FREEFALL1984

you need to remember that the drift is entirely dependant on orbital period, you could have 3 sats with different semimajor axis all have the same orbital period, perhaps inevitable problem of orbital drift is exaggerated by vector rounding when entering timewarp or switching vessels. perhaps if you match the semimajor axis AND the orbital period as described it would help.

Competition will always be better, in the event of cooperation countries tend to try to spend less than one another so they can appear to be contributing but only on the face of it, in the event of competition, countries forget about money and focus on out doing each other.

I use mechjeb, mostly for calculating my Dv but I like the ability to perform the most mundane of maneuvers, such as circularizing after launch, and helping me find optimal transfer windows, which I can do with other tools (or often by eye) but I wont let MJ perform my transfers for me since it seems unable to think on its feet and adjust appropriately. I also occasionally use the translatron for shuffling around on the surface onto flatter terrain. And I sometimes like to use the descent planner if I'm aiming for a small hard to reach biome since the targeted descent allows you to identify biomes so easily. I never use the rendezvous manager since its incredibly inefficient and spend several times more Dv than I do. And the docking autopilot, while very clever, takes a lot of fun from the game, docking for me is more fun when I do it myself. This being said, I have completed the tech tree twice over without any MJ or KER, and while I find the tools very useful, newer players should always play the game as it was intended (by a little trail and error and a bit of intuition) before using such mods at least until they are able to repeatedly perform anything required.

the extra weight of the aerospike does make you right in some respects, but a lightweight lander with 4 aerospikes can burn off 300m/s in just a couple of seconds and a few times in the past I've killed all my vertical velocity just a few feet from the ground, sadly it doesnt always work out as planned

I like to use mechjeb to calculate everything for me, it gives me the option of performing my more mundane maneuvers for me, but if you're new to KSP which I imagine you are, then I'd recommend KER, this forces you to perform all your own maneuvers which for a new player is great practice, nobody wants to be that guy who cant fly without mechjeb.

The best bet is to have a refueling tug depart from minmus, and enter an LKO then dock with your interplanetary vessel, then you can burn right on the transfer window. Alternatively just depart from the mun or minmus for all transfers, then you take up the relative velocity of the orbiting body, although you'll only be able to launch when the mun or minmus is traveling more or less prograde or retrograde.

I'm not sure about this one, can you explain what you have done, I' assuming you havent aerobraked into the eve system and require 2km/s Dv in order to circularize, but the rest of your cool story is a little confusing. Also mechjeb would normally give a warning if you produce a maneuver which will require extreme Dv, Please clarify.

When building a munar lander (or a lander for any none atmospheric body) consider that higher thrust to weight will allow for a more accurate suicide burn meaning you can save fuel buy minimizing gravity drag. its often worth using a few aerospikes instead of the standard LV909 setup

So, I've reached the end of my current KSP career, and with the exception of Moho and Tylo, I've successfully landed a kerbal on every planet and returned them, (apart from Eve where sando kerman has been living happily for the past 24 years) I have heard a rumor that the two most difficult bodies in KSP are in fact Tylo (for its kerbin like gravity but no atmosphere) and Moho, for its inaccessibility and high temperature and ridiculously thin token atmosphere, which means a soft landing with engines is necessary and you have to be careful to avoid overheating them. So before I depart on these missions and send brave Jeb into the unknown for the final time, is there any advice you can give me, anything I should be aware of and anything I should look for when selecting a landing site

Perhaps its due to the discrepancy caused by the variable travel time from LKO to the edge of SOI, since kerbin would be moving around its orbit the actual kerbin escape vector is thrown off with different escape speeds the angle would vary.... or, something.

I cant understand why there would be an additional radial component, surely in the event of a standard hohmann transfer the target body is always encountered at the opposite side of the orbit from the initial burn, why would this change for an interplanetary transfer?

I want to go for the Jetspeed record, ie highest velocity with only jet engines with no altitude cap and no intake spamming, so far I have topped 2400m/s reached at 26km, I think I can improve on that though

Go to minmus, the DV you spend adjusting your inclination and transferring to its much higher orbit is easily recovered on landing an ascending, in all minmus is the easiest place to farm for science, in fact with a lander with 4km/s of DV and a whole bunch of materials bays and goo canisters you should be able to bounce around the different biomes taking samples and eva reports while running materials bays and goo in each one. Keep all the data apart from reports (which can be transmitted without penalty) and return everything else back to kerbin, you should be able to get more than 1500 science points in a single mission,

I agree with Bsalis But I like to add some jet engines on my descent stage so I could perform a precision landing since the few areas of land on laythe can be pretty bumpy so it might take a little jiggling until you can safely set down. but with a little clever design you can have a nice lander with 2km/s of vac DV from rockets and 5km/s of atm DV from jets and you can use the jets for a controlled targeted landing, perhaps with a little parachute assistance, then to assist the ascent. The alternative is to make a spaceplane, rule of thumb is if it can get to orbit on kerbin then it can get to orbit in laythe, finding somewhere to land might be more of a problem though

I built a huge orbital base over the mun with the intent of cleaning up all the science from all the biomes, but when I realised how long it was going to take to return the science to kerbin after every mission and I gave up, and simply deleted the craft from the space centre, 12 kerbals dies because of my actions, and I didn't even feel ashamed.

