Weywot8

'Performs better' has multiple dimensions - TWR, ISP, payload fraction (interplay of multiple factors). But there's always this oldie that should still be relevant as engines haven't changed much (at all?) across recent game updates. http://meithan.net/KSP/engines/ Ignoring staging, basically for very low payloads (under 30 tonnes, not possible to get home?) - aerospike Then for some general definition of 'best' to worse, at Eve sea level, Mammoth, Vector, Twin Boar, Mainsail., occasionally switching places depending on ship/payload + player TWR constraints. The thing with SRB's is that they come with propellant packed like the Twin Boar. So pack them 25% - 12.5% of the way and the Kickback can be decent for a very short while. Since we don't care how we got there in the first place , a 25% packed Kickback can provide 1.45TWR and upwards is it burns (for itself, at 8.4t) for about 12.5s. Some SRB spam in addition to LF engine for the very first bit of the ascent before staging the lot of them could be helpful. Using the same tool for different atm pressures should help plan an entire vehicle if we aren't going for an SSTO type launch. Doesn't support SRBs though.

Least cheaty method - edit save file: find offending vessel using crew member's name, replace part name with something like mk1pod, (and do the rTrf entry as well, just to be safe), load edited save. Your kerbal is now sitting pretty in a mk1pod, ready to EVA outta there. Do this while the game is still open in the affected career - or you'll have to fiddle around with MD5 hashes on the LOADME files.

But what's interesting, somewhat perversely, is that his craft file kills the loading of all ships when I transfer it to my own game save - it kills VAB and SPH when copied into those folders and kills it when put in individually in the saved game ships folder and also the stock ships folder. So the issue lies within the craft file itself - but I gave up given the ship size. One question would be when/where did @antipro Alt-F4 ,while in VAB view ? I Alt-F4 from the intermediate menu (Valentina) and nothing bad has ever happened.

Sorry to disappoint haven't done this yet - replying to the thread so I can follow all the potentially cool answers which I can imagine would include flight paths for reducing dV needed multi-stage resupply/ISRU mission plans detachable boosters like in the Star War prequels where you leave the interplanetary return home stage (tanks +/- engine) in orbit of Eve, land and return in a much reduced size ship from shedding all the Eve ascent stages, dock with the return stage - go home, PROFIT! variant of SSTOs maybe?

Guessing we are still on different wavelengths - to clarify for @Spricigo, Why enter a 72x11,500km orbit, effectively 'circularising' at 72km first then boosting to 11,500km Ap when we can skip the 'circularisation' and just launch a rocket from the surface to give us an elliptical 'orbit' of dimension of [some negative number] x [some number smaller than 11,500, say 8000] km, that puts the orbital velocity at 175m/s at Apo? The 'circularisation' step seems a bit arbitrary as we will be reversing the orbit anyway (Pe of 72 km goes down to -600 km(?) before going back up again) - this whole circularisation is what threw me off and then got misapplied at various points), and being able to rescue/plan launches destined for lower orbits makes this sort of maneuver increasingly useful. Said another way, if we were planning to do this reversal all along, why waste dV 'circularising' at 72km the wrong way when we would spend an equal amount reversing that velocity as well, forcing the effective altitude for efficient reversal all the way out to 11,500km? this 'reverse direction' maneuver using ~350m/s is doable and I've actually done it at altitudes much lower than 8000 km (there was a retrograde KEO/GEO contract) as part of the whole "Oops oh *&%!...OK, well that worked out", hence assumed this was what @Reactordrone was referring to. Thought perhaps Reactordrone had worked out 8000km as a sweet spot for doing this. So in figuring out how useful this can be, without raising Ap above final orbit, the follow on question is how low can Ap get for this to still work for Kerbin, which I assumed required an additional constraint of how inefficient/efficient (steep) one normally launches - otherwise it probably degenerates on one extreme into the bi-elliptic transfer for maximum savings on the plane change (agree with you there) and launching directly West at the other extreme. Also Kerbin's atmosphere tends to force retrograde launches into a steeper, less efficient ascent profiles to safely 'add' 350m/s dV to the launch without blowing up/excessive drag, so the penalty is more than 350m/s dV, unless the prograde launch was pretty steep to begin with. The actual problem then becomes an iterative numerical exercise, optimizing for the lowest orbital height where reversal dV= (the most efficient retrograde launch profile dV)-(most efficient prograde launch profile dV) to that lowest orbital height but Jeb would go and just fly the damn thing with MOAR boosters.

