MaxL_1023

Hey Qoonpooka, Your rocket has too much drag on the front end. That huge fairing has a large cross section. When you tilt a little away from prograde, the drag force increases a lot (due to a higher AoA) and since that drag is applied forward of your center of mass, your rocket will flip. That little deviation causes a torque on your rocket which adds to the initial disturbance - the definition of an unstable system. You want to have the most drag on the back of your rocket. In that case, the drag force causes a torque which OPPOSES the initial disturbance, stabilizing your rocket. You are on the right track with the fins on the SRBs - I have a couple ideas to help you get that to orbit: 1. Put the SRBs on longer decouplers or on the end of a structural part. This will move your fins farther out and increase the drag cross-section of your rocket's cheeks end. 2. Use liquid fueled boosters - the control authority from engine gimbals might counteract the fairing drag by brute force. 3. Use vector engines (insane gimballing) 4. Use a 3.75m rocket (think shorter but stubbier) so your fairing doesn't stick out as much. If all else fails, I doubt you actually need a fairing for structural parts. They would be fine exposed to the elements, even though it breaks immersion somewhat. You should see my rockets when I am using a modset which puts both interstages and fairings late in the tech tree. I basically brute-force them to orbit.

I notice that if you travel slower than about 1 m/s the navball loses prograde/retrograde - could this be happening?

I didn't do much interplanetary until I got Mechjeb for transfer window planning. You can eyeball it all you want, but getting to Duna by burning at sunset when the planets are 45 degrees apart is not an efficient or reliable way to plan an interplanetary transfer. Neither is waiting until Minmus is near an AN/DN, but at least that is easier to eyeball.

Name: Spaceborne Nutrients Adapted for Consumption by Kerbals Company: Somewhat Questionable Utility Acquisitiors of Digestables Source: Somewhere Beyond Eeloo Backstory: When Jebediah Kerman strapped on one too many strap-on boosters, our probe intended for a not-at-all nefarious exploration of that which lies beyond Kerbin was thought to have escaped Kerbol entirely. Happily, it returned some time later covered in this mysterious substance. Always looking to cut costs, our provisioning department discovered that with some minimal packaging and liberal application of starvation, this material is quite suitable for Kerbal Consumption. It is now included on every crewed vessel. Type: Potentially Prebiotic Meal Designation: All Meal Type: Unknown Organic Slurry

I thought asteroids were procedurally spawned? My idea would be for two moonlets somewhat smaller than minmus (think Aptur from New Horizons or maybe an overgrown Gilly) on slightly offset orbits with the same period. They would closely pass each other (just outside of SOI overlap) once per orbit, simulating the placement switches which occur due to mutual gravity.

At least you can right the ship by using a mining drill, some cables and maybe a hole under the nose. Also, somehow the first 5 times I reloaded my Mars mission to continue it I somehow ended up on a solar escape trajectory somewhat inside of Jupiter's orbit. I think that Mars Kraken has migrated into KSP.

One thing I would like to see is researchable engine bell modifications for the stock engines. Basically, booster, sustainer and vacuum nozzle configurations. I understand that each engine is intended for one of these three roles - I wouldn't expect the nozzle to fully change the ASL vs Vac thrust/ISP relationship to the same degree as an entire engine redesign. However, options like a lower expansion nozzle for the LV-909 could change the ISP statistics from 95/340 to 200/325, making it more useful as a sustainer engine but sacrificing efficiency in Vacuum. The LV-T45 currently has 270/320 - a booster configuration could change it to 285/305 for better performance on the pad. Essentially, give engines the choice of two of the three types with each having a unique balance of performance. Many real engines have this type of customizability, and it was common in the past when only a small number of reliable large engine designs had matured. It would be nice to see this element from RO added to the stock game.

If you were doing "direct ascent" (One ship takes off, flies to mars, lands, then returns to earth with no docking) you would probably need one. I am running my own Mars mission using "stock" parts (procedural tanks, pods and RP-0 engines). I needed to put over 1000 tons into LEO for my mission profile (Mars orbiter with a separate lander docked with it). I did it in a single launch, but I needed something like the equivalent of 40 F1's to get it off the ground (in the form of 4 radial Pyrios boosters and a sustainer using 24 RD-171Ms (more powerful then the F1). My second stage had 18 SSMEs. Not really practical in real life, but in the best of Kerbal tradition. Jeb was flying it, after all.

