davidpsummers

Thanks, the video was helpful. (Even if it did tell me that the struts, which I find a pain to deal with, have to be more carefully placed...)

I've gotten new tech and I'm building my new heavy lift booster. I'm having problems with unwanted roll (rotation or spinning about the vertical axis). I fixed the problem where it would just spin uncontrollably from the the start by finding some parts that were clipping. But when I do my gravity turn, I still start to spin. Any help? It doesn't do it in the first 10,000 m of ascent, and I think I have found all the clipping parts ,so I think it must be something else?

Note: aerobreaking at Duna will give you a chance to land or orbit Duna. I will also put you inside Duna's gravity well and you will need delta V to get out, and since return is you top priority, I'm not sure it meets your needs.

If your orbit crosses Kerbin, then you can get an intercept (which I think you can do since you say you can get into the Kerbin SOI). When you get the intercept, the periapsis will be listed. Do a burn (a small one as early as possible) to get it as low as possible. You will have to fiddle and try not to loose the intercept (at least to the point were you can't recover it) since the direction you need to burn will depend on where around Kerbin the periapsis lies. (If it is off to the north or south, you will need to do a burn that is at least somewhat normal or anti-normal). The best way is, IMO, as soon as you leave Duna's SOI, set up a maneuver node just ahead of you. Fiddle with the different directions and see what it does to the periapsis. (If it disappears completely, you might be going right into Kerbin, which is OK except for the G forces you astronauts will receive on reentry. But check to make sure you are really headed into Kerbin.). Using your RSC thrusters can be good for fine control. Recheck this a couple of times on the way. As soon as you enter Kerbin SOI, make sure your obit intersects Kerbin, or has a periapsis that is low enough. (33 km will either send you to the surface or put you in a resonable obit which will decay the next time you pass the periapsis). You can be a bit above 33 km, but I'm not sure how much. You need to slow down enough to end up in orbit (or have to try and intercept Kerbin all over again), any obit because you will slow down more each time you pass through the atmosphere. Above 65 km you won't brake significantly.

The specific case here is I've gotten my first probe to Jool. I'm in a high orbit going to drop the probe into the planet. But I'm dropping my periapsis in stages to get in "free" flyby's of the moons. Once I get the periapsis down, I may use aerobraking to get better encounters with the moons. (I would be better if I hadn't gotten myself in a retrograde orbit :-).

"As a side note: If you want to change the inclination by a lot (>60°) it might be more efficient to raise the Apoapsis up to SOI." I've not used this because I don't know of a rule of when it applies and I figure I'm more likely to waste fuel doing it wrong.

Yeah, I sometimes combine inclination changes with changes in orbit shape, but usually I just try and do one or the other to keep it simple. It was a surprise to me when I found that keeping your obit the same size was tricky with large inclination changes.

I need to lower and orbit. I also need to change the inclination. Do I change inclination on the larger orbit or wait until I make is small (to safe fuel). Part of me thinks, "changes in higher orbits are easier" while another part thinks the loss of dV going to the smaller obit means changes will be cheaper. Also, just to check, if the orbit is elliptical, it is cheaper to change the inclincation at the apoapsis?

I have a bunch of old ships that I want to be able access, but I don't want to keep appearing in the load menu at the VAB. Is there anyway to put them in some sort of archive? Even dragging files on whereever the info is stored on my disk would be OK.

Maybe I could try "lithobraking" on Eeloo. ("Lithobraking" is a term for when you plough into the crust. It does quickly kill your velocity. Though I'm not sure Eeloo isn't made of ice instead of rock. :-)

Note this does not apply to the Mun (and test on the Mun won't work). For the Mun you need the lateral velocity anyway (to match the Mun's orbit). If you escaping Kerbin, that doesn't apply.

No. I'm not going into LKO at all.

Yeah, clearly some people do manned missions and others (like myself) send unmanned probes first. Manned missions collect all the science in one "swoop", but I feel obligated to rescue stranded Kerbals :-)

I have to say, I lot of people have a different view of the cost of orbit than I do. If you go straight up to any spot over Kerbin, the difference between where you are at and an orbit is the additional lateral delta-V that it takes to establish an orbit. And in fact all orbits are "falling back down". If you have _any_ random lateral velocity (even a remnant of the velocity you got from planetary rotation) you are in a orbit, you just haven't spent the additional delta-V to make sure it doesn't intersect with the surface. I'm also not sure that launching directly into transfer is more complicated. You just have to launch at sunrise/sunset and account for rotational velocity.

OK, I recently recovered Bill Kerman from being lost in solar orbit for 10 years. He had been stranded when I discovered it took less fuel to escape Kerbin than orbit it. (And of course, at the time I had nothing like the resources I would need to get him back L-). But we all (?) use parking orbits on our interplanetary missions. Why, if they take more fuel. I had assume it made the transfer burn easier. But it is easy enough to correct for rotation (or figure out how much it affects you escape direction) and launch straight into interplanetary space. Heck, all your stages also either fall back or leave the system, cluttering orbit less. So, can anyone tell me why we just don't to interplanetary escapes from the launch pad?

Screen resolution change did what I was looking for. I did, however, set it to a resolution _just_ below that of my screen

I didn't see how to do that, I guess I could have added some sort of strut. I would have put the control pod and the light below the body. I also may look to see if I can't put a strut on that will move them out to the side. But I am in career mode, so sometimes I either use what I have or wait.

Well, with you guys helping me, I got into the canyon and even up the side for a good view.

Thanks for help. Using docking controls has fixed the problem. As to a "forward facing control point". You mean I should have put the probe module on the front?

Thanks for the help. On this suggestion... Full screen mode distorts the images, since it forces the window to use the aspect ratio of my monitor. I don't know what borderless window mode is (is is a Windows thing?). What problems happen?

OK, thanks. What I was trying to do is change the size of the window the program runs in. My OS (Mac OS 7.6) will do "full screen" and make it fill the screen, but that distorts it (the aspect ration of the monitor isn't the same as the game screen).

I have a rover (picture below). It drives fine around the space center, but it drives "funny" on the Mun. When I "hit the gas", it pitches forward! And it steers "OK" when I coast, but backwards when I applying power! Thoughts?

I keep changing the Flight UI Size setting and nothing seems to change. FWI I'm using Kerbal 0.23.5.464 on a Macbook Pro with OS 10.7.5

He is on my station. Now _Bill_ Kerman is coming back from being rescued from solar orbit, having been stranded there for 10+ years! Early on I was testing rockets by firing them straight up and you can do the math. It took me a long time, in career mode, to be able to build something to get him back.

Well, I have picked Bill up. He was there for about 10 years (I stranded him when I couldn't even do orbital flights and it took my a long time to build up). He has another year getting back, but he is in a Kerbin return trajectory. I only needed a short burn to get back because it turned out in a year he was going to make a close approach to Kerbin. (He still needed rescuing because without fuel, a close approach was still a "near miss".)