HorusKol

Typically, start from the top left, and work to the bottom right 01-02-03-04 05-06-07 08-09-10-11 Alternatively, work through an "S": 01-02-03-04 07-06-05 08-09-10-11

I would do this, too - the first trick I learnt was not to just fire right at the target. The second trick was to use the map mode to get almost exactly the same orbit. The last trick was patience - when you get to less than a kilometer, try and get your relative velocity down to about 10 m/s - and slow down a bit as you keep getting closer.

I've had the RoveMax tyres burst at between 10-20 m/s when trying to land on the Mun... The wiki does say "The impact threshold for this to happen is a lot lower than the actual impact tolerance listed in the parts menu" - but no more details than that Good to know they can be repaired - but not helpful for unmanned rovers...

The trick is not necessarily in using your rockets to get up to speed. If you get yourself into a lowish orbit around a body, and then burn a little to lower your periapsis (while keeping you apoapsis at the original orbit), you can then wait until you ship is at periapsis and then make a more efficient burn as you are being slingshot around the planet - that is where the Oberth effect helps. Then you can use a little more fuel to circularise (if you're just after a higher orbit) - or you have saved some fuel getting to another planet. Wikipedia also states:

Had some interesting oddities with parts resizing between 0.24 to 0.25

Finally - my first modular space station (my previous efforts were just labs with lander-cans attached) - the imaginatively named Kerbin One.

Option 1 - have the satellite follow the exact same orbit around Kerbin as Mun does, except outside of Mun's SoI. Option 2 - have the satellite orbit Mun such that it's orbital period matches the time it takes for Mun to orbit Kerbin - you'd have to do the Maths on that one, though, and I'm not sure it's possible. In either case, you won't get it perfect, but it should be close enough to work for a good while.

Frustrating fails (is there already a thread for these kinds of fails? can only find the launch fail thread)... So, multiple parts launched for a space station for a fine-print contract, got it all together out at 200 km using a tug and getting to grips with RCS, and then realised I made two mistakes: 1. I let Bill take joy-ride and now he's up there with no return vehicle 2. I forgot to put an antenna on any of the parts, so cannot yet complete the contract

Got about half a dozen satellites nearing Duna that I will need to insert into various orbits over the next Kerbal week (got contract spammed from fine-print). Jeb's on his way to Eve to plant a flag - first time I've sent a Kerbal out of Kerbin SoI. Putting together a space station out at 150 km (fine-print contract again, but also need a fuel stop to support future operations).

I think the fastest I've been in KSP (admittedly, only to get to Eve and Duna) is on the order of 10,000 m/s (give or take 10,000 m/s) Speed of light is 299792458 m/s So, I've travelled at about 0.003% of the speed of light From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_speed - relativistic speed is a speed which is a significant proportion of the speed of light It then states that this is at about 10% of the speed of light - which is 30,000 time faster than You're not going to see much in the way of relativistic effect unless you burn a long, long time...

What do you consider a stage? For example, my current workhorse for Kerbin orbit satellites and Mun probes has 6 solid boosters, but I fire these in two groups of three.

Personally, I like some kind of structure (even "sandbox" games like SimCity 4 have a logical progression for growing cities). If there wasn't a career mode, I'd have probably followed the campaign list over on the wiki - http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Campaigns As a very new player (I only started with 0.23 almost the week before 0.24 came out) I think it's great - especially with Fine Print mod. I've gotten multiple Kerbins to the Mun, probes to Duna and Eve, and now Fine Print is offering contracts for manned space stations in Ike orbit I think the tech tree needs a shake - I haven't tried Better Than Starting Manned as I'm not sure who well that plays with the contract progression, but something like that would be nice. Once I unlock probes (about the time I get into orbit), I impose my own rule that each celestial body must be visited by a probe before I can think about putting a Kerbin there. Get the Fine Print mod

hmm... i've experienced an odd thing when getting close to the SoI and the projected trajectory looks like its gone to hell, but when I wait it out and actually cross over into the Sun's SoI, the original trajectory from my last manouvre is back and all is well. interference from the Mun is a pain - not sure what to do there

Once I get my Ap (or Pe) touching part of the orbit, I plot a series of burns to then get my Ap and Pe to match the required orbit. You don't have to be perfect (3-7% deviation for most contracts I've had). Usually takes 3 separate burns, but the second two usually require only 50m/s delta-v or so.