Nice work with the rendezvous maneuvers! It is painful to dock in RSS - I use a single launch profile Apollo-Style and usually just EVA across from the Lunar Lander after returning. Your method is much more difficult but requires much smaller launchers.

Yeah it looks like your landing site is still 4km high - if you can find a spot closer to "sea level" I bet you would have landed safely. I wonder if attaching a few retros (think small solid motors with high thrust, short burn) would let you kill off that last bit of velocity right before landing.

931s with water is still twice as good as any chemical engine, and water is a denser propellant that lets you use the lighter balloon tanks. I know Methane boils off - I did not know that Ammonia had no losses in a cryogenic tank.

Porkjets atomic age mod has a nuclear lightbulb which can run off of water.

If you mean Near Future Technologies, a lot of it is integrated into RO/RP-0 and works fine. Electric propulsion is somewhat (i.e very) sketchy, taking years to get your delta-v. However, the other parts, solar panels and some nuclear engines are useful.

Could one of the gas giants have a ring system with co-orbital moonlets? Jupter has something like this with Metis and Adrastea, and Saturn has it with Prometheus and Pan (I think). In RSS it does not really work because the moons do not have a sphere of influence - they are likely held together partially by material adhesion/tensile strength (they are small enough). With the KSP density dynamics these moons may be able to sustain orbits and be landed on with awesome views of the Gas giant system.

If you have a barometer, check the surface pressure. If MSL is set to the lowest point on the planet your pressure will be somewhat below 0.615 KPA everywhere on the surface. You can get close to 1 KPA in the lowest regions, maybe even a little more if KSP uses the real Martian atmosphere.

Is there any chance you could put this on CKAN? Also, does this mod work for KSP 1.13? Thanks, Max

I don't remember how much it massed on launch, but I put 3000 tons into LEO (about 300x300km) in RSS/RP-0. The second stage had 40 SSMEs.

Where are you landing? Hellas Basin or the Vallis Marineris have much denser air compared to Martian MSL.

Guys, you KNOW within 2 hours of these parts being released there will be a mod which reverts them to the original design - a mod which will take about 30 seconds to install and will change nothing else. It is really not worth fighting over - let squad do their best and focus on the really important issues (Kraken hunting for example).

I like the compact mountings - it will make clustering a lot easier.

How much margin do you have on the Mothership? You could attach radial drop tanks underneath the main body (next to the engine) to give you more delta-v, dropping them as they empty using fuel lines.

Could you offset the MEM/s center of mass using the descent stage? It will be harder to land on rockets, but you will get a lot of lift in the upper atmosphere flattening out your descent profile. You should get a couple hundred m/s of effective braking due to the longer time you spend above the surface. The MEM is about the right shape for it - similar to the Apollo Command Module which did the same thing to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. Since you drop this stage on takeoff you no longer have the issue on ascent. The extra time in the air might also let you slow enough to deploy chutes, which while not enough to land on their own should get you below 500 m/s and let you use your engines for a final landing sequence. If they get the RSS version of that inflatable heatshield part it would also be very useful - it would scale to be about 20m in diameter but fit in a 4m package when deflated. Since drag scales with surface area you will end up slowing down a lot more, even on Mars.

It might just be limitations of the designs you are using. It is hard to get something onto the martian surface and then back up carrying crew, especially when you need to haul the whole thing from earth. Limiting yourself to a Saturn V scale booster (single launch) makes it even harder.

Hello, Are there any (or any planned) 1.13/1.2 compatible mods which allow boiloff of cryogenic fuels to be mitigated using parts? Something like what Nertea has for Cryogenic tanks, but aimed at Realfuels. Hydrolox engines (from RL-10s to NTRs) are available and almost required for a reasonable crewed mission to anywhere beyond the moon - hauling 100 tons of life support supplies for a Mars mission with <340 ISP engines (think orbit injection, maneuvering and return stages) is painful. I would much prefer to stick on some solar panels, batteries or RTGs and be able to keep my tanks from boiling off. Maybe make the energy cost proportional to the heat flux entering the tank (so solar irradiation based on surface area, etc). I think there was a heat pumps mod in the olden days which did this, but I could not find one designed for a recent version of KSP. Thanks, Max

If I was better at that kind of engineering I would try and use it to get into orbit.