Wcmille

At present, I use the small decoupler for small radial stages and the larger one with standoff for larger stages. Doesn't feel like good engineering to me. Cost aside, what does math say about when you should pick each of the five radial decouplers?

What does stock-alike and FASA mean/stand for? Are these just names of mod suites?

Hopefully this all worked correctly: https://www.dropbox.com/s/res0jioagtcksy1/output_log.txt?dl=0

OK, I have the copy for 1.0.5. Some questions: When I click Settings, I see a button called, "Simulate using vectored thrust values" and a button called, "Verbose Simulation Log". Don't see a button called, "Log Simulation" Do you mean one of these two buttons, or is there a button missing? I clicked both buttons and quit. I see a file called, "KerbalEngineer.log" in the KerbalEngineer folder and a file called, "KSP.log" in the main KSP folder. Don't see anything called, "output_log.txt" -- what folder should that one be in?

I'm using 1.0.18.0. Is there a newer version? How do I get it? Not seeing the file you mention. Could you mean ksp.log, or do you mean a file that's in GameData/KerbalEngineer somewhere?

I want to do things like be in an inclined, elliptical orbit around Eve, and find a transfer solution back to Kerbin. Things like Alex Moons Transfer Window planner can't do that.

Does that include hyperbolic escape orbits (e.g. interplanetary travel)?

Will this tool work with any starting eccentricity and inclination, or do you need to have circular orbit, with starting inclination of 0? If it can do any orbit, may I ask: "how do you solve for that?"

If you are not using brute force to solve, what's the basic idea of this algorithm?

Will this tool work with any starting eccentricity and inclination, or do you need to have circular orbit, with starting inclination of 0? If not, may I ask how do you solve for that?

It will change if you fiddle with the fuel, but I believe there is still a bug. Here's an experiment to illustrate the problem: With the design of one NERV, and two Dawns, add a radial Xenon container and some liquid fuel. (I used 1 Mk1 and 4 Mk0s) Empty all the fuel tanks. Verify an Isp of 0, burn time 0. Give the radial Xenon container the minimum amount of fuel (40/400). Verify the burn time; 41.2 secs; 4200 isp. Empty the Xenon container. Add 70 total units of liquid fuel (be careful if you have mirrored tanks). Note an Isp of 800; burn time of 45.8 seconds; longer than the Dawns, but close. Add back the 40 units of Xenon; Isp should be less than 842.63 (which you'd get if NERVs and Xenon's burned together exactly the same, should be a little less because NERVs burned 4.6 secs longer than the Dawns) Engineer displays Isp of 1985.7, which is much too high.

It appears to me that Kerbal Engineer is calculating some ISPs wrong in some situations with hybrid craft. Steps to reproduce: Create a craft with one NERV engine, and 2 Dawn Engines. Provide fuel and payload. Kerbal engineer will report the ISP as 2030. I get 842.63 by hand. =64/((60/800)+(2/4200)*2)

This works until I try to use WASD. Is there any way to "lock in" the direction?

Thanks everyone for the feedback, suggestions and contributions. I've been continuing to evolve these ideas, and I wanted to send out some thanks, and show what I came up with. @Temstar -- I hadn't even thought of doing something like that. Definitely see that as a future project for me. @Rune -- Excellent points; particularly the one about part count. It definitely changed my thinking and turned my focus toward MkIII parts, which greatly reduced my part count. Also took your advice to relax a little bit on the burn time, that helped. @sgt_flyer -- Very cool design. I really like the tricks for part hiding. One thing I realized was that if I switched from just Nukes to Poodle + Nukes, it changed my burn dynamic for the better. Since I was dropping so much weight after I'd gone out, I didn't need the same amount of thrust back that I needed to get there. Ultimately, just adding one Poodle made a significant difference. The base craft is designed to only have 8000 dV loaded and back. I realized I had a transfer window to Moho coming up, so I decided to go there first. The craft won't make that, so I had to drop the carried payload from 60ish tons to about 17 tons and added dockable boosters to the back. This brought me to nearly 11,000 dV, which will make Moho. I'm going to Eve after returning from Moho, so I should be able to take the full payload there. Here's the album. I hope you like it:

It sounds like there must be an equation that describes the critical point where dV will be the same, regardless which engine goes first. (all masses being equal)

Ah yes, you're right. An extension of your counter-example is that you want NERVs to push Ants for tiny payloads, and not the other way around. I'm writing a desktop app for myself that I hope will solve some of the issues with Gary Court's very excellent Optimal Rocket Calculator, such as including NERVs and drop tanks in the design choices. One of the problem with these calculators is that the permutations explode pretty quickly, so I want to make smart filtering choices on engine configurations and not even consider ridiculous ones (like a terrier that ignites before a swivel).

