Zephram Kerman

Simplest way would be to use MechJeb on the orbiting ship to monitor its longitude. Fly that one until almost in position, then switch to the launch pad. If you have very consistent orbit altitudes, you could also put something on the ground to mark that spot. But wouldn\'t it be nice to have a position readout of other ships? I think that\'s what you\'re really asking for. Unless something like that is available, I can only think of 'close enough' ideas like those above. On the other hand, aligning the altitude, plane, and phase of an orbit is all part of the challenge! So just launch at any old time, and enjoy the extra challenge.

I\'ve always wondered if that stuff on the ecliptic isn\'t a galaxy but some kind of nebula near Kerbin. If so, it makes a lot of sense that the nearby dust would obscure most stars. But, then, why does part of it glow and not the whole thing? Hmm. ???

Well it\'s the nicest pic of trees I\'ve seen so far.

I remember someone was trying to do a similar project, for landing mechjeb piloted carts near Munolith sites. One launcher with a long-range detector and two or three carts.

Finally! Lodestone 2 arrives, fashionably late to the party. (Lodestone 1 got a little over excited with the accelerator pedal, and then found a tiny hill. The area of the debris field has been named Lodestone Park in their honor.) Immediately upon arrival, Bill turned on the radio to report the successful mission. Suddenly, all the Hot Pockets in the fridge exploded.

I like this idea. It also allows for different fuels in the future. (Kerosene, hydrogen, oxygen, hydrazene, etc. all have different mass densities and energy densities. But I think you meant to assign only the empty weight; also assigning the full weight would defeat the purpose of your post.

That kind of thing would give us all a new sense of the scale of the universe.

Well I just hate it when that happens. Because of situations like this, I actually crash more often with autopilot, than if I\'m piloting manually. It\'s easy to have a false sense of security, but in reality there are more things to keep track of, all changing more quickly.

This might work: Set up your orbital probe in a dangerously low orbit for good resolution. Reduce orbit velocity so that it frequently requires a small amount of thrust to maintain this dangerous altitude. Pop up as you approach mountains, push down into the valleys. Save more often than you crash. Have fun barnstorming in space!

It helped me to remember this: When I move the controls, the ship responds by moving around the artificial horizon. The artificial horizon holds still while the instrument moves around it. Does that help? P.S.: I don\'t prefer winglets either.

Simple, really. 'When you see the moon rise, punch it!' It\'s my favorite Kerbalism. In other words, when your ship is 110 degrees from the moon, burn prograde until your apoapsis is about 11400 km. (That\'s for collision course. To orbit the moon, use more for a westerly orbit, or less for an easterly orbit.) There are guides and tutorials all over the forum. Each one explains in a different way.

I totally get this, in three ways. First, Spearka is obviously young, and trying to honor his parents. Let\'s show some respect for that. Second, the financial industry has earned our scorn. If someone doesn\'t want their child to use a credit card or PayPal, it absolutely makes sense; let\'s respect that too. In my opinion, suggesting Spearka use a MasterCard gift card is too close to circumventing his parents. The right thing to do would have been to suggest his parents process the transaction for him. Third, not all of us enjoy the growing trend toward zero privacy. Yes, when I bought KSP I entered the required info. But I did so grudgingly, because I know how to protect myself, and as a boring old guy I\'m not much of a target. A minor is a target for certain people, and needs to be that much more cautious. Please, let\'s be respectful of people trying to protect their privacy.

@ Sal. Sorry, rest assured I wasn\'t serious. That would be a horribly mean thing to say. And, hypocritical too. (I\'m running a hand-me-down, and my CPU goes to max with KSP, but the frame rate is ok enough once it gets away from the ground.) What I wrote was intended to be ridiculous, hence the winkie at the end. Like you, I prefer the small indie games, especially the free stuff... lots of unusual and interesting ideas out there.

Clearly your computer is woefully inadequate to play KSP with us big boys. Needs more CPUzars! Actually, this sounds a lot like the bugged debris problem. Open your persistent.sfs and look for anything with a value of NAN. Each one of those causes an error which slows down the game a little bit, and they add up fast. See this thread: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=8814.0 or just delete persistent.sfs and start over with a clean sky.

I also agree. There have been so many times when something interesting happened suddenly, but I was not recording.

Well now it doesn\'t work anymore. All I did was change the name of a ship, and now the sky is completely clean. :\'( It\'s happened twice in a row. I did not type the enter key, but it broke down anyway. So maybe it is the Unix EOL thing, like you said. Fortunately, I can still restore a backup copy of persistent.sfs, if I have one.

