Wanderfound

No more massless battery and solar spam: yay!

The most obvious (and most likely) solution to the Fermi paradox is that interstellar travel and Kardashev X civilsations are a practical engineering impossibility. Einstein was right.

They're working fine for me; just the thing for boosting a basic jet aircraft into the upper altitudes.

Probably possible, but not recommended. As before, the sensible way to take an SSTO interplanetary is to refuel it in LKO before heading off. This is no great hardship; if you can build an interplanetary SSTO, you shouldn't have any trouble building an SSTO tanker to establish an orbital fuel supply at negligible cost. A nuke SSTO refuelled in LKO can easily hold 4,000m/s ÃŽâ€V; design one to maximise tank capacity and it shouldn't be hard to hit 6,000m/s or more. SSTO still works just fine. It's only SSTanywhere that has become less practical, and those were always an unrealistic exploit anyway. For the folks who want to maintain that unrefuelled SSTA ability...well, that's what the SF mods like KSPI are for.

Make the best of it: stick some VTOL Vernors on the underside for low-G landings, use the bicoupler to carry a smidge of oxidiser just for them.

Bakase: this is the third time today that this exact conversation has repeated on this thread. Ferram has been developing this (fantastically good, incredibly complicated, seen by many players as essential, done by Ferram purely as a charitable work) mod for years. Do the math. Is it surprising that he might occasionally get a teentsy bit irritable when the same thing happens again and again? Or that fans of the mod might want to do what they can to deflect those irritations before it gets so bad that Ferram decides it isn't worth the hassle? Nobody here is attacking you, and nothing you did was particularly objectionable when considered in isolation. But this isn't an isolated event. Please consider the context.

Those are both variations on "burn straight to apoapsis", however. The competing flight plan was "circularise in LKO, then raise apoapsis, then circularise again". The difference you're getting is due to the first version (aimed at 2,500km) using a steeper initial ascent, thereby incurring additional gravity losses that outweigh the Oberth lost in the brief coasting phase of the second.

The nerf was needed; ÃŽâ€V to orbit is down to roughly what it was in FAR, and with that I could easily launch interplanetary probes on nothing but a single large SRB. Made it rather too easy.

I'm afraid Blu wins this round... (don't feel bad, there have been many long threads arguing about Oberth, with experienced players on all sides; it's something that's easy to get confused with) You're both right in that you get more Oberth effect the deeper you are in the gravity well. The thing to keep in mind is that the burn to apoapsis and the circularisation burn do not each comprise 50% of the total energy. Especially if you do a good gravity turn, 90%+ of the total ÃŽâ€V expenditure will happen during the initial burn to apoapsis, followed by a tiny tap of thrust for circularisation. Because of this, you want to concentrate your "Oberthyness" where it has the most impact: the initial lift of the apoapsis. Stopping and circularising at 70 gets you maximum Oberth on the circularisation burn, but to do that you need to give up all that tasty tasty low-altitude Oberth that goes past during the coast phase. It's worth losing a tiny benefit on the circularisation in order to gain a substantial benefit on the main lift.

I've got nothing against deltas per se, it's just...

It "looks after itself" in the sense that: 1) Until you scrape the Munar and Minmusian science wells dry (which will take a long time, there are plenty of biomes and a variety of scientific instruments), all it takes to pick up another 500 science is a quick jaunt back to one of the muns. Landing in a single spot with a ScienceJr/Goo Pod/Thermometer/etc will allow you to collect about 200 science. In addition, the gravity is low enough that once you get comfortable with landing it requires very little fuel to hop between neighbouring biomes, doubling your potential science. Or you could just put the lander on wheels, or build a ground station with a laboratory and rover, or an orbital station with a lab, fuel depot and lander, or whatever else your creativity suggests. 2) Once you've done the Mun and Minmus, next stop Duna. The science multipliers of the destinations increase the further they are from Kerbin; a single interplanetary trip can haul in a colossal amount of science points. The game is designed to encourage you to keep pushing further out into the system. You have docking ports? If so, you don't need a lander that can hop all over the Mun; it just needs to be able to get down and back up once. After getting back into Munar orbit, rendezvous with your orbiting laboratory to refresh your Science Jrs and Goo Pods, refill your lander from the big fuel tank that you also have docked to your laboratory, then rinse and repeat as desired. Never carry fuel down to the surface when you can leave it floating in orbit instead. The slow automatic trickle of science from a lab is a minor bonus that was only introduced in 1.0. The main purpose of the orbital lab in previous versions was to allow you to re-use Goo and SciJr's, and to enhance the transmission percentages if you can't be bothered carrying the samples home. I have to confess that I'm not 100% certain of exactly how the labs work now. About as long as a piece of string... Don't get too hung up on the science. Land on the Muns, send robot probes to all the planets, and you'll pick up enough science as you go along that the tech tree will gradually open up for you. Save the science-grinding tricks for the times when there's just that one part that you need to unlock before sending off your next big mission. Try to abandon the normal gamer mindset; your goal is not to "beat" the game, and finishing the tech tree doesn't mean that you've won. This is Kerbal: the only way to lose is to not have fun. I wouldn't count on that. There are a lot of planets to explore, Easter eggs to find, challenges to compete in, screencap travelogues to write, mods to experiment with and Kerbals to kill. Er, rescue, I meant.

Easy to do a budget bulk passenger hauler, too; stick a dozen command chairs in a cargo bay. They'll only be in there for a short flight anyway, no point in shelling out for luxuries. Or put a Klaw in the bay, and rescue the whole capsule. Free √ when you recover it.

