Invader Jim

I can easily use the RCS jet pack on the Mun and Minmus get get back into my lander without need to climb a ladder. That would not work on Kerbin. What about Duna? I am trying to find where I can rely on a jetpack and where the gravity is too high to easily do so.

Check this out - http://ksp.freeiz.com/ I think it might help.

I have used five skippers and simple asparagus staging. Fuel tanks from engines 2 and 4 feed 3 and 5. Tanks 3 and 5 feed the center (#1). I use 8 SRB also. The SRBs run out and are dropped. Engines 2 and 4 run out of fuel next and are dropped. Engines 3 and 5 run out next. When I drop them engine 1 has a full tank and above it is my final stage which is something similar to your picture. I fire all SRBs and all five engines at once and then use the throttle to keep my TWR below 2.5 as fuel is used up.

I used it for short range (same continent as base) surveys in flight that specify "below" a certain altitude. You are correct in that it can't get high enough for the "above" surveys. I also used it to fly to and then land on ground survey locations.

Dumb question - how do I see how I am going to approach? Some of the time I can tell from the little encounter icon that I will enter in front of or behind the planet but I have no idea to know how close my periapsis will be to the planet until I actuall arrive at the encounter.

I use Kerbal days. - - - Updated - - - What is the best way to come in low? Should I try a maneuver just before I enter the SOI or just after I enter the SOI?

Now I am experimenting with a satellite in LKO. If I put my node at 150 Kerbin prograde and then keep pulling the prograde symbol I get an intersect on the opposite side (roughly 180 degrees) of the solar system. It says it will take me 295 days to get there and ~1,000 DV. I thought I read it was a 70 day journey. This is day 230 in year 1. I think I am catching on but I am not sure how to make it in shorter time.

I think is was ~10,000 m/s

I have a satellite and launched it within one day of my window according to http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/. I arrived in Duna SOI but it says it will take me 3,000 DV to get into a high Duna orbit. I have ~4700 DV but I expected this to cost a lot less. What did I do wrong?

I had a contract to retrieve something from LKO. It turn out to be a S1 SRB-KD25k. I managed to grab it with an advanced grabbing unit that was attached to the top of my MK1-2 pod then proceeded to drag it back into the atmosphere. The capsule and SRB did not come down gracefully . There was tumbling about but luckily nothing overheated. The SRB hit the water first at maybe 9 m/s and as the capsule hit the water it lost the SRB and I failed the contract. How do you get things safely back to Kerbin? I had imagined I would be retrieving something small, not a huge booster.

I thought the LV-N (nuclear) was supposed to be highly efficient. I am building a satellite to go to Duna and for the final stage of the rocket I compared DV for these two engines. Engineer says the 909 will yield 4,994 DV in space and the LV-N will yield 2,094. If I swap out the T800 fuel tank for two MK1 liquid fuel tanks that gets me 2,800 DV but that is still vastly inferior to the LV909. I don't understand when/how to use the LV-N. It seems pointless. Both engines in question have 60 thrust in a vaccuum.

Maybe I should have said "multiple Ships" instead of "multiple missions" because I was talking one ship doing a mission(s) and another one doing a mission at the same time. You could run a lot of missions with one ship in the time it takes to another ship to transit to Duna. So are you likely to time warp a long transit or run other missions with another ship during a portion of the transit period?

I do the same but I meant do you have more than one ship doing something or in transit at a time?

I almost always play one mission at a time. However, I am getting close to trying my first interplanetary mission and head to Duna. I have not decided whether I will run other missions during the long transit time or whether I will just warp the time away. Do you tend to do one mission at a time or do you have multiple missions engaged simultaneously?

I use http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/222685-kerbal-engineer-redux

Leave her in orbit. Build a rescue ship and go up and get her and also take the science from her ship to the rescue ship.

How do you correct a too steep launch? Sometimes I can't get the rocket to lean the 5 degrees and it seems really slow to drop the nose at all. Am I going too fast? Too slow? I want a steady natural and gradual turn to 45 degrees and beyond but it feels like I have to fight it to pull the nose away from absolute vertical.

If it gave a bonus to science than I think it would be worth it. Otherwise I just don't see the value.

Why should I spend the money on the more expensive one? The only advantage I see is that it uses less power to transmit data bits. The difference in power consumption seems irrelevant to me since transmissions are brief and infrequent. Am I missing something?

I like to get my ship within 100m as I prefer short EVA trips and it is not hard to get that close. I have been as close as 20m. I agree that doing a rescue is good practice for rendezvous/docking.

I ran out of fuel on return from Minmus but at least made it into a very reasonable Kerbin orbit. I docked a satellite with the stranded ship and I want to know who to transfer fuel from one to the other. I read online to right click and use ALT but that doesn't seem to do anything. ALT does work! I had to click multiple times but I finally must have clicked the right spot on the tank.

I have a similar contract but it is to set up a Munar space station with 6,000 fuel on hand. This is going to take multiple trips.

How do you know where is the CoM in this case? Now that I have successfully docked my impression is that docking is not nearly as challenging as precisely placing your RSC thrusters in the correct places.

Do you use both SAS and RCS at the same time?

I docked without any mods. I am going to try the RCS Build Aid. I used four RV-105 block thrusters positioned on Center of Mass. However, it was not quite precise enough. I would tend to move in unintended directions slowly and lose my north-south orientation. I fixed it by switching to SAS, correcting my orientation and then proceeding with RCS. I wish RCS would work just like Kerbalnaut RCS jet packs. Then I would have no problem docking.