Musil

I feel very strange about this, because I started playing at 24.2 and I have learned how to do a Hoffman transfer, gravity assist using the Mün, calculating d-V's for various destinations, integrating a lot of mods to my core play and am starting to get very creative with my designs. But I have never actually planted a flag on another planet. It was one of the first things I tried when I got the game, unsuccessfully, so I said to myself: learn the basics first. So I learned: read every tutorial, obsessed about getting everything right, practicing transfer nodes... Finally, I decided to plan a Jool-5 and started building an enormous ship in orbit. THen .25 came out: «ok, let's try career first». Played some career, ok, «let's try the Jool-5 again». The ship got so large I started lagging (some mod's didn't help, I have since adjusted my install so the game runs perfectly), so I decided to try a Duna journey instead. Builded a much more agreeable ship in orbit, and just when it was missing the life support modules â€â€because it just doesn't feel right to send a bunch of kerbals cramped in a capsule, I feel I have to add a lot of space and life supportâ€â€, 0.90 came out and I was thinking «well, it's not worth it if the kerbals are not going to gain any XP». So I know how to do it, and feel confident I can. I just havent done it, and feel stupid about that.

Agree. Also, this mod is more important now than ever, with fine print becoming stock.

I just performed this maneuver on Minmus both ways. I must say, waiting for the moon to be on the proper angle is much easier and requieres quite a lot less work, even if you have to plan your initial burn better. So that answers it for me Thanks to everyone.

Actually, it was not so much by choice... I wanted to pass over some contract fly by check points before landing, and wasted a lot of fuel doing that. Also, my lander had 2 stages (it was the best lander I have used so far, really elegant Apollo style, easy to make now thanks to the gizmos) and some got left behind on the surface of the Mün, so I am not going to claim I did a perfect calculation. Once the lander was re-docked with the transfer craft, I discovered in horror I didn't have enough fuel to go back. My orbit was in something of a 70º angle, because of the fly bys, and it was not just a matter of burning prograde on the usual place... I had to search for the best spot to start my burn and then adjust the burn very carefully so that Kerbin periapsis was at 40k. All of this confirms how awesome KSP is, and makes me hope that I am still playing it in 2 years as well (I am a newbie, started on 24.2)

Actually seems like the worst option to me. You not only get the problem of having to get into the right plane, you dont get the full advantage of a polar orbit.

I think this might actually work better for smaller craft that carry less fuel, yes, but are also lighter and get more dV for less fuel. Changing a probe's plane is no big deal, but when you are hauling a very large fuel tank to refuel a lander, you might end up wasting all the fuel just to get those 200 dV (I once did this, as a matter of fact, and felt very stupid after). Also, I don't know about planing with 300 dV as a safety margin. In my current career, my second Mün lander made it back to Kerbin's surface with something like 10 dV remaining, and that only after I spent 20 minutes optimizing my escape burn. Yeah, that was the kind of answer I was hoping for. There had to be a way... Seems to requiere a lot of careful eyeballing and time warp waiting, but that's the fun of it, of course. As I said, with lighter craft, it may not be worth it, but definitely with heavier payloads. Also, it's more important on the Mün than Minmus. Orbital velocity on Minmus is so low you can affort to do a complete plane change, but on the Mün...

Yeah, sorry, understood that a bit latter (read edit ). Thanks, btw!

Yeah, sure, getting the inclination is no problem:just burn very little while still near Kerbin. The problem is getting the same ​polar orbit, and not one that intersects in a 90º angle with the first one. Edit: aaah... I see what you mean... Will try that.

What do you think is the best orbit for a station on a Mün or Minmus? Keeping in mind that the idea is to use the station as a lab to reset the experiments on a lander. An equatorial orbit will make it really easy to build, since all the parts are going to be coming from the same angle, but that means that if you go to the poles with the lander, you will then have to use a lot of fuel to get into the same orbit, and most of the times that fuel is needed on the lander for other things. I have tried two times (on the Mün and on Minmus) to build stations on a polar/high inclination orbit, and it works really well with the lander: no matter where I have landed, it's really easy to get back (just have to wait for the rotation to bring me under the station before taking off), but bringing new parts to the station is a nightmare. I am either very lucky and come into the moon's SOI with the right angle, or I come in with a 90º difference and have to kill all my speed to get into the right orbit. My latter experiments seem to indicate that I can adjust the angle of entry by putting my Kerbin apoapsis over the orbit of the moon, wait for it there and burn a little, prograde or retro, to come in from the front or the side of the SOI. What do you think?

Thanks, guys, really good tips.

So with .90 I decided to finally get serious with planes (the gizmos make it much easier to build one, and I am gonna want me some shuttles). For the first time, I made a jet that could take off reliably without having to cross my fingers... But still haven’t been able to land. I am using FAR, btw. I always seem to approach the ground way too fast. If I try to decelerate by pointing up, for example, I find myself stalling and crashing, but If I do nothing I swear Jeb closes his eyes in terror before the explotion. Have been looking for tutorials, but it seems that everyone else finds it so easy that it’s not worth making a tutorial for it. I would really appreciate it if someone gave me some advice on landing planes. Thanks, guys.

Hi, guys, this is my first post on the forum. I created an account to make a question on that section, but first I just wanted to say that, as a new player, I have found KSP to be just awesome. I started playing in .24.2 and have not stopped learning since. With .90 I started a new career, and it’s going beta than ever. The first absolutely cool thing I did was rescue Tomzer Kerman from orbit... without target indicators on the navball or closest approach on the map (hadn’t upgraded the building yet) I had rescued previous iterations of Tomzer many times. I was in fact one of the first things I tried when I got the game: you can imagine how that went. First, I tried to do it with and orbit in the opposite direction (east to west!) and was terribly frustrated. Later it became easy, once I learned to do proper rendevouz. But on .90 I just accepted the contract and launched. Once I was in orbit, I discovered I had no targeting, no closes approach... I almost went back empty-handed, but decided to try it by eyeballing it and not loose the contract. To my own amazement, I managed to get my capsule to 1k of him... I switched to him, wanting to EVA the remaining distance... and then I went into the dark side of Kerbin!!! I couldn’t see anything! But now, Tomzer is my second best pilot, on level 2, and is currently in orbit around Minmus, as part of a crew that is going to build a station and harvest a crap ton of science of the little moon. All of that was so awesome I wanted to share it. This Christmas I am going to gift KSP to my little brother. And this community is also great. The moders, the youtubers and the forum crowd, you (and now I myself, I guess) are all awesome. And Squad is just great: It will be great to be there for the arrival of KSP 1.0.