tranenturm

Wow, I didn't have a chance to immediately check after posting. You folk are amazing!

I've been looking around for an answer to this question but didn't know the best terms to even search for it. The question is, what is the most efficient way to insert a ship into a particular orbit? Let's use a ship going from Kerbin to Minimus as an example with the goal of landing. Is it better to arrange the flyby at a very large periapsis, circularize, then elliptical and circularize again in low orbit before making a landing; or should you intercept the body at the intended low orbit periapsis and circularize from there? So, intercept Minimus with a 1,000,000 m periapsis, or a 20,000 m one? Is there a difference? Is the difference big enough to care about? Does this hold for other bodies such as Duna and Jool? Are there other things to worry about such as length of burn? Thanks in advance and apologies if this has been gone over a million times.

Even in 1.0.5 I used the diagonal wings as early lander legs. Ascent is a challenge, but the stiff wide base makes landings so much easier and crash tollerance is high.

I'm very careful to only rescue Kerbals who name I like. Therefor I haven't felt the need to get rid of any. On my Kerbin, it pays to have a good name. Otherwise you never get rescued...

I'm a career player. What I like about it is helping create the sense of building and going back to a place. My early Mun landings are primitive affairs. My first (in the latest career) landing being via a probe sent to accomplish the World Firsts flyby and orbit missions. It was never intended to land, but I realized it had sufficient dV so down it goes. It got me a little extra science early for little extra time and no extra funds and reused a vehicle past its intended mission. My similar probe to Minimus then does something similar, and me getting greedy attempt extra biomes and splatter it across the surface with a piloting error. I next start up the Kerbaled missions. Three launch vehicles send up a specialized lander, extra fuel, and the capsule for the Kerbal out and returned. Using all 1.25 parts, the probes are driving and the Kerbal is the scientist. All three dock around the Mun, the lander makes multiple landings and delivers the science to the return capsule for a big haul. Efficiency in money spent and science returned (for me) ends up being roughly the same as had I sent three different self contained missions. However, the self contained missions carry far greater risk to the Kerbal as the land and return vehicle at that tech stage ends up being tall and difficult to land. In previous careers I once sent 4 different rescue missions to the same Kerbal as I had trouble landing on slopes. My three part mission allowed a lander designed using the swept wings as the lander legs. No suspension, but strong wide and light weight far more stable landing on slopes. HOWEVER it's highly dangerous and inefficient getting it out of Kerbins atmosphere due to drag. It took several launches before figuring out how to launch safely and I did those launches in career without reverting and without testing in sandbox. I had to make the call if sending them up was economically justified and it turned out to be a good thing they weren't manned. I'm now in the process of developing a new generation of lander using 2.5 parts. Designed to land 2 Kerbals, include wheels to rover to nearby biomes to save fuel (and new science equipment). I'm adding to the fuel depot a sci lab, and improving the shuttle vehicle as well. After this phase will come my fully integrated landing facility complete with sci lab, ore drilling and processing and a fuel tanker. The Mun may have a larger gravity well, but it's tidally locked allowing launches to predictably end up over the same part of the far side of the Mun where the base is located. Nothing stops me from doing this in sandbox. But career forces part restrictions on me to simulate the different phases. In sandbox I'm too tempted to just start with phase 4. I've got the parts and no worry about funds, so why not? But I like the story that evolves "naturally " with career. I can't stand grinding. So I have the game set up so I don't have to. I set to hard, then change science to 50% and funds to 100% and turn quick saves back on (for Kraken insurance only). Science grinding is fun as it forces me to explore different biomes on the Mun and Minimus (I do minimal science on Kerbin) and set to 50% means Duna science is still relevant. Funds at 100% means I do no more than a couple "paying the bills" missions like launching satellites. But funds ARE relevant and I have to weigh them went I want to do a mission outside of game offered missions. These constraints add to my enjoyment in a way that playing sandbox and saying "keep this mission under X funds" doesn't appeal to me. I have an in game reason to keep funds low. I also really enjoy unlocking the advanced parts like the nuke that open up all new design territory that I didn't have before. New personal missions open up that weren't available before and with comes a feeling of accomplishment. Playing sandbox doesn't offer to me quite the same experience even though I could every exact mission. The difference is the context in which the missions are done. Getting to the Mun the first for anyone probably feels good regardless of career or sandbox. Sandbox players then seem to either A) build crazy big (cool) things B) do the tours of the different locations (each with their own challenges) C) self-impose get to X place with Y constraints Career allows me to do all three of these things. It just adds D) make choices regarding science and funds budgets while doing the above. And this encourages a different set of missions. It is clear not everyone finds D enjoying. There is no reason to think ourselves better or worse based upon what we and others find enjoyable within the game.