Not unless you've planned ahead and attached a small probe core to your tanks+engine section. (& usually some batteries and SAS) But that's more funds burning up in the atmosphere unless you also use mods like Stage Recovery (then also add lots of parachutes or use the Real Chutes mod & install less chutes.) But I agree that space tugs are the way to go in the future - if you use it to mostly de-orbit tanks and engines, the tug could go on forever by transferring leftover fuel from the tanks to the tug first. If it's only ever going to de-orbit [tanks + engines] sections, you could even do a mini-Control Claw with a bare minimum of Claw, medium SAS wheel, battery, solar panel, probe core, tiny fuel tank and a Terrier engine/3-4 Spiders. Once you Claw on the [tank+engine], you are able to ignite it's engine, adjust Pe to deorbit, top off Mini-Claw ship's fuel tanks, detach, adjust orbit of Mini-Claw. Rinse, repeat. Depends, you aren't igniting the engine in this move (doing it with engines on is hard - we aren't that desperate?) If the station's SAS can rapidly turn the station in a few seconds from prograde to retrograde/prograde to radial then if you decouple as the station is turning, you are essentially flinging the tanks+ engine hard enough to change the Pe + taking advantage of decoupling force. Only works if you are in a rather low orbit, strong enough SAS.

Ah, not circular orbit then, I see where I went wrong now . But then, why enter a 72x8000(or 11,500)km orbit in the first place if we are going to reverse in the end? I had assumed Reactordrone's logic was maximum efficiency by reversing at the Ap of your launch trajectory before circularisation - or for the more orbit minded, in an elliptical 'orbit' with a -ve Pe given that the 'parabolic' surface trajectory of a launch is actually an ellipse with the center of Kerbin as one focus. Same reasoning applies, just not constraining Pe to +ve values.

Hmm urm, well, I supposed I assumed @Reactordrone knew what he was talking about and work things out from there to the only logical scenario where what he said was true . I'll admit probably jumping the gun with "if @bewing likes it, it has to be correct" (at least in some form or another, right?) ----> going by your logic instead, for reversal at 350m/s budget or less simply means altitude where orbital velocity = 350/2 = 175m/s and anything above that. A bit of a rehash of the plane change at infinity = 0dV problem/solution. In that case, you might have converted km vs. meters wrong somewhere - because the Mun's orbital velocity is ~550m/s, Minimus' is ~275m/s...so almost halving it again to 175m/s should put it 'out there somewhere' with an SMA ~4x that of Minimus: certainly not in Kerbin's SOI. Unless I've seriously mixed up the numbers or missed the point again. Let me know if get something else by a different method. But it's all cool otherwise.

Yup, it automagically disappears. Some advantages - less clutter in your screen, although Cpt Kerbalkrunch makes a good point about having them just not show up in the tracking and map view less clutter in your save files (it all adds up and bogs down the loading of saves) better frame rates - KSP has to draw orbits and simulate stuff when they get close enough less chance of actual collision - I had a rescue mission explode from collision with a Mk1 cockpit that a previously rescued kerbal showed up in. if you are unlucky and have too much debris, contracts requiring you to rescue a Kerbal and retrieve their 'hulk' (trashed ship) can automatically fail when KSP auto-deletes the 'hulk' upon entering physics range But it can be nostalgic to come across your debris in solar orbit, 'commemorating' that interplanetary mission or have some float about the Kerbin-Minimus orbit only to get an unexpected notification that 'X' debris has just collided with the Mun. Quite realistic. I deorbit (crash) my big stuff where possible and only terminate very small debris in orbit and the leftover debris landed on planets/moons from the crashes. With regards to your tanks + engine : Orient your station so that the decoupled part will thrust retrograde. Fire it up ever so slightly and quickly decouple. Assuming the decoupled part is symmetrical, it will gently deorbit itself. Edit: If your station gets in the way, you could also try "swinging" it from retrograde position if your station has enough SAS power (decouple as you swing it 'down' towards Kerbin) if that make any sense

It kinda depends on how inefficient the launch is though - back in the day with 'thicker' atmo, a much steeper (theoretically inefficient but the best possible with drag + heating) launch profile was the way to go - this would give the perfect profile for reversing at apoapsis ~8000km because the horizontal velocity remaining for a steep ascent was low enough, i.e. ~175m/s before circularisation burn. The current atmosphere is pretty realistic so more horizontal profiles (20-35 degrees) starting from 25-35km (like SpaceX's) can save an extra 250-350dV which also leaves a much higher horizontal velocity for the same altitude so we'd need to go higher before it becomes optimal. So strangely enough, if Chad is normally inefficient with his launches, Reactordrone's method is the way to go. Otherwise, launch West. There must be some Math-fu to work out what's best because launching straight up to 8000km and letting gravity stop you there, then going west - would that be even more efficient?

