Warzouz

I have those lines on my space plane. They show up when I pitch too hard, as long as increased drag. I think your spinning problem is not related to those lines, but maybe both are related to the real cause. Planes are usually spinning because of lack of control surfaces or badly wing propositioning (CoL wrongly in front of CoM). You should post a picture from the SPH with CoM and CoL displayed. (ninja'd)

It's body lifting. Nothing to worry about except that if they show up, that mean you're not in the way the plane is designed to be. That's not a cause of flipping, but more a consequence.

For Vac worlds you can figure a landing site quite easily. If miss, just do a small hop. They are tedious and have very little return value. They are only bearable on Kerbin and low gravity bodies (Minmus size)

1- Use a plane (small, easy to land, good range). Mix it with science collecting. 2- Forget about those missions... (recommended)

Initially, it was a 6 wheeled orange tank with drills and ISRU... I landed it on minmus and is sides for ... 20min without any way to stop, slow or change direction. Warp even x2 wasn't allowed. When it stopped, it was sometime moving again. On reload, it could move or bounce slightly. Then it finally vanished. I hyperedit the same lander with struts instead of wheels and I never had any problem. Hopefully, wheels will be redone in KSP 1.1 (Unity 5)

KER also gives the "offset thrust" and "thrust angle" Both should be as near 0 as possible. From experience, landing wheeled vehicle is quite a mess. I had some many bugs (even disappearing vehicles) I gave up. I had a wheeled vehicle on minmus which vibrated and had many glitch. Finally it vanished. I modified it in the VAB replacing wheels by struts and hyper edited it. Bugs were gone. Now I only use struted landers. I don't care much where I land, since the area is above 60% Here is what I use now : 40T tons before deorbiting, 60 tons at takeoff, fit for every planet except Eve, Duna, Laythe and Tylo.

Beware that MJ doesn't optimise course calculation for the lowest dV on arrival. For example, I never had a successful Moho calculation with MJ. Sure I got an intercept but an unusable one (5 or 6k m/s capture...). Use http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp instead (there is a mod that integrate this tool into the gate wand work nicely with KAC).

Ah yes, stackable aerospike !!! That's nice ! Thx for the report.

Placement of the decoupler is very important. Don't hesitate to "offset" the booster on the decoupler so the decoupler is higher but near the CoM of the booster (which you'll have to guess). When the decoupler fires, the booster will go outward and the pushed by the airflow away from your core, not inward (and again pushed by the airflow) to your core. I never needed any separatrons, but I must confess I use a lot of SSTO rocket to LKO...

It's usually easier to focus on the navball than on the view. Yaw right will always make you go right on the navball but lay look differently on the screen. Another way to understand where you are is to activate SAS and set it to prograde or normal, then rotate you ship to put it where you want.

Hmm, beware of that, I already had a full functional vehicle (with probe core, fuel and power) qualified as debris, while the debris part was qualified as probe...

Survey contracts are a pain. They are tedious and very little rewarding. On Kerbin, use a plane to do them. At least flying is quite restful ! Survey can also but fine on low gravity bodies, but even though, after doing a last one on Bop, I swear to myself never do that again...

Mun and Miunmus should have had less biomes. KSC specific biomes should not exist.

I was surprised to do a 2265m/s takeoff to 10km orbit with a test rocket (TWR was around 4). OTOH, I don't remember which altitude I took off from.

I had a one manned SSTO lander in beta 0.9* with quite low TWR (1.02 when starting descent) which used 2 LVN. It weighted around 15tons and had 6000m/s of fuel. I barely got back to orbit (50m/s left). Hopefully, the tug was there to bring me back to my Laythe station. for refuel. In 1.0, LVN are heavier, so this ship wouldn't work any more. Further more, I had quite a lot of physic-less parts. I didn't tried to redo an equivalent ship for 1.0. * As I wasn't sure that lander could successfully land at Tylo, I brought along another staged lander (thus not reusable). This one was lighter.

I would probably : - set a lower science income because, as I like to collect science, everything is already unlocked before I leave Kerbin SOI**. - activate the "pay to unlock parts" because that's more fun to focus on really needed parts.

I usually put the "testing vehicle" on the pad and stage everything. Sometime I hyperedit it into space and redo the same test, to check if everything works correctly. Then back to VAB, I select the crew and stick a prebuild Cygnus SSTO launcher and fly it 10/20 days before the transfer window. As I play multiple missions at the same time (thanks KAC), If I fail something, I reload using specific save points. On don't wait the next window. Exceptions : Mun and Minmus (when I botched my lander, I just send another on from Kerbin and crashed the old one to the ground) Edit Ah, I forgot the most important : when I prepare a big mission, I don't test it in sandbox. I do a specific savegame and do all the testing in my career game. When I'm ready I reload the save and launch the mission Edit2 For specific missions such as Eve landing, I also used Hyperedit. I did probably 30 tries and still don't get it right...

