Khazar

How about Kerbal Space Center ? In earlier version it had separate biomes for each building so you could have some science from simple trip around KSC. It wasn't very much but could help in the early phase of career.

One arrow in each pair shows your position during closest encouter, second shows your target's position. Orange pair is for the first encounter, purple is for second.[h=3][/h]

I would say its important to upgrade the building where you manage contracts early on. Maybe even before launching pod or hangar. This way you can have more active contracts at same time. So if you have to reach certain altitude you can take parachute and decoupler for testing having some extra money. This sometimes may require changes of your craft design and flight pattern but usually its worth it. Also take crew report in flight above xxx alt contracts can be done from orbit so they can be mixed into your other missions.

Ok, thanks again.

Ok, thanks for the info. Is there any reason to use retrograde parking orbit then ?

Thanks for help. It showed up that had installed some mods that screwed up Kerbon system and I couldn't get anywhere except for the moons. Now I have removed every mod that had anything to do with planets/systems and everything is ok now. I had no trouble with finding course for Duna encounter. I have problem however with ploting a course for Eve. It has smaller orbit than Kerbin, so my parking orbit around Kerbin should be retrograde. Then I have ejection angle at 160 to retrograde. Where would be that point ? Assuming that Kerbin prograde is at 12 o clock and retrograde at 6, should that point be around 5 o clock or 7 o clock ? Or maybe at 11 or 1 o clock ? I don't know how to count that angle.

I'm sure. the orbit seen at last picture is what I'd get after burning 3300 dv prograde at point marked with red dot at 3rd picture. I'm starting to assume there might be something wrong with my game. I have installed some mods adding other planets, maybe they screw things up. I tried to use plugin that does same calculations in game and it showed some insane ammounts like 170.000 dv and higher. That would explain why maneveurs like 10k make very little difference. I suspect that planet factory mod might be responsible...

​ The white line marks Kerbin prograde. As I zoom in, the prograde line would be roughly where blue dot is : So, would my ejection burn point would be somewhere near the red dot or green dot ? Placing maneuvere node at red point with 3300 dv prograde gives me an orbit as seen at last picture. I have Kerbin escape marker, but my new orbit doesn't change much no matter what how I tweak maneuver node. No closest approach point. No encounter. As for dvs calculations I understand that ejection burn is burn I need to perform to be at proper course and insertion burn is burn I would have to du to stay in orbit after I reach capture node. Am I right ? Setting maneuvere node at more vavourable phase is just cheapper or easier as well ?

But are those calculations correct ? It's just small sattelite that I wanted to launch as fast as possible so I wasn't interested in efficiency that much. I have over 8k of dv and I would reather spent 3-4k for transfer than wait couple dozens of days. But I just cant have encounter no matter how much dv I would invest. I have marked the kerbin prograde with black line labeled "a", and my craft's position with black lane labeled "b". You have said counterclockwise so I guess it's supposed to be the other way around. That would probbably be the case.

Hi, I can't plot a course for Duna. I have used calculator to get proper angles and values for duna transfer. It looks like that : I have got those values : Phase anfle 117.10' Ejection angle 18 to prograde Ejection Dv 3261 ms As I understand it Phase angle is angle between Kerbin and duna, and when I looka at the ingame map it loks like this angle is 117' Ejection angle is angle between Kerbin prograde and point where I'm supposed to perform ejection burn. Calculator says it's supposed to be 18', so if we assume that kerbin prograde would be 12 o clock, then I should burn at around 13, right ? So I place maneuver node at 13 o clock and ad 3261 dv prograde burn, and that should do the trick. However no matter how much dv I put, I won't get encounter. I tried to put maneuver node in different places, I tried to add a lot more prograde dv (10k and more), tried to tweak normal/abnormal. No matter what I do, I won't get encounter. All I have is Kerbin escape marker, but no Duna encounter. What am I doing wrong ?

