Warzouz

As I've notice recently beware of ecplises, espectially around Duna. Best thing is having a fuel cell backup.

I don't get the link between 3-way symmetry and overheating. I use 3 way symmetry and it works perfectly well (with 3 mainsails or 3 mamoth, depending of the payload weight)

My rocket SSTO stages range from 15T to 230T (dry weight) when reentring atmo. They are quite hard to steer. But the lander is very regular, as you would have seen hundred of times (a landing can on top of a fuel tank and engine at the bottom surrounded by landing struts). The tank is a small rockamax to have a large base for easy landing (avoid tall lander tipping). Finally it seems that's the easiest way to enter atmo. Maybe the downside is that drag I gain to slow me down will cost me to take-off...

That's great. thx a lot !

Small rocket are harder to fly (well, less forgiving) than bigger ones. Your rocket don't have control surfaces (winglets), nor thrust vectoring. And I don't see reaction wheel. So it seems you have nearly no control on you rocket. You could try adding some additional winglets higher (but not too high or it'll flip even faster). I had some results with that, even I don't use them anymore. But reducing thrust, as others explained, is he way to go.

I did a lot of reentry for testing my SSTO rocket stage. Basically it's a familly of rockets with various number of radial engines partially feeded by the rocket core. The batteries, SAS and probe core are at the bottom of the rocket. I added a heat shield with the right amout of ablator to avoid destruction of this sensitive part. As you might have suspect I enter atmo bottom/engine first. Air brakes allow me to tune the landing site. Then chutes and little powered landing to avoid breaking something. On anohter matter I was testing my atmo SSTO 7T lander for Duna and Laythe. I did a quick Hyperedit. The lander is very basic. A small rockamax fuel tank and a Terrier under it. It's not aero dynamic at all. The bottom is flat, no heat shield. I landed without even burning effect. Surprised, I tested it on Laythe and I landed perfectly (not sure the terrier would make me take-off thought, but that wasn't the point) Now back to the SSTO stuff. So I tested aligning my SSTO sideways when renetry. And... that went very well. I didn't had any flame effect and even non mach effect. The lower atmo forced me bottom first, but ht speed was already very low to use the chute. What is you usual renetry approach when you try to land more complex and fragile things than a a pod on a atmo world ? BTW : solar eclipses on Duna are an issue : don't rely on solar only...

ah, is it possible ? KW rocket sound are fantastic.Is it possible to get them work on stock engines ? Is there a mod to do that ?

LV-N have been nerfed, there were too op in the past. I kind of like that, because the LV-N is not the only reasonable way to go for interplanetary anymore. I'm rediscovering other engines and I'm using a much broader set of engines now. I find that much more interesting. But Squad should work on Rockamax fuel size LF-only tanks and better bi/tri/quad coupler management.

I've found it. It was simply KW rocketry rocket sounds. Those sounds age amazing. Sadly It's not possible to switch vanilla engine sounds...

If you couldn't do with a E class, that would probably be the same for a D class. Less fuel expenditure, but also less ore to mine. Yes I tried to get a D class asteroid to do that, but I was too late (rendez-vous would have occur 1day after periaps). The asteroid had also a nearly polar orbit which would have taken a very long time to set to LKO. I think the best hope is to meet the asteroid out of SOI and change it course there. It should get to a most equatorial hyperbolic as possible. Maybe aero braking is an option, I don't know. The problem is we have to wait to find a suitable candidate and have a try. Meanwhile, launch windows occurs and we don't want to miss them.

Surface scanner gives the biome average, IIRC.

I did many times with big (streamlined) rockets at 3450m/s. When I mess up things (not too much though), I'm at 3550m/s.

Well done. Now time for rescue mission

I don't use SAS except higher than 35km. but I still need to force it to turn before 45°(10/15km), and force it to hold back from going horizontal until 35km. If I let go I usually en horizontal at 22km and loose a lot of fuel by drag, because I need to throttle up to orbit. Tested on 10 SSTO rockets able to orbit from 12T to 236T payloads PS : I use Joint reinforcement Mod

I don't think so. With 238, you'll be stuck in Minmus SOI. But you should be able to get to stable orbit to be rescued. (send an empty pod) @ mackadelik : MechJeb doesn't always do some optimum ascent (well, rarely).

