NorthernDevo

Yeah well, I priced them out. This is a low cost tourist service, so they make do with passing a roll of duct-tape around. Hey - on the bright side they get a fantastic view!

I've been grinding missions; trying to make money and open up my tier-3 buildings. "Test part xxx at the launch site! Plant a flag on thje Mun!" Gaaah - The Mun has so many flags now it looks like Canada Day up there - and it's not enough! I missed this year's Duna window grinding missions. What does make decent money is carrying tourists - get the ones that want landings on both the Mun and Minmus and you can make pretty decent Funds. The problem is, to build a ship large enough to do both in one mission seriously cuts into the profit...and making it multiple missions takes too long. So the idea of course is to carry more Kerbals per trip. I was trying to do something with the Mk-3 Passenger Module; it carries 16. It's just too heavy. The answer hit me last night at work. I built a new ship, made it light as possible, grabbed every single tourist contract I could and voila: The K.S.S. Money Makin' Kerbal Mover! 33 Kerbal tourists at a shot; plus a pilot! Two million Funds per flight! Woohoo!

I can offer one I just discovered. Aligning for re-entry with arrival at KSC can be a pain; it's lovely to come in on a perfectly equatorial orbit and drop (ideally) right on top of the Space Center. Up until now, I've used debris or rescue ships in orbit to target and match planes with; more recently I've been launching an "Orbital Alignment Probe" to use as a target. All unnecessary. In yet another facepalm moment, I realized there's already the perfect target in an equatorial orbit: The Mun. For cheap, easy alignment with KSC try this: While returning from the Mun or Minmus, or if just in a non-equatorial orbit, target the Mun, and match planes with it. You can do it FAR outside the Mun's orbit (if coming in from Minmus) for a low-cost (in fuel terms) plane change. One of those things I catch myself saying "Doh! Why didn't I think of that before!" My recipe for aerobraking: Aerobraking is critical for a safe, economical return to Kerbin. Assuming a basic vessel using a command pod, I find these numbers to work well: Following plane change, burn retrograde until your Kerbin Pe is 37.4k. The engine - either a poodle, a terrier or any of the smaller engines - can handle that much heating with ease and if returning from the Mun, you'll top out with an Ap of about 150k. When you reach Ap, raise your Pe to 100, then circularize at Pe. You ought to be in a perfect alignment for a very accurate landing at KSC. At the East coast the second continent West of KSC (Picture provided - about 90 degrees West) burn until a Pe of -145.4 then detach your engine while Retrograde. You'll plop right down on top of the center. Right here - if you're using KER, burn the moment the 'biome' heading changes from 'Deserts' to 'Shores'. Obviously, these numbers work for my design; yours (speaking specifically to new players here) will behave slightly differently depending on weight and drag - but you'll be very close. With subsequent flights, fine-tune your own numbers until you can step out onto the KSC grounds every time. Hope this helps!

I found a Green Monolith! Waaay up near the North Pole; what IS it with KSP sending me back to this awful ground over and over?! Naturally, the mission didn't quite go as planned.... First of all, my tiny ship had to drift over some seriously gnarly terrain until I found a spot that looked flat enough to land. Touchdown was...less than spectacular lol - the ship fell over and took out the antenna. Fortunately I'd retracted the solar panels for safety. As the vessel slid down the hill, I was able to retract the gear and get it going downhill butt-first; hitting a flatter spot allowed enough momentum to lift the craft to vertical. Raise the gear again and voila! Just like I planned! Now - I need you to look carefully at this image, because now it's time for... The Kerbal Facepalm Department So - Elbas climbs down from her ship, shaken - not stirred. With the nav-point she heads for the Monolith. It must be close; I got the Milestone message. After a jet-pack flight of about 500m - and after ragdolling into yet another pit - Elbas decided the nav-point had to be off a little, so she turned around and jetted back to the ship to recharge. A long ragdoll landing caught her tumbling to this point and...well... Yep - tumbled to a stop right at the foot of the monolith. And if you look up in that first image, you'll SEE the blasted thing watching Elbas rolling around in the dirt. Well; at least I found the thing. Got "Heavy Landing" out of it too! Now to Minmus to find the next one! Well - now to get Elbas home first...I didn't notice until right now that the botched landing had taken out the Terrier. She's not going anywhere until a rescue ship can come in. Fortunately she's got a couple weeks of supplies so she should be OK.

