DalisClock

I usually go with some kind of theme, assuming I'm not just giving my craft really matter of facts like "Test Rocket" and "Kerbal 1". My Duna craft all use something related to mars/gods of war. So my landers were named "Ares" and "Athena" respectively. Sometimes I'll just use an amusing name like my ScanSat sats known as "Not A Spy" or "Eye in the Sky" or "Big Brother".

Update: I tried a couple of different things, including cutting crossfeeds, playing around with the reaction wheels and the spin method. None of them did any good trying to get to full power, and turning off some of my ship reaction wheels started causing some serious wobbling in the main ship. So part imbalance is very much the problem. It turns out there's an easy solution for now. I did a mass check of each lander and while most of my landers were between 10-20K tons, that big lander on the bottom of the forward half is a whopping 40. I decoupled it, moved it away a little and then tried a full power burn. There's still some drift but not so much the reaction wheels couldn't compensate for it and hold on target. So I'm gonna go ahead and leave the big lander in orbit(I still want to use it later and it was a massive pain to get up there), and just balance out the forward half with a couple more lander of the same type.

I feel like I'm missing something really basic here so bear with me. I spent a long time playing on pre 1.0 KSP and that's where I learned to reach and make orbit. Since 1.0 I've finally gotten the hang of thew new gravity turn(I also took a couple months off until now, so that might explain it) but during orbital insertion I've been getting these really lopsided orbits, with Perigee being around 70-80 K but Apogee pushing out to 150-200K. My attempts to circularize end up causing my Perigee to drop back down, sometime below the 70K threshold for a stable orbit. Burning Prograde directly towards the horizon at near my desired altitude creates much the same effect. Setting up a maneuver node at my 70-80K Apogee during ascent and coasting up to it doesn't seem to work as well as it used it. I'm not sure if I've forgotten how to space or something in the new updates is messing me up. Any help is appreciated.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who dreads rendezvousing. I've tried it a few times but I finally just started sticking mechjeb on all my craft, set a target and let the computer do the work. Normally I'll do the docking myself, unless I'm either low on fuel or just want to get it over with. I built a space station in LKO and mechjeb was a godsend(after several failed attempts at getting my station parts to the actual station). I'm gonna start trying to do it legit just so I can have some confidence in my abilities to do so.

Appreciate the feedback. Since this was my first manned(kerbaled?) mission to duna, I really only had a few goals in mind for this trip. 1.) Test out such a large design(the largest ship I've ever built) and see how it performs on an interplanetary mission. Prior to this, I've only done a single robot satellite/lander combo to Duna, which was always planned as a one way trip. 2.) Land the first Kerbals on another planet. 3.) Test a series of different landers in an atmosphere, including parachute performance. Thus why each lander is different. I also wanted to test my ability to put landers as close to a specified landing zone as possible(which is tricky with an atmosphere causing drag).

I had issues like this on ascent but I've tried the trans-duna burn several times and the craft has held together without incident. Even the landers, which I was worried would be the weak point and shift/break off(especially the ones attached by mini-docking ports on the aft section) have held steady at 90% burn. Edit: Assuming I manage to fix the overall balancing issue and don't have to go back to the drawing board on this, am I correct in assuming I'm gonna need to perform a series of trans-duna burns due to the low thrust of the NERV engine? It would seem that even under the best thrust conditions it takes an incredibly long burn to put my on a duna intercept from LKO and that tends to mess up the orbital shape.

I've been playing this game for a few years now, since around version .24. Working on it off and on between other games(and projects). Found this board about a year ago and until very recently, have been content with just reading the existing threads to figure out how to play better(and some of these threads have helped a lot). I'm still coming to grips with the new flight model from 1.0, which has caused me some grief with some of the huge rockets I've needed to put big pieces into orbit. My attempt to build an interplanetary transfer vessel prompted me to post here finally, and hopefully will help me fix my problem or build a better ship that actually can reach another planet without much trouble.

Appreciate the feedback. I knew that everything had to be balanced for atmospheric ascent or I just wasn't going to orbit that day, but didn't think it really mattered once I got to orbit. Once again, KSP makes me feel like a dumbass. I did the 120 degree seperation because it seemed a nice way to maximize the amount of landers I could attach, but I guess that was a bad idea. I'm gonna try balancing the lands and adding a drop tank on the third side, not to mention cutting crossfeeds and disabling all the SAS mods and seeing if that helps. I also have KAS/KIS installed so there's the possibility I can re-arraign some of the docking ports on the forward end for a 180 degree separation instead. If not, I've got plenty I want to do while waiting for the next Duna window to open up. - - - Updated - - - Lurking, reading various threads here and there to see if my questions had already been answered, as well as getting a feel for the community. That and I've been on a break from KSP for a while. After putting my Duna ship in orbit and running into this problem, I got discouraged and stopped playing for a couple months so I could focus on some other games(and projects). I recently discovered the FASA mod and that pulled me back in.

Here are pictures from the VAB Here are orbital pictures of how the landers are laid out.

So, I've been playing around with KSP(off and on since roughly .24) for a while and I'm fairly comfortable with all the Kerbin Orbit stuff, I've built a decent sized space station in LKO just to prove that I can, landed on the Mun and sent an an unmanned Lander/Orbiter mission to Duna, which has both mapped the planet with SCANSAT and successfully put my robot lander on the surface of Duna(I undershot my intended landing zone due to drag but at least I didn't break the lander). So my next challenge to myself was to design an interplanetary mother-ship to reach other planets, which could go there and back without needing refueling(and can be refueled via one of it's many docking ports), take a crew of 9 and attach various landers and modules depending on mission requirements. My resulting craft is fairly long, with the front half being the crew/control areas and the back half being a huge fuel tank and a 2.5 m NERV engine, not to mention some large solar panels to provide plenty of power. It's about 2.5 m pretty uniformly up and down the ship(except the Mk3 liquid fuel tank that bulges out somewhat near the end), and looks like a large tower in orbit. I built it, somehow managed to get each big piece into orbit(the aft and forward sections had to be launched separately and mated in orbit), then designed all of the landers for a Duna landing and docked them to the main craft. I finally selected my crew, got them up there and was ready to go. When I got up to the window for the best Kerbin-Duna transfer, I started notcing something. One, the burns take a very long time. I kind of expected that using such a large craft and NERV engine(but it's annoying) The problem I hadn't anticipated was that it works fine at low thrust, but once I got above 1/3 power I start drifting off target(up on the navball), even with SAS set to hold on target. If I use RCS, this isn't a problem at higher thrusts but the act of holding on target burns through monoprop like crazy and I know I'm gonna need it. I purposefully built the craft with reaction wheels that are the same diameter as the main ship and it gives me a decent ability to rotate in orbit without using RCS, so I didn't think this would be a problem. I've been able to get up to about 90% thrust but only if I raise thrust very slowly and incrementally after the 33% mark, and it's annoying. Too much and I start drifting off course(and always up) My craft is roughly 90K tons(including lander weight) with a dV of about 6500 m/s(most of the landers are not coming back on the return trip, which should make it a little easier). It's currently in a 100 km parking orbit above Kerbin and I have a save before I start burning out of that orbit. The only thing I can think of is that my landers are not balanced around the axis of my craft, though the idea that I need a second NERV engine has also come to mind. I can provide a screenshot if that helps. Any suggestions would be appreciated.