I have a hypothesis about the rocket equation, hoping someone can help me either disprove with counter example, or give an informal proof that it is always correct: For every two stage rocket with total mass M, and a payload weight of P, if the bottom stage engine (called E1) with ISP of I1 and the top stage (called E2) has an ISP of I2, and also I1 < I2, then: There is never a two-stage rocket design of payload P and total mass M where E1 is placed on the top and E2 is placed on the bottom that has more dV than the best two-stage design which has E1 on the bottom, and E2 on the top. in other words, if I have a 12 ton rocket with a 1 ton payload, a swivel on the bottom stage and a terrier on the top stage, and the fuel is split optimally. There's no design for a 12 ton rocket with the terrier on the bottom and the swivel on top that will be better in terms of dV.

swjr-swis's experiment seems to verify Snark's comments. My test rig was a full 1600 2.5m Rocket Fuel Tank, firmly attached by 5 structural clamps. I then attached two 1.25 800 Rocket Tanks end-to-end to the fixed 1600 tank, a 1000 1.25m battery and a 1.25 probe core to the end of the tanks for control. I then added 3 vector engines (facing the same direction) to the very end of the 1.25m assembly. The vector engines were set apart so that they just barely touched, at the far free end. Setting the engine strength to 87% each, this caused a failure in the Rockomax adapter, no failure with no adapter, and a close failure with the Rockomax 2 (the lighter, shorter one). I did this, rather than ramp the vector thrust, because I noticed that changes in how the thrust was applied occasionally created a hard-to-reproduce shock depending how fast I applied it. I don't think this models real world stress; I believe the adapter version should be stronger, for the reason MaxL_1023 suggests.

(Aerodynamics aside) do adapters, like the two Rockomax Brand Adapters affect the structural integrity of a craft, or are they merely aesthetic? In other words, if an adapter is placed between a 2.5m tank and a 1.25m tank, is that design stronger in some way than a 1.25m tank connected directly to a 2.5m tank? Is there a (hopefully launch pad) experiment that can be devised to prove either case? What is the KSP stress model? How does it determine when two parts have undergone enough shear, torsional, or tensile stress for their connection to fail?

I believe it is slightly less efficient to haul ore over fuel + ox. Circular tanks holds 9 tons wet for 1 ton dry, ore (2.5m tanks) holds 8.5 wet for 1 ton dry. Significant amounts of just liquid fuel require hauling in MkIII tanks, which are not as good, 8 tons wet for 1 ton dry, worse for the adapters. Converting on the surface also has the benefit of powering fuel cells, which allows you to mine continuously. Converting in space allows you to effortlessly refuel ships. You just turn on the converter, leave the station, come back, and everything is perfectly fueled. No fooling around with transfers, trying to fill each tank. I think the implication is that early mining operations are better to convert on the surface, and export fuel. Later operations its better to export ore. Building the largest possible lifter you think you can pilot effectively is the key to mining. This saves you the most play time, because you make the smallest number of fuel runs.

Thanks for the help. Very useful information! I get 1026 days for half-life. I'm using the equation LN(2)/0.000675. This would yield something like 1170 points of science, right? When you process an experiment in a craft with two labs, which lab gets it? Both labs?

If I have a lab with 468.65 data, and one level-1 scientist, how long will it take to fully deplete the lab? At the end of that period, how much science is generated? The current science generation rate is 1.5817 science/day (but I think this rate is non-linear, right?). Does the time and amount change if I (these seem to matter for generated ore): Play at 1x Physics Warp Time Warp Play other spacecraft and come back after a long time. How do multiple labs on the same craft work? Does location ever matter?

Suggested Idea (I'd be willing to submit a pull request): Show the gate orbits for both arrival and departure. This tells you the optimal departure and arrival altitudes for the transfer.

Let's suppose you've got a delivery system that will put up to 25 tons and up to 6 Kerbals (1 must be a pilot, all are level 3) into a Moho circular, equatorial, orbit of 100 km. What's the most science you can get in 78 days? The 25 tons must include any initial fuel you want to use for your landers, but bringing ISRUs is OK. Resources have not been mapped, but you may bring scanners to do so. Solutions with an extraordinary amount of time at 1x speed (e.g. landing once and walking to every biome) are considered unfair. Any science that must go back to Kerbin just needs to get back to the original 100km orbit within 78 days, it doesn't actually have to get back to Kerbin. Use of Mobile Science Labs is OK, but you must bring one, and you don't get generated science points past the 78 days. All parts must be stock parts.

Might be, but I can use something like Mathematica to solve differential equations. My guess is that the shape of the trajectory under acceleration is just a cycloid.