Spheniscine - get the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod - you can set up alarms which kill timewarp so many Kerbal seconds (or minutes, or hours) before an SoI, or Ap/Pe, or maneuvre node - give yourself a couple or more minutes buffer on high-speed ships (e.g., escaping Kerbin) and you're set

These help a lot - thanks

I'm using KER to figure out the delta-v of my rocket, so I can better plan missions - but I noticed that the changes I was making to my rocket stack wasn't really affecting the final delta-v all that much. So, I started with my probe, put the smallest tank and an LV-909 under it (lander). Under that, I had one of the 400 tanks and an LVT-30 (transition). Under that, I put 4x400 tanks in a stack on top of another LVT-30, and then 4 of the BACC solid boosters on decouplers. ** || /\ || /\ | || | | || | |.||.| | || | ^ /\ ^ I found that if I waited to fire my main LVT-30 until the BACCs had burnt out, I got a significant boost to my delta-v, but then other changes were minimal - for example, adding 4 or 8 of the smaller SRBs added only a couple of hundred m/s. I even changed my quadrupled my central stack (4x the fuel, 4x the thrust) - barely registered any change. So - what really affects the total delta-v of the rocket - it seems more staging would be better?

Yeah, decent (and original) names can be hard... In the career mode, I used Crossbow for the series of rockets I built to meet all the contracts you get before you reach orbit. Then, the Mun and Minmus missions were Silline (Selene coming from the Greek goddess the Moon and, well, silly). My probe missions to Eve and Duna were named Valcan (can = probe, and from Vulcan = Roman god of fire). The last series I built before having to format my computer and losing the career save were the Teincan probes (tin can) I had on the way to Jool and it's moons. I think Greek and Roman mythology have some great names that can be riffed on - but there's a bunch of other sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_reporting_name#Lists_of_NATO_reporting_names http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Naming_conventions Edit: Oh, and of course - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions#Manned_missions

I agree - dead bodies would be a grim addition - I just wanted to point out that the "general" idea of "real" is actually not (and exploding kerbals wouldn't be much better, anyway)

What do you mean by realistic depressurisation? Because the exploding in vacuum thing is science-fiction and unreal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exposure#In_science_fiction

They were fixed panels - from the rest of the answers, I figure that the panels were edge on. I've made sure to orient my ships effectively when coasting out to planets now

Unfortunately, I scrapped the mission from the tracking station and then went to bed...

They said they were in direct sunlight. There's a stayputnik and I'd left SAS on - but this ship is the same design as two others that have left Kerbin SoI and they were happily running at 100% and staying these. The only mods I have are the alarm clock and KER.

Both panels said they were in direct sunlight - but generating 0 power.

So, my first probe out of Kerbin SoI and on the way to Duna "suddenly" lost power - even though it has solar panels. Everything seemed fine - the ship launched, I got it heading out of the system, and once I'd done a few more Munar launches I decided to launch two more probes of the same design out to Duna and Eve. I'd set an alarm on the first probe out to prepare for an adjustment burn about halfway to Duna, but when I switched to the probe, it was dead in space - I couldn't even turn SAS off. The other two probes are also out of Kerbin SoI - but they're working fine and the solar panels are keeping the batteries topped up at 100% easily enough (I see the charge dip when pitching/rolling and then return). So - what happened to the first probe? Bug? Or is there something about being halfway around the solar system that will stop my other two probes?