Dilli

Can angel of attack during the aerocapture not be used to shield parts? (I recall only heating / loosing items on one side a craft when entering at steep angels of attack)

I used the non-retractable solar panels for a eve surface probe. Realized they had become non-retractable once already on sub-orbital path after all propulsion had been decoupled.

It's a change in 1.0 IIRC and easy to miss; I learnt when trying to retract the unshielded ones just before my eve surface probe (brick) hit the atmosphere

Lander approach allows the lander have TWR set according to the body and then a lower TWR but higher efficiency "CSM" for orbit transfers. It also avoids the waste of accelerating / decelerating fuel during the landing and ascent that is to be used to return the craft to Kerbin, send the craft elsewhere, or land a second time. IMHO unless you are planning mutliple landings on the mun direct return of the Lander to Kerbin is easier but not more efficient than a "CSM" and "LM" approach. Once interplanetary or multiple landings are involved the LM and CSM advantage over and all-in-one craft is significant (even if it is just to refuel the lander which will do the return)

Set the brakes for the front of the craft low (5 of 30 or so) and max the ones at the back, it will help with stability on braking. It can help to only start applying the brakes once all wheels are on the ground. Keep a bit of throttle on the engines to avoid stalling onto the runway and help with control (trust vectoring), just before or once the back wheels are on the runway cut throttle. The aim is to fly onto the runway gently (with the nose slightly up if you can) - As mentioned above it is your vertical speed that is key to successfully landing.

Yes, a second battery (or charge from a command pod) can be disabled; even if a probe is completely drained of power you can still toggled the disabled battery or command pod charge on.

I think it depends on how you approach the collection of science. I agree that mun / minus do have a lot of science; but once high and low orbit science is gotten on the first trip plus a biome or two from a landing it becomes more time efficient (and appealing) to go to Duna + Ike or Eve (with detachable probe) + Gilly. A single trip collecting Hi + Low orbit; High / Low atmosphere + surface samples of a single landing site on each body rewards more than going to all remaining biomes of mun or minmus.

Before installing KER my most common failure was at 50 000m into ascent from Kerin (too low TWR in the sustainer; many a craft failed to achieve orbit but were well tested for re-entry) Now it is landing on the target body; particularly galling is realizing the landing gear is upside down .

One was of reducing human error is reusing successful designs. Particularly for launchers - if successful and not overly inefficient I save for re-use with a maximum payload rating; I have 4 saved, a satellite launcher and then a 20t, 50t, 100t and 120t launcher; as new tech unlocks I revise them. This also has the advantage of gradual improvements (ie: moving tanks on decouplers for better clearance when discarded, adding or removing fins, adjusting amount of batteries) that are learn from use. A mod that gives performance readouts such as KER can help highlight errors as your dv and TWR readings for will usually be not what is expected. Also very useful for letting you know whether you can land on the mun or just impact it while your engine feebly tries to slow you down; or if you are trying to use a much bigger lander than you actually require. I'd suggest playing the science career a bit, it is useful for introducing you to use the early tech rockets parts, learning their limitations and capabilities without penalizing failure. If I hadn't played sandbox before the careers I would have really battled, you can also go read mission reports on the forums; they can be very informative on both planning missions and rocket design (and many are great reads to).

I use them for ion satellite launches. They seems to work well for compact but non-streamline payloads, both to reduce drag and aid stability.

Lower any landing legs if you have them. IIRC parts cant be moved in stock

Lawyer (non-satan spawn type) here: 7.2 Use the Licensed Application, or permit use of the Licensed Application, on more than one device at the same time. Read with the rest of the license it indicates you may make multiple copies (7.3 for legitimate purposes) but can only use one at a time. Not really, copyright (and data protection) laws are relatively new and only exist due to recent legislation and international treaties in most countries as far as I know.

In my opinion ISRU does improve the game: 1. It (with the lab) make bases/space station more functional and enjoyable. 2. It makes long term exploration missions more practical. I don't think it is an "I win button" or unbalanced, as the same results can be achieved by launching massive monstrosities into orbit (computer and funds permitting) which either have enough d/v to go anywhere or refuel craft.

I had the same problem on minus, raising the landing legs moved the drill far enough down that it started working in my case.

I think you will battle without using fuel lines as the fuel wont cross-feed radially (only in line) as far as I know. The Tail Connector A radially attached in symmetry with fuel lines from the main tank, rotated and offset down and into the fuel tank makes a nice looking outer core on a multi-engine set-up; the octogonal cubic strut then is used for the inner core. If you set against fuel lines try looking at mods.

For an exact orbit use maneuver nodes. For docking try: https://youtu.be/XuqnH4yLAdE https://youtu.be/4Jztv_EKzt8 https://youtu.be/QuwdHnntB-0 For Polar orbit generally - launch North / South. Watch the proprograde marker as you ascending, if it drifts left angle your rocket slightly right of 0 or 180 degrees to pull it back on course; likewise if it drifts right angle your craft slightly left of 0 or 180 degrees to pull it back on course. For the contract, once you have a polar orbit approximetly matched use manouvour nodes where your obit and the contract orbit meet to plan a course correction.

Add struts from the base of the 2.5m adapter to the base of fairing. Then from the plane body, goo canisters or solar panel "arms" of the payload to the base of the fairing. That should stop too much flex in the rocket. Part of the problem may be controlling the rocket from the very tip which is swaying due to flex between joints (particularly in the docking port connections), the sway can also move your center of mass too far off centre.

This and use 3/4 way symmetry to place a set of delta wings as a fins at the base of the core of your launcher

I'd put 4 way symmetry delta wings on the core of the first stage - they make good fins; surprisingly I have not had a problem with them being hit by the side boosters on separation in similar setups.

I have been thinking about something similar. So far I have come to the conclusion that the best and easiest is to have a engine section that is also the ISRU miner and convertor. I have only had time to play with the idea on minus so far but a 4X nuclear engine section that lands near empty, mines until all ore / fuel tanks are full then takes off and docks with remainder of the ship in orbit works. The caveat is that I am designing from the point of view that kerbals will be spending a few months doing science at each body, so the engine section will only have 1 or 2 drills and 1 ISRU but a lvl 5 engineer to run them. I believe refining on the surface is more efficient, it allows more fuel tanks and less ore tanks to be used; fuel tanks weighing less for a set amount of fuel/ore

I have played 0.90 on a core 2 duo (3Ghz), 4GB ram, HD5870 without any problems; it ran really well. Also previous versions on HD5770 without any problem. On a i3 laptop with HD3000, it battles but on minimum-ish graphics it runs OK enough that its fun to play. Think the intel graphics is the problem, it particularly seems to battle with terrain (as in space its is ok).

I think that trim settings (ALT + H ?) can also be used to auto-pilot rovers.

They can be useful for surface bases and exploration. For science biome hopping is usually much easier on airless low gravity bodies but for high gravity and/or dense atmosphere bodies rovers become more practicle. I have used them to get science from neighboring biomes on EVE (land, lake and see if I remember correctly), to look for landing sites on moons and to explore the landscape, and to transfer ore from a base to a landed ship.

It can be good for use on a lander, its relatively short and has a much higher thrust than the LV-909.

I'd happily build a spaceship like that; Larger air-breathing engines / intakes would solve some of my rapier problems. I would probably wish for a more scram-jet like engine, either to replace the rapier or as a separate engine. (high thrust at a much higher top speed than the rapier currently tops out at)