Geher

Fuel Tanks are very expensive in KSP. So a STS-like craft doesn't save you any money. It's even more expensive than a normal expendable rocket: - You have to get the payload AND the orbiter into orbit (Costs extra fuel --> extra tanks) - You're dumping that big expensive external tank (this costs the most) - You're dumping the boosters on the side (they are cheap, but they are not for free) What you can do is: - Install StageRecovery mod and add chutes to the boosters. - Add a HeatShield to the external tank and try to land it as near to the KSC as possible. When you do this it'll actually be cheaper than an expendable rocket. But it's helluva lot of effort to build. And also not easy to fly. I've build one which can get 36tons (orange tank) to LKO. But I rarely ever use it, because often I have payloads of over 150tons. So as many have said before me, a SSTO rocket with some parachutes is easy, cheaper and better. The only downside is, it doesn't look as cool as a Shuttle.

I had the same problem as you. That's when I stopped using Nukes and started using the "Rhino". It has 2 000.00 kN thrust and a relatively high ISP of 340s. (Nukes have 60.00 kN thrust and 800 s ISP). It makes the ship much bigger (and the launcher even more). But as long as your launcher doesn't get so big that your PC starts to melt and has a high "second to frame"-rate, you're really saving time. Also, as some said before: try to stage some tanks during the burn. I generally use an extra large tank in the middle and lot's of small tanks around that which get asparagus staged.

But it costs more fuel, because you're not exploiting the oberth effect.

I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. So you want to decouple some boosters, but when the decoupler stages the boosters are still attached? If that's the case then make sure that your boosters are attached to the decoupler and not to the main rocket in the middle. Or maybe your staging is wrong. Make sure that on the bottom right in the VAB everything is in the correct order. I hope that helps, if not, a screenshot of your craft would definitely help me.

You can also install a mod called Mechjeb. It's Ascent Guidance has a checkbox which says Limit to terminal velocity. When this is checked you can always fully throttle up and when it would be more efficient Mechjeb will automatically throttle back. But for me this rarely ever happens, because my rockets mostly have a SLT between 1.1 and 1.6

As far as I know they only cut out the center engine. And the only reason was because of astronaut comfort. Generally is a higher thrust always more efficient than a lower one (when you ignore the atmosphere). Imagine a rocket which TWR is ALWAYS 1 (even when it gets lighter). It would just hover above the ground burning all its fuel and never getting anywhere.

Looks good! Congratulations! You can learn a lot from Mechjeb's Autopilot and then with some practice you can do it manually even better (and more efficient) than Mechjeb. This Thread shows you how to change unanswered to answered.

You can use Mechjeb for this. Mechjeb can be used as an autopilot or just as a good assistance. When you want to launch into the same orbit as your target you can use the Ascent Guidance. Just click on Launch into plane of target and Mechjeb shows you how much timewarp has to be done before you can launch. Then you can click on Show navball ascent path guidance and when it's time it'll show you in what direction your gravity turn needs to be done. Once you're in orbit you can use the Maneuver Planner to Hohmann transfer to target. But early contracts (like rescue contracts) are mostly aimed for equatorial orbits where launch time doesn't matter. So there go just in an eastward orbit and use the Hohmann transfer to target option.

It's still expensive as hell if you ask me. I could never do a Moho mission without using Eve for gravity assist at least once. And on paper my ship had the deltaV requirements for doing it without gravity assist.

Well 11.5km/s is freakingly fast. I rather aerobrake at Laythe. When you're doing it right you have no more than 3km/s. But I'm still using a heatshield of course.

You can only attach the root part of the merging craft to your main craft. Also I always encounter a bug where the root part is about 10 meters away from the merging craft. So after clicking merge you should search where your root part is. Then you can make the root part attach to your main craft. After that you want to detach the merging craft from its root part, because nobody likes a 10 meter empty gap in their rockets. This last step often needs multiple tries because often the game selects the whole craft and not the merged one. Man this is hard to explain. Try it out and when you don't understand a certain step just ask. EDIT: If you don't like this "mergin bug" then you can also do it with subassemblies. Add an additional part on top of your lander. Make this part to the root part. Detach the whole lander from the root part and drop it in your subassemblies. (But you probably know that already)

My reuseable launchers are called Kochloeffel (don't ask me why) with a number that indicates how much payload in tons it can take to LKO. My other rockets are called wherever they are heading to and what they are for. For example: Laythe Lander is the craft that is used to land on Laythe and get back to orbit. Laythe Express takes the lander from LKO to Laythe and gets the crew back to Kerbin. And my fully reuseable Space Shuttle is called STS Advanced. You see, I'm not very creative with naming things.

Sandbox seems best for kids but the amount of parts is probably too much at the beginning. I think some sort of sandbox mode where you unlock more parts over time or depending on how many things you've launched would be good for that.

