lugge

Well, as KSP stores all its data in textfiles it is technically possible to write apps like a craft-creator. With integrated KER one can set up some test crafts, checking stats like delta-v or TWR on the go. Maybe a export system can generte the .craft files for using with stock KSP. The editor does not need to look like KSP's, it can be very simple. Hm, the longer I think of it, looks like a cool project. I wanted to do some Android stuff for a long time. However, it would take a lot time to get a working lpha-version, and time to spare is something I don't have much :-(

Hi folks, OK, following scenario: I'm working on a Munar-Hopper using the Dawn engine (never used it before :-)). I also want to do the math by myself, only using KER for testing purpose. I can do the math for the TWR: f_thrustDawn = 2000N a_gravMun = 1.63 m/S² m_dawn = 250kg Thus, TWR = f / (a * m) = 4.9 (Yes, I know, this is only the mass of the engine itself, without xenon, electricity and probe core, but this shall only be an example) Thus, my craft will be able to lift off the Mun. Everthing OK till now? What I don't know, is the TWR sufficient to slow down my craft from orbital velocity to about 1-2m/s before hitting the ground? (This is also something KER doesn't show, as far as I know). I guess I have to do some math with orbital velocity, orbital height... Maybe using the formula d = 0.5 * a * t² + v_0 * t + d_0 ?? Where a is calculated somehow with engine thrust and g_mun? Ok, to make it short, I have no idea :-) However, this is a common problem, I think. One likes to know if a engine can slow down a craft before hitting the ground. Any suggestions on this? Regards, lugge

And if it doesn't work on the first try (it probably won't), try again and again and again... For me, rendezvous and docking were MUCH harder than my first Mun and Minmus landings. What I did: I acceptet 4 contracts for rescuing Kerbals from LKO. I built a ship with an empty hitchiker and a command pot, and let Jeb start the mission. Rescuing Kerbals is like rendezvous: you have to get to a short distance to them (50m - 2km) and have a low relative velocity (0m/s - 1m/s). Rescuing the first Kerbal was a pain in the ass and took hours (yeah, hours). The second one was easier. Number 3 and 4 were no problem :-) After that, I accepted 4 more rescue contracts and did it all again. I ended up with lots of funds (8 rescue contracts? Must have been some 800.000), lots of new Kerbonauts for free, and a lots of rendezvous experience. After that, I started my first docking attempt. As the others said before: rendezvous is a prerequisite for docking.

Sorry for interruption, but that's something I always wonder: When a Dv Map (or you) tell me an amount of needed Dv for orbit at a body with atmosphere, is this Vacuum Dv? Or, in other words, do I have to set KER to Vacuum or ground altitude when building my lifting stage for 3400m/s?

I don't want to ninja this thread, however, I also have some problems when docking, and maybe the TO can also learn from the answers. Rendezvous are easy, I rescued dozens of Kerbals from orbits. Docking is OK for me too, but I feel it could be better. When I have a target-relativ velocity of 0 m/s and I'm only a few meters away from my target, I start the docking approach. Thus, I activate RCS and switch to docking mode, instead of staging. Now I can control my vessel like an EVA-Kerbal, using WASD,Shift, Ctrl. However, the axis are somewhat messed up, due to the dockingports orientation. When only up and down (Shift and Ctrl) are inverted, no problem. I can deal with it. But the other axis are somewhat more difficult. When I hit "A" I'd like to go to the left. But due to the vessels orientation and inclination I get some strang directions. In fact, the last few meters are just try&error with the keys. press a key, check where the vessel is going, undo,.... I guess the navball is the solution. At the moment, I only eyeball the whole process in the vessel view. But I have no clue how I have to use the navball in this scenario. Any suggestions?

