GoSlash27

Grenartia, A single precooler would definitely be the way to go. The heat shield... it's worth a shot. Heat tolerance seems to count for more than aerodynamics at that speed. I think I may fart around with it a bit myself. Best, -Slashy

Yeah, another example from my early 1.0 intake testing: The heat rips parts off long before you get to Mach 6. The OP claimed to have reached 3km/sec on stock parts and jets. He must've been mistaken. 3km/sec is impossible, let alone 6 km/sec. Best, -Slashy

Yeah, I get what you're saying, but even in the case of a burn for lower Pe it's still not helpful to eject out- of- plane. You lose the benefit of the Oberth effect to help make your Pe burn cheaper and it works against you, making your inclination change more expensive. It would be cheaper to eject retrograde and do the plane change after escaping Kerbin's gravity well when your velocity is at it's lowest. Best, -Slashy

Ooo! Pretty! Best, -Slashy

I'll have a hard time explaining this without pics... When you leave Kerbin's SoI, you're carrying it's orbital velocity of (roughly) 9300 m/sec. We have used this to our advantage in the initial burn (Oberth effect) so that we only need 1,700 m/sec to hit apoapsis. If we instead expend that 1,700 m/sec perpendicular to Kerbin's orbital plane, that will only buy us 10° of inclination change (1.7k up and 9.3k east), and we haven't made any headway on raising apoapsis. We would now have to make an even bigger prograde burn to compensate for the fact that we wasted our Oberth effect; about 2,300 m/sec to get back to where we were instead of the original 1,700, so this approach just wasted the DV we had earmarked to get us 54° inclination change on 10° of inclination change. We have to spend an additional 1,800 m/sec to get us the rest of the way. You never want to make inclination changes at high speed. That's why I planned it where I did. The way to reduce the budget for the inclination change would be what Champ said; do a bi- elliptic transfer, but really even that doesn't buy you much. Best, -Slashy

Let's see it doing 3km/sec?

Pics?

Oh, wait? So now you're not using jets? If that's the case, then this isn't a record. It's not even difficult.

^ And even if you did use non- stock parts that generate zero drag... No. No you won't. The engines aren't capable of producing thrust anywhere near that fast. I admire your spirit, but this isn't even remotely possible in stock. Best, -Slashy

StarManta, This is true. This is just a Hohmann transfer. You could save a lot of DV by using gravity assists... but it's hard to predict exactly how much, exactly when to launch, and it will take a whole lot longer. It'd be cheaper in terms of player time, game time, and difficulty to simply build in the extra DV. This, however, is incorrect. When you leave Kerbin's SoI, you will still be in the ecliptic plane. Don't worry; I've made the same mistake myself. Best, -Slashy

prorokbmx, Do you mean 2000 m/sec? I don't think any of the stock airbreathing engines are capable of producing thrust beyond that. Best, -Slashy

^ That's not stock parts *edit* what's 3000 cca? Best, -Slashy

No. No you won't. Best, -Slashy

Champ, Yes, a bi- elliptic transfer would save some DV, but not very much. There's not a lot of eccentricity in this transfer. And you could play gravity assist pinball and save lots of DV, but that approach is harder to plan for in the building phase (it's hard to predict exactly how much DV is required) and (as you point out) extends the mission time. Unless I'm mistaken and it has been fixed, there actually is a time constraint to KSP. The clock used to overrun after around 60 years. If that's still the case, then in- game time actually does matter. Best, -Slashy

Full disclosure: I haven't messed around with "mothership" designs where the payload is in the middle of the assembly. Like others here, I use space tugs with a docking port on the front. It's structurally simpler and easier to launch/ assemble. I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out for you! Best, -Slashy

"Whew! You sure do have to jump through a lot of hoops to get incorporated into Kerbal Space Program! But I wonder who that sad little scrap of code is?" "I'm just a mod, yes I'm only a mod and I'd like to be accepted by Squad..." /old school reference -Slashy

Actually, it's even worse than that. The transfer would take at least 3 years, 295 days. So I agree with the others above. If you take this contract and you are very careful, you might turn $60,000 profit right off the bat. Then (assuming everything works out according to plan) you'd have to wait nearly 4 years for the remaining $300,000. And of course if it fails you'll lose a lot of money and take a rep hit. I wouldn't do it. Best, -Slashy

Alshain, I knocked together a similar table a while back and never released it. I can expand on your recommendations. These recommendations were generated using my engineering spreadsheet. They are optimized for cost to orbit. payload range vs. recommended stack 0-0.12t LV-1 "Ant" a,b 48-7S "Spark" a 0.13-1.1t 48-7S "Spark" a LV-T30 "Reliant" b 1.2t-2.2t LV-909 "Terrier" a LV-T30 "Reliant" b 2.4-4.0t LV-909 "Terrier" a RE-I5 "Skipper" 4.2-7.0t RE-L10 "Poodle" RE-I5 "Skipper" 7.5-17t RE-L10 "Poodle" RE-M3 "Mainsail" 18-24t RE-I5 "Skipper" KR-1x2 "Twin Boar" 25-45t RE-I5 "Skipper" KS-25x4 "Mammoth" Notes: a: Warning, this part does not generate electric charge b: Warning, this part does not have thrust vectoring. I like to use SRB lowers to cut down on costs. In the above chart everything from the Reliant to the Twin Boar can be replaced by SRBs for substantial savings, but the reader should keep in mind that SRBs have no throttle, no alternator, and no thrust vectoring. This makes them somewhat tricky to work with. Best, -Slashy

Could you elaborate a bit? Are you claiming that you can do this, or that the OP assumes that he can do this? I'm not seeing how this is helpful. Best, -Slashy

"The Vector is overpowered."

GunnDawg, Foxster has a good basic tutorial on the design process here: Just start at the end of the mission and work your way backwards. Stage design is actually easier with series staging because there's no complicated mixing of different engine types firing simultaneously. You just figure out the DV budget for a stage and add it in series. Best, -Slashy

tater, Honestly, I think the whole game was tacked- on. It's a work in progress. But of course there ain't nuthin' we can do about that How do you handle bad contracts in early career? Happy New Year, -Slashy

^ The original post. Can we please get back on topic? Best, -Slashy

cantab, Aye, but as I said... early contracts are pretty useless in the current game. You can develop the early portion of the game without ever taking a survey or part testing contract just by collecting science and hitting the "world's first" benchmarks. You can pad out the tech tree to full tier 1 and have a half a million dollars in the bank without ever taking a contract. Once you get to the point where contracts are necessary (facility upgrades and expanding the roster), there are much better contracts available. Best, -Slashy

Columbia, It wouldn't hurt, but contracts aren't much use in early career. In later career you have satellites, rescues, and space stations. They are all more lucrative, easier, and quicker than tourist contracts. As much as I love planes, I don't picture them having much of a role in career without a major rebalancing. Not griping, just sayin'... Happy New Year! -Slashy