EdFred

Oh, I've never had fuel lines or struts within the assembly get crazy when I put it onto another craft. I have had it where I've pulled a subassembly (unsaved) away, done a whole bunch of work on another part of the ship, put it back and the struts attempt to connect to whatever then can. (I think - based on what I've seen - struts are saved simply as a position and vector and will attach to the first thing that is within their range.) But I don't know if that goes for putting it into a whole 'nother craft file.

I never have fuel lines or struts going between sub assemblies and the transfer/lifter stages until right before I click launch. I dealt with enough weirdness in struts and fuel lines going Clyde and Clint.

Me too, and how did I not discover this before?!?!? So, I make a lander assembly for an all in one Jool mission. It ends up being 5 stages so I can land/ascend from Tylo and still remain relatively small. I save it as a sub assembly and then start working on a new ship to take me all through the Jool system without needing to refuel at any point in the mission. This is another 5 or 6 stages. Grab the lander and stick it on the "touring" stage and I should end up with 10 or 11 stages right? Of course not. It matches up stage 1 to 1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3, etc...and now I have an unholy mishmash of stages. So, I figure what the heck, I will add a bunch of empty stages (0-6) on the touring vehicle, and see what happens, when I glom on the sub assembly. Voila! It kept all the stages separate, so I have no intertwined stages. All my touring stages are 11-->6, and my lander stages are 5-->0.

And this says 3070 - so double that plus margin for error.

I don't have these issues with my rockets. Seems like a Three Little Pigs problem, and you aren't using bricks.

Only if you have Blizzy's toolbar - which I don't have, and don't particularly want at this time. Under settings all I get is the compact transparent gui, the regular transparent gui, or the opaque one. No option for a toolbar button, or to hide the menu bar. And you can't move the menu bar in the VAB with the right mouse button.

Also on my list of annoyances - though I suppose that's more directed at the person. uppose ll f s ecided o ust gnore ronouncing he irst ound r etter f ach ord, imply ecause e anted o e retentious.

It gets in the way in the VAB. I know, I know, don't put the AR202 on until the end of construction, but sometimes I can't get to the center command pod when I build some of my monstrosities.

7773 Posts and the search function for the forum blows goats. So simple question... Is there a toolbar button (for the standard toolbar, not the blizzy78 toolbar) for MJ which removes the slide out tab on the right?

It's sufficient as it is. I have messed with different manual (and MJ programmed) ascent profiles with that, and the bottom stage can drop below 25km, and still obtain a 80km orbit with a little go juice left in the orange tank, if done correctly. Depending where the stage is dropped and how you continue the ascent I've seen anywhere from under 50dV left, to 300dV left. I've also not made it to orbit when I pitched over a bit too early.

I'm pretty sure it has less to do with drag but that when you're experiencing 40kN of gravitational force and your rocket only provides 40kN of net thrust, anything besides pointing straight away from the planet's center results in a vertical deceleration. Of course when you've generated enough altitude, you actually want to fall, since that's what an orbit is. Of course you want to do that with about 2275m/s of horizontal velocity. If you've got a net 1.0TWR ratio, and you're pitched at 45º on ascent, you're only getting a vertical TWR of about 0.7, about 0.7 in the horizontal, and losing vertical velocity. This vertical velocity loss can be overcome at 45º by having at least a net 1.414 TWR, and a net 2.0TWR when pitched over to 30º. Of course, at some point you don't want any more vertical velocity.

Yeah, I've run into that with minimalist designs. "Oh, this rocket is way more efficient than I expected." Launch. Nothing happens. "WTF?" Grumbling ensues when I realize that I left KER on Duna/Mun/some other low gravity body in the VAB.

You mean 15,000dV won't be enough to get you to orbit?

There's nothing "wrong" with my rocket. Simply the best ascent profile for it does not fit into a cookie cutter ascent profile. Feel free to play with it. Oh, and I was mistaken earlier, I have a TWR of around .8 when the Skipper takes over, but that depends where you drop the Mainsails I suppose. Should have around 300dV remaining in the Skipper upon reaching orbit.

And what if your AP never gets out of the atmosphere? Doesn't really help a whole lot. Some designs you can't keep the AP a minute ahead of you. I've got one design where the AP is less than 30 seconds ahead, and degrades to about 4 seconds. You can't push it past a minute. So, again, #5 doesn't apply.

I'm below 1.0TWR starting at around 30km. Not 1.0 on the pad, 1.0 at 30km. MechJeb fails when I let it try with that rocket. It pushes the AP to about 70km, falls back to about 68km, and then pushes the AP on the far side of the orbit. Doing it manually, I move my AP from about 60km at 30km, and slowly keep pushing it higher so that my circularization burn is only about 6dV. My PE has come up to about 50km before I hit AP, and my dV remaining is more than when I let MJ do it's thing.

#5 Does not apply to my rockets, unless I severely overpower them, or want a ridiculously long circularization burn. It's .73 at staging, not on the launch pad.

How do I do this when my final stage is only .73TWR? I hate blanket instructions. Using these instructions on some of my craft they will never make orbit. Some craft you need to make your turn later sometimes waiting until 15km, others earlier.

That map is confusing, and it shows way less to go from Duna to Ike. My transfer from Duna --> Ike was 290dV, that map says 30dV? Huh? Nevermind, read it again. Still confusing though

"I could care less." So you do care. You could care anywhere from very little to a lot. "I couldn't care less." The correct usage. "I weigh less then Tim." Are you putting two different sentence fragments into one incoherent sentence? Then Tim what? "I weigh less than Tim." The correct usage. People that use text speak on message boards.

Which is how I build a lot of my craft. I also leave perfectly good lander cans floating about the Kerbol system.

OK, I cannot get a good Ike gravity assist to return to Kerbin, but here's what I found in terms of dV (ignoring small tweaks to get things just right) Kerbin --> Ike --> Duna --> Kerbin (no Ike gravity assist) Duna aerocapture into Ike 25km capture = Free Ike 25km circularization burn = 125dV Ike --> Duna = 120dv Duna aerocapture AP drop to 60km = Free Duna circularization burn = 30dV Kerbin transfer burn = 625dV Total dV = 900 Kerbin --> Duna --> Ike --> Duna Oberth assist --> Kerbin Duna aeocapture to 60km AP = Free Duna circularization = 30dv Duna --> Ike 25km transfer 290dv Ike circularization burn = 125dV Ike --> Duna 40km PE for Oberth assist = 120dv Burn at Duna PE transfer to Kerbin = 335dV Total dV = 900dV All values were rounded to the nearest 5dv. Looks like a wash. The issue is, Ike has to be in perfect position for the first scenario. The last 15-20 times I've gone to Duna Ike has not been "in the way" for an aero capture from Duna.

Aerobraking into a Duna 60km orbit saves about 600dV - assuming you are on an optimal intercept. A non-optimal intercept would save even more.

True, as I'm starting withing Duna's SOI.

Oh, I know why I use less dV. My orbital velocity is much higher at my PE vs a circular orbit. It's a matter of does Ike -->Duna (orbit) --> Ike Slingshot --> Kerbin cost more or less dv than Duna --> Ike (orbit) --> Duna slingshot --> Kerbin I suppose there is one way to find out. Go play moar KSP.