Nervustwitch

Some very useful info Pecan. I have been using Asparagus to get into orbit and its made my life easier with building the stages.My only problem is that I use trial and error to figure out how big of a launch stage I need to get a certain weight payload to say the Mun. Ex:If I have an 8ton lander then how do I know before I try for the Mun how much lifting power do I need to get into Kerbin orbit.Then how much do I need in the next stage to finish all my maneuvers to save my lander fuel for only landing and return. What should be say the ideal ALT. for your boosters to get you to?Mine dont get me that far,around 7500m and I could be losing fuel from dropping SRB's to soon. Guess I need to do some more reading since I really dont even really know what Delta-V is.Is there a mod that will give me info to tell me that I can make or at least should?I know MJ has some useful info,especially in the custom windows.

Thx again. Yeah I only have 1 ladder on it and the kerbal can fit just fine.I raised the outer tanks and it has much lower COM.If i put my RCS tanks under the outter ones wouldnt that just be adding more weight?I hardly use that much RCS fuel.I added the struts until I get landings down a bit more so that it can withstand some abuse.I hit the mun surface pretty hard tonight and bounced up and did a flip and kicked in rcs to get it back under control to land in the east crater. Using jet engines is cool idea,wouldnt have thought of that really.I have my launch and orbit transfer stage down fairly good,for me.its getting me to the mun several times now,I think I have 5 flags now and a couple on Minmus. Taki77 I had the smaller tank there but kinda cut it close on fuel so I put that there until I get more control and alot less fuel waste landing on the mun.When I take off from mun all radial tanks are empty and ket jettisoned after take off along with the goo cans.Yeah the struts and ladder isnt needed Im sure,but doing to much with it?i just have the experiments for the most part on it.

Yeah Im not good enough yet to judge where I want to land,but the landing was easier than I thought it would be on the hill side. as for the RCS I put them on there to help control it a bit,figured it would help me since it was gonna be my first landing ever,wasnt really thinking about tipping over until I landed on the Mun and fell over.But the RCS wasnt strong enough to put me upright.I had to slide slowly across the surface until I launched off the hillside the hit full throttle and it saved me....lol. As for MJ,I havent messed with the custom windows yet,may need to look into that.I mostly just use MJ for the info.When I was trying to figure out how the nodes worked I would use it to look at what it was doing then hit save game load and try to do the same,worked really well for me that way...easier for me to learn that way. I have reworked my lander to be more stable. Here is my current one,I havent used this revised version yet but were the center tank is with the engine I had a Fl-t200 tank but I cut it kinda close to the Mun landing and back,it was doable but wasnt much room for mistakes.So Im gonna try it with the T400,I think its overkill but I need the extra breathing room until I get better.It landed really easy.I have decouplers on the goo and the t200 tanks with the legs.But the added weight from the revised lander has thrown off my launch staging,so I''ll tweak it a bit. I know I dont need the ladders but I m not that good at the jetpack yet so I use them for now. EDIT:I think I will move the tanks with the legs on them up a bit to take some of the top heavy out after looking at the pic screenshot windows 8

Ahh gotcha,I was picturing multiple engines for some reason.I actually have a similar type design in the works right now. As for landing on the Mun,I think Im gonna build a probe lander and orbit the Mun and do a quick save in orbit and just practice landing many times to get it down ,and take offs of course.I know I could practice it at the launch pad but the difference in gravity throws me off. Now I just gotta figure out how many biomes minmus and mun have and land there for science. Also does the bigger lab that allows for less transmission loss really do much for landing.I cant se it being that much help seeing as most of the experiments are one time use or am I missing something.

I have the gravity turn down pretty well on launch and setting course and orbit for Mun,Minmus makes me work that encounter.As for lifting off from other planets i need some work there,not really sure what I need to do to be efficient at taking off. Well it did work for the Mun also.I was able to land but I was about 12sec short of my final burn to return to kerbin on lander fuel.But I made a couple mistakes that I assume caused that. 1.I kept lifting back up while trying to land,lost fuel there. 2.While messing around int VAB,I forgot that I put on 2 of those mini radial liquid engines on the lander which I know it did not need,I was just messing around and forgot to remove. 3.And the last mistake that when I landed the lander tipped over on its side.I tried to use RCS to tilt it up but just wasnt strong enough.I jettisoned the goo containers and applied very small amount of throttle and skid it accross the the surface until I went over the crest of hill then applied more throttle and got back into somewhat of an orbit....lol. I think Im gonna design a much more stable lander and build it outwards a bit. Just to be sure I really only need the enigine with 50 thrust to land on the moon,correct? And if my landers get bigger do I need more to land them or is gravity so little that it doesnt affect it much? Thx again its been fun and frustrating so far.

