WanderingKid

For Minmus, I typically target the orbit, then wait until the Launchpad is on the path plane (or a little before, to be exact). Once it's lined up, I'll launch to the 95 or 85 degree target and I'll be roughly close. I'm not too sure about the method you described to help with it.

I'm afraid I almost completely disagree with you. VAB and R&D are the only ones there that aren't critical path early upgrades for my careers, as the R&D upgrade opens up my midgame, and I typically don't need VAB until I start goofing around with rovers or biome hoppers, which I prefer to do in midgame when I can get surface samples and upgraded wheels. I should probably note I play Hard Career almost exclusively, so it's not like these are cheap or something. Upgrading Mission control early lets you get more contracts at once, which helps with launch efficiency, so I typically upgrade that first thing. Upgrading Astronaut complex during your first orbit lets you EVA for both World's First contract completion as well as additional science. This speeds up your science gathering considerably. This is usually my second upgrade, and also typically done as soon as possible. Manned Mun landings are near impossible without an upgraded pad for heavier rockets, which is where World's First contracts typically go after you've done a flyby/orbit. 18 tons is enough to pull off flybys and a minimalist orbit, but not landing and return. Somewhere around my fifth or sixth World's First launch goes to the Mun in a typical career. First does the launch/liftoff, second does suborbital/orbital. While up there I'll usually get EVAs and science from Kerbin orbit contracts. Next one is typically a flyby and science of Mun, fourth is (usually) the orbiter and return, which I'll do by using the free return flyby and braking at Periapsis to barely get an orbit, fulfill, then burn again for the free return. By 5 or 6 I'm typically landing there, it depends on how the RNG is behaving that run, so around then I want the Launchpad upgrade. Mission Control and Tracking station need to be upgraded each once for Maneuver Nodes, which are such a quality of life upgrade for me I want them very early. They also help tremendously once you are putting up satellites and for rendezvous with lost kerbals, which I go after very quickly so in some ways I suppose it is what you define as 'early career'. Rescues and OKTO sats putting up the CommNet are still very much part of my 'opening moves' for my early careers and are my counter to the early funds grind. Because of these considerations, I'm typically upgrading KSC very quickly during the early game. I personally ignore the Spaceplane Hangar, Runway, and Administration until mid-late game simply because until I get Panthers the SPH is pointless for my playstyle and I don't use the administration building until science is completely maxxed out. I believe our playstyles may be very different in this case, but this wall of text was primarily to show there are different approaches to getting career done efficiently.

Heh, and here after I posted that and came back,I was just thinking "Well, he said that better than I did..."

First and foremost, abuse the World's First contract system. Don't do anything until it gives you a contract for it... such as don't EVA in Kerbin orbit until they'll pay you for it. Don't return science until they'll pay you for it from a body. Don't orbit unt... you get the idea. Next, as mentioned, if you're still in tier 1 science your best money makers are Tourism contracts and Satellite Contracts. I personally avoid Tourism like the plague, it just bugs me. No particular reason why, I just avoid them. So I launch satellites. LOTS of them. Has the added benefit of building up a pretty strong CommNet while I'm at it by sending a single satellite to every contract. Tiny little satellites with a pair of MG-5 Relays everywhere (Kerbal Alarm Clock is your friend here...). They go to orbit almost entirely on a single Thumper SRB too. While you're getting that money, start rescuing kerbals in LKO. They're solid income and they build up your staff too. They can be a little crazy if they're in HKO, but Mun/Minmus rescues are solid too. Just watch out for the 'return the part' missions once you've unlocked the KLAW. If you're going for the 2nd upgrade to science to unlock the end of the tree, now you're looking at building stations (Solars are usually great money if you don't have to stick a Kerbal in them and can suicide them out). A nice fuel station or 3 at Mun/Minmus makes for a great staging area for rover/mining work, and ... rovers. Profit/cost ratios are really nice for new areas, and a rover can be re-used for additional work later. They do however cost you in real time, so only take those if you enjoy rovering otherwise they're not worth time->profit investments. I've got a little rover build I ship out constantly (I think I launch one every 3-5 days in my current career) that drops itself wherever I need, blows off its engines, and then runs around. I don't recommend bothering with rovers until the second grade of wheels though. The little golf cart ones are simply horrible if you have to travel. Besides that, simply keep an eye out for high value contracts and simply try for efficiency. The last tier of science pretty much breaks the difficulty of the game, so it's not really that important unless you're trying for extreme situations.

Depends on skill level for building a plane. Well balanced planes handle better if you simply trim them instead of using SAS because it turns more fluidly during banking and the like. Your SAS doesn't fight your plane's natural tendency to turn when it's off. It does however require knowing the plane pretty well to know what to trim it to.