I agree - it sounds like an excellent idea. I doubt my Rover Max (which is about the size of a bus) would fit, but a smaller rover would do well. @Cytrosky, please demonstrate this technique, take pics and post them here - it sounds like a great idea!

That's fantastic!

I just found out about Green Monoliths, so I decided to fire up Kerbnet and go looking on the Mun. I found a ? and sent up a cheap and cheerful mission - young Alsted landed in the gnarliest patch of awful terrain in the South Polar Lowlands I've ever seen - how she found a spot flat enough to land is totally beyond me. It should be just ahead - she's heading off to look... ...Very carefully. Edit: Umm........ Yeah...no. After walking the rim of the valley long enough to know the object - whatever it is - is in fact at the bottom, Alsted chose to risk some precious jetpack fuel to get down to it. And there...it...was. Just a normal black one unfortunately; still, it's one I haven't found before. Now - the ship is waaaaaay up at the top of those unclimbable walls. She's got 3.5 units of fuel left; here's hoping it's enough! I've lost one Kerbal so far; I don't want Alsted to be #2. I'll have her climb as far as she can before hitting the jets.

That.... is Awesome!!!!

From the files of the Kerbal Facepalm Department... Oyyyyyyyy.... So there's Barbara and Dilgred on the surface of the Mun, needing a rescue. No probs; my Kerbal Explorer 5-Kerb heavy lander has been working brilliantly; I only have 2 more Munar biomes to suck science out of. Also; Muner Refuel is in a 200km polar orbit; it's role is pretty self-explanatory. It is the prototype of the service vessel for the upcoming DunaStar mission. It carries oxy, fuel, monoprop plus food, water and air for plenty of replenishments over the Mun. My calculations are getting better - I guessed that Explorer would have enough fuel to make two landings and pick up both of the girls and make it back to LMO before running dry. Refuel could easily make RV; fill Explorer up and let her return to Kerbin. Well - it went perfectly! I picked up Barbara, then a 200-km boing Northward to get Dilgred, followed by launch into a 21x18 km orbit. Excellent! Jumping over to Refuel, it matches planes and drops down to meet Explorer sweet as you please: I'll pause while you-all notice the facepalm moment. Yup - I forgot to put a docking port onto Explorer. Siiiiiiigh. So - what do I need for an Engineer to mount a docking port onto the ship? KIS? I'll either use that or just send another ship to go get 'em. Edit: Actually, they only have 2 days of life support left. I'll send another ship out to get them, then try to recover the vessel later. Jeb chooses to fly the recovery himself. Time is short; he'll need to intercept the derelict, transfer the crew then dock to Refuel to load enough supplies to get them back safe. Go Jeb!

Daily grind - making money by taking recovery and tourism missions. Yawn.... My re-entry accuracy's improving though... Meanwhile... Back on the Mun, young Teory on her first Science mission - this one to the heights overlooking Farside Crater - took quite a nifty selfie with Kerbin on the horizon: A nice souvenir for a promising young scientist. On the way home, the crew got the chance to view a rare and thrilling event: They stayed in the shadow of the eclipse the entire way in; allowing for quite a dramatic shot; if I say so myself:

