Gaarst

The tanks don't matter. Actually, the fuels don't even matter the only thing you need to know is the dry and wet masses. (Different fuels do matter if you're using several types in a single stage and if they have different burn times because you don't have the same engines running for the duration of the burn). For several times the same engine (or several different engines with the same Isp), the calculation is easy: you just have to account for the mass of the extra engines but the Isp doesn't change (and thrust doesn't matter). For several different engines with different Isp, the easiest way to calculate the dV is to approximate all your engines as a single engine. You then have to average the Isp by thrust as follows: (Fi is the thrust of your engines and Isp,i is the respective corresponding Isp) and use this total Isp in the rocket equation.

Thank you for this, helping people accessing unofficial builds is indeed a good thing. I'm adding it to the list.

To be clear, I used the editor to get into orbit, the acceleration is legit: no mods, no cheats, just good ol' KrakenTech™. Krakens are easy to abuse in such challenges, that is what I was referring to when saying you needed more rules. Landing leg technology (created by DasValdez) is what propelled me. And this is a weak model...

I did 8167.2g, with no Kerbals, getting to orbit with the editor and with no engines. So that's 8172.2g I believe.

Kerbals have more chances to survive splashdown when hitting the water head-on. Don't know about landing though.

You can actually jettison the contents of a fuel tank: through an ingenious process involving mixing several unwanted fuels you can turn them into magical fire and expel them away really fast. (Side effects are possible)

Yes.

I will not be confident with a 5 year hold holding a gun anywhere within a 2km radius from me. Your dad allowing you to hold a gun to go hunting is irresponsible enough, launching a rocket with the same mentality is pretty much attempted murder. Edit: you were in school at 5? Great, how does this have anything to do with manipulating explosive without any experience?

500ft is less than 200m, not several thousands. It's nothing like several thousands actually: several thousands require you to achieve sustained firing and go supersonic which are considerably harder than launching a rocket firing for a couple seconds needed to reach 200m.

Explorer 1 was launched by a 30t rocket. No you didn't. Or else the guys in charge of the rocket club would be in jail for allowing a 5 year old to manipulate high explosives. I'm not sure I'd trust a 5 year old with a water rocket, much less anything involving combustion.

Yeah, if KSP is your only experience with rocketry, chemistry or any kind of engineering, I suggest you immediately stop what you are doing before you hurt yourself or someone else. Real life is nothing like KSP

Jet engines have constant Isp, so constant efficiency. The optimal speed is defined by your planes' aerodynamics. If your only constraint is fuel efficiency, then you want to find the speed at which your L/D ratio is the best.

How much engineering background do you have?

Anyone knowing what could cause a part to have super high drag values (bringing my terminal velocity without chutes to 20m/s)? I quickly checked in the config file of the part and did not notice any abnormal value. So I don't really know what else defines drag for a part. (The part concerned is a command pod from the Rocket Factory mod, on KSP 1.1.3. My modlist is in my sig but I don't have any mods that should affect drag values (no RO, no FAR, NEAR...)) I'm asking this as a general question since this is something I've already seen, and if it's just drag values that are off, it should be easy to fix, regardless of the version. I don't intend to post logs to troubleshoot this issue thoroughly unless I really can't find any way to fix it.

Google anything about the KSP forums. I guarantee at least half the results are at least 3 years old.

We can try to help you if you put pictures of your craft. Some general tips: if you can't lift the nose move the rear landing gear closer to the CoM (to act as a fulcrum); if you can't go fast enough, consider using larger engines or RATO if your plane is meant to take off only once; if you lack low speed lift, try increasing your wings incidence by a few degrees so they generate more lift at low AoA.

If your plane can't take off a 2.5km runway, the problem is not the runway...

I don't want to be mean, but I don't see how this tutorial could help anyone. On the contrary, there are quite a few things which you should not do. Willing to be part of the community and help new players is a very good thing, but you should make sure that you have sufficient knowledge of the game before attempting to write tutorials for others. Learn, learn more, learn even more, then teach.

If you know other parameters of your orbit, you could calculate using other orbital equations. For example knowing your orbital period and SMA using Kepler's 3rd law, or the vis-viva equation using your current velocity, position and SMA...

Not needed. New KSP players don't go out of the Kerbin system, and a quarter of a heatshield is more than enough to reenter from anywhere in the Kerbin system, except when building spaceplanes but new players don't build spaceplanes. More experienced KSP players need more heat management but they are experienced, so they can deal with it.

Most mods are already in their dedicated folder inside GameData, so you don't need to do that. Otherwise it doesn't prevent any mods from working AFAIK.

Really? It's fairly simple to reduce drag to a minimum, and the design is based on your average glider with high aspect ratio. Thanks still!

Reached 13.2 (at 100m, 77m/s) using this plane.

If you start asking questions which involve "alter[ing]" a star, the answer is usually yes. (Unless it's "can you alter a star in any way?", then the answer is no)

Spoiler: it's localisation.