Nice work there! Absolutely shatters my 1.77t lifter cost/ton. Looks like I'll have to revisit it! XD

I definitely agree with that. I'm currently trying to see what I can do with another semi-standard payload I use, a 12t fuel refueler in LKO that is 17.2 tons after all the rendezvous and control parts. My spaceplane I limited to Tech 2 parts so it's a Panther build, and can't get anywhere near your 10t delivery, and that's sitting on the edge of near perfect ascent profiles with no room for error. I may revisit it for fun with some rapiers and stuff at some point but I think I've pretty much gotten that bird as perfect as I can personally get it at 4,218 in fuel, for 351.5/t for 12t fuel payload. Near miss ascents can be recovered by using a portion of the payload, but still... that's nowhere near what you were able to get with rapiers. @maccollo 's entry in the disposable rocket category at 61.87/t is nigh un-achievable at under 1/3 the weight. Fairings are seriously not helping my attempts, either, but that's a personal concern, as I'm not interested in random payloads but ones I'll actually use repeatedly for the amount of tweaking and overanalyzing I'm doing. Even if I include the fairing in the payload cost I still can't get near it, it's not the extra 1.5k funds that's throwing me off. I keep coming in close to 1,000 - 1,100/t for this payload when I don't do anything particularly inane. I may have just found one of those odd tonnage rates where the skipper provides good upper atmo value but it needs a boost for liftoff with kickbacks that are too expensive for the weight, but the Thumper just doesn't have the oomph.

EDIT: After further reading, I need to revise my comment. X37-B is a Type II recoverable lifter. You're simply not bothering to recover the first stage. Whatever the X37-B drops off in orbit, untouched, is your payload.

That's awesome. Might I ask at what altitude you do your first separation? I also noticed a few things though that might help you. When you separate the first and second stages, once the second stage gets to desired apoapsis, kill SAS and let it glide with minimal drag. However, because it's 'on rails', that may be a moot concern. It's something I do for my ultra high TWR lifters though during the glide from 35 - 75k. Next up would be to play with your parachute settings with how draggy those boars are. 0.6 altitude deployment and 700m full deployment should be plenty for them. Also, if you put them on with radial attachment you can increase the spread angle to 10 which will give you an even slower final decent. All of that's simply to let you have a little more breathing room for switching to stage two again, as you know your landing location before hand... the water. There's a long flow of thought and testing information below. TL;DR: You're starving the Panthers and you really want to use Whiplash instead so you can hold above 25km while working with the second stage. Use an intake with a larger surface area and a much higher effective base speed to counter the takeoff starvation before lifting, which is either the Engine Pre-Cooler or the Engine Nacelle. The Nacelle is what you want for price as without fuel it's even lighter than the Pre-Cooler and you can probably just strip out the Mark 1 Fuel tanks. After seeing your attempt I realized why mine were just never going to survive TSTO style builds with Panthers. --------------------------------------------------------------- You shouldn't be getting Asymmetric burnout in 1.2.2. At all. I've got a 4 Panther lifter I'm playing with as an orbital fuel delivery system that has perfect burnout due to altitude with 3 intakes and a very lazy attachment process... and... oh, wait. Are you using the Juno tiny intakes for feeding panthers? XD I've never tried it. However, I've ran into equivalent issues where my kNs stop going up due to starvation when you aren't moving at all, which is worth inspecting. If you're being forced to take off wet, which is my guess for those Panthers, you might want to look into switching to Whiplash, though those are air hogs (actually, wet panthers and Whiplash are roughly equivalent), and would most likely need to use Engine Nacelles for takeoff (effective air speed 40 m/s). The Whiplash cost 250 m/s more, but should travel a LOT higher (reducing stage two and leaving more time for recovery) as well as let you get some pretty high TWR boostback for a higher recovery value. During some simple testing I found that Whiplash + Nacelle ran ~119.8 kN on the pad without starving. It goes up to 290+ kN through Mach 2.6 while lifting, but you need to lift, so that's just bonus during flight for extra apoapsis during its 'speed run'. Dropped to under 120kN at ~18k, and it cut out completely on me at ~ 27km up during a straight up shot. The Pre-Cooler lets you squeak out a little bit more but for a straight up launch you're not going to see a significant benefit for long enough. Compare to the Panther: Dry 75.1 kN on pad. Wet: 125.6k kN on pad. Also steadies out at ~120 kN. However, it starts falling hard at 11k to negligible amounts by 15k and cuts out completely at ~21kM during a straight up. If those ARE Whiplash on the bottom of the lifter, sorry about that! At least the testing helps validate some things I was trying to figure out.

