Name Lips

I built a rocket. It wasn't powerful enough, so I surrounded it with a ring of asparagus. It still wasn't powerful enough, but it was very close. It couldn't quite get up to orbital velocity so my nuclear engines could take over. So I started on the next ring of asparagus, adding engines and fuel in pairs to stay balanced. The first pair wasn't enough, but the second pair juuuuust let me get into orbit, but without enough fuel left for my mission. So I figured, why not, let's add another pair of asparagus engines to the outer ring. It now has 3 pairs. The asparagus works in two spirals out from the center, so at each stage a pair of engines are dropped. Now things have suddenly gotten weird. One of the spirals is consuming fuel faster than the other one. At first, my rocket seems to be doing all right. Then after a few seconds, it starts to tilt a little bit (since one side is heavier, with more remaining fuel). I can start to see the difference in the fuel bars next to the engine icons. Another 10 or 20 seconds, and my rocket is in an uncontrollable tumble, one end of its asparagus out of fuel and the other still burning. I can't figure it out. I know how to make asparagus -- after all, they've been working properly up to this point. I've double and triple checked that the fuel lines are all pointed the right way. I've double and triple checked that all of them are using the same engines, and that all the tanks are starting full of fuel. What else could be causing this?

This is a very fuel-inefficient way to practice landing: Start from a circularized orbit over the moon. At any point (it doesn't matter exactly where, since you're circularized) burn retrograde until you have completely killed your horizontal momentum. On the map it will look like you're hovering in place with the "orbit" lines pointing straight down under you. This means you are falling straight down at the moon. Quicksave. This might not leave you with enough fuel to return, but that's not the point. The point is now you can practice keeping your lander level, adjusting your throttle so you aren't falling too fast, and not accidentally shooting back away from the moon again. When you get close to the surface you will notice you are probably still drifting slightly left or right, so you can practice how to fix that. If you crash, quick load and try again. Once you have managed to do this, try again from the circular orbit without stopping your lander first. The idea is to shrink your orbit until you are landing, then keep yourself pointing retrograde so you can throttle up and break your fall at the right moment. Once you do THAT, you will have discovered how hard it is, but you will know you can do it, and now you can feel justified downloading Mechjeb to automate the process for you.

Have you gotten all the science from the Kerbin biomes yet? It's much easier to get those first, so you can unlock the higher tiers. Also, Minmus is actually easier to land on than Mun, and gives more science.

Thanks everybody, that clears things up a lot.

I'm in orbit of Mun, and want to know if I have enough delta-V left to land, take off, and get back to Kerbin. It seems what I need is a Delta-V map like the one on the wiki: It seems like what it's saying is that if I want to get to Mun, I need to add up the numbers from Kerbin to Mun. 4550+860+210+640 = 6210 Delta V. That seems to make sense. But if I'm in a low Mun orbit already, can I just start adding from there? 640 to land, another 640 to get back up, then 210 and 860, then into Kerbin's atmosphere. That totals 2350 Delta V. That seems like a lot. I seem to remember, before I discoverd MechJeb, I managed to land a rocket on Mun. It was almost out of fuel, but I just took straight off and escaped Mun's gravity fairly quickly, and from there I had just enough Delta V to shrink my orbit until I hit Kerbin. It seems like the cheat sheet is not useful for this purpose because it assumes I'm slowing into a nice circular orbit between each maneuver. Is that right? Or will it really take my orbiting lander 2350 Delta-V to land and return home?

Is there waste if you transmit? Well, I know the short answer is yes, but let's say there is 500 science to be had orbiting a moon. You can transmit and only get 100 of it. But if you go back 4 more times, do you eventually get the entire 500?

Wow, I finally got it working. I had to build my rover using a piece that had a green node at the correct end, so I decided to base it around the Science Jr. So now I can fly to the moon, send out 2 rovers to different biomes, collect science, and return, dock, and take off again. Not the final design, but proof it works: Kerbal driving off: It can take off and land: As a bonus, the entire lander can drive around (in this test the docking port on the bottom broke off, but that's what we call a solvable problem):

OK, but if I save it as a craft, how do I add it to my rocket? Do I then have to build my entire rocket starting with the rover? What if I want to have TWO rovers? My plan was to have a lander with a docking port on the left and right sides, so when it landed the rovers would have their wheels on the ground. Then my kerbals could get out of the lander and hop in their rovers and drive off. When they got back, they could re-dock the rovers, and then the entire lander with 2 rovers could fly back up and dock with the mother ship.

