GoSlash27

Another vote for a big SSTO tanker. Fly it up, dock it, transfer the fuel, and fly your empty gas can home. Nothing else can match the cost effectiveness of it short of ISRU. Best, -Slashy

Oh, no worries Best, -Slashy

Streetwind, Actually, it's not a typo. The Rwd of a tank is 9:1. The tank itself is 1/8 the mass of the fuel it contains, but the full mass is the fuel plus the empty tank. Best, -Slashy

Well... I suppose since it's been necro'd it is worth commenting on since so much has changed. There are my preferred design criteria for KSP 1.05: Booster: 1.2 (cheap) to 1.4 (light) Transstage: 0.7 minimum Transfer: 0.5 minimum Lander: 1.5 minimum It should be noted that there are a few different ways to define "efficiency". The most commonly used is minimum DV expenditure, and this is rarely an ideal goal to shoot for. Some others would be minimum stage mass, minimum stage cost, and minimum fuel consumption. Best, -Slashy

Tatonf, Remember that tanks have an absolute maximum Rwd of 9:1. As payload and engine mass approach zero, Rwd approaches 9 and therefore DV approaches 21.6*Isp. But of course, this is for a single stage only. Best, -Slashy

SargeRho, Thanks for posting that link. I found myself actually worrying for the safety of those little probes. Best, -Slashy

Another vote for BBC's "Space Race". Also "From the Earth to the Moon" (HBO miniseries) and "Moon Machines" (Discovery). Best, -Slashy

^This. the distance to Alpha Centauri is so tiny and the orbits are so identical that a Hohmann transfer wouldn't save any DV. Best, -Slashy

as regex said above, a station is a good parking lot and gas station. It's also a good "shipyard" for assembling modular mission packages in orbit. Best, -Slashy

By my calculations for your original spec, I get the following (lightest, not necessarily cheapest) by payload for single engines: <.20t Ant .21-.31 Dawn* .32- 2.3 Spark 2.4- 4.1 Terrier 4.2- 10 Nerv 11-26 Aerospike 27-36 Poodle 37-90 Skipper 91-290 Rhino 300-550 Mammoth. *Does not include mass of solar panels or batteries Best, -Slashy

Here's an example of a full return Minmus surface probe for starting facilities. I keep it in my "rocket park" because it was so helpful in early career. The parts available in tier-zero are sufficient to get you 3 tonnes of payload into LKO without violating the pad mass restrictions, and this is a lot to work with if you design for efficiency. Design tips: * I don't bother with kerballed flights once I have probe cores. * The LV-T30, LV-909, and 48-7S are the triad of awesomeness in early game. * SRBs are evil when first starting out. You can get a lot more done without them until you upgrade. * Expect your upper stage+payload to weigh about 225% of your payload and your total lifter to weigh about 275% of your upper stage and payload. Your booster should be able to get you to about 27km altitude on a gravity turn so that your upper stage won't have to deal with aerodynamic stability problems. One gameplay tip: * "World's first" awards pay way better than contracts. You should try to focus on going to new places and collecting science rather than completing contracts. Once you've got the tech tree opened up, you'll start getting satellite contracts and rescues. Those are usually worth doing (read the fine print). Best, -Slashy

So many new cave- dwellers! Congrats to all of you! -Slashy

I personally never use the old Mk1 cockpit and don't think I'd bother with it if I did have it, *BUT*... Clearly a lot of people want it back and there's no reason I can think of to not give it to them. Best, -Slashy

I believe my "Teeny" still holds the record for smallest rocket to orbit: 0.86 tonnes. Best, -Slashy

Calculating DV and comparing results is tricky because DV isn't a fixed quantity when atmospheric density is changing. I design my booster stage to produce 1,800 m/sec DV for 50% atmosphere Isp and 100% atmosphere thrust. The same stage would appear to produce 1,875 m/sec at vacuum (varies greatly with engine) or 1,725 m/sec at sea level. Best, -Slashy

After thinking about this and experimenting, I have to retract this statement. I was able to come up with a 24t asparagus lifter that was both lighter *and* cheaper than it's 2- stage analogue. This only worked due to the Reliant's excellent cost- effectiveness as compared to the Mainsail and it wasn't economical compared to a SRB lifter, but it *did* outperform a 2 stager in small scale. Best, -Slashy

I propose "Bowie". David Bowie is a Roman deity, isn't he?