It's all in TWR. The more fuel you strip, the faster you can get away from the pad, the less you have to spend. "It takes fuel to lift fuel" is a philosophy I'm heavily applying these cheap and light lifters. I'm getting closer to a 3,000 dV on the pad lifter. I might not actually get it, but we'll see. Considering I got to orbit with ~100 dV to spare for landing with 3,193, I think it's doable.

So Stubby works even with a rough launch. Stubby is a nice little wuvable wocket who just wants to visit space... and after recovery merely costs 1,437 funds (for the lost fairing and the fuel) after delivering 1.77t to orbit... for 811 funds/ton. The fairing costs 115 funds and the fuel 1,322.

Junos won't go high enough for a boostback, the payload can't go high enough up for the weight cost for the second stage nor are you high enough to let it 'float' a bit while you deal with the payload component. And the less I say about those two hours wasted on space planes with an AE-FF1 cargo bay, the better. By the time I was done with fuel costs (and needing yet MOAR BOOSTER!), I'm pretty sure it was going to cost me more in fuel for the Spaceplane than just letting it rip with the disposable launcher. I'm dinking around with a landable SSTO deployment system I have nicknamed Stubby for the moment. If I can get it to land without dying, it might beat out your costs for re-usable rockets. TWR on the pad and incredibly aggressive grav turns seems to be king for low dV/weight launches. Edit: Got it. Drone Chutes and S-turns to the rescue. Wow this comes in hot. 1.77t for 746.89/ton. Doesn't count until I prove it though, so just an edit. I think this will need a video for believability, so that'll take a bit as I've got plans this weekend and it's bedtime for Bonzo. At least I go to sleep with something fun to smile over.

Nothing particularly useful, though I had some fun mucking about with Junos, Terriers, and a 2 ton payload trying to get to orbit without boring myself to death. Much amusement ensues when physics warp takes a reasonably flyable plane into completely screwball results with a reversed fairing payload. "You will not go to space today..." All I have for my efforts are a bunch of smiles, a few chuckles, a complete dearth of screenshots due to lack of forethought, a sad feeling of disappointment for 2,500 dV Terriers not making the grade from 10k and 500 horizontal m/s, and some confusion trying to figure out where those hours went before I add up the '5-10 minutes per test flight, I made how many... versions...? oh gods...'

So far? Errr, no. Junos go to 8k, and you can eek Panthers up to 15 but realistically they die off ~11k. It's becoming more of a hybrid SSTO (actual, not spaceplane) rocket. I'm still having fun dinking around with it, but I'm thinking I may need to convert final stage to a spark + 1 or 2 Oscars and let it fly while doing a boostback style launcher if I want a TSTO. I'm not that great with boostbacks, either, so this should be curious. Edit: It's official, what I'm trying to do will simply fail as a boostback. This will end up being either an SSTO or a Spaceplane. I keep losing the payload during it's second stage while trying to bring the booster down. There is no native recording in KSP. I personally use Bandicam. A lot of others will use Fraps. Windows 10 has a native recorder too, if I remember right, but I've never used that. Edit 2: Screw Junos. No, really. Just... no. "Thou shalt not pass!" levels of NOPE.

LOL, no worries. Glad it counted. I've messed with it a bit since then, experimenting with a spark engine and things like that. I end up running into TWR issues in upper atmo, so I personally can't quite see a way of beating that without someone putting up an Okto, 2 solar panels, a single MG-5, an Oscar and a spark and calling it a payload. XD I did however get inspired by your TSTO designs, and I'm currently fiddling around with design to get that payload to orbit that can be relanded using Tech-1 gear (T-45 + Junos, a few wings for landing control, and a couple of parachutes). I heavily doubt it'll beat out Rapiers but it'll be a curious design anyway. I'm basically hampering myself by not using the Tech 3 gear, but typically when I'm in Tech 3 I don't care about cash anymore anyway unless it's in huge values (like returning a dozen rhinos or something), as I've already bought the most expensive investment anyway. Fun challenge.

I've taken to slapping a Docking Port Jr. on the back of the rover, slapping an Oscar or three on with a spark, and landing it independently tail down. Eject the engine with a separator and the rover has a reverse node to work from! This has worked for me for anything not pushing over a few tons. This should work for pretty much any non-atmospheric body. I've not had the issues you seem to describe (detaching a port in a Mk3 cargo bay, for example) but it's been a LONG time since I used those, so my experiences are woefully out of date for the state of possible bugs.