Community resource pack (CRP) adds definitions for all the non-stock resources used by many (all?) of the KSP mods. USI Tools might trigger the appearance of all non-stock resources used by the USI pack including things like Karbonite, Gypsum, etc. ( sound familiar or am I really off-base here?) To make use of those, the are parts in the full USI suite of mods.

As a last resort, Hyperedit in conjunction with save game file (SFS) edit? It's a hassle but if you really want your Kerbals and rover back. Hyperedit an distinctly one-of-a-kind name object into the right location, landed, upright. F5, quicksave game open save game folder, find appropriate saved game open Quicksave SFS saved game in Notepad Ctrl-F, Find that one-of-a-kind name vessel copy the orbital data of vessel, landed status, etc (all the relevant bits) Ctrl-F, Find your stuck rover replace orbital data, etc, paste in copied version delete Hyperedited vessel (or you'd have two objects in the same spot - KABOOM!) save file open Quicksave LOADME file in Notepad open https://md5file.com/calculator check the box for MD5 hash, uncheck the others if you want drag and drop the edited Quicksave SFS file copy MD5 hash output replace MD5 hash output if Quicksave LOADME file with new hash Save, close Load Quicksave in KSP PROFIT!!!

I've seen the hulk and occasionally the kerbal as well fall through the surface of whatever planet/moon they were spawned on - guessing it's when they spawn slightly below ground level.

The altitude and latitude of the gravity assist, as well as passing (exiting) 'in front' or 'behind' the planet all affect the final outcome. A bit over simplified but infront/behind ---> if you speed up or slow down after exiting the SOI altitude/Pe ---> how much you speed up/slow down + new heading in plane of orbit lattitude ---> inclination change of plane of orbit So reproducing a gravity assist need quite a bit of tweaking - you'd probably be better off tweaking for the outcome to set the gravity assist rather than trying to reproduce the exact same assist conditions to get the same outcome (which as you've experienced can vary widely from minor differences in the assist conditions)

Nice ship! The LET pack has really long 8m retractable ladders, greatly reducing part count. Just delete the non-ladder parts you don't need I suppose.

Try practicing docking at a much higher orbit, the higher the better - ++500km or so above Kerbin or better yet, Minimus. In low orbits, as you try to approach the target, you are also making changes to your orbit that will rapidly pull you away if you don't dock quickly. Keeping that in mind, if you have control of both ships, then try to orient and approach the docking port from either or direction. Movement in this direction just changes your inclination, orbital period stays relatively the same for a given dV. From the sounds of things, you are doing an approach with a large / component so paradoxically, as you try to slow down/speed up, your orbit changes alot, and it pulls you away relative to the target. At higher orbits, there is a much larger window for this sort of maneuver to work before your new orbit takes over. Stick with MechJeb and make a note on how they time their rendezvous burns and pick up some tricks there. Also, to practice the docking part of docking, use MJ's maneuver planner to auto-execute the following. set up Hohmann transfer to target fine tune closest approach to target (50m) match velocities to target at closest approach. This gets you 50-65m within you target with almost zero relative velocity. Perfect setup for manual docking practice and figuring out what works and what doesn't. Once you figure it out and get the hang of it, docking in lower orbits is more manageable.

Some pics but I'm guessing all this advice is helpful for other stuff as well. My additional, potentially missing the point, advice. If your orbits kinda look like this vs. the objective because of some timing issues with the burn: Then with a bit of experimenting, you can adjust your orbit using a combination of or Radial In (how do you get that to show up?) and / to jog the Ap/Pe along. Works well for really large orbits when you can't be bothered to wait a hours/days to shift things about, only to mess up again because of minor timing issues with the burn.

Not understanding what you are looking for then - technically, the moon is never "in plane" over the Cape but the inclination minimises over a period of 18.6 years, as you've said.. The optimum for that 'lunar month" would be the day around when the moon will pass the correct 'node' as everyone has described - "Baikonur-style" with two potential launch windows for that day - one generally much better than the other. which is reserved for "oops, missed the first one". Astronomers already measure the time it takes the moon to complete a node-node orbit, incorporating the precision of nodes - the draconic/draconitic month = 27.2122 days. So your 'optimum' launch window comes every draconitic month since the last one +/- planets rotation to best launch angle for that day. If you are simply looking for the month/year of minimum inclination, then it's just 18.61 years after the last minima. Oddly enough Apollo 11 launched in the year of maximum inclination - 1969. Maybe it was to get the best coverage of potential landing spots instead of being stuck at the equator (just speculating) The last minima was October 2015 - so it was nearly in plane then and we could launch 'whenever' during the later half of 2015 which is another version of 'optimum' launch window. More generally,the inclination is minimised when N = 180 N(T) = 259.16 - 1934.14T + 0.0021T2, where T = the number of Julian centuries that have passed since midnight on 1 January 1900 at the Greenwich meridian. Hope that answers your question.

