Korthan

My standard trick for mun and minimus is to park a station in Orbit, with a big fuel tank and a science lab on it. Build a lander that just does station to surface and back trips. Put every experiment I can on lander. Land at each biome, pick up science, return to station, drop off experiments in lab, reset goo and science Jr, refuel. Then a small separate vessel for returning a kerbal and all the science to kerbin. Just a capsule with chutes and heat shield, small fuel tank, and engine. I usually hit all the biomes except maybe poles (takes a lot of delta-v) and mun canyons/minimus slopes (pain to land on). I usually go to mun first, so I generally have science Jr, goo, thermometer, crew report, Eva report, surface sample. By the time I get to minimus I usually also have barometer and seismic scanner. Clearing mun and minimus usually gets me enough science to unlock all the key elements of the tree. This method can also be combined well with contracts - build minimus station, land on minimus, get science from space around minimus, get science from, surface of minimus, etc.

Aha! That's the answer! Thanks!

Its my first time playing with the optimizer, so it may be off. But MechJeb also predicts a 1.2 TWR, and I thought it was current. Off to the MechJeb thread....

I tried using a design from the web-based rocket optimizer, and got weird behavior. I have a ship with a total launch weight of 30 tons. The initial stage has LV-909 Terrier engines. According both to the Web and MechJeb, TWR is about 1.2. However, the rocket won't climb off the pad. Once the clamps release, it just sinks down, with throttle wide open. Did the stats for the Terrier change? Should six of them be able to lift 30 tons? Advice appreciated...

Best contract yet - test sepratron while landed. No money expanded, 800 cred reward....

717 pages, so apologies for not reading all of it. Feature request: 1) "Match orbit with target" - something that will put you into an identical orbit with the target, but not in the same place in the orbit. Basically, needs to match perhaps is op and apoapsis, both in altitude and longitude. 2) "Change location in orbit" - move to a different point in the orbit, probably via a resonant orbit, but when done the orbit should be the same. Obviously, this is for setting up relay constellations for things like microwave relays in Interstellar, or comm relays, or whatever. If there's already a way to accomplish this in mechjeb, I'd love to know how. thanks!