Cool. Thanks for the information. I notice there are things you're not accounting for here, but that's fair as it's a challenge and the complexity can get ridiculous. One of the things, for example, is fairings. Because you're using ore tanks as your control, it makes sense as you don't have a lot of things that will burn off. This is a bit daunting to me because my re-usable payloads are typically either a fuel deadlifter (which has lots of little things hanging off it that don't like heat for rendezvous), satellite payloads for CommNets and mission satisfactions, or Kerbal delivery/recovery systems. However, I'm ahead of myself... to the challenge! First, my payload: The Heavy Satellite is a workhorse for my Tech 1 career. Carrying 2 MG-5 Antennas, a MatBay, Goo, the rest of the science trimmings, and 2,612 m/s dV once in orbit, lifting this thing cheaply is a major concern for my career cash grinds and establishing my Kerbin SOI CommNet, so it's a big deal for me... and thus, a perfect thing for me to work on for a challenge of this nature (I still win, even if I don't)! Payload: 1.77t Cost: 7,305 Disposable Launcher: BHS Launcher - A1 Cost of lifter system: 3,246. Remove 200 for the TT18-A, recovered on the pad, final: 3,046. Per ton: 1,720 funds/ton. This isn't awesome, and just squeaks into orbit, but it works. It also launches with no upgrades to anything, one of my considerations for certain builds. Of particular note, KER lists this as having 3,198 m/s dV on the pad. The dV recovery to orbit is in the insanely overpowered TWR of the BACC during the initial ascent countering gravity losses. Lifter system: 2xTR-18As, 1 FL-T400, 1 Terrier, 1 BACC, 4 Basic Fins, and an AE-FF1 Fairing to protect the payload and remove aerodynamic problems. EDIT: I've found a curious bug. The A1 is 10,445 when I load it. If I detach and re-attach the TR-18A after the fairing, it goes to 10,551... which is the price of the fairing. The fairing's price doesn't appear to be loading up from a craft save file unless reattached.

Hello, curious about this challenge and wanted to understand a few things from the opening post, particularly because I have a series of satellite launchers I tend to use and it could be interesting seeing just how cheap I can get a 1.5-2t payload orbital (they got to 'good enough' and I rolled from there). I don't know if I'll get them into submission range, but it looks fun. Why are some of those entries sub-optimal? They're cheaper/ton than some of the others listed above it that are considered valid attempts. For scoring, you mention lighter payloads have a weighted scoring in the thread because of lighter payloads being more common, but you don't mention how they're weighted... or I just missed it. Can you clarify this please? As far as I can tell none of the sliders adjust parts cost between the difficulties, including testing between a normal and a hard career with the same craft file. Just making sure I didn't miss something obvious that might throw my numbers off. Is there a slider that affects this? Finally, a number of my typical designs use a portion of the final payload for it's circularization burn simply because I dislike de-orbiting my boosters. Is remaining payload viable, or is it a dead static payload to orbit?

Short answer: Either 5 minutes for a rocket (Satellites, Kerbal Rescue ships, and Rover delivery systems are a common one for reusage), 15-30 for a brand new out of the box spaceplane design, and then 10 minute tweaks constantly for the rest of its existence in the save file if it doesn't explode on contact with the physics system. I typically work under the 'fail faster' idea... mostly because either I'm experimenting or shoving together something I know should work if I don't miss anything silly. After that it becomes a question of "Is this even the same thing I built originally?!", as I tend to re-use my base models heavily once they're solid. So, if I slapping together Satellite #BF312 with x dV to get to y random orbit, I slap the thing together, shove a bunch of rockets on it, and test to make sure it actually flies. If something is utterly silly (flips at 8k, etc) I send it back into the VAB and call it a 'simulation flight'. Otherwise, off it goes and gets saved with some notations in the name. IE: Sat K SOI M/G/T/A... for Kerbin SOI Satellite with MatBay, Goo, Temp Guage, and AirPressure detector. Or "Stn Solar 5K+Sci+Cup", for the very common "5 Kerbal Station to Solar with Science Compartment and Cupola". You get the drift. These will get further tweaked for later missions as necessary, or because something didn't go quite right the first time. However, when tweaking something like an SSTO refueler, same idea happens, just takes a bit more time for me. Recently I built the Harmony 12t Payload refueler with Panthers/T-30/Thuds... because I wanted to use Thuds, dangit! The first iteration of it took a bit just making it semi-pretty, slapping on the tanks all over, and balancing load for pre/post fuel dumps. Once that was reasonable, I shoved it off the runway and see if it could fly and what its max speed was without even trying to get to orbit, and if there were any significant stability issues. A few fixes (and failure to launch) later, and some changes to the wings (stripped a few off) I tested the orbital mechanics. Since then, it's undergone constant minor tweaks so it really depends on what you mean by how long I'll spend on a design. The Harmony has undergone some overhauls since it was first built, to allow for a small fuel compartment for de-orbital burns, adjustments to where the equipment and solar panels are placed, battery levels for night landings, removing 2 tons of jet fuel... etc. None of those happened on the first launch though. However, it's been to space 10 times so far in my current career. I think it really comes down to how often I expect to re-use something, or if I'm trying to showcase it when I share a craft file. If it's just a one-off, meh! If it's something I'll be re-using, it'll get tweaked... and tweaked again. (and again... and again... and again... and agai... That's not a refueler plane anymore, is it...? well, I *guess* we could visit Dres...)