Well I can imagine that 6 year olds can have a lot of fun with KSP. Even when they get nowhere, the explosions should be fun.

I think you've just won this thread ...

For launching: David Bowie - Space Odditty David Bowie - Moonage Daydream Muse - Explorers Muse - Exogenesis Symphony Hans Zimmer - Stay (or just generally the whole Interstellar Soundtrack) In space I often listen to the Blue Danube by Richard Strauss (son).

Mine is this one: In theory this should get me to Laythe and back. I wanna try this soon. I was able to get it into orbit, so the hardest bit is done, I guess. The fun thing is, that it's only so big, because I didn't want to use the LV-N anymore, because it takes so long to burn. But I'm not so sure if I have even saved time now. The launch into orbit takes ages, because every game second takes about 5 real seconds. Maybe I should split it up into 2 launches ... ... naaaahh Edit: Found out this rocket was waaay too big, because I've read the deltaV map wrong . The "Boost to Laythe"-stage and the return-stage have incredibly much fuel left when they've their job done. But the lander could just barely make it back to orbit again, because it wasn't very aerodynamic.

The trick is really about the engine gimbal. I've built a pretty good "almost stock" MK3 Shuttle. I copied the skipper engine and doubled the gimbal. Now I have 2 Skippers: The Normal Skipper Engine and the Shuttle Skipper Engine. The biggest SRB's in stock KSP are also not powerful enough. Use 3 or maybe even 4 on each side. But don't think launches will get cheaper, just because you can reuse the engines. It is much more expensive than an easy expendable rocket. Here's the reason why: You need lot's of extra fuel to get not only the payload, but also the orbiter itself into orbit. This extra fuel costs funds. You need a bigger external tank to carry the extra fuel. Fuel tanks are surprisingly expensive in KSP. You won't be able to reuse the SRB's in stock KSP. So what I did to make Shuttle launches actually cheaper than expendable rockets is: Install a mod for stage recovery (for the SRB's). Add a heatshield, a probe core, a battery, some rcs and lot's of parachutes to the external tank. After detaching it from the orbiter it is almost in orbit and by adjusting the speed just a little bit I can choose to land it wherever I want. I use mechjeb's landing guidance to get the landing near KSC. After I achieved orbit with the Shuttle I change vessel back to the external tank and watch it as it falls back to earth.

I can't test that right now. But since the cone on the bottom isn't much bigger than the tower and aerodynamically shaped, it would still work i guess. I don't use the Launch Escape System anyway. I've made my own (reuseable) one with sepratrons. I don't want to tell you how to play the game. It's a singleplayer game. Everybody should play the way they like.

What do you wanna say? The engines of the abort system are at an angle, so that they don't hit the bottom of the abort system or the capsule below.

I personally wouldn't trust (or thrust?) this Geher... I don't think you understood what I meant. You are still pushing the asteroid. What I meant is you should surround the asteroid with a few boosters. Let's say one booster consists of 1 orange tank, the LV-N, a probe core, some rcs and of course the klaw. The klaw should be radially attached to the booster and not on front of it as you (probably) did. But I'm not so sure anymore if this is still a good idea. It's definitely a bad idea for a class E asteroid. You'll also have to adjust the thrust of some boosters to make the whole thing halfway stable and not rotating to one side while thrusting. The pulling method is, as many on this forum suggested, probably the best one. Even if it doesn't look kosher, because in real life the exhaust of the engines would hit the asteroid and then it's like trying to power a sailboat with a fan. See the similarities? But nothing against the Kranefly craft by Kuzzter. It looks really great and probably does its job very well, but I just wouldn't use it. I think next time I'll try the pulling method, but with a very long craft and the engines at an angle so that the exhaust should theoretically go by the asteroid.

Do they also rotate the ISS when a ship arrives? I only know that they sometimes do it, when undocking a craft, so that it is facing retrograde or prograde. The undocking mechanism includes an elastic spring which pushes the craft away. When the craft is facing prograde it will end up in a slightly higher orbit, when facing retrograde in a slightly lower orbit. They wait until they're far enough away from the ISS until they use the thrusters of the craft again. This way they ensure that the ISS doesn't get "dirty" by rocket exhaust. ESA made a nice video about that: . At 4:15 they explain why they sometimes rotate the ISS.

The wiki is in multiple languages. You can change the language at the sidebar on the left. Here's for example the german Key Binding Wiki page: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings/de

Really? No. I tried this and when the ore tank was full and the drills were still mining, the ore inside the asteroid also stayed the same. --> No ore was dumped into space. So the only reason to turn off the drills would be to save electricity.

Okay my attempt didn't work so well. The craft always wanted to tip over in one direction. I could get it more stable by adjusting the thrust of one engine, but it's still far from optimal. The last time I did this it wasn't with an class E asteroid though.