For my understanding, nodes dV and estimated trajectories are calculated on a instant burn (infinite TWR). Then the burn duration is simply calculated from dV and you engine configuration. Even staging is not well integrated into the stock calculation (KER and MJ have better calculation though). But the burn durations don't change de needed dV. So if you burn slowly (for example, during a full orbit, which is stupid), your trajectory will be a mess. Someone did calculation of dV loss for extended burns. I can't find it though. Edit : Stupid me : OhioBob did it few post before ...

Very true, but my usual issue is not dV, it's TWR. I can easily pack more fuel on a interplanetary stage, but increasing TWR is harder : you have to add more engines, thus even more fuel. It usually wrecks your design... So I don't bother with altitude. All my interplanetary stage are overfueled.

Thx So at LKO, there is not much difference between a 80km and a 150km orbit. Your rule of thumb for a long burn gives 1/6 of an orbit max For example, if I have a 2500m/s burn to do. If I want to burn 1/12 of an orbit max (half your rule of thumb), it needs a 1.64 TWR at LKO, but only a 0.45 at 1000km. - - - Updated - - - Well, I like to send big stuff into space. I usually go directly to Rhino . Or 2 of them + 8 LVN for my successful Moho trip. http://tof.canardpc.com/view/017d2bde-716d-4ca8-a3b2-050147fd4dff.jpg

Well, I successfully sent a station with low TWR (0.3 iirc) to Dres with 2 pre-burns, but I'm not too comfortable. I tried for Moho and failed miserably, ended on non recoverable trajectory. For Eeloo, Moho and Jool, I prefer packing a TWR and fuel and do a one burn go. My issue is not overdoing the interplanetary stage. For example : I've designed space stations self-powered of pushed by a interplanetary stage. Return vehicles and landers have to depart on their own. As TWR is already low (but still for a 1 burn go) I can't add the landers and return at LKO for a single flight. Each vehicle I attache bring it's own fuel, so dV doesn't drop significantly. But TWR do, hence my question about burn duration. A 5 minute burn seems quite long, You do nearly 1/4 of an orbit. BTW is there a quick table to get speed and orbital period on a specific orbit ? (80 ,100 , 120km ....)

Sending ships to interplanetary efficiently is the heart of a successful mission to the Kerbol system. With low TWR, I know you can do multiple burns to escape LKO. But they are delicate outside Mun, Minmus, Duna or Eve (maybe Jool). Either way, I'm much mod comfortable with a reasonably high TWR for escaping Kerbin SOI. I know that the issue is not the really the TWR, but the time you spend burning at LKO. 2 questions 1- I read somewhere that dV loss drastically increase after a certain burn duration : what was it ? What would be a reasonable burn duration at LKO (I usually try to avoid burning more than 3 minutes) 2- As higher orbits are slower, I should be able to burn longer with messing too much my trajectory. Is there a way to have a simple rule for that ? With those data, I could calculate the TWR I need for a specific burn (dV, orbit) without messing everything... Thx

I've work on stuff like that not long ago. There are variations, pre-built interplanetary stage and LKO launch stage (fully recoverable). Salamander Exploration: simple and efficient space station to everywhere The Salamander Exploration Space Station (SESS) is a versatile design and specification to create a long term base of operations for planetary exploration and quick contract resolution. It’s designed to be efficient in collecting science. The SESS is designed to fulfill various goals: * Host kerbals and generate science * Base of operations for one or multiple science landers * Be able to quickly do contracts (get science from space, from ground, plant flag, collect and deliver ore up to 3000 and rescue Kerbals) * Host return vehicles for Kerbals to get home * Refuel landers, fuel return vehicles * Get ore from planetary bodies. * Be standard for most bodies * Migrate to another body to do more exploration. I didn't add any grabber, but you could add them. And BTW, I've noticed I didn't pack the return vehicle I designed for each planet. You might do that yourself, but it's easy (this is a old prototype even modified for contract purpose) PS : and if you want prebuit recoverable SSTO rocket stage to LKO : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/123195

Hmmm, the circularize + send SSTO to get the kerbals and science is not that easy to do. When you use a "direct to ground" landing ; you don't need the "escape SOI" fuel and you don't need the "transfert fuel". You only need part of the inclination change fuel (as ever). I tried "circularize + SSTO" for mye Dres mission. I used external seats to reduce weight. The ship was terrible to fly. If you go to Dres, you should have the tech to ISRU there. It's easy when you plan it correctly . Also, favor the station + return vehicle instead of a regular lander that coming back on it's own. Advantage : you can return there with only a small ship and not the whole mission again. Better : leave few crew there to do some additional missions. Salamander Exploration Space Station for hits land lot of tables... Finally : there are usually "Dresoid" orbiting around Dres

A failed mission to Dres : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130691 Dres is quite easy. You usually get Dresoid already around it. As it's lighter than Mun, it's easier to land. Bring RTG or fuel cells though.