I have landed on the surface and now I want to go to another location, let's say about 5 km away. What would be most efficient trajectory/ flight profile to do so ? There are two velocities, vertical and horizontal. Reaching let's say 400 m/s of horizontal velocity means that before landing I would have to reduce it to around 0, so the smaller horizontal velocity the better. But at the other hand, each second in the flight requires me to fight against the gravity, so the shorter the flight the better. What is the relation ? Does it depend on TWR or something else ? Going slowly I would't waste much fuel for braking but I would have to pull up constantly. Going fast would require a lot of braking but not much pulling up. Is one way superior to another or optimum is somewhere between ? Or maybe that doesn't matter at all ? And similar concerns about landing from orbit. Are there any advantages/disadvantages of landing from very low orbit ? If I'm at low altitude then I fly fast, so I have a lot of horizontal breaking. If I am high then I go slow and don't have to brake a lot, but I have to reduce vertical speed a lot. Also as there is no atmosphere to slow me down, Is there any difference whether i let my craft to fall all the way and use engines latest possible moment, or reduce speed gently in many burns not allowing craft to accelerate too much ?

How about cost of changing to retrograde if already in prograde orbit ? At some point I had couple satellite contracts which I tried to fulfil with single satellite. There were 2 Kerbin orbits to achieve (one retro and one prograde) and one orbit around the Mun. After reaching prograde orbit around Kerbin I tried to go retrograde but it showed that I lacked dV, so I went for the Mun instead. After reaching Mun orbit it turned out I could still go for Kerbin retrograde orbit. I just used Mun to turn around. Is this way really more effective one or just my attempt to switch from prograde Kerbin orbit to retrograde without going around Mun was wrongly calculated ?

Thanks for the info, I was off course trying to change inclination at low alt so I'll probably have some savings now. As for images I was using bmp format because I thought that bmp images kep better quality and saving them as .jpg lowers the quality a lot. I'll use .jpg next time.

This KAS mod is really great. Not only it allows to strut everything I want improving crafts stability greatly but it also allows to pup fuel without of docking. That helps a lot. No more docking with heavy, not well balanced tankers. Also i can remove and reuse some stuff from decommissioned crafts. Now everything is going well, just made couple surface landings. One of them was on hillside at night This game is awesome. http://www./view/4qjoj8g16gin1ao/MUN%20001.bmp http://www./view/2vbmkdd8he88w9g/MUN%20002.bmp http://www./view/v9rmd5bn6n84u78/mun%20003.bmp I have one question. My main craft is at equatorial orbit, and one of recon crafts is at polar one. What would be the most efficient way to get rendezvous ? Burning normal/antinormal at point where orbits cross is the only way ? Are there any trick's to save some fuel ?

I would say that controlling Kerbals on EVA is much easier than controlling a craft. Keyboard controls depend on your facing. If you are looking directly at target, then A will move you left, D right, W forward, S backward, Shift - up and ctrl - down. You rotate with mose. If you turn lets say 90' right, then your target would be on your left and therefore to move in its direction you would have to press A instead of w.

Well I knew that instead of stock 0/45/90 profile in FAR it should be smooth 0-90 turn, but didn't know that I need to start it so soon. I just have finished assembling my main craft, so I won't be doing large launches in the nearest future, just small satellite carriers and things like that so I can start turning since launch (I wander how much fuel have I wasted putting this ship into orbit as I have did it) hehe I have installed this fix just couple days ago, (wanted to prevent eva ejections) and I have noticed that radial decouplers seemed to work much better but I thought it was just because the smaller size of launching craft. Nice to know that.

I forgot to mention that I have FAR installed, gravity turn is not that simple like in stock. The worst thing is that boosters like to hit engines or other parts of the rocket. The more horizontal i would go the higher chance they would hit something. That's the key factor I don't like to turn too early. I prefer to wait at least until I drop first stage of boosters. I guess it might be not worth to bring them at all if so.

