Khazar

I have done many trips to mun and minmus, and have mining stations running on both and now I want to go for other planets. If I want to go to Duna or Eve, would it be better to start from mun or minmus or from LKO and bring fuel there ? Also, can I refuel SRBs or Monopropelant could be refined only for RCS ? Is it a good Idea to start from eccentric orbit instead of circular ? I guess this could be good idea for LV-N engines ...

Despite how it looks it was quite stable, but I had to go almost straight up until around 16k alt to keep it that way. And I had to reduce throttle because all those SRBs pushed quite a lot

This is my launch setup. It has some touch of madness but it had been worse Still I had hell lot of FUN riding this thing upward and it's only just enough to get into orbit. Then I had to refuel it (It sucked dry entire tanker of previous design just to get into mun's orbit) than I had to refuel it once more to have enough fuel to land on mun's surface. After 5 unsuccessful landing attempts, (last one was hilarious) I was finaly able to land this thing safely.

Wel things didn't went very well ... Ofcourse Jab wasn't touched

This is what I have made recently. Its orbiting mun at the moment, I want to see If I will be able to land it on Mun, then I will go for minmus. Aside mining ore and converting it to fuel its supposed to finish various contracts as well (mostly built surface outpost/orbital station) It has 4 mainsails and 18 LV-Ns. It's prototype and I havent attempted any landings yet so It still can turn out to be a huge failure

I will put some screenshots after I get back home. I think that this issue could be caused by struts coming through other parts (nose cones mostly). After I arrange fuel tanks, i put some struts to keep them together. Sometimes I also put nose cones on top of them. I think that this is the cause. When I load vehicle arranged that way, struts get blocked by nosecones. I'll have to check it.

Hi. I usually build my rockets to have 2 main sections (they may consist of many stages however), where first is aimed for getting to the orbit and second for the rest of mission. So the first section usually have many boosters, fuel tanks and many struts, while second one is varying depending on the mission purpose. There also some struts connecting both sections. Often, when I take first section from one craft, and want to add second from other (or design new one) struts are gone. Not only those that connect both sections (which is obvious) but even those that hold boosters at the first section. How to avoid this happening ?

I use wheels for my landers. I usually perform near suicide burn (aimed for stoping around 100-200 meters for safety reasons), then vertical, gentle descent up to the point where my engines are almost touching ground, then I go little bit up and rotate to be horizontal. This way I can land on slopes and I can easily drive to better location after touchdown. I think its easier way and it gives more freedom in designing your craft.

Hi, I have a problem. I'm trying to build mining station for the first time. I landed several crafts in one are in aim to use their parts to assembly mining platform. I have dropped 2 fundations (cant remember this part name) and when I remove 2-3 parts from first craft game basicly freezes (runs at 1 fps or worse ). What could be the reason of this laags ? Does those parts need to be connected to command pod to stop cause lags or is it something else ??

I think that you get this message only if the chute is deployed. Otherwise it would just blow up and disappear completely. Do you have one or more chutes ? If more than one, try deploying one as soon as you enter atmosphere, leave other as it is. Would they both get destroyed at same time ? Also how much deltaV do you have left ? You can use that deltaVs to help you a lot. Before entering atmosphere set your periapsis to around 36km. When your craft begin to overheat don't youse your engines to reduce your horizontal speed, burn upward instead. This way you will reduce your vertical speed, so you won't be sinking into denser atmosphere. The horizontal speed would be decreasing rapidly by the drag. You just have to use your engines (or to some degree shape of your craft) to adjust your vertical speed. If you get to hot you need to go up, if you stop loosing horizontal speed then you need to go down, or make another orbit if you dont have enough deltaVs. This 36km alt of periapsis is what works for me, but it depends from your speed. The faster you go the higher your periapsis have to be.

Wondering if its better to focus on easiness or realism ? The answer is simple :

Which map are you talking about ? the small or the big one ? Is there a chance you have change display settings ? I'm not sure about the small map, but the big one can be set to display other bodies, Mun for the instance (and if you have no map data form Mun yet it shows gray). It could be also set to display either altimetry, slope, and biomes. If you have it set do display biome and have only data from altimetry scanner then it would show gray as there is no biome data. I think that it could be set do display altimetry data by default, and if you have used multispectral sensor right away, without using altimetry sensor before, you may have to change settings to display biome data. Altimetry sensor marks anomalies as well so you can try to use it to find their locations.

That could be done. You would just have to use solar panels as returning vehicle. Sand tourist in the lander and capture them with solar panels as they return as flashes of light

How about firing those rescued kerbals ? I remember there was a bug that if you fired kerbal that had some experience it could break your save in some way (can't remember how exactly). Is this bug gone now ? Can i fire unwanted kerbals without fear ?

Nice experiment and surprising results. I rarely use cones at all, because I thought they don't make much difference. Seems I was quite wrong. What was the approximate speeds your vessel reached ? Why not to add fuel tank on top of solid booster ? As there is no liquid fuel engine it wouldn't produce any thrust and you could change mass by setting the amount of fuel.

Black lanes represent decouplers. I used layout A because I prefer empty tanks to be ejected sideways instead of backward. I'll have to rebuild one of my rockets to layout B. I'll then launch both versions straight up so I would see how much difference would it make. Thanks for the info.

This shock cone occlusion is used only for calculating heat or drag as well ? Putting things in line one right after another but not connecting them via nodes will generate much more drag ? Would there be significant difference between layout A and B presented in picture below ?

Who needs rover wheels Use small laning gear nad jet engine instead. Put Science jr, mystery goo container and any other science instrument you have available and you will get some science.

Someone mentioned in some other topic that there is a part called precooler tank (or something). I guess this might be involved in drill heat reduction. I play carrer mode only and didn't reach resource gathering phase yet.

Could you provide screenshot of the contracts and its requirements ?

Hehe they can however land on they own, if chutes are already deployed . My first successful landing was in fact first 5 landings. I deployed chutes at around 12k alt and they torn my craft apart, so I had one vesel with 3 pods one on top of another and two single pods with their own chutes. Luckily they kept distance below 2,5 km form each other so they landed safely. At 300 m alt, when chute opened (the one attached to 3 pods stack) mystery goo containers fell apart, but luckily again I was over ocean so they landed safely as well. A cluster landing

I have done those tourists contracts using multiple mk I pods, but I have stacked them differently. I doubt however that this is the case, because the one that is in line with your crewed pod would work for sure. Are you sure that the contract is to just bring kerbal to suborbital trajectory ? I believe that you have to bring them back as well.

If your craft is tall and slim, I would suggest to begin your turn at higher alt, where atmosphere is less dense. Also try pressing tab to reduce controls input sensitivity. This way you will be able to turn much more gently

So you mean that instead of flying a plane I can now deal with "take crew report at surface/in flight below xxx alt" contracts just by deploying kerbals directly form orbit ? And poeople are complaining about difficulty

I had same problem and tried many things like keeping empty fuel tanks and dropping them at around 12-13k alt in hope they would absorb some heat. Deploying chute at 25-20k does the trick. Would it also work in real world ? I mean, wouldn't that chute got burned or torn apart ?