SalehRam

Is there a way to increase the physics bubble range? This is something I always wanted to know/do as I have some stuff/missions I came up with that require some sort of payload drop from a plane and just forget about it and leave...

For me, SRBs are good for probes, satellites and 1.25 - 2.5 meters designs with few stages. Large part count and large number of stages (for me) means no SRBs, and I can happily sacrifice more money in that case. I still have some subassemblies for lifters with SRBs, but I rarely use them, as my standard lifters all now are a combination between orange tansk and Mainsails + Reliant engines... My advise, use SRBs, but don't put them on everything, you can add them to support LF/O engines at launchpad, where you reduce the thrust of the engines and depend mainly on SRBs until they burnout, then set your LF/O engines on 100% thrust after you ditch the empty SRBs. Also, SAS, fins help a lot when you have SRBs on your rocket.

@Plusck and @Snark and @GoSlash27 Thanks a lot for your great replies... They cleared lots of points and confusions I had before... That is the main reason why I want to do the math myself... I did it few days ago and I enjoyed it really, adding to that the greater depth it took me into the design I was making, knowing why this engine and why that specific part instead of this, was really enjoyable, so I want to do more of these...

Hello! I have been wondering about manually calculating the rocket/objects/bodies statistics on paper rather than using mods. I love KER, but I am looking for a way or a style later on where I don't rely on it to design my rockets... (And maybe later if I got the time, make small plugin that only shows the required information from the rocket to take them and do the TWR, dV, burn time, etc... calculations manually). I tried to make the calculations on a sheet, but they were way off the actual numbers shown in KER. I had a rocket in KER showed 11k dV, while on my sheet it was showing 14k dV, so I was wondering what KER takes into account when calculating the numbers? The way I did it was to calculate the stages I know will be in atmosphere based on the Isp in atmosphere for the engine, then for vacuum stages, I used the Isp for vac.... Is it how KER do the calculations then takes the average or am I wrong? I am looking to get the calculations correct as I want to remove KER and just use my own calculations and to improve my math as part of my math re-learning program Also, I am looking for these equations: The set of equations to calculate launch profiles and ascent paths for rockets, also planetary transfers and windows. One other really PITA thing I have is determining the landing trajectory of an object. I use the mod Trajectories which is awesome, but again I want to do it myself... Really appreciate your feedback!

Used to be an EVE Online player (quit now, 7 months clean record ), I went on Youtube looking for some EVE videos, and saw Scott Manley doing a mission to Mun I think... I thought OK... seems interesting... but I'm not interested... Then few months later I saw this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/22/kerbal-space-program-why-nasa-minecraft I went back rushing to Steam and bought the game.

You can use docking ports in there, just like decouplers, you just have to face them right, and having to work with SPH, it tends to be a bit annoying to place stuff in the cargo bay of a plane, but you can do it and you need few camera angle changes to be able to place them right. OR Hold your mod key (should be LALT), while trying to place the part in the cargo bay, and it should be placed as it is without it orients with the part orientation... (I'll try to get something more clear about this to explain it better). EDIT: This link has some info about it:

Testing day! I will have the latest design tested today in a flight, and I optimistic about it. Once I get it to work, and get the results, I will share the craft so other can use it and it might ease the days of someone like was tearing his hair because of Moho For the 2 LV-Ns stages, they are 2 separated stages, I tried to make the upper 2 engines use fuel from below tanks to increase TWR, but the total dV was also lowered, so I thought I stick with the shown design in the image... All the previous work was on career mode to get a working craft. I just started new career and will put that design to use, however I am not sure how will be work in career specially with the game settings where money will matter now (that rocket costs about 730k credits), and the performance, as part count jumped to 400+... But getting to 15km/s dV itself is a great achievement for me (even with many mission failures) as I never reached this limit before! Also, worth to note that I only had Duna missions before as interplanetary missions, then I jumped to Moho after that... I'm sure this will make other planets much easier now after I had this fight with Moho... I'll post back after today's test when I get back home (as I'm in work now )

Also, as a small suggestion, use Sepratron and make them activate when a stage is activated, this way, when you decouple from the final stage at the space station, they will get pushed far away from the station and you won't have to worry about those any more... Sepratron don't weight a lot and are very lovely little things