I have couple questions about dV but they focus more on launching and getting to orbit, hope they fit in this topic. At image below I have marked 2 points. http://imgur.com/2CRhXWr Point nr 1 is the alt where I start gravity turn. Point number 2 is where I burn to circularize. When designing heavy and complex craft it’s sometimes hard choice between having more dV and TWR (most often by adding more boosters) or keeping decent stability (placing them in more and more awkward places). Because of that I sometimes end up not daring to start gravity turn until I’m over 20-25k alt, (so the point nr 1 is much higher than it’s supposed to be), and then at point nr 2 I have to accelerate more and faster. I wonder what’s more efficient ? How much I could save performing “perfect†gravity turn, and would it outweigh extra power provided by extra boosters ). I don’t need numbers, just wonder if one of the options is obviously better than other or are they around equal. Also, would I save some reasonable amounts of dV If I would have high TWR at point nr 2, so my circularizing burn would be very short ? Would that be worth carrying all those engines all the way ? Let’s consider 2 profiles : I keep TWR between 1.1-2.0 at most of the time and I drop some engines whenever I exceed TWR 2.0 so I get lighter. I cost’s me less fuel to reach point 2 but it needs to be at lower alt (because I need to burn for longer time to circularize) I keep TWR between 1.1-2.0 only by reducing throttle and I don’t drop any of my engines (only empty fuel tanks) so when I reach point nr 2 I have high TWR so circularizing burn would be a short one, and happening almost entirely at AP. After I have stable orbit, I drop extra engines to reduce weight for rest of the mission. What would be more efficient ? Same as above, no numbers needed.

hehe KSS "overkill", a fine name for a ship I decided to launch a mothership first, and then recon crafts separately. It was impossible to keep under 256 parts limit otherwise (I want those recon crafts to be well equipped). This is how it looked before launch : hehe KSS "overkill", a fine name for a ship I decided to launch a mothership first, and then recon crafts separately. It was impossible to keep under 256 parts limit otherwise (I want those recon crafts to be well equipped). This is how it looked before launch http://www./view/m2t6vkk1qenm2hz/005.bmp and a recon craft : http://www./view/ob6lada5y20jq47/004.bmp Allready in orbit just after docking first recon craft in. http://www./view/c2cu3iy5d375d7w/001.bmp And here most recent view. 3 recon crafts docked, http://www./view/cdo7ob7u7g7a1y6/002.bmp I just have to bring last recon craft and some extra fuel and I'm good to go for the mun Recon crafts have crew of 2 (pilot and scientist), they carry quite a lot of scientific instruments and they are supposed to be capable of surface landings in low gravity environments.

Thank you for your answers. I have no access to large docking ports yet, also I have reached mods "capacity" and KSP started to crash quite often at this point. I guess I'll have to remove some modes I have installed to save memory for the new ones. I haven't tried multidocking so far but it seems to be quite good idea. My carreer situation is that I have to take crew reports at more than 20 locations, more like 30 I guess, as well as plant a flag, take some science data from surface ad place a basic station in the orbit. To get those reports done I will have to change orbit many times or spent much time waiting to get near every location. So I thought that the best idea would be to take 4 small crafts that would take care of crew reports, 1 lander to place the flag and gather the data. All that would be detachable. Then there would be a main command module with science lab and other stuff required for this "space station contract". I hope that I could just undock it on specific orbit and then dock it back instead of leaving it for good. After I accomplishing as many contract as I can, I would like to assembly every craft and go back to Kerbin. Refuel, exchange crew (to get exp) and science samples, and wait in orbit until next big mission. This is what I did before, it worked well enough, but this way is much less efficient. The recon craft's engines couldn't be used to help during take off. As I had to completely redesign tanker craft that was supposed to bring fuel for the mission, but was unable to maneuver well enough to dock, I decided to redesign both crafts so this time I could use recon crafts thrust. I used 4 main sail engines to power this ship so I guess it must be overkill for sure Having 4 recon crafts each quite powerful (considering they contribute during kerbin take off) I should be ok until I loose all of them. Besides docks where recon crafts are placed I also have one dock in the front and one in the back. If I loose 1 ship, I can move the one from opposite side to the rear so I could use all three of them, If i loose 2 I am symmetric, and having just one I just place it in the back and it should be ok.

hmm you mean during burn or anytime ? I don't think I would need warp time during burns, so it shouldn't be a problem unless it would tear my craft apart even if its not using engines. That would be a problem :/

I have found answer in other topic that have showed up just a few minutes after I started mine. Struts are disconnected during undocking (didn't know that) so I can use them. I believe that after leaving Kerbin atmosfere I will not need struts anymore. In space I will not have to do so much quick maneuvering as during ascending to orbit.