The tri coupler is not early career. And really, I find that once I get into the 2.5 parts the window between starting them and finishing them is rather small and entirely within the realm of Mun and Minimus exploration. And This is experience based on the sci slider at 50%.

Is there some way to live stream with you suggesting actions to someone? So someone else drives but you make all the big decisions. Does that sound like something you'd want to try? (If so, we need to find someone tech savvy enough for the stream)

I find early career space planes easier to use longer reentry vehicles. Attacking the mk1 crew compartment to the mk1 pod without excessive SAS units will result in the craft flipping over and then burning up. Attaching a pair of wings and then setting pariapsis to 45k allows reentry with no heat shield and hence a long reentry vehicle. Too steep and it will burn up. But enough time in the upper atmosphere and it will be fine. It's my first or second rescue vehicle.

I also tend not to farm to extreme. I usually just do one set of tests per biome and then move on. Mostly just to keep going to new and different places. It's not a hard fast rule. Just my tendencies and desires.

I do start with Minimus, but once the flats are done specialty landers become more valuable. I don't pilot well enough to land consistently on slopes. I CAN, just not regularly enough for a permadeath no revert mode without more rescue the rescue the rescue missions that I care for. So just looking to improve my Mun landings. I do use 50% science rewards so I'm a tad behind normal hard mode.

For transfer windows, I park something in orbit of the sun just outside of Kerbins SOI. Then I can plot it's maneuver node (regardless of available dv) to see upcoming windows. It's not exactly what you want, but does accomplish your goal of predicting windows in stock. Otherwise use Kerbal Alarm Clock.

So I'm thinking early hard career mode. You're capable of landing on the Mun and back and want to start the science slog on the Mun and Minimus. I've wanted to start getting "infrastructure " as early as possible to make things quicker and more efficient. Pre-sci lab pretty much the only infrastructure you can use is a reusable lander you park in low Mun orbit. So the question is: What is more efficient? 1) standard missions to the Mun and back 2) parking a lander in Mun orbit and your missions bring fuel to the lander and transfer everything. You save the weight of the science tools, lander engine, extra drag of an extra wide lander for steep slopes and have a overall lighter lander. You incur the cost of orbital docking (I can do it easily, but I'm surely not the most fuel efficient). Thoughts?

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails...

As the remote control for Mun base light stands.

I found using wings for certain connections are far better than girders. Whatever wing connection logic there is makes for far stiffer links. I can do some things with wings and not require additional struts. Makes for prettier looking space stations (along with mk2 plane parts).

Fleas can be used on the runway to get up to speed but still burn out quickly enough to be recoverable if that's important to you.

It's definitely only useful with certain styles. I would say it's useful so long as you're 200+ meters from the surface. Then if you just create a 5 m/s decent rate it will kill off any extra horizontal pretty exactly and once that is done tick it back to normal SAS. So hard burn to "stop". Retro SAS on the way down provided you have enough drop once horizontal is gone switch back to normal And for a new person landing I wouldn't suggest the most efficient profile as they are the hardest to get right. They want their stop burn with about 1000 meters vertical left over just in case they get it wrong. Once experienced, we'll do what works for you. I just found when learning the retro hold took away all my problems with horizontal movement.