Just curious, doesn't that mean we'd have to re-define 'transfer window'? Otherwise, you'd only launch every 18.6 years or 18.6*8.85 years at the minimum inclination+minimum PE.

Agree with the steely eyed goat - you've chosen one of the worst speeds to turn. Drag as a function of speed climbs and peaks from mach 0.8 to 1.2. By turning in the dense atmo at that speed, the ship get the most forces acting on it leading to instabilities SAS cannot compensate for. turn earlier or turn later use a stronger SAS/add extra reaction wheels The chutes - as long as you place them on top ('west') or bottom ('east') of the ship (looking at it horizontally) it should help with stability as you turn. Maybe put them lower down the part so the drag is effectively 'fin-like'. +/- add a par of extra fins along that axis, just above your existing fins. No pics of your craft, so not sure if that advice is helpful.

Timing, experimentation and patience/warping - the trade-off for a low dV flight plan is a lot of travel time and potentially decade long waits till transfer windows appear just like IRL. The flybyfinder doesn't do KK but there is supposed to be a spreadsheet posted in that forum that does. A more definitive answer below: And for a couple of hundred dV more, someone has done this:

Old habits from before 64-bit. RCS increases part count so learnt to do without.

At this point, have to agree with Spricigo & Cpt Kerbalkrunch - this is not a rocket problem, this is more a Kerbal Piloting 101 problem. It not an issue of having enough dV or even optimising rocket design. The overbuilt launcher and the lander has more than enough dV to get a careful Kerbal to Duna's surface and on a good day, orbit around Eeloo. I suggest looking at some interplanetary flight tutorials such as below, even though it's a bit old. Don't forget about in-flight/deep space course adjustments, aerobreaking for Duna orbit capture and landing and all the other fun stuff. Read the KSPedia primer on rocket maneuvers.

Sort of helpful but not entirely. A picture of the actual craft would be best because we could be wasting our time with comments that might not be helpful. Having said that: Asparagus staging has a very specific definition. Let's all use key phrases with the same meaning in mind to avoid confusion. Based on geometry alone, you can't have strictly asparagus staged the rocket. Only 6 tubes can fit around 1 tube with the same diameter. The lack of struts was also a giveaway... Backtracking a bit more, most people here on the forums generally think of a "stage" as detachment of weight. So it's really by number of detachments + last stage. And there are many ways to get your rocket to CPD (Controlled Planned Disassembly) instead of RUD (Rapid Unplanned Disassembly aka KABOOM) Taking a mock 15.7 ton lander as payload (the rocket is overpowered so even 20 tonnes isn't going to change things) and actually rebuilding your very Kerbal rocket of MOAR boosters with the same components + decouplers and fuel lines + struts: ~7100dV (ignoring Stage 0, where your own actual lander can get down to Duna surface from Duna orbit) ~7100dV is more than enough unless you are really bad at putting things into Kerbin orbit. If that's the case, a bigger, more dV rocket isn't going to help much. The Mammoths also steer without needing fins. Notice the decouplers and fuel lines in this setup. Fuel lines all feeding into the central tank and in this setup, you can see the decouplers further below. Struts to hold everything together wobble free. With true asparagus staging, ~7850dV. Note the fuel lines feeding into the tank beside it until the final one drains into the center. And as each tank empties, it get's detached. Symmetrical on the other side. Hope that solves the main problem. Everyone else has given great advice on optimisation as well - stuff to keep in mind for future missions.

The KSP wiki is your friend for many things, this included. The game uses meters instead of km, probably because all the equations and calcs need inputs in meters. As for AU - that's an Earth-centric measure where the average distance of the Earth to the Sun (or Semi-Major Axis, SMA) = 1AU = 149597871km. So Kerbin is 0.091AU out from its sun or 1KU (Kerbonautical Unit ) I'll leave the rest of the math to you but it is interesting to note that the system Kerbin is in approximates the relative distances of our own solar system. Jupiter = ~5.2 AU vs Jool = ~5.1KU