Hello all, thanks for your supply. Sharpy, thanks for your pcitures, too, but I'd like to see some of your fairings crafts instead :-)

Ok, here's my current problem (at least, one of them :-) ) Until now, I just built "normal" rockets, with a satelitte or lander stage at the top of one or more lifter stages. Mostly, I used radial parts like rocket engines and fuel tanks. Science equipment is just placed somewhere on the final stage. Now I'm working on a Minmus base. I already have a skycrane out there. Consists of lots of structural parts like panels and stuff. I'm also workin on a rover to move the segments of my station around. And the station itself, containing habitats and towers spiked with solar panels. Well, I have problems to get this bulky stuff into orbit. For the skycrane, I took a big lifting stage from my Duna mission. I removed the lander and put my skycrane atop. It worked, but I had lots of troubles flying this craft. I got wobbling, and my craft turned around (roll-axis) without any reasons. Also, my craft tipped over, a problem I had during my first munar missions for the last time. Well, I finally got it up there, with no fuel left (although my skycrane is smaller in weiht than my Duna lander). I guess this is due to the really bad aerodynamical behaviour of my skycrane. And I guess I will have this problem with my rovers, station segments... So, I need a solution to get this stuff up there. I relly googled alot, and it seems there are no stock cargo parts for rockets. Ok, for spaceplanes there are MK3 cargo bays. But I have no experince using planes, and my tech tree is not yet finished (in fact, I don't even have the 45 points aerodynamic parts). I know there are fairings and cargo parts for rockets in some mods, but I would like to only use stock parts. So, what is your best practise with bulky stuff and rockets? How do you transport stuff like skycranes, big fuel rovers...? Greetings, lugge

Hello and thanks, folks. I finally achieved to get a fuel tank attached on the panel. No rotating necessary. Then, I quickly made a subassembly for this, because I need this part more often :-) Well, until now I just built these standard rockets, you know. Take an engine, fuel, separator, engine fuel, separator... But now I'm working on rovers. I also have a nice skycrane, using a lot of panels and other structural parts. Now I have to use the gizmo tools and carefully try to fit the attaching point I want to attach... At this stage of craft design, I really came to the conclusion, KSP's craft editor sucks. Balls. But thats another story :-) Greetings, lugge

Ok, I'm realy frustrated at the moment... I try to build a rover, with 2*2 structural panels as a base. However, I cannot arrange to attach a fuel tank or a Science Jr. on top or below it. It always will clip into the panel, with have the size of the tank above and half the size below the panel. Is there some kind of trick to do this? Strange thing is, the Mk1 lander capsule works just finde. Just use mous to move it around until it snaps in... Whats the differnce here? And,a more offtopic question: What I have read from this forum so far, for some of you clipping is like cheating. Is this clip I have here a kind of abuse? Or is this "working as intended"? Regards, lugge

Or, in other words: Pythagoras, isnt it? Like, when you use one maneuver node to burn prograde and normal, you save fuel compared to 2 single burns? That was my usual gravity turn explanation. However, is it a good idea to burn till 10k to quickly leave the evil thick atmosphere?

Funny thing: this Thread just showed up on the forum when I was thinking about a moonbase (and thus, target landing) by myself. The informations here really helped alot. Yesterday, I did my first try following the instructions in GoSlash's link, and it worked fine for me. However, my first shot only brought me in an about 2-3 km distance to my target. Close enough :-) GoSlash, your instructions are fine, but one question: My target is not on the equatorial plane. However, from my target position, I launched a small sateliite directly westwards, this means I now have an object in lower Minmus orbit which I can use to get my transport ship to the right inclination (targets on the surface don't show an ascending/descending point :-( ). When my transporter is in the desired orbit, I have to wait till my surface target intersects my orbit. This only happens once per Minmus day. Maybe this introduced my 2-3km distance? I guess I always have to add some normal/antinormal component to my burn because you never get exactly the right point? Is there a way to improve target landing when the target is not on the equator? And, more generally, is it a good idea to place a surface outpost in such a spot? And, one more time: your instructions rellay helped a lot! :-)

Is this a 1.04 problem? I did my first Jool Aerobrake a few days ago, with no problem. Ok, i had to reload 3 times till i got the right spot. However, I'm still on 1.02. I guess, i will stay there :-)

Hi folks, Jouni's idea totally worked for me. Seems that was so simple that I missed this solution. Getting in space was easy this way, and i'm already coupled with the Duna landing stage which was already parked in LKO. Now on the way to Duna :-) I will Kaboom's idea a try on my next mission. Sooner or later, i think, i will have to get into the more complex stuff :-)

Hello Kaboom (yes, that was the sound my craft made 30s after launch), thanks for your reply. First, some pics of the craft: Yes, i guess it's some center-of-thrust/center-of-weight problem. However, since i never did airplanes and all my rockets were "needle"-style, I'm new to this concepts. This would be needle-style, right? Otherwise, as the tank gets empty, the centers will become unaligned. I guess this will be the solution. Any ideas? Is my design totally broken or is there a way to get this thing flying?