Still on the Hard career path - grinding science from the Mun; slowly upgrading one contract at a time. To take a break, I've selected the "First Flyby of Minmus" mission which I've been putting off while science-ing up. 6 days into the transfer earned ol' Jeb a gorgeous Minmus sunrise: This flyby culminates (in about 15 minutes) with a ground-skimming 9km. pass of the Equatorial Highlands, followed by a quick burn to bring the KPe back down to atmospheric altitude. This will be Jeb's final mission; from here he takes over as Chief of Testing Operations, KSC. Bob's final mission comes next; conducting an exhaustive orbital survey of the Mint Frosted Moon, and then take charge of Research Integration. Val will fly her last flight to the surface of Minmus, then be named Commandant of Kerbonaut Academy. Bill is currently retired from active duty, overseeing the design and planning of the DunaStar mission - the mission in which all four will be reactivated for KASA's landmark journey to another planet. Cheers!

Actually; this is precisely the focus of the short story A Hope of Calling that I've been working on for a while now. Alongside what the Monoliths are, why Kerbin seems to be enormously fertile but with astonishingly low biodiversity and why Kerbals are...well...how they are. Lol I fiddle with it whenever I get sick of the bloody novel I can't finish editing.

I've just got a mental image of furry little green Proto-Kerbals squeaking and rubbing the monolith at KSC while Also Sprach Zarathustra plays... I'll go lie down now...

I like the new engines in general; I wouldn't say they're spectacular but nicer than the previous versions. Like @Snark, I tend to avoid the Poodle as a lander engine, though it does excellent service as a transfer/DOI stage for a mid-size science lander. I'm using D-Magic science bits and you can stuff a lot of 'em into a 2.5m Service Bay. I'm a bit...ambivalent about the Poodle's twin-bell design; though it's certainly better than the previous one that looked like a sink plug. I quite like the 909 though - it could be better but for a stock part it's really quite nice. Overall, I like what Squad's doing with their model changes - it's looking better all the time - though I must say the Mk-1 Command Pod now looks WAAAAY too much like a plumb-bob. I like the earlier one better. Nice conversation, @Johnny Wishbone! Cheers!

I can sum up my progress in my Hard-settings career with a single pic: Er...BIG edit!!!! Seems I forgot one teeny tiny detail in building my Mun lander... Yikes! Yup - that whole 'Life Support' thingie. Jeb was coming in to a 40km aerobrake after a successful mission...and LS screamed suddenly; telling him food, water and O2 was OUT. Ewps... OK; Jeb's gotta get out of that thing NOW! I eyeballed it, made a quick burn to lower Pe to 33K and blew the return engine. A screaming re-entry followed by a last-second parachute pop at 1200m, but by the time he splashed down, look at his numbers! Less than 30 seconds! Talk about lucky; just a few more seconds and I'd have lost him. Whew! Won't be mistaking THAT mistake again... Even luckier; he got out within swimming distance of the West shore of KSC's peninsula. Gene's put a call in to @Triop to see if he can go pick Jeb up in a fast car...oh; and bring a hot dog! Jeb's a mite famished...

Hi @Dafni; agreed. While I do have 'Revert' disabled, I have 'quicksave' enabled - I just don't use it and I'm rather pleased with my self-control. I've lost a few ships to stability but I've been taking a very conservative route; testing unmanned ships first and insuring escape systems work. Test-pilots (Silver) conduct first manned flight (Testing in HKO) prior to the mission. I've probably spent twice as much on ships as I would have without Revert and as such have had to do a LOT more testing/tourism contracts to make money, but that's part of the reward. The best thing is that recently I asked about how to use the relevant equations for rocket flight and have been using them to plan my ships. Working brilliantly (with a few major whoopsies in there); I've only just upgraded the Tracking Station and prior to that flight planning was going very well. Cheers! Edit: Bob returning home with MASSIVE science onboard: The Mk-1 Inline cockpit was a testing contract I was able to include in the 'Orbit Mun' mission; normally I'd use the Command Pod. Still; I like this design 'cause you get to put the hear shield at the front and enjoy the view. And Bob returns home; safe and sound: WOOT! 392 Science!