Let me write that in a better way: I usually do not do: interplanetary stuff, rovers, mining, surface surveys before I get at least one station in low orbit

Stations are always the first thing I tend to do or build in my career. And I prefer a single station for each job... Since I am using RT2, TAC LS, then the job to maintain these stations is much more serious, as well as more funny and gives me space to test my space shuttle experience, and I am learning from that day by day... I also like to make each station as simple as possible, with the minimal requirements to make it functioning 100%. The only thing I add more of it is the docking ports, as I add 1 large port, and 2-3 medium/small ports. Some very small amount of fuel and small engines to help fixing orbital drifts in case I make a horrible docking attempt and bump the station too much. Because of RT2, I become forced to build a control station, and that I always put it between 75k or 80k orbit, so it has the lowest orbital period possible. For science stations, I tend to go on high orbit, and for fuel depots, I usually put them between 120k or 150k orbits...

New update: Managed to get more dV out of the design thanks to your tips! Got 15km/s dV now, and I really hope it is enough. I did a test run with a slightly different (less dV) design, and I managed to land on Moho, take off and dock with the passive half that I left there as a fuel tanker/storage, but could not burn back to Kerbin as I was low on fuel. This might get better with more dV for sure... I would like to get some feedback about the shown burn times in KER window on top of the screen, are these normal? should they be shorter or this is what is expected from such a ship and destination? I also got one more thing I never experienced before and I would like some advise on it: Using LV-Ns will force me to do long burns, so how do I manage that while being in Kerbin SOI (transfer burn), and on Moho capture burn? because of the burn time, I will have to start the engines long before I reach the node, thus lowering my PE to the point where either I will crash, or get in atmosphere again... Should I make several burns across several orbit cycles? or there is a method for that? Thanks for the help

The tanks around the Nukes are all containing LF only. I had to use these LFO tanks because the game becomes impossible to play at a certain part count, so I did not find anything to sacrifice other than these tanks... I might even send a separate mission with mining module to permanently orbit Moho, as I am not planning to leave it easily once I break the wall of dV requirements

Thanks for all your great input (as usual ), Thanks to your advises, I have modified the rocket a little bit to this: I have removed the Mainsail engines only form the lifter stage, and kept their fuel tanks to feed the Mammoth's Also, added 4 Nukes for transfer stage, and 4 extra disposable fuel tanks (with LF only). Same goes for capture and orbit stage, with 2 Nukes, and 2 disposable tanks. I have surrendered to the fact that I need something in orbit to rendezvous with, so I added to large docking ports between the lander/final stage and the orbit stage, to be able to use whatever fuel left for the way home. I got a total of about 14.4k m/s dV now, which is 1500 more than my previous work. I'll test it and get you some feedback! Regards

Well, thanks all for the useful input... I have came to a design that can do 13.1k m/s dV, so far it seems I am doing it well. Lifter has 4500+ m/s dv, and when I am in LKO, I get about 9000k+ m/s dV for the remaining trip, and I hope that is enough. I am going to change the Mk2 Pod with what Snark said, as I completely forgot/missed the ability to do that. Also I check macollo's method... It seems easier to do and I hope it will give me more chances to success. For point 1: my dV consumption for getting into 100km orbit around Kerbin is around 4500-4700m/s depends on the ascent profile I make and the possibility to make quick actions while in the launch lag and fps drop. For point 2: I can already get my PE on Moho encounter at around 20km to 15km. For point 3: I have been doing suicide burns all the time after realizing KER can help me with that through calculations. and I am going to do this on Moho as well. Currently, I have a design where I use Mammoths, Mainsails for my 2 lifting stages. Then for transfer, 1 central Rhino and 6 Mainsails, these 7 engines are separated on 2 stages. Then for capture and circularizing burns, I use 6 nukes connected to 1 S3-7200 and 1 S3-3600 tanks. Lander, I am using 4 LV-909s, and combination of X200-16, and FL-T400, FL-T200 tanks... I will see how the next attempt will work as I think I am getting there slowly.

