Mr.T

That makes complete sense. Ok thank you all very much!

Hello KSP forum. First off, I would like to say that you guys are awesome; I love the community and I've been spectating the forums since I got this game in March of 2014. Much of what I've learned about the game has come from reading here and on the wiki, which I'm just gonna assume some of you guys also have a hand in maintaining. So thank you for all that. Now that my introduction is out of the way... I'm perplexed by something that happened today. I created a standard heavy ascent stage (3.75m parts, asparagus staging, etc.), put a fairly heavy payload on top to test it, and as I've become accustomed to doing, I calculated the Delta-V by hand. I came up with something like ~3800 m/s sum total for the first 3 stages. The thing that confuses me is that I'm able to easily get this thing into a 75 Km orbit around Kerbin with some fuel still left in the 3d stage, but everywhere I look the Delta-V that is needed to get into orbit around Kerbin is about 4500 m/s. I downloaded MechJeb (I hadn't used it before and I must say I've been missing out on something amazing) and it confirmed my calculations, listing my Delta-V in the first 3 stages again around 3800 m/s. So my question is: What am I forgetting to factor into this? I know I'm thinking about this wrong somehow, I just want to understand exactly what I'm doing/thinking wrong. Does it have something to do with the free orbital velocity one gets from launching in the direction of the rotation of Kerbin? Anything you guys can tell me to help me figure this out would be greatly appreciated! Here's a link to a photo of the rocket in case it helps to see it; all engines firing are Mammoth engines. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198036634230/screenshot/544154344546083166