Oh. Bring some of the small focus lights and point them straight down. Can save your but in a night landing. Rather than having to burn all the way at 5 m/s which wastes fuel, you can come down a little faster. Gives you about 200 meters of warning and helps you visualize the landing without needing to know the hard deck. The two spotlights start wide and diffuse and will tighten up and come together as you get close. Prior to this method I've lost a few craft due to "I didn't know the ground was at 4000 meters..." If you have a nearly spent transfer stage, I often finish it off in the final landing burn then use its drop to get a rough approximation of the distance to the surface Also when using the maneuver nodes pay attention to see if your trajectory intersects with crater edges and mountains before you get to your target THEN remember the planet/moon is rotating. I've done some low angle approaches and prematurely "landed" before even reaching my start of burn.

One important thing if using the hold retrograde technique. Switch to basic hold just before landing. If you bounce you can have a very exciting landing. Or if you forget to turn it off, take offs can also be very exciting.

For you first landings the flats of Minimus are the easiest possible. Use the nav ball well. Setting the SAS to retrograde really helps kill the horizontal velocity so long as it's set to surface. BUT don't fully kill vertical decent as that means you are going up and the retrograde SAS will flip your lander around to compensate. So long as you avoid that, retrograde SAS really helps landings. I land long narrow rockets easily so long as I'm on a flat enough surface. Speaking of long tall landers, if you are going to the flats of Minimus, I use from the top down the command pod, material bay, service bay with science and batteries, decoupler, 400 tank and 909 engine. Add landing legs and parachutes to taste. This assembly will land and get back to Kerbin. However it's top heavy so be careful of the landing slope.

I don't think I've ever had the kraken hit with service bays. I put science, batteries, probe cores, radiators, solar panels, etc in them. Just don't clip and you're fine. I've also used them when rockets didn't land as planned (tipped over) to induce a slight hop and spin on Minimus (also works on Mun but harder to get right) then hit throttle. Can be very bad if you screw up ...

This is why I started putting up a satellite in geostationary orbit approximately where my decent should begin. Different craft have different profiles of course, but the satellite is far easier to interact with than the flag at KSP.

Good to hear. Has t NASA used high altitude parachutes for Mars (I almost wrote Duna). Or was that just a proposal?

Play custom settings on career. I set things to hard, put science rewards to 50% and money rewards to 100%. I also check quick save for kraken insurance. I really like it. I don't find it to be a money grind. The science is my main constraint but funds are still relevant particularly around upgrading buildings

First, no need for mechjeb. If it works for you, use it. But it's not a requirement. I've never installed it and learned docking in just a few tries. Read the Kerbal Wiki tutorial on this, very useful. Things that helped me: Use circular orbits if possible. Ellipticals are doable, just an added challenge the farther from circular they are. Mom your first attempts, be sure to start from a situation where the orbits don't cross. If they are crossing, it's still doable but can take longer and be harder depending upon how in phase they are. Select the other craft as your target. You'll see intersection points when your orbits get close enough. So from a two circular non-crossing orbits use the maneuver node to plan a burn that will take you to just to touching the targets orbit and the intersection markers will appear. Click on the circle of the maneuver node and move it around your orbit until you find a spot with the minimum distance at intersection. You may need to orbit a few times to get this distance to less than 10 km. Do the burn and when you get close, the nag ball should automatically switch to target when you're closer than 25 km. Clicking on it will toggle between surface, orbit, and target. Click so you're on target, and the retrograde marker now registers relative to the target, not orbit. Prepare to burn retrograde. Get the target vessel in sight and when the distance between ships is no longer going down burn retrograde until you have close to zero speed between targets. You don't need to be exact. Under 2 m/s here is fine. Find the purple circle on the navball which indicates the direction of the target and burn towards the target. You'll repeat this burn in the opposite direction when you get close so the amount of burn is relative to how much fuel you want to spend and how much time you spend closing the distance. When you get close, burn retrograde on the navball and this time get as close to zero as you can get. Switch to the target craft and rotate the craft to have your docking port facing the incoming ship. Switch back to your craft. Make sure you are pointed at the docking port, and burn slowly towards it. With careful piloting on a small craft with ample SAS you don't need RCS. Larger, slower crafts will need RCS.