MadChris48

heh, right. that would be impressive indeed!

60883m. manual launch. SAS on and full throttle off the pad until ~300m/s Almost immediate switch SAS to hold prograde (this was the break 60k tweak) After ~300m/s is reached, gently and steadily tap the throttle down I never went below 1/3 throttle, and I saw best results keeping the TWR at or above 3 for the duration of the burn

60k might be the number to beat...

Does this include adjusting the thrust limiter in VAB? - - - Updated - - - after a few tries I made it 59531. manual launch, only KER for read outs.

Finally completed this challenge. Phew, after a couple not-thought-out tech tree choices I created quite a hump I needed to get over. However, once I designed the right ship, a Munbomb, it was just a matter of hitting X-number biomes to finish out the tree. It got a hair grindy for me, but I know I was uber inefficient about it, but that's the caveman way. PS; I apologize for the lack of full mission documentation. Been doing this over the course of a few many days and I'm terrible about taking screens.

I'm working on this still. Haven't had much time to dedicate but this weekend should be good. I made a poor tech tree decision and I've hampered some progression (picked heavy rocketry early, hoping to use kickback srb, but its too heavy. and still dont have solar), but I am not deterred! I am caveman!

I'll just leave this here. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80455-How-To-Go-From-Low-Kerbin-Orbit-to-Jool-Orbit-for-1051-m-s

I'm so in on this. getting started now.

Nice ISS replica katateochi. I didn't spend a ton of time figuring out exactly where docking ports are on the real ISS so while mine looks very similar, it has some...kerbal discrepancies. Yours, however, is much closer to the real thing. Nice work!

meh, lets just call it the CTV version of dragon capsule, kerbal style. thanks on the falcon 9, it ain't the best, but ain't the worst either. building the station was the most fun part of the day, but I didn't document any of that really. do have some screenshot of just the station, maybe I'll put it up in the stock craft exchange to check out.

After yesterday's disappointing SpaceX ISS resupply launch I decided to drown my sorrow in KSP creation. I looked at some pictures and in 4 launches built the Kerbal ISS. I'd already built a pretty sweet dragon capsule, so then I made the launcher and did a quick run up to the station. the way it should have happened. Enjoy the mission! Better luck next time for SpaceX!

maneuver nodes are your friend. place one and play with it. you can pull a marker a bit and the click the node and drag it along your orbit to see how it will change. Here is my pro-tip for nailing orbits around other bodies; Use a node to get a rough intercept with a body (say Mun), click on the body you are targeting and click Focus View. You should see your projected path in the SOI. Pan the camera around until you can see your node off in the distance, select it, and then fine turn your insertion orbit. About as surgical as it gets. Making these course changes as early as possible will help save buckets of dV too(generally). If you are landing, just go straight to the surface, no need to make orbit first.

Without the fairing the wings create too much lift, bringing the CoL far ahead of the CoM and it gets flippy.

If you go to the Map once you've launched your vessel, you can find the marker on Kerbin, click it, and 'activate navigation'. You'll then see an icon (somewhere in the general direction) on your navball to show you the way. You will also see a little notification saying when you enter said area. Hope that helps.

It's purpose is to a) act as a rescue/ferry for kerbals in the kerbin SOI, and to look cool and be fun to fly. Yes, yes, The lifter is a bit stronger than it needs to be for sure. But I wanted it to be a single stage to orbit craft so its just a wee bit over-engineered. Like I mentioned, you can replace the large lifter section with a couple orange tanks and a twin boar to bring the cost down quite a bit, however it isn't very aesthetically pleasing in that config. And you'll have to use the shuttle section to circularize. Sure there are probably better and definitely cheaper ways to get this up there, but this isn't an efficiency craft, its a balls to the wall, your-grandma-wish-she-had-this-ship-growin'-up kinda craft. get it.

holy kerballs that was amazing! Uber inspirational.

After adding a ship earlier I couldn't help but add another. This is the Kerbal Dream Chaser craft. Capacity for 2 Kerbals, and takes a small shuttle vehicle to an 80km LKO orbit with a single stage. The shuttle is powered by an LV-909 and has 2.9k dV. Plenty to peruse the Kerbin system. Those big engines can be little much and put a lot of stress on the craft at full throttle and it can get a bit flippy. But some careful throttling and attention paid to AoA and it's really not at all that difficult. You can make a variant of the lifter stage if you haven't unlocked the tech for the biggest rockets yet. A lifter stage of two orange tanks and a Twin Boar with a set of fins will get it mostly there with just the last couple hundred dV to circularize left up to the shuttle. (though it does look a bit ridiculous with the smaller 2.5m tanks and such a large fairing) This one is pretty much WYSIWYG, nothing fancy here. Enjoy! dropbox file included. https://www.dropbox.com/s/m65qpe7frks4tb0/dreamchaser.craft?dl=0