This is because there is insufficient intake air available, all the intake air comes from a common pool, when there is plenty of air available both engines will take their maximum required air from this pool. when there is no enough air available, the air will be taken for one engine first, then the second, even thought the engine is still running, the slight lack of required air causes the second engine to slightly lose power, this causes the craft to turn its intakes away from the angle of attack and amplify the issue. All I can recommend is more intake spam to boost up the total pool which will help the issue, but I normally have a single jet in the middle, then when the intake air gets too low I just kill my second and third engine and keep my middle engine running and since it now has the whole intake air pool to itself it can run for much longer.

I tend to add the burn first then change the position, so you create the maneuver, set the DV to the required amount, then move the maneuver node around the planet until you will be travelling parallel with kerbins vector on kerbin SOI departure, assuming you have this all correct then as soon as you leave SOI the kerbol periapsis (or apoapsis depending on which planet you're shooting for) should be located on the place you performed the burn also while you've just finished the burn, the orbit around kerbol should be visible as a huge great yellow line passing through the kerbin SOI (but not showing an encounter) in the rare event of a "perfect" maneuver this line should pass right through kerbin. This would mean your departure from LKO is EXACTLY on the kerbol periapsis or apoapsis (depending on direction of travel) although even with a perfect departure, you might still need to tweak your orbit since the timing could be up to about 17 minutes out depending on the departure window.

That image is the epiphany of the term so close yet so far.

As I learned last week the centre of drag could also be too far in front of the centre of thrust, try strictly putting intakes at the back of your craft this essentially gives your craft a flight, much like a dart, which keeps it stable at really high speeds, Also have the bulk of the fuel tanks right over the centre of mass, this way as your fuel runs out your centre of mass wont shift dramatically. Another interesting concept I've been playing with is having detachable control surfaces, so here's what you do. 1 - build a normal craft with the centre of lift behind the centre of mass as normal, 2 - Take all the fuel out of the front tanks, and watch how the centre of mass shifts towards the rear, 3 - Now place a set of winglets on the front of the craft, and then tweak the main wings to shift the COL into optimal position. 4 - Now this is how the crafts COM and COL will look after expending the first fuel tank. 5 - Refill the front fuel tank and place some decouplers on the front of the craft, 6 - Add some winglets onto the decouplers. 7 - move the decoupler and winglets into a position which shifts the COL into optimal position. 8 - Stage the whole thing, and when in flight, after the front tank becomes empty you should start having a tough time controlling its now that you should stage the decouplers. This can be done multiple times for as many fuel tanks as you have on board, allowing you to maintain perfect control during the full flight, only problem is it kinda ruins the idea of a reusable space plane for those purists who like to keep their SSTO vessels fully intact,.

Can't you just view the mission report or does it not appear on that unless the pod is attached

thats fairly easy even in a staged rocket, you only need a single LVN attached to a single FL-t800 get from a sub orbit of kerbin onto the mun, then ditch the FL-t800 and LV-n on touchdown and return to kerbin in your lander

Why not just used the standard method of a cable and counterweight, that could all be lifted in a single launch and would serve the same purpose. Also the length of the cable could be several hundred meters meaning the coriolis effect would be minimized, if any maintenance works needed to take place which required the station to stop rotating you could simply wind in the cable until both segments docked and then kill the rotation.

Unlike burning retrograde or prograde, changing your orbital inclination is best performed at the slowest orbital speed. imagine you're travelling at 2200m/s in order to reverse your orbit (ignoring DV expended in recovering your orbit) you need to expend 4400m/s of DV, now if you spend a few hundred m/s burning prograde and raising your orbit, you might then only be travelling at 400m/s at apoapsis, then in order to reverse that orbit you only need 800m/s, So assume a 300m/s burn to climb, an 800m/s burn to reverse the orbit and another 300m/s burn to circularize. and you have a total burn of 1400m/s in my experience I find that anything less than 30 degrees it simply isnt worth changing the orbital altitude. anything more than 30 degrees and you should really start raising apo. That being said there is rarely an instance where you dont have the option to change inclination before to circularize or climb into orbit. So as a rule of thumb, when entering a new system, its always best to perform your inclination changes as soon as (or even before) you enter the SOI, and if I'm making a targeted landing at laythe or duna I'll do a light aerobrake maneuver until my apo just drops into SOI and then once at apo i'll perform my plane changes

Just switch to orbit mode as soon as you launch and keep the prograde orbit on the north vector, that way it ignores rotation of the planet

I normally aim for long Island, which is a decent sized elongated island which is located near the equator and aligned about 45 degrees from the equator, just change inclination early and you can usually land within a couple of orbits be careful though it is a little bumpy