And I was worried that the area rule stuff was going to lead to everyone flying deltas all the time...

It's a rite of passage; the old Fine Print ​thread used to have this come up once every three or four posts.

Kind of. Raster Prop Monitor allows you to bring up the equivalent of the map view (flight/orbital) on the in-cockpit video screens. And the assorted flight data mods (Kerbal Flight Data, Kerbal Engineer Redux, Mechjeb, etc.) can provide numerical orbit data (apoapsis, inclination, time to apoapsis, etc) within the flight view. The window-in-window idea is good for stock, though.

And, as will inevitably happen: When you get to space and find that your craft starts spinning whenever you disengage the SAS...cancel your trim with alt-X. Also worth checking when a satellite or space station contract is refusing to complete "for no reason".

It's definitely doable, but takes a fair bit of finesse, and the last few m/s worth of ÃŽâ€V are often spent with the nose pointed radial or anti-radial. Nose a whisker too high and your apoapsis explodes; nose a whisker too low and you'll find yourself falling back into the atmosphere. I generally only bother with trying for it when I'm flying nuke-based spaceplanes; the low TWR gives you time to react, and as spaceplanes usually have much more control authority than a typical rocket I can whip the nose around quickly.

This is from before any of the engines have shifted to rocket mode: If you're having heat trouble, swap the ramscoops for shock cones, stick intercoolers in front of your engines and think carefully about how you attach wings and things. In some cases, you may get better heat dispersal if you alter the attachment point of the wing (and then use the translation tools to slide it back to where it should be).

Octa: assuming a proper gravity turn for both, the first method is more efficient, thanks to the Oberth effect. Manux: you're fighting against two different fuel thieves during ascent: drag losses and gravity losses. A flatter ascent with a small circularisation burn maximises drag losses but minimises gravity losses. A steeper ascent with a large circularisation burn minimises drag losses but maximises gravity losses. In most circumstances drag losses are massively outweighed by gravity losses, so you're better off using the flatter ascent. A gravity turn is designed to get you quickly out of the thick lower atmosphere, but then flatten off afterwards. However, as you've noticed, one of the exceptions to that is when your craft is too unwieldy to be easily controlled in the lower atmosphere. In that case, it may be worth taking the extra gravity loss in order to reduce the chance of total mission failure. It will cost you more in fuel, though. Either way, once your apoapsis gets to the altitude you're heading for, point prograde and cut the engines until it's time for the circularisation burn. Unless you have a very unusually built ship [1], drag loss during the coasting phase should only be a kilometre or so of altitude (so if you're aiming for a 73,000m orbit, cut your engines when your apoapsis hits about 74,000m). Don't forget the "point prograde" bit while coasting. It has a large impact on drag losses. [1] Either so overpowered that you're still in the lower atmosphere when you cut the engines, or so unaerodynamic that it generates huge amounts of drag even in the thin upper atmosphere.

Gravity turn 101: 1) Shortly after takeoff, pitch about 5° to the east. 2) Follow the prograde vector from then on. As you ascend, the prograde vector will gradually drift downwards. Pitching over more will make it drop faster, pitching less will pull it back up. Try to keep your nose within 5° of prograde at all times. 3) You want it to be at roughly 45° around about the time you reach 10,000m altitude, but don't worry too much if it's a bit above or below. 4) Once you get above 30,000m the reduced drag means you can afford to pull the nose further from prograde if necessary. What you want to do from here is to keep your apoapsis rising steadily ahead of you. In the map view (and in the main view if you use a flight info mod like Kerbal Engineer Redux, Kerbal Flight Data or Mechjeb) you can see both the height of your apoapsis and your "time to apoapsis". Try to hold the "time to apoapsis"constant. Pulling the nose down will reduce the time to Ap, lifting it up will increase it. Keeping it at around 30 seconds gives a comfortable buffer. 5) Once your apoapsis exceeds 70,000m, look again at your time to apoapsis. If it's still within a minute or so, keep burning and hold the nose down in order to stop the apoapsis from increasing further. If it's raced out to a longer time ahead of you (it probably will, it moves very quickly when you're flying almost flat), cut your engines. Point the nose prograde to minimise drag and coast until you're almost at apoapsis, then light the engines again to raise your periapsis.

"Spoiler" is just the standard way of hiding some text in a post; the forum itself adds the word "spoiler" to the link. Sometimes it's used for actually hiding spoilers, sometimes just to avoid cluttering up people's screens with a mountain of text (as is the case here). See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/misc.php?do=bbcode for how to do spoilers and similar formatting tricks.

Forgot about the pyramids, or haven't found 'em yet? Go west, young man...

I'm still working out ideal launch trajectories in stock; for now, I'm mostly just trying to avoid too much in the way of speed-sapping changes of direction. As a general rule, though, the flatter the better (so long as you don't give up too much to drag). Doing your acceleration lower allows you to maximise Oberth during the rocket phase, as well as extending the fuel-efficient jet phase. From a ground-vs-space Isp point of view, by the time you're over 40,000m you're pretty much in space already. The non-nuke version (Triske) cuts it a bit fine in terms of heat tolerance, but this one is comfortably within the limits. The extra intercooler may be making the difference.

Here y'go: Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/lk4ft3msi0xcwfc/Loteknika.craft?dl=0

My current career went "launch 1: altitude records; launch 2: suborbital; launch 3: orbit". I'll go back and see if I can throw together a low-tech demonstrator. You do have to stack quite a lot of those dinky little starter tanks.