I submit to you the Kaddy Shuttle. 3 stages, 4 kerbal capacity (with options for ship customization), takes a shuttle with 2.9k dV to ~80km orbit. There were a few challenges to building this ship, but the biggest in my opinion is balancing the weight with some clever fuel flow as the craft uses it up. I have it rigged so the bottom orange tank drains first, then to top. This keeps the weight in the front of the ship the entire flight and helps counteract the offset thrust from the skipper. Full throttle off the pad. Launch is the new standard, turn a few degrees right of the pad and it almost flies itself to space. Usually just minimal input is needed to keep it on course. The SRBs stage ~8km. From there its a gentle turn and climb to space. It gets a little unstable as the last of the fuel drains out of the orange tank and it isn't heavy enough to help keep the nose down. The last ~500 units of fuel in the orange tank the ship wants to pitch up. I put a vernor to help out that last bit, but its the only time you need it (along with some light throttling). 2.9k dV is enough to get to minmus, mun, or anywhere else in Kerbin's SOI and return. I've rescued multiple kerbals in one go with this ship. Re-entry is super easy. This thing has so much surface area you can come in a little 'belly up' and it slows down quickly. She glides to a gentle touchdown every time. I'm rather proud of her balance. The shuttle was built in the SPH then imported to VAB. To get the thrust right, the Skipper has been rotated 1 Shift-click notch on the rotation gizmo. To get the fuel flow right, it has a fuel line from the top tank to the shuttle, and from the bottom of the shuttle directly to the Skipper. You can even replace a Mk2 fuel tank with a Mk2 cargo bay and it can carry a small payload to space. I've found I can play around with the number of cockpits and cargo bays with some decent variation of ships and equally similar/easy launches. I even have a mini shuttle version using FL-T800 tanks with a Swivel as the core stage. I hope this inspires you! Its super rewarding to build a shuttle-like craft. Enjoy!

I submit to you the Kaddy Shuttle. 3 stages, 4 kerbal capacity (with options for ship customization), takes a shuttle with 2.9k dV to ~80km orbit. There were a few challenges to building this ship, but the biggest in my opinion is balancing the weight with some clever fuel flow as the craft uses it up. I have it rigged so the bottom orange tank drains first, then to top. This keeps the weight in the front of the ship the entire flight and helps counteract the offset thrust from the skipper. Full throttle off the pad. Launch is the new standard, turn a few degrees right of the pad and it almost flies itself to space. Usually just minimal input is needed to keep it on course. The SRBs stage ~8km. From there its a gentle turn and climb to space. It gets a little unstable as the last of the fuel drains out of the orange tank and it isn't heavy enough to help keep the nose down. The last ~500 units of fuel in the orange tank the ship wants to pitch up. I put a vernor to help out that last bit, but its the only time you need it (along with some light throttling). 2.9k dV is enough to get to minmus, mun, or anywhere else in Kerbin's SOI and return. I've rescued multiple kerbals in one go with this ship. Re-entry is super easy. This thing has so much surface area you can come in a little 'belly up' and it slows down quickly. She glides to a gentle touchdown every time. I'm rather proud of her balance. The shuttle was built in the SPH then imported to VAB. To get the thrust right, the Skipper has been rotated 1 Shift-click notch on the rotation gizmo. To get the fuel flow right, it has a fuel line from the top tank to the shuttle, and from the bottom of the shuttle directly to the Skipper. You can even replace a Mk2 fuel tank with a Mk2 cargo bay and it can carry a small payload to space. I've found I can play around with the number of cockpits and cargo bays with some decent variation of ships and equally similar/easy launches. I even have a mini shuttle version using FL-T800 tanks with a Swivel as the core stage. It is possible and I hope this inspires you! Its super rewarding to build a shuttle-like craft. Enjoy! Here is a dropbox link to the craft file. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5silxtyv132f27z/shuttle.craft?dl=0 I do have a couple mods on, but nothing that should break this craft in a true vanilla game. Let me know if it doesn't work and enjoy the ship!

This. So this.

I submit to you the Kaddy Shuttle. 3 stages, 4 kerbal capacity (with options for ship customization), takes a shuttle with 2.9k dV to ~80km orbit. There were a few challenges to building this ship, but the biggest in my opinion is balancing the weight with some clever fuel flow as the craft uses it up. I have it rigged so the bottom orange tank drains first, then to top. This keeps the weight in the front of the ship the entire flight and helps counteract the offset thrust from the skipper. Full throttle off the pad. Launch is the new standard, turn a few degrees right of the pad and it almost flies itself to space. Usually just minimal input is needed to keep it on course. The SRBs stage ~8km. From there its a gentle turn and climb to space. It gets a little unstable as the last of the fuel drains out of the orange tank and it isn't heavy enough to help keep the nose down. The last ~500 units of fuel in the orange tank the ship wants to pitch up. I put a vernor to help out that last bit, but its the only time you need it (along with some light throttling). 2.9k dV is enough to get to minmus, mun, or anywhere else in Kerbin's SOI and return. I've rescued multiple kerbals in one go with this ship. Re-entry is super easy. This thing has so much surface area you can come in a little 'belly up' and it slows down quickly. She glides to a gentle touchdown every time. I'm rather proud of her balance. The shuttle was built in the SPH then imported to VAB. To get the thrust right, the Skipper has been rotated 1 Shift-click notch on the rotation gizmo. To get the fuel flow right, it has a fuel line from the top tank to the shuttle, and from the bottom of the shuttle directly to the Skipper. You can even replace a Mk2 fuel tank with a Mk2 cargo bay and it can carry a small payload to space. I've found I can play around with the number of cockpits and cargo bays with some decent variation of ships and equally similar/easy launches. I even have a mini shuttle version using FL-T800 tanks with a Swivel as the core stage. It is possible and I hope this inspires you! Its super rewarding to build a shuttle-like craft. Enjoy!

I just did this trip last night. Consisted of a manned mission with the full suite of science experiments in High/Low Eve, High/Low Gilly, all 3 Gilly biomes and High over Sun. I'm sure I missed a few, but 5.8k will do.

If you're playing career, you'll have to fully upgrade your tracking station to see them. When I went out to Dres last I did have one pop up on in the orbital map but I couldn't make out any 'ring' structure there. They are out there!

pfftt, you know that's white+gold

After messing around with it some more in game, I figured there wasn't a good way to fix it. So then I started messing around with persistence file. didnt think about the quicksave files, and accidentitly deleted it all in the process. whateve's. new career in the works. (real bummer, only had 1 node left in the tech tree and 5 mil in the bank. le sigh). thanks anyways.