The music sounds a bit like Paul Ruskay http://homeworld.wikia.com/wiki/Homeworld_2_Soundtrack or Eric Serra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element#Soundtrack

Images work for me now. Hey, I love this idea! My concern is Squad should have eminent domain to name features, so let\'s tread lightly. But if they do leave it up to us user-folk, wouldn\'t that be cool? Only one more proposed rule: please, let\'s not simply name things after ourselves! It is reasonable in real life, where naming something is the reward for a huge commitment of time and resources. But we\'re just goofing around here, so I think it would be presumptuous to claim the 'Zephram expanse'. Serratus, I especially like your designations for the Dev Nebula and Seagull Belt. I don\'t quite get the reference to 'not twin' though; could you explain his story?

I\'ve been thinking about the biosphere of planet Kerbin. If we all agree the Kerbals evolved from grass, that means they don\'t require oxygen but carbon dioxide, sunlight, water, and some minerals. This would explain why they are able to survive for many days in orbit. Their life support systems do not require any weighty oxygen, and can be replenished with just a little puff from a thruster. It also explains why they used to explode when landing on the dark side. Anyway, since the Kerbal biosphere depends on plentiful CO2, the sudden appearance of a competing species (the noxious tree infestation) presents a dire emergency. Each tree consumes large amounts of CO2, which our Kerbals need to survive and is also a vital greenhouse gas which keeps our planet warm. If this trend continues, Kerbin will soon be depleted of CO2 and smothered under a heavy layer of suffocating oxygen. I need not remind you that excessive oxygen has already been blamed for destructive fires in the vicinity of our spacecraft landings. As global cooling has already affected the polar regions, a strange white powdery material has blanketed thousands of square kilometers. Some scientists claim this white powder is crystallized water in solid form. This 'freeze' effect happens only at extreme cold temperatures, below zero degrees, which I need not remind you is the extreme lower limit of our measurement scale. Now we have to invent negative numbers, just in order to measure the effects of this phenomenon. This 'frozen' water falls from the sky, apparently having been removed from our oceans! As the ocean level drops, our intrepid Kerbanauts will find it more difficult to find safe deep-water landing sites. I propose each and every one of us should do whatever we can to mitigate the global cooling crisis. Launch as many rockets as you can! Chop down a tree, or better yet burn it carefully. (Ideally, someone should invent a wood-burning rocket engine.) Breathe as little as possible. For every activity you do, consider your oxygen footprint. Do it for the kerblings. Thank you.

You can also do this with any part, by using the cart. Put one or two carts on your rocket at some crazy angle. Attach a part or assembly to it. Now move the assembly to some other part of your rocket and delete the carts. Voila! Instant crazy angle parts.

Remove and replace the pilot. Seriously though, all I can think of for consistent performance is to make your rocket stable, and keep your ascent profile consistent.

My Munships tend to fall behind the ascent profile around 10-12 km. So at that point I\'m not worried about air friction, and start the gravity turn. Not much, just a few degrees at a time until the air gets thin. I know it sounds too early to most of us, but doing this seems to pay off. The trick is to start the turn slowly at first.

For this part, it is simple. While sitting on the surface of Mun, think about where Kerbin is located. If you are on the 'face' of Mun, Kerbin should be somewhere in the sky. In this case, you should go east-ish. Conversely, if you are on the 'back' and Kerbin is not visible, go west-ish. Both of these cases have the effect of cancelling Mun\'s orbital velocity, so that you fall back to Kerbin once clear of Mun\'s SOI. It helps to adjust your trajectory to compensate for latitude. (By the way, SOI is Sphere Of Influence. Have you already learned about this? It\'s not normal astrophysics, but more like Aristotlean astronomy. Your flight path is affected by gravitational attraction from only one body.) To answer your question about throttle optimization, it is a dilemma between fuel wasted hovering and exponentially increasing air friction. Historically, this is named the 'Goddard Problem'. Basically, build your rocket to be powerful enough for a Thrust-To-Weight ratio of 2:1. Use Closettes table of terminal velocity as your ascent profile. (Thanks UmbralRaptor! Copy this table and staple it to the inside of Jeb\'s visor!) Which brings me to the gravity turn. It\'s another dilemma like the Goddard Problem, but this time in 2 dimensions. You need horizontal velocity to reduce the effect of gravity. But there is also that pesky atmospheric drag, so you need altitude to escape drag. I just realized the other day that a rocket with TWR of 2:1 cannot keep up with terminal velocity past 10 Km or so. When following that ascent profile table, simply start your gravity turn when you can\'t keep up. In this way, air friction is minimized, and you get that gravity turn bonus as soon as possible.

Oh, thank you, thank you! I must have searched right past it, at least two times.

That\'s because you still haven\'t hit bottom. Although your description of the past few weeks sounds pretty close to hitting bottom, if you ask me. We might need to have an intervention for you.