Rocko

LOL I never considered the "get out and push" method It seems that you have unlimited EVA propellant if you keep boarding the capsule... I always assumed that EVA refills somehow take monoprop out of capsule's supply, but never really needed to investigate. It is awesome how this game makes you invent things when you are in a tight corner. I once used Jeb to turn around a light Minmus lander that fell on its side. It took some bumping, but I finally got the rocket pointing the right end towards space I remember once having Jebediah stuck on a highly eccentric solar orbit after a test flight (originally I intended to just leave him there, but then... you know, you don't do that to your kerbals, especially not to Jeb). A rescue party set out in a 3 seat capsule with one seat empty. But, my rocket-building and piloting of the time being rather poor, after a successful rendezvous and Jeb's EVA transfer the rescue ship didn't have enough delta-v and could only get to a little closer orbit to Kerbin. So a third party, with a hitchhiker's container and a mighty ship, finally brought all three back, only to find that they didn't have enough parachutes and crash-landed on Kerbin. What a shame. When I was trying to return from Eve, my rocket had too little delta-v to reach orbit, so I tried to finish the orbital insertion on EVA. But no luck, even that didn't do, and ended in EVA reentry Asparagus staging was a big eye-opener and I was quite angry at myself that I didn't think of that. It seems so obvious once you see it. And yes, I used it to build a monster booster, weighing some 20 000+ tons, that is capable of launching 2 000+ ton payloads to Kerbin escape (using 5m KW rocketry parts; with stock parts I only got to 1 200 tons to Kerbin escape).

Hmm... looking forward to trying the vernors first hand, but still curious... how do they "cancel out"? I thought they were supposed to work like RCS, so if you want to, say, pitch down, only those engines that can push nose down and aft up will fire, and not nozzles that are placed on the opposite sides of the craft. Still, how do you control roll and pro/retro grade speed adjustments? Looks like you need one set of thrusters for controlling attitude, another set to control roll and yet another to accelerate and decelerate. This is a shame, I was kinda hoping for a plain vanilla RCS made 12x stronger (2000+ t ships are not easy to steer, I was even trying to concot a RCS from clusters of standard rocked engines side-mounted using hubs, but manually switching them on and off is just impossibly difficult

Wow How on earth did you return to orbit from Eve (sea level) with such a small rocket? I used 48 boosters (similar to yours, 4,5t FL tank + aerospike, jettisoned in six groups of eight in quasi-asparagus style), to lift a small probe, and even then I rendezvoused with my return ship only after accelerating using RCS of the final probe stage that was meant for fine docking maneuvers. And I landed at some 2000 m altitude, not sea level. I'm building a manned return vehicle, and currently my Eve ascent rocked weighs in at some 700 t. Add to it some 500 t interplanetary tug to usher the contraption into Eve orbit... 1 200 t payload launched to Kerbin escape. Luckily, that at least is not a problem I will probably have to send another IP stage for return though, I don't expect the initial tug will have it in her to return to Kerbin.