Hey everyone... For the past 2 months I have been raging, crying and doing everything related to anger because of Moho... My own challenge: get THREE Kerbals on Moho by not using Apollo-style lander. I have managed to build things with 10k dV, 11k dV, and landed successfully, but could not get to Kerbin again... I have even installed MechJeb (only for few minutes) to watch the ascent profile, and the transfer burn being done automatically to see if I am doing things wrong, but my actions were all good... I see people talk about capture burn in Moho SOI that requires only 2000-2500m/s of dV, and same goes for transfer burn that requires about 1600m/s for them. But for me the numbers I am seeing are far from these... My major issue is the return trip as I consume all the fuel on the way to that little planet. My latest attempts is this (which is going on while I am writing this): The total dV on that rocket on launchpad was 12.5k m/s, here is the full rocket (Mods in use: KER, RT2, TAC LS), about 287 parts. So my question is, what is going on wrong with my actions from the images above? I have used the tool by Alex Moon to know the right time to launch, and I recently started using precise node to get more control over the nodes...

I never relied on these data to make my ejection angle... I only used them to know the good time for the transfer. Because when I try to get more data from these tools, I get confused hust like you... I am like you, never made it to Moho yet. Few days ago I managed to send a probe there, but that was a stock, with no RemoteTech due to I have not updated it yet for 1.0.5... so I still have to do it 'officially' in my career save... then I need to win the new fight of sending a manned mission there with lifesupport modules... The way I did that was launching the vessel without a specific time for that. Then play with nodes to get an ejection very near Moho DN, once I escape Kerbin, I reduce my PE to be on Moho orbit. Then with another node on my orbit touch point with Moho, I manage to get an encounter on the next orbit... I found this the easiest for me, although it takes time and more TAC life support resources, but at least it works... Also, as what the other guys said, Moho is toygh so don't get frustrated with it quickly and just keep trying everthing you can think of until you manage to reach it... Good luck :)

One reply has taken my attention in all of this: that this is a single player game and people play the way they are happy about... I am not good in math and I find doing calculations is something that will steal the fun of the game from me... why would you object me using tool that will help me loe the game because you hate these tools? This the same talk about MJ that we see... as long as I am loving my game, and not doing it wrong, so whatcis your issue for me usìng mods? Making KER wrong because it will let you know when your tanks are empty is the same way as having nasa blindky design acship an launch it to space... Now this maybe the point of KSP (doing things blindly snd stupidly) but what about those who want ro know this informatipn? You make their game or logic wrong because you are of the group thst loves things with no metrics/calculations? I'd say this is a relative logic, and one should not call other people method wrong just brcause he is using different way or he don't like the other methods... In fact, KER might be a challenge by itself. You can establish a baseline for your rockrets performance and then you can work on any design you have to make sure it doesn't go below that line... What if you make a design with large lander? Don't you have to meet your baseline? You will spend hours doing this challenge in VAB and those hours will be more fun that the time you will spend doing calculations that KER can provide about your ship... So again, many aspects and many views. None of them should be called wrong just because we don't like them.

The idea is, when you want to transfer to a planet/moon that has a higher orbit than the source planet/moon, then your prograde burn to transfer to your destination should be in the same direction and the source planet/moon motion in its orbit. Example: transfer from Kerbin to Duna: you have to burn prograde while in LKO in the same direction as Kerbin's orbit around the Sun. - Check the image below When you want to transfer to a planet/moon that has a lower orbit than the source planet/moon you are orbiting, then you prograde burn to transfer should be in the opposite direction as the source planet/moon motion in its orbit. Example: Transfer from Kerbin to Eve: you have to make your prograde burn to transfer to the opposite way of Kerbin's orbit around the Sun... - Check the image below These images taken from http://ksp.olex.biz/

It is better to set each part of the control surfaces to a single task. I usually set two the control surfaces on the main wings for roll only, the rest are just fixed control surfaces (and back-up in case I need to get more control in mid-flight). The 2 back tail fins are only for pitching, and the rudder is yaw only. This way I get some stable control over the plane, and in mid-flight if I feel pitching is slow or roll is slow, I can assign more control surfaces from the main wings to give more control for the lacking part.

Much love to you guys I managed to return to Kerbin so easy after making sure I get an aero-brake trajectory in mid-transfer, turned out the only thing I never thought was wrong is in fact completely wrong... I will re-work on the rocket, making it smaller as now I can properly do two way trips without worrying much about dV as I used to before... Appreciate all your comments and notes on this!