This is the darndest thing. In Career mode, I just unlocked the rover tech. So I built one. It has the RoveMate frame, headlights, 4 wheels, solar panels, and an External Command Seat. I thought the Seat would be enough for me to test it with a Kerbal on board, but it said I needed an actual command module. So I stuck a docking port on the end and attached a command module. I tested it, and successfully EVAed a Kerbal and got him in the rover. I detached the docking port, extended my solar panels, and had a fun time driving around the launchpad. OK, it works, time to attach it to a rocket and take it to the MUN!! That should be the easy part, right? Well, first of all, I didn't want to have to build the entire rover again, so I saved it as a Subassembly. The thought being that I could stick Little Rover onto any rocket I wanted. Maybe several of them. Whatever. But that, apparently, is where things stopped going well. I built a rocket with a free docking port and loaded up my Little Rover subassembly, but try as I might, I couldn't get its docking port to function. It would not attach itself to the docking port on my rocket. The green dots on the top and bottom of the rover still work, but I don't want to use those. I want a rover that can detach, drive around, and reattach itself and ride home. This can't be that unusual of a thing, right? I just want a lunar module with docking ports on either side, with a rover attached to each of them. This shouldn't be so hard, should it? I've tried several workarounds, including building the rocket first and building the rovers directly against its docking ports, but it won't work. They won't snap onto the rear end of the RoveMate chassis unless I START building with the chassis, in which case I have to build the entire rocket starting from the rover. And while that might work, it's kind of a pain, and there would be no way to bring a second rover. It really feels like I should be able to save it as a subassembly, but I can't get it to work.

That would be fun, there doesn't seem to be a lot to do while EVA at the moment. I think I'm going to do the replacement mission. I'll fly a new fuel tank up and dock it at the "wrong" end, then use the rocket to detach the old part, then reattach the correct pieces together. I'm still not sure WHY I am building a space station. What I really need is more science. My goal was to put a little satellite in orbit around each planet and moon in the solar system and beam back some basic information. But I got distracted when I unlocked the docking clamps.

Hi, this is my first post here! I am building a station in orbit around Kerbin. I'm not sure how useful the station will be, maybe it's just for practice. I'm playing in Career mode because I liked the idea of needing to acquire science using parts that might not be up to the task to unlock the really useful parts. So it's quite possible that a lot of very important station building parts aren't available to me yet. The first unit consisted of a command module, hitchhiker container (for kerbals to live in) and a Mobile Processing Lab (with the theory that I could dock probes there to unload their science and reuse them or something). I also remembered solar panels, batteries, and lights. Once it was in orbit I EVAed a kerbal and got him to the command module (I remembered ladders!) so he could control the thing. Notice, however, that I forgot to add any sort of RCS or monopropellant. This made my first docking experience quite an ordeal, since I couldn't orient the station very well. But I finally managed to get my Fuel Section docked and attached, including some monopropellant tanks and RCS thrusters. So far the station is basically a long tube. My question is coming up. But a little more background is important. I have an asparagus setup for putting my pieces in orbit. It's a fairly normal rocket, except at the top it has a docking clamp. Then I design a piece for my station and attach it to the docking clamp. This results in a somewhat topheavy-looking rocket. But the main problem is when I lift off, the docking clamp between my asparagus rocket and the station piece experiences a lot of stress. It starts to wobble and eventually breaks off and everything blows up. To fix this, I built some Strut Connectors between the rocket and the station module. This strengthens the thing enough to launch with no difficulty. My thought was when I undock the docking clamp, the Struts will break. This was my plan for attaching my Fuel Section to my Command/Science section. It seemed to work, I got them docked, and I released the clamp from my ship. The Struts broke, and the ship and station were no longer connected. The station looked nice, and I thought I had figured it out. The Fuel Module was pretty empty though (sending it up full made my rocket too heavy) so my next job was to make a fuel tanker ship to fly up and fill up the station. Then I designed the fuel ship and sent it up. It still takes me a while to intercept, but I finally got everything lined up (easier now that the station had RCS) and moved in to dock. That's when I noticed the PROBLEM. The end of the station's Fuel Module didn't have a docking clamp anymore! It must have been damaged or destroyed back when the struts detached. Luckily there was another docking port at the opposite end of the station, on the command module, so I rotated it and managed to connect and transfer the fuel. But my station isn't the way I wanted it. It's supposed to have the command module on one end, and the new modules attached to the other end. But there's no docking port there anymore. So here, finally, is my question. Is there any way to ADD a docking port to the end of my station while it is in orbit? That is to say, actual in-orbit construction? Or am I stuck with only the single port on the other end?