Hi guys, the problem is as follows: I have to get my transport stage for my Duna mission up to orbit. It got about 45t. My approaches till now were: add more stages. Use asparagus on the bottom stage. This way, I had a realy large, thin rocket. This works fine till i start my gravity turn. My rocket starts wobbling, and the more i try to control it the more it wobbles. OK, now i changed my approach. Instead of place my payload on top of my launch stage I tried it more space shuttle style. Place my final stage on the side of an orange tank. Add more tanks and engines to this tank. Call this tank-based vehicle "launch stage". You know, like the space shuttle "rides" its tank/booster stage. This way, the whole craft is only half as high as my first approach. However, now it got even worse. As soon as i launch, the craft tipps over to the "payload side". Ok, seems legit, i guess. How do i counter this? I would like to post some screenshots, but im not allowed to add attachements. (Why?) Can anyone recommend me a picture hosting page? Greetings!

Hi folks, ok, the situation is this: I have Valentina orbiting the Mun. She is in a small vessel with a bunch of experiments done on Mun's surface. Her vessel has enough fuel to get back to a LKO. But... her vessel lacks a parachute! Yes, I'm new to the merging system and when setting up her vessel somehow the parachute got forgotten... The 909-Terrier engine wont support a nice landing on Kerbal either. I know it's possible to rescue her, altough I've never done a rendezvous (expect in the tutorial scenario). This was my second munshot, and Jeb got back from his first Minmus flight an hur ago. So, I don't want to give up the science Valentina has on her vessel. Is there a way to rescue her whole vessel? Maybe shoot up a ship with a bunch of parachutes and get her vessel caught with some kind of legs? Regards!

Ok guys, I started a new game and managed the stable orbit with a 17t rocket, easy going. Thank you for your replies. I read all of them, however, i wont mention all of them now because this would take too long ;-) My big mistakes were: - in my previous attempts, I started gaining horizontal speed to late. Now I start at about 10km, that works fine for me. - I used SRBs for gaining lots of speed in a short time (maybe too much speed?!). Now I have one loong rocket with only LF engines (3 stages). It takes forever to reach 10km and when i reached it I'm only about 300m/s. I wonder how it works, but it works :-) So, why is it this important to get horizontal speed this early? In my opinion, I have to gain altitude as fast as possible. Because low altitude means more gravity, more gravity means more trust necessary for not falling back to earth. Less trust for gaining vertical speed and altitue. Thus, I tried to get away from the evil gravity and atmosphere as fast as possible. I didn't bother gaining horizontal speed when still in atmosphere. Short: I didn't do a gravity turn. Whats the mistake with my thoughts? And, why is the LF-909 this good? It reads poor. Nearly no trust... Greetings and thanks!

Hi folks, well, I just started playing KSP a week ago, after 1.0 release. I did all the tutorials and started a career mode game. My first "milestone" was going to a stable orbit, for which I spent 3 evenings. I couldn't build/control a rocket which can go high enough AND reach enough lateral velocity. I tried lots of designs and spent all my science in rocketry, because I thought I need bigger engines. I got better after each try, but I was still unable to get into orbit. However, yesterday I noticed I can upgrade my launch pad so I can go for bigger rockets (140t instead of 18t). Yeah, that was my problem. With 140t rockets unlocked, my task was easy. I just added a bunch of engines to my craft (solid boosters). I missed orbit again, added another bunch of boosters and, finally, got to orbit. However, somehow this feels like cheating. After I unlocked the 140t, it was merely a question of how many engines i added. Before, with the 18t limit, I had to think of every detail of my rocket. Now, I can just add MORE ENGINES. Feels weird. So, my questions are: - What is the smallest rocket for reaching a stable orbit? Is it possible with 18t? - Is this the way KSP is played? Just add engines? Funds have been no problem. Now, with the 140t unlocked, i feel like I can reach everything... Somehow I have the feeling I have to improve my pilot skills, because at some point "more engines" will stop working... That's it folks :-) Greetings