Yeah I figured it was overkill.But for some reason I used almost all fuel in the big tanks to get to Minmus,the last lil bit left in them I used to slow me down as I got close to the surface then dropped them.The lander engine and fuel was only used to land and return with and I still had some left.I kinda burned a bit to much fuel trying to figure out a path to Minmus,I get to the mun easily but Minmus proved a lil challenging for me to plot a course.I do have MJ installed but mostly using it for info and to learn with to see how it is doing some node manuevers.I try to do all burns and such myself,MJ kinda feels cheap to use.

Yeah I dont a tall lander.Im trying to picture the fuel and engine design you suggest but I cant really get what is meant.You add tanks and engines to the side of the junior,the fuel line is throwing me off by what you mean. Thx for help.

Well I finally did it and it wasnt too hard,had more trouble trying to work out the nodes more than anything and got about 600 science. All I did was add a SRB stage to it my last version and some RCS rockets for some control. I am also very surprised that my very first landing attempt was almost perfect.As I was coming down I gave the lander a lil too much power and started going back up,so I flipped it upside down and throttled up a bit to get in the downward direction and then had to flip it back over to land on the legs.!st attempt sat down very easy,no crashes or Kerbal loses....lol. and the landing was on a slope to boot.

Wow alot of info here. Ok I havnt done much today but with the current setup in the last pic I posted I have got to a 80k m alt Kerbin orbit with almost half fuel left in the center stage,just before the lander stage.Now I havnt left orbit yet but ShadowDragon says that I most likely not gonna make a landing.If I still have that much fuel in the center stage before lander shouldnt that be more than enough to get to Mun/Minmus? then drop center stage to use my lander stage? My lander stage is using the engine with 50 thrust and the and the fuel tank you see in the pic,is that enough to land with and return on either Mun or minmus? With having that much fuel left before my lander stage I'm not understanding why he says that its just down to the wire. Thank you again everyone for all the help,I feel Im finally making some progress here.

Yeah I just learned that I could get the data out by playing around with them on Kerbin a bit,so I will fix that.I have been really wanting to slim down the return stage but wasnt sure what I can and cant drop. Thx again everyone.

I really appreciate all that info but a couple things I no nothing of: Extra gyro? TWR,I do not know what that is or means at all or really the delta-v. Remember i am very new to this and ver willing to learn but I just do not know how or where to find out about all this.I have basically just used game tuts and some youtube to learn. As for beefing up the landing stage,what am I missing.Bigger engine? I am only using the one with I think 50 thrust. Do I need bigger? Where would be a good place to find alot of this info collected in a single place or web site.I try looking here in the forums but there is just so much to look for and I dont know what would be considered beginner or advanced info.I kjnow Im needing the basics need to know kind a stuff.

Ok I think I got it. I redesigned a lot of it and now getting in orbit with plenty of fuel to spare. I learned the Asparagus Staging and made a huge difference for me now. Also Demat I did not know that about the decouplers,that was most likely a very bad mistake.I have learned alot tonight about ship design,Im not having to much issues setting a basic orbit and getting to the mun. Yeah I figured the 6 SAS was not needed I'm not sure why i thought I needed all the solar panels,but I have fold out ones now. I figured 6 legs was overkill but thought that it might help with being new to this,will try 4 instead. I also trimmed down the lander a bit. I will be trying Minmus 1st Thank you everyone for all the help and info,was very helpful. Here is the new design and I would and opinions about it or what I could improve.

Ok I finally figured out asparagus staging but that didnt help that rocket setup at all. Ok so I guess its start over and I have no idea what to do. Is my lander good or a bad setup? My lander mass is 5.34T,count the lander engine and fuel tank for return.As for the stages I', lost,been at for I dunno how long now.Im very determined but it is starting to wear on me trying to figure this out.

Also I dont really use the Mechjeb for flying just mainly for info,but I did tick the box in MJ for terminal V and it did the same thing. I also tried the 45's but im getting almost the exact same results. yeah I figured its not very efficient but Im trying to learn.

Where you talk about at the legs,that was a small tank,I removed it and the nose cones.The launch stages are now exactly like the vid.The lander is similar but I added a decoupler between the Jr. and the lander stage engine and fuel. What is a better way to post a screen shot? What can I do to make this work? Also i do now have fuel lines but I do not know how to do asparagus staging,I've tried it once but it was a HUGE failure.I have looked for a how to own it but I get kinda confuses.Could use some info or a link to a really good how-to. Thx for the help,still trying. After the changes Tried a different host

I have been trying to build a rocket that can get me to the mun and land then return,but I have been having trouble. I have built a couple that get me to the mun and home but not enough fuel to land me.So I tried looking on youtube and found a design that similar to what I have built and his got him to the mun without any problems. In the vid when he drops the boosters and about 7500m he still has over half his fuel in the 7 remaining rockets and that carries him to 30,000m+,mine only do for about maybe 20,000.I tried copying what he did in the vid but nope. here is the vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dtpLLhLbN8 my design,not much differnt: