Warzouz

Don't bother about Oberth effect - It's about optimization/efficiency - It's not significant on light bodies such as Minmus I suggest you focus on few maneuvers. Don't forget that if your PE is not satisfactory, you'll have to waste fuel to fix it then do a burn. It's sometime much more costly to change trajectory to a more efficient one than just burn on the trajectory you're on even if it's not optimised. Remember the old TCP/IP moto : "simple is beautiful" PS : KSP moto would be : "simple is beautiful but lighter is even better"

I don't understang what this node is, just delete it a redo it. If you want to have a simplier view or your Minmus orbit "Focus" on Minmus, you should get a simple hyperbole and you'll be able to set your node easily. It seems you're targeting a retrograde orbit. If you're new to KSP, try to get approach on the best side (prograde), even if, with Minmus, dV retrograde is not much. Let it become a habit to circularize prograde so you don't even need to think about it. You should slightly burn radial now to get your PE on the right side of minmus (prograde), then set your retrograde burn at PE. On the bright side : you already did the hardest. Circularizing and landing should be easy. Good job.

About Cygnus recoverable rockets : beware that this release works well with 1.0.4 but is not too friendly with 1.0.5. In few words : the airbrakes burns and engines may overheat and blow. The heavier the launcher, the higher the overheat is. I've a working 300T 1.0.5 proof version, but reentry is somewhat quite odd (the basic idea is to increase drag by inducing some sort of spinning). The new prototype does that by itself then stabilize automatically around 5000m. Thanks for selecting my work but beware it needs some works for 1.0.5

It's a long time since I did't do any update. I'm working on a 1.0.5 compatible Cygnus rocket series. My test subject is the RR300 variant (which is the heaviest I still use. As it's heavy it doesn't brake easily in atmosphere. I usually loose airbrakes, engines... The new 1.0.5 version have the following changes. Replace wings with equivalent elevons Add action group to deactivate reaction wheels Removed all airbrakes Set drogue chutes to 8 items Remove all pressure config to chutes (no autodeploy anymore) Reentry flight plan Deorbit 55m/s from the western border of the crater (90° west of KSC) Set to SAS to retrograde when entering in atmosphere Deactivate reactions wheels (the rocket should enter a chaotic rotation) Get ready to stage drogues as soon as the 500m/s is crossed Get ready to stage chutes as soon as the 250m/s is crossed You should he around 300m from the water around 30km from KSC... Alternative flight plan (need 300m/s of fuel) Deorbit 60m/s from the western border of the crater (90° west of KSC) Set to SAS to retrograde when entering in atmosphere Roll the rocket when flames appear Watch for overheat of engines. Get ready to burn when overhead seems to be critical (but keep 100m/s) You should have much more time for drogues and chutes. I'll update other variant and do more tests before posting the new pack.

For a new player, "Kerbal-X" is able to go to the mun and back. Maybe adding a bit of fuel for security margin is not a bad idea.

And why note get to Duna first , stay in orbit and do a Ike FB too ? Wait for a proper Eve window and try to get a dirty Kerbin encounter with gravtiy asist at Eve. Duna is quite cheap, to it's possible to wait there for a bargain while doing a Ike encounter.

I like space stations. But designing a space station depends mostly on what you want to do with them. Before ISRU, I built a station for a Jool 5 style mission. It was quite huge and was assmbled around Laythe with 13 flights, including 6 orange tanks. With that fuels, I would be able to land on each Jool moon more than 4 times, including the trip Laythe-other moon. The typical lander was 15 tons, even for Tylo. When the mission was over, I returned the 11 kerbal crew with the return vehicle, I had 3 full orange tank left. I didn't do the next crew rotation as 1.0 was arriving. Now I designed a space station wit only ONE orange tank (even half one). It's sufficient to refuel the 3000m/s science lander 4 times. The miner is able to refuel the at least 43% of a orange tank with only one refuel trip on the ground. But what ever, set the specs of you mission FIRST. Where do you want to go and land ? How many times ? Do your station have to be reusable for next missions or is it a one shot station ? Can you get ore from nearby bodies *** Which landing vehicle will you use (especially its fuel mass) Which return vehicle will you use (especially its fuel mass) *** this part is quite delicate to specify because it has to be efficient too : you don't want to mine ore 3 times to refuel one ship... Answering all those question will define how much fuel capacity you need on your station. Note about Kerbin LKO stations : I never found them useful as it's so easy to launch fuel from KSC. The only usage I find for them is Being able to quickly do science fro space (but any satellite will do) Refuel SSTO space plane to allow the to got to high orbit to rescue (I used it twice...) Temporary station for return ship without atmospheric capacity (probably not fuel efficient...)

I do a little bot of every thing. For Kerbin SOI, I usually pack more fuel to fulfil several contracts. For other SOI, I usually pack several satellites in one launch. I did a quadruple survey scanner deployment around Jool Moon, and I also did a quadruple lander probe Tylo/Laythe (2 for each moon). Quite simple : I use BZ-52 Radial Attachment Point, add a decoupler and fix the probes on it. They only have to be balanced 2 by 2. I usually decouple every thing before entering into Jool SOI, after the correction burn. Finally, nearly the same as before, I fix probes radially on bigger ships (space stations). They're also deployed before entering SOI I also use carriers with 8 probes, built on the rockamax-sized probe core (you can imagine the size of the bugger... ) I do that mostly because it's easier and cheaper (per ton) to send heavier payloads. Strangely heavier rockets are steadier and forgives a lot on ascent. Light launcher will flip much faster if your design is a bit flawed. So I feel better to put 400tons to LKO than 4tons. I like big rockets, don't ask me why !

This so much true when designing a launcher. Few days ago, I was testing a high TWR rocket (for fun). The rocket was powered by a vector and had near a TWR of 5 (so much overpowered ). It was so hard to steer that I needed to launch it already inclined with a very flat ascent (crossing 45° at around 4000m, If I'm not mistaken). The rocket speed increased so fast I had to stop engines mid course to cool down. Finally I went to LKO for 2850m/s (VAC). But the rocket had no payload and was finally quite big (3 biggest 1.25m tanks, probe core, a nose cone, a vector and 4 fins). Strangely the rocket was going to LKO without steering and without SAS. I was only managing the throttle mainly to handle heat. In the end, you can go to LKO for a very low dV, but you don't pay for dV, you pay for fuel and rocket parts.

Inclined parking orbit... This is quite hard to calculate... It's not only a matter of inclination (even Sun relative inclination is not the same as Kerbin relative inclination), it's about being in the same plane as the target. I tried to do that when I went to Eeloo in beta 0.9. I roughly calculated (and 3 tries) I had to be in a 30° inclination to be grossly in Eeloo plane. But with that, the launch was quite hard. I had to launch exactly on the opposite side of my calculated burn node (which can't be set until you launch...). Then doing half a revolution around Kerbin and when crossing the equator, do the escape burn. There was a lot of eyeballing and guessing. I'm not even sure I did it correctly. In the end, I still needed to do a 450m/s correction burn to be co-planar to Eeloo. That was a lot of stress. Now I have a more pragmatic vision : Launch 2 weeks before transfer window, 0° Kerbin inclination. Plan a prograde escape node AND plane change node when in parking orbit (75 to 80km) Wait for transfer window (I usually do other things...) Reset the nodes then do the real burn Reset the plane change/encounter after leaving Kerbin SOI It's certainly not the most efficient way, but at least it's easy and I don't need other tools than a "Precise Node"-like mod (I don't even bother with ejection angle, my way of setting the node takes care of it, "de facto"). I just pack a bit more fuel. I tried MJ calculator, but I had a lot of difficulties with it. I got nice flyby encounter which did very bad "orbital insertion"-friendly encounters. I use MJ, but not for that.

I may not, but I'll post the PDN file (Paint.Net file so you can change it as you want)

I'm considering dropping the math excuse for resizing the planetary bodies and just do something nice. I think I'll try do keep the relative size of most moons, but as for planets I'll resize more the gaz giant than the other ones.

This is not totally related to KSP, but I'll do a KSP solar system later I was looking for a new wallpaper and I found that : http://i.imgur.com/AhHmbbe.jpg I was wondering to redo it myself becaus this wallpaper had some issues All planets are the same size as intended. Gas giants are not that impressive Uranus has no rings If Pluto is present, other dwarf planets should be Venus is displayed without atmoshere but earth with atmoshpere No moons are present. If I want not to set all bodies to the same size, i can't add them on real scale ratio. Only gas giant would be distinctive. So I tried a square root, a cubic root and a double square (?) root scale ration. Here is my first draft (bodies aren't aligned and not correctly placed) : http://n.lejeune.free.fr/ksp/test.png I find that there may not be enough size difference. Maybe cubic root would be better. What do you think ? As for KSP, I'll definitely do cubic root, maybe even square root. And to improve the scenery, I might use Outer Planet Mod

I know, I know, it was just a plea to SQUAD add it to the game

Neither do I. I understand how to do it but not managing to get a proper encounter then. On the other hand, It's easy to use it to slow down on arrival, especially in Jool system (and quite fun to do). Yes true, but you can warp from within the Tracking Station whatever altitude you are.

I don't think this has changed. I don't think this has changed.

Nice ! Please add @Snark's idea for tracking station. It's simple and so much useful. It's a very lightweight and user friendly KAC-like feature.

I don't pretend to understand 1/100 of what is written, but this PDF talks a lot of N-Body simulation http://www.siam.org/pdf/news/242.pdf

Or stick the satellite on your contraption and launch a 2 in 1 mission

@Zhetaan is right. The double quadcoupler looks nice but isn't game friendly. This kind of node plug is not possible in KSP except with advanced skills I don't have and docking nodes only. That's sad, but you should avoid those contraptions

Coming from ground, LKO parking orbit should be as close as 70km possible. Personnaly I set orbits to 75km and park space stations at 80km. There are 2 reason you want to do otherwise You have to wait a lot and low orbits can't warp high. In that cas you may want to raise orbit to be able to warp more quickly. But there is an alternative : you can always warp in the tracking station. You have no limit there. This is very safe when you use KAC mod Your ship has a low TWR and you burn may take several minutes. You may loose quite a lot of fuel, event cross the atmosphere in worst cases. In that case you might want to start from a higher orbit. Orbit Periode (min dV m/s Max time for 30° Min TWR 30° 80 31 1100 2.6 0.72 150 36 1100 3.0 0.62 200 40 1100 3.3 0.56 500 64 1100 5.3 0.35 1000 113 1100 9.4 0.20 This table show the burn you can make in a 30° angle Orbit : where you are Period : orbital period Max time for 30° (1/12 of a period) : the time you can burn in 30° ark (in reality it's smaller as your speed would increase) dV : my test value of 1100m/s TWR : Min TWR you must have to do the 1100 burn in the time allowed.

No more overlapping like hell menus ? Yeah !!!

Yes folders or search box (but folder is better). Maybe something more integrated such as sub-assemblies

@p1t1o, this bug is already identified by Squad for few weeks. It appeared in 1.0.5 and wasn't present in 1.0.4. I'm quite amazed the didn't fixed it. I'm now nearly unable to launch most of my usual rocket with fairing. Sure there is the exploit of setting the fairing backward so the stability would be increased. But I don't like to use part for what they're not designed to. I only hope they don't forget to fix that bug in 1.1...

Same as now, but I may dig into "Outer Planet Mod"