@Vetrox : I already use KER, but I would like to have tom hint without having to assemble a rocket. I did a very small excel sheet to do that. That gives me what basic design I must do. Thanks Harry

I found how to calculate TWR and ISP (by reading the wiki) What I don't know is how to get the duration of a burn given a TWR and the dV. It must be very simple, but I'm quite lost in the various units. Thx.

The first time I went to Duna I sent 2 distinct missions with nearly the same payload mass. The first one was a lander for Ike (able to do 1 hop) and the second one was a lander for Duna (no hop). Both landers were derived from my mun lander and able to do the return to Kerbin on their own. The middle stage was a bit bigger. Of course landers weren't exactly the same. The one for Duna had chutes and science experiment for one spot. The Ike's one had doubled experiments. Flying 2 missions in the same time is quite fun, I liked it very much. You can see what consequences very small node variations can have in the end. It was so fun that I flew a 14 flights mission to Jool's system next... PS : that was in beta 0.9. I'll very soon go to Duna (window is in 28 days), but I'll send a space station, fuel and landers to explore in one shot.

I was working on SSTO rocket familly (from 12 to 236 tons payload). I noticed that bigger rocket are easier to fly thant smaller ones. When you understant to fly small rockets, it's easier with bigger ones. I usually don't fail orbiting big stuff, but I sometimes mess things with smaller one. Hopefully, I love big stuff (don't hask why ) so I don't use small rockets on kerbin anymore. I'm working on a 180T LKO space station (regular one with 2 huge fuel tanks already filled.) Using my biggest SSTO rocket (236T) it goes in one shot to LKO. But I'm still fine tuning the station (especially on docking ports) My maine problem when ascending is not the new aero : it's wobbling. I hate adding struts everywhere. Fairing should prevent wobbeling for parts inside it. But I've solved the problème with Joint reinforcements mod. New aero ot more fun than old one. In the 0.9, everything goes in orbit with proper dV and TWR. IT was so dull, that I use MJ for all ascent. Now I fly all rockets myself, it's very pleasent.

I played Elite Dangerous, went to Scott Manley channel and watched some video of ED then KSP. Then I bought KSP.

Agreed 2.5 and 3.75m rockets are easier to fly than smaller ones.

Optimizing dV for Duna is not too hard : it has the same inclination as Kerbin and circular (IIRC), you can cross the orbit nearly anywhere, the dV only depends on the phase angle. For Dres, you have the phase angle, but you must also consider WHERE you cross Dress orbit. the best target spot on AN or DN, becaus you'll get the most shallow angle there. Dress, Moho and Eeloo are more difficult for that matter. In beta 0.9, I did a Triple mission to Moho, using different technics. All missions were launched at the same time and ships where stricly identical. I got very differents results in travel time and dV.

Did you tried the 2 last ones until reentry in 1.0.2 ? I used some sort of MK3 ship bus to get XP from orbiting around the sun. I plugge a MK3 cabin and passenger cabin and adapater then heatshield. 3 LVN and a droppable tank. I did numerous pass in high atmo to reduce speed as I could (from 3000 to 2400), but as I was reducing periaps, even with 4 aerobrakes, everything blasted very fast. I'm not sure your ship would reenter atmo alive. But maybe your ship is designed to depart and arrive to a space station ?

Maybe, but it's not very intersting. Futher more, Toursits take crew seats, and you can't get experience from you Kerbals when you go to distant planets. I had a 6 tourists contract who wanted to go from minmu to mun to Duna. They mostly pay 300k each (1.5M for 1 contract) . I don't think I'll take it. Too much of a hassle.

Kerbin orbit tourists are easy, but you don't get a lot from your mission. Farther bodies tourists may be a hassle. They want to got to various bodies and you're stuck with the mission for a long time. I'm less and less interested by tourists, now and I didn't even quit Kerbal SOI. EDIT : but early on, it's a very good income especially combined with rescue Kerbonauts.