stage, your design need to be *VERY* stiff. If not, it'll just start wavering to one side or another, and as you do your burns that sideways motion will get reinforced, eventually breaking up the entire thing.
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