The old guides for this are no longer valid. They were for the old aero model, which is why you're seeing references to it as you poke around. Plasma effects are just pretty. Overheat bars, however, are a concern if you're nearing the edge. Some of my rockets Trans-sonic before 5k, if I've overwhelmed the TWR on the pad for one reason or another (I typically aim for a launch TWR of 1.6-1.8 these days). Just do a clean gravity turn and enjoy the pretty effects. LANDING is another story if you don't have heat shields, but seriously, you shouldn't worry about takeoff unless you're trying to skim the ocean before climbing out. If you're actually overheating radial parts (they're exploding, not just heating up), just adjust your gravity turn a little higher.

So I finally built the Duna Whip, and as promised... pictures! Here is stage 3 of the Whip after achieving circular orbit ~74.5k. On day 102 we left Kerbin orbit for Duna, 121 days prior to good window. After digging around with maneuver nodes, I finally came up with a return to Kerbin at a significant, but acceptable, timetable, for a reasonable dV cost all things considered. Running at 4,500 dV (before braking at Kerbin), I purposely avoided doing an aerobrake for this attempt so I can see how well I can aim with maneuver nodes and not even worry about what the aerobrake will do to me. I really want to avoid an accidental orbit. The first minor node is simply a cleanup of the approach to get close to Duna and reasonably equatorial: Then, upon entering Duna's SOI, I brake, HARD. Close to the descending node, I clean up the inclination with a small burn and then get my grav assist to stop aiming for Dres: Finally, after leaving Duna SOI, I do a major anti-radial burn with some more retrograde tossed in to get myself a new intercept with Kerbin Finally, 1 year and 61 days later, if all goes well, I'll have a new intercept with Kerbin's SOI. I'll clean up from there and land hot. Thanks for the help everyone! I'm going to keep mucking with the return leg for a while, but figured I'd throw this together as my starting point in case anyone's got some great ideas.

I'm not sure about OPT Space Plane Parts, but I know the COL/COM indicators can lie even with some stock bits. If it's not registering lift off the pieces in the front of the plane, your COL is WAY up front. I'd start with dragging those forward swept wings WAY back and seeing what happens.

I just banged my head for an hour and a half trying to lift a suicide solar station with wayyy too much mono on it from Launchpad straight to Solar with 4,700+ dV on it. I finally threw my hands up, ripped off a small tank, stuffed stuffed some fins on it (loss of about 200 dV), and put it into Solar orbit doing a normal gravity turn... on the first try. That definitively ends ANY conversation for me about 'which way is better'. Grav turn me baby, uh-huh, uh-huh!

Not really. In practice, from LKO: Intercept: 850 dV to Mun, 950 dV to Minmus + 200 dV for a badly missed takeoff vector for alignment. Capture: 350 dV Mun, 175 dV Minmus Landing: 550 dV Mun, 165 dV Minmus (+ Landing dV, ~100-200 dV) Takeoff: 550 dV Mun, 160 dV Minmus Return + Kerbin Landing: 280 dV Mun, 280 dV Minmus (Assuming AeroBrake) Mun: 2,750 dV or so Minmus: 2,100 dV or so. The only part of Minmus that makes it more difficult is what was mentioned above: Getting the intercept on a tiny SOI that's off angle. EDIT: Those are rough numbers from memory. If I'm off a bit somewhere, forgive me, it's just to get the concept across, not create a dV map.

Playing with SSTO's and opening up the Panther engines, I finally worked out an LKO refueler design I'm happy with. Originally 12 tons of fuel to orbit, I've been adjusting it to make de-orbiting easier, but I've started to eat into my fuel payload to do it, so still tweaking, but I'm pretty happy with it. Additionally, I decided some Rover contracts could be fun. Meet the TLRTC, "The little rover that could". Designed for non-atmo rover delivery and costing ~22,000 to put up, it comes in for a great budget for rover work in Kerbin SOI.