My only regret is that I have but one up- vote to give for Snark's response. I personally go for Minmus before the Mun, but there are advantages and disadvantages to doing both in early career. The only thing I can add to this is that it's much easier to build career rockets if you learn the process and math. The process: The math: If you learn these, career mode becomes easy. Best, -Slashy

Not moral. If you can't bring them home safely, don't send them. Best, -Slashy

KSP is a single player game, so there's no such thing as "cheating". In challenges, "cheating" is doing things that violate the letter or spirit of the challenge rules. When doing challenges, Not only will I not do things that the rules explicitly forbid, but I will also try to understand the "intent" of the challenge and not do things that I think would run counter to that even if they are legal. In my personal game, there are a lot of things that I do that I really don't have to and other things that I could do but don't. I don't look at them as "cheating" or "not cheating", but simply playing the game the way I prefer to play it. Best, -Slashy

Temstar, Yeah, I agree with this. *my* point is that asparagus only works with large rockets. The benefit you see is due to the fact that they are large rockets, not that they are asparagus staged. If you try to make an asparagus staged lifter in the 30t class (for example), you will find that you can make a lighter and cheaper 2 stager that does the same thing. Best, -Slashy

Temstar, I have seen that challenge, and I'm not interested in participating in it. I used to design for max payload fraction back in the day, but these days I design for economy. Actually, I'd say this is precisely why it's *not* good. Unless you're using an add- on like stage recovery, anything you drop during a staging event is not recovered. I'd rather not drop a bunch of engines I don't need to drop during a launch if I don't have to. *Especially* not Vectors. More importantly, there is an economy of scale when you get into really big launchers that doesn't hold when working in the range of lifters that don't need to be clustered. Asparagus is nearly always better when you *have* to cluster, but it doesn't compete when you don't have to cluster. Best, -Slashy

Weeelll... It is in theory, but in practice... it's more complicated than that. Merely getting something to orbit ( approx. 3500 m/sec DV) doesn't take enough DV to justify more than 1 staging event with most boosters. If you experiment, you will find that a 3 stage booster winds up being heavier than a 2 stage design for most applications, and the more stages you add (dividing the DV budget), the heavier the lifter becomes. Since most asparagus stacks consist of 3 or more stages, applying asparagus staging usually winds up creating a slightly- more efficient version of a less- efficient stack design. End result is you wind up with a stack that weighs about the same as a generic 2 stager at best, and costs a lot more. I used to be big into asparagus back when the lighter engines had better Isp and orbit took another km/sec DV, but nowadays they don't get much use. Best, -Slashy

Kerbonaut Bacon, Looks like you got bit by the 11th Kerbal mathematical law (the Spaceplane Collider Paradox): "This rule can be summed as: "The farther away you are from KSC, the more likely it is that you will crash into it.", hence the "paradox" denomination. " Seriously, this is a known bug and Squad is aware of it. They've had a difficult time fixing it because it's so hard to duplicate. Best, -Slashy

Like everyone else said, the gravity turn is going to be the most efficient. I like to keep my initial t/w in the neighborhood of 1.2-1.4 and limit it by the function 2sin(pitch). Also, keep in mind that true "efficiency" isn't getting your payload to orbit with minimum DV expended, it's getting your payload to orbit with the least mass and cost. Higher t/w helps reduce your total DV requirement, but it also reduces your payload fraction and increases your cost. Best, -Slashy