moogoob

You should need about 3.4km (since about 1.0) to reach orbit. Of course, this depends on whether your craft is aerodynamic, and what profile you fly.

Right now, Mechjeb's handling a lander probe burn to Eeloo. Elsewhere, I made a slideshow: I never do manned interplanetary missions in career, so I wanted to give it a go. It's going to become more useful in later versions once the redone probe antenna mechanics are in place.

Do your rockets have fins? Sometimes all the "flipping rocket problem" needs to solve it is a set of fins. Nosecones don't hurt, either.

Your controls are somewhat similar to mine, only I A) use an X360 controller, don't have max thrust/min thrust, just up and down, C) X and Y are brake and SAS toggle respectively, D) L and R bumpers are translate FW/BW, E) left stick push in does gear toggle, right stick toggle IVA. I find it works OK for me. EDIT: Didn't notice, but I also use the stick for Pictch and Yaw, and L/R for roll. Makes more sense with spacecraft, landers and rockets, but planes are still controllable. You just have to think "Star Fox 64".

I put the engines on my towed Duna lander on an action group so I can easily disable them in such circumstances.

I just did a manned Duna mission in Career because I hadn't done that yet. What haven't you done yet? When I run out of places to go, there's always space plane development, or recreating the Mercury/Atlas again for post-1.0

Lol you might as well have the probe survive to send science - unless you've already stripped all the science from the Explodium Seas, of course. (I got this mission for the first time earlier in my career - it's a lot of fun to treat as a standalone mission. My biggest difficulty was aiming for the sea through the EVE mod's thick purple clouds.)

I've come to the conclusion that (using stock parts) you can either A) build something that looks like a Soyuz, build something that functions like a Soyuz or C) build something that works well and efficiently in stock aerodynamics. I go for C. Please let me know if I'm wrong!

I'll see your "just in time" Mun landing, and raise you a Tylo landing.

It need not be too low, but this depends on whether you're simply returning from low orbit, from the Mun or from Minmus. I usually do 15-20km.

Something comparable to the SpaceX Falcon landing legs would be great. Low drag when stowed, strong enough to land a booster stage when extended.

Mine says that too, but it still works in-game.

I'd say that this question is intensely personal, and you're likely to get different answers from everyone. For me? I only use four: Planetshine is one, and it shouldn't slow you down so much... you can change the settings to reduce the number or quality of lights if you need to. I find it well worth the visual effect in orbit around planets like Duna, Eve and Jool. EVE (the mod, not the planet) is good, but I disable the city lights as I don't find them very nice. The clouds are a great visual indicator of altitude but can make eyeballing a landing hard on Kerbin and especially Eve (the planet, not the mod). Mechjeb (or Kerbal Engineer Redux) - essentially, anything that can give you readouts in flight. The autopilot features are nice of course, but what I find MJ really good for is the many, many customizable readouts. Delta-V and TWR charts by stage are crucial for building and apoapsis height/time to is very useful when doing ascent manually. I also set it to tell me the current biome, a suicide burn countdown and even my current vehicle's cost (helps in career mode to get a good sense of worth of what you're trying to not crash.) Asteroid Day Mod - my only part mod, and then only because it's both by Squad themselves and has giant Ox-Stat solar panels and a huge HECS probe core, plus more contracts to complete. That's my answer, I'd be happy if others' priorities differ from mine. Mods are about making the game your own, after all!

You can also adjust this for very little delta V right as you enter the destination's sphere of influence. Just point your ship at the right side of the planet and burn until your periapsis is on that side, rather than the left, so that when you capture you end up in a proper counter-clockwise prograde orbit. It'll cost you more delta-v than adjusting before hand, but I found it easier and less fiddly to do it that way, especially if I'm in a lazy mood.

It's not totally useless. It's better than a bare booster top. Plus looks nicer!

Your dreams are interesting, bold and ambitious, but for now just talk. If you can pull off what you say, I'm sure I speak for others that we'd LOVE to see even just a series of screenshots if not a video of your attempts. Prove the nay-sayers wrong!

I just started doing so. Most contracts have decade or so long durations so doing so usually isn't strictly necessary, though it can help to make your program feel a bit more active.

Everything always comes down to water... Mine would be sulphur dioxide. You know instantly when there's some present. PS why the heck is my spellcheck freaking out about spelling it "sulphur" rather than "sulfur"? EDIT: Dangit, upon looking it up I now realize that I meant "hydrogen sulphide". Though I'd assume both would be equally smelly...

Meh, I still like the older Samsung Galaxy phones. One like my S3 could probably obtained pretty inexpensively now, no? And despite all the crying, I actually like the interface. Their built-in web browser's pretty good too.

Hmm... I've already picked one, but you know I've got good things to say about just about any engine. Even the Thud! 909: I use this all the time. Small, light, more thrust than the Spark, fits evenly with other size 1 parts. Skipper: My favourite medium-lifter second stage/munar transfer stage. Aerospike: Even with its downsides, it's a great-looking and performing shuttle/spaceplane/lander engine, especially after the weight went down. Mainsail: TWR out the ying-yang, only beaten by the LFB at it's size. Ant/spider: Weighs next to nothing, just enough thrust for a probe or low-gravity moon probe lander. Flea: It's like a big separatron! Great for sudden little boosts. Thud: Surprisingly powerful, especially if used in symmetry. Almost made it onto my Tylo lander, lost out to the poodle. I could go on...

Size 2 round LF tanks are on my parts wishlist. That said, the Mk3 parts look really cool when making multi-nuke interplanetary transfer stages.

That's a hard choice. They're all like my children. But if I had to pick, I'd say the Spark. Sure, it's not as overpowered as its heyday pre 1.0, but its still the little engine of choice for orbital probe and probe lander propulsion.

Did a powered slinghot off Tylo to bring the Jool Outer Moon Explorer 2 (1 was running out of power and had to be put in stasis in low Jool Orbit.) to Pol, at the suggestion of the fine folks in the Gameplay Questions forum section. It worked! I feel so accomplished now.

I just wanted to bump this thread to thank you all. It worked perfectly! 1000m/s burn at 50km above Tylo was all it took to make my periapsis within pol's, AND match 95% of pol's plane. VERY nice, considering I both took a fast transfer route (so had excess energy to bleed off) and came into the system from slightly opposite Pol's inclination. Once again, thanks! This now feels like the pinnacle of my KSP accomplishments.

I think you mean "Warp Drive". A portable wormhole might work, too.