I usually program my craft to land based on some time estimations from KER in-flight window. I set a manual signal delay on the craft, then issue the commands starting from retracting the antennas, then retracting solar panels, then deploying the drag chutes, then normal chutes, then last the landing legs. Then I set a longer signal delay, and issue a command to re-deploy solar panels, and the antennas again (this to work, I need to have 2 antennas, one retracted, and one is deployed, so when landing, the deployed one will get retracted, and the already retracted one will get deployed after landing safely). The flight computer of RT is awesome really, gives you automatic control when you need it, but does not kill the joy of manually do almost everything, so you can control your vehicle orientation with that along with signal delayed and programmed commands for your craft. It is a little clicks consuming process and sometimes, it puts me on the nerves because of some lags and FPS drops, but usually I get about 90% success landing with this. I have been doing this on Duna so far, and my only issue sometimes come from less chutes on the craft, which results in a hard landing that damages the legs and the engine.

This I have never tried before, thanks for sharing this. I'll test it at home and see how it goes... And for KerikBalm, Yes I do try to perform aero-brake when landing on Duna, but as mentioned above, it seems that I was doing it wrong thus burning lots of fuel. I will check the above method today and I feel it will go very fine.

Thanks a lot for your valuable input guys... Here is a brief for the way I am flying this rocket Stage 9, 6, 5: Take off from Kerbin, go into LKO, and perform transfer burn. By the end of the burn, stage 5 (Rhino engine) is completely used all the fuel. Stage 4 (Nukes): In Duna SOI, burn retrograde to get an aero-capture trajectory on Duna surface. By the end of this stage, some little fuel remains, which I use for slowing down in Duna atmosphere. Stage 3: Take off from Duna, go in LDO, and perform transfer burn, then in Kerbin SOI try to perform burn for aero-capture trajectory. Fuel runs out in the middle of the burn for aero-capture in Kerbin SOI The only thing I am doing, which I doubt is the problem, is I am establishing an orbit after take off rather than keep burning to escape the SOI, I'm not sure how that efficient or if I am doing it right, but I time my take off from Kerbin with the best transfer window using the alarm clock mod, and same for the take off from Duna, I time it with the best transfer window to kerbin as well... The rocket itself while taking off from Kerbin is in good controlling status, so I can do an ascend at 60-50 degrees while low in atmosphere, and I do the same ascend profile on Duna at 60 degrees... Yes, the stage with the aerospikes is the lander stage, 3 engines. Stage 5 is the Rhino engine when it keeps running alone after separating the 6 surrounding tanks off it. For the fuel tanks in the LV-Ns stage, there is no oxidizer, it is just liquid fuel... 2 parts lander package is something I would consider now, but I believe it will need lots of working in VAB and some testing as well... But in general I guess my problem is in the lower stages below the lander part, where all my fuel is getting consumed so quick... The reason I did this design, because in 0.90 and before I used to go to Duna with something like this but smaller and it used to work, but now I am not sure what is the major change that is causing the old designs to be such inefficient for me like this... It could be me forgetting how I used to fly them or something else... What I could do, is I start with small design and scale it slowly to see where is efficiency drop happening.

Hello all, I have been playing around in sandbox to design a rocket package that can do a 2 way trip to Duna, but I got some issues with the design: Could not get past 10km/s dV, Fuel does not cover the whole way back from Duna, and it runs out on the burn to make the orbit around Kerbin right after reentry to its SOI I have attached 2 designs I have been trying to tweak, I would really appreciate some input on how to improve the dV and what is the correct ascend burn profile out of Duna, as I feel the issue is there... Gemini IV (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vxG7-rvmD2Uk02aVluUlcwd3c/view?usp=sharing) Gemini III (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4vxG7-rvmD2VnI1YWZOZFZTMkk/view?usp=sharing) I am using 2 mods on this design, RemoteTech, and TAC Life Support, so please keep that in mind while checking the craft files. Also, below are screenshots for the 2 crafts with the KER window open to show the stats. The middle engine is a Rhino.

RL Update: From Aug/1 until now, I am out of the city and working on a project, I might return in few days or until the end of this week.