Wcmille

If I had to hazard a guess, the instantaneous loss is probably involves the sine of true anomaly (how bad is the angle?) and the difference of the squares of velocity at the present altitude versus the Pe from the loss from the Oberth effect, but I'd like to work it out more closely than that.

I don't mind assuming constant acceleration. Here are the reasons: If you are coming in at really high speed (e.g. Kerbin to Moho), the capture dV is going to be very high. You must pay the capture cost in a single pass. After capture, the orbital period is pretty high, so you will spend days on the first few burns if you do a split burn. Exactly how much can you spend on each pass, so that you make as few passes as possible?

When entering the SOI of a planet, we'd like to start our retrograde burn as close to periapsis as possible and with a low periapsis. For craft with low TWR, this will result in inefficiency, because you must start the burn pretty far away. My suspicion is that the greater you are from the true anomaly of 0 (Pe = True Anomaly of 0 degrees) the less efficient it is. What is the equation that gives the efficiency of a finite burn compared to an equivalent impulse burn?

When I used to hand-calculate dV, I took the mass (which you can get from the information window in the Map View) and just subtracted the resources to get dry weight. Since I used a spreadsheet, I just typed in the resource values and let the spreadsheet multiply the units of fuel times the weight per unit of fuel. That way, I didn't have to fill and drain my tanks in design either.

That'd be fun. How can I get the craft file?

Please leave the Nav ball visible or closed when switching craft, instead of resetting the Navball to closed every time one changes craft.

When a Kerbal goes EVA, or re-enters the spacecraft from EVA, please try to keep the camera position where it is. This helps when Kerbals go EVA on large craft or bases, where a change in the camera will obscure the Kerbal.

You raise a really good point here -- how does one calculate precisely the number and type of radiators?

This method seems very good for low-velocity hyperbolic orbits, but how do you leave Kerbin if your ejection dV is 2000+? Once you have about 1000 dV put into an orbit, it will start to go hyperbolic. How do ships with extremely long burn times arrive in a system without wasting DV? If you don't have the TWR for a capture on the first pass, you are not stopping. If you have to start the burn far from the Pe, you are wasting dV. This probably doesn't matter in a Hohmann interplanetary approach, but a high-velocity one-tangent burn requires a lot to stop.

Yes, the 16.7 is all the reaction wheels, RCS, crew quarters, docking ports, etc. I don't think there's much need to use RCS, provided it has reaction wheels. It does not dock with other things. It just needs to hold still to let other things dock with it. It also doesn't need to turn particularly fast (provided it will hold still during a burn), since it has several days between burns to face the next burn.

You're very right about the part count; I will have to consider that. My concern with longer and longer burns is that the error increases until you are pushed into a higher orbit to stay accurate. For high dV burns, this may be well above the gate orbit height, which is the same as losing dV. For the design you have above, how long is the outbound burn?

Temstar, I really like this idea. I think it essentially requires you to only pack 4000dV, then you refuel during the trip. I'd have to think about narrow the asteroid weight range and resource concentration would need to be. Rune, this is quite possible; I have an abstract solution already. I'm trying to find the optimal answer. 34 Nukes and 395 tons of fuel MkIII tanks (8:1 wet:dry ratio). Using the first 265 tons of fuel tanks (about 232 tons of fuel) gets you 14.88 minutes of outbound burn and 4033 dV. Using the remaining 130 gets you 4056 dV with 7.30 minutes of burn on the flight home. Could be I've done the math wrong; very easy to get a sign or parenthesis wrong in a spreadsheet. I think the design could be improved by using a Rhino that fires briefly (for the first couple minutes) with the nukes on the outbound journey. This reduces the number of nukes and turns them into fuel. What is IMLKO?

I like the idea of missions that deorbit your past debris.

Looking for a propulsion design that fits these specifications: Mothership outbound payload is 80 tons (includes crew, docking ports, RCS, solar panels, batteries, etc.) Mothership return payload is 16.7 tons. The other weight is left at the destination. Total outbound burn time must be 15 minutes or less, 4000 dV. TWR does not matter if the burn time for 4000 dV is under 15 min. Please note that estimating outbound burn time as half the total burn time often gives incorrect results. Total return burn time must be 15 minutes or less, 4000 dV (beyond the outbound dV). Assume no refueling occurs at the destination. Assume fully fueled on initial departure. Propulsion must be nuclear or chemical (no ion drive); assume a complete stock tech tree. Cost doesn't matter. Once in orbit, design must be 100% reusable. Boosters/Stages are OK only if they can be recovered and reattached. Boosters that can fly home are a huge plus. How it gets to orbit doesn't matter; this doesn't need to be part of the design. The best design fits the above parameters and optimizes for the least total fuel mass. A design using 40 NERVs and 383 tons of Mk III Liquid Fuel tanks will solve this problem, but I believe better designs are possible by using boosters and mixed engine types (e.g. using NERVs, Rhinos, and Poodles together)

If a vessel has been marked as debris, please don't generate new, follow-on missions in career for it.

The staging display is the 3D display used which is not the map display (M toggles between them). The ideas is that you can see your trajectory (or maybe just the impact point) on the ground, so you can tell where you'll hit if you do nothing. The map display already does this, but its not useful once you are very close to landing.

If it turns the travel time to a very short period, like an hour, that's probably fast enough that you just point at where you are going, and fire. If the travel time is much longer than that, like days, are you really going to not use time warp?

I thought scientists can be used to generate money and reputation (instead of science) by way of strategies?

I think from a gameplay perspective, I'm looking for a L4 pilot to take the "grind" out of the late game, which becomes more like a real-time strategy game and less like a flight simulator. While engineers and scientists are also interesting, they already have a very good purpose late game (Scientists make science, which can be changed by strategy into money, and Engineers make fuel). Whatever the pilot ability, I'd like it to help me just "point-and-go" so that I'm spending less time micro-managing burns, docking, and landings, which take up a considerable amount of time.

Can you say more about what that would be like? I don't think I quite understand. What is a stratolaunch? Would this be like flying a rocket up on a jet, launching the rocket, then landing the jet?

Why make your pilots level 4? Here are some ideas for what level 4 pilots could do: Precise burn timing. If a burn takes 4.5 seconds, you click a button and you will burn exactly that long. Slow time. You can toggle the game to operate time at reduced speed. This lets you make very precise actions. Reaction wheels operate more effectively. SAS critically damps to it's target, so when you choose to go prograde, it goes to prograde as fast as possible, without overshooting. You see an indicator in the staging display of where your impact point is, so that you can make super-precise landings. Docking ports have more powerful forces, making sloppy docking easier. Induced torque for RCS translation is reduced. What are your ideas?

It depends a little bit on what you want from the station. I also like 120, for these reasons: The dV difference between this and lower heights isn't much, in my opinion. You get a faster timewarp. You reduce the risk of debris collision (I have a lot of junk floating at 70-80km). Docking craft can fly at 70km if I need to "fly faster" to catch the station. At 120km, this gives you a pretty decent margin. Oberth differences are marginal for most flights.

When I try to install this mod, KSP won't load. Removing the mod allows KSP to load again. My GameData folder has these subfolders: 000_Toolbar KerbalEngineer Kerbaltek PreciseNode RCSBuildAid Squad TriggerTech toolbar-settings.dat I am trying to place the Nereid folder (and its contents) into this folder.

I like it; it's simple to implement and doesn't mess with the pace of the game or create a tedious landing interaction. I'd add to your rule: Within certain distance (I like 15m) and *landed* and at least one is crewed. Maybe special part required by one of them.

Leaving game audio on in background can be useful, if you have sound turned on for Kerbal alarm clock.