Hi. I'm trying to build craft that would be some sort of mothership carrying fuel and 4 small, detachable crafts that could do various tasks like surface landings while main craft could stay in orbit (in career mode I have many contracts around the mun, that I would like do in single mission). I thought that it would be a good idea to use "recon craft's" engines for the propulsion of mothership, so i't wouldn't need separate engines (or reduce their number more likely) and save weight this way (layout 1). Docking ports cant' however hold those crafts in place and they start to shake and swing until the hit something and blow up. Is there a way to hold them that would still allow to undocking and docking ? So far I could only leave Kerbin's atmosphere in one piece If I had separate, fixed main engines and didn't use recon crafts engines when getting into orbit (layout 2). If I would use strut connectors, decouplers or other parts to stabilize docked crafts, would I be able to undock and then dock ? http://www./view/uu2h3e4sqln81hn/layout.JPG

I have earned enough money so I could upgrade necessary facilities and turn toward space. I have even managed to put kerbal on the mun. (one of 2 kerbals survived landing and mission designed as a 2 way trip turned into one way trip, so lets call it half-success ). I have some questions about rocket designs and flight. Craft that allowed me to get to mun costed little over 100k, and after I got into mun's orbit I had 2 engines 4 fuel tanks (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/FL-T400_Fuel_Tank but 2 of them were allready empty. It was built like that : Part that was designed to go to the mun, seen form top : Command pod mk 1, control wheel, science lab jr, command pod mk I (turned upside down), stack decoupler. There was also some scientific aparature attached, 4 landing struts, 4 chutes, 4 solar panels. Then there were 4 radial decouplers set as two pairs. Each decoupler had attached 2 fl-t400 fuel tanks and one engine. This was craft that supposed to land on mun's surface. All this was put on top of rocket that had 2 stages, each stage had 9 engines ( http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/LV-T45_Liquid_Fuel_Engine ) each equipped with 2 fl-t400 fuel tanks. I guess its not a very efficient way to build rocket but it haven't anything better so far. So now for the questions : 1. Is it better to add more fuel tanks per engine or add more stages instead ? I usually use 2 fuel tanks per engine but have no idea if its reasonable. 2. As far as I know its a good idea to gently turn east after passing 10k alt, and keep turning until 45 degree. Then what ? I have read that when periapsis is above 70k i should cut the throttle and wait until I'm neat it, then turn horizontal and accelerate until apoasis is above 70 as well. Is it right ? Wouldnt it be better to keep turning as sharp as I can maintain stability ? Or instead cutting throttle after apoasis is 70k, wouldn't it be better to turn horizontal (or near it) and keep accelerating ? I usually have apoasis of 70k somewhere between 50-60k alt and I think its quite possible to go at 60-70 degree at this alt. 3. After I reach let's say 50k alt, and there is almost no air, and I have 4 engines (2 fuel tanks per engine) is it better to use all 4 at once or is it better to use 2 first and then drop them to reduce weight ? I guess the stronger is the gravity the more reasonable would be to use all engines but where would be the edge ? 4. Is there sometung like maximal alt for recon mission (if not specified in contract ? ). I easily managed to set my orbit around mun that way so I could fly over required sectors and was able to take crew reports and therefore complete the mission. Would that work with kerbin ? If I could go over 70k that would be easy, but if i had to get lower than that then I doubt it would be good way to do this missions 5. Also is it more efficient to get orbit of just above 70k or beter go higher ? Considering I'm aiming for the mun would it be better to get basic orbit of around 70k and then maneuver towards mun, or would be better to get basic orbit of lets say 100k or higher ?

I don't have acess to any of those parts yet. Doesen't seem to matter anyway. Cargobay - the one simmilar in appearance to those form c 130 hercules seems to be broken or something. I can't eaven walk kerbal over the ramp. Is it normal or do I have something wrong ?