New career, MUCH greater challenges. I'm playing on Hard settings for the first time; no save, no revert, life support engaged. Extra rules: MJ in place but used only for housekeeping and basic orientation, and the Orange Four must survive; losing Jeb, Bill, Bob or Val forces a restart. (Silver guys are expendable...but that's in the fine print of their contract...) As such I've had to restart a few times... ;-) This is the farthest I've gotten so far and I've FINALLY gotten over the science hump where it's very challenging to get enough science to reliably orbit the Mun. Still very early in the career; the KSA (Kanadian Space Agency) has managed to get Bob into a nice stable Low Munar Orbit. It's been tough but VERY rewarding - each successive stage means much more now. Cheers!

I have a couple - not very good, but I like them: Cheers!

I could go for that - I've certainly fallen in love with the rover variant of the MkII and would definitely appreciate the on-site conversion. I'm wondering if coding might not be an issue - mainly because I haven't a clue how to code. As an alternate possibility, the lander's side-pieces can be offered as individual parts that could be fitted to the lander with a standard decoupler and dropped through the staging sequence.

Yikes! That's a lot of math! Just kidding - thanks so much; your example helps a lot. Looking at the equation initially my brain went 'wubba' but your explanation seems quite clear and easy to follow - I'll try doing this right away. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to do the calculations just like this for - for example - a Duna transfer, though I suspect that it'll take a little time to get comfortable with using this. I'm sorry - I'm sure this is pretty basic stuff mathematically speaking; in high school I was more interested in arts, history and the girl in the next seat. I've always regretted not having a better understanding of math. No better time to start learning, I figure! Cheers! Thanks so much - I'm having a great time learning this aspect of KSP. Very likely I'll use the subway map for most of my flights, though I would definitely like to take the opportunity to learn the mathematics from which they derive. Yeah; that's my normal approach although other than a few memorized numbers the 'writing things down' bit tends to escape me. What I've done though is created a parallel game in Sandbox and when I have a test rig that might be a bit iffy, call it 'computer simulation' and try it there first. The number of times Jeb has been flattened, drowned, blown-up or crispy-fried in the past week has dropped remarkably.

Hi folks - thanks so much for all your help; I do have a better understanding of what it is and how it works now; thanks so much. Now this, I fear, is something that happens a lot to me whenever I ask about math because - as seen in the received answers - the question I wrote was the wrong one; it was not what I was trying to learn. @Aegolius13 got to the heart of my confusion with this comment and this helps me to frame the question a little better. That said; all of the above is extremely valuable and I'm very happy to be learning this part of the equation. In response to another question elsewhere, @Kryxal said: I was incorrectly thinking of the Rocket Equation for this - because I didn't know precisely what it did or how it is applied. My question actually is how does one obtain the numbers shown above when planning a flight? How do I know how much Delta-V I'll need to reach - say - Minmus without using my usual "Overbuild and Overpower" tendency? Aegolius said "As you may have seen from the subway-style delta-v maps, different maneuvers (such as transferring from Kerbin to Munar orbit) take certain quantities of delta-v." Well - I haven't actually seen them, but now that I know they're there, I'll certainly be looking. I did think that by using the rocket equation one could figure that out. Thanks so much for your help folks; this really is fascinating. I'm trying a new career on 'hard' mode (No revert, no cash to start, no MJ for transfers, life support and a few other conditions in there) so the need to have a much better understanding this stuff is really making itself felt - I have to really plan and prep as carefully as possible and I'm enjoying every moment of it. Cheers!

"Eight more - just eight more points and we can have Fuel ducts! Caaaaaarefully!" Aaaand..... Rats. Edit: "Helloooo, Fuel ducts!"

I started a whole new game with new rules. The title of this game is "Duna or Bust!" - the goal is pretty much as described. The rules: Hard settings, with starting funds set to zero. No save, no revert (of course). Life Support in use, MJ to be used for routine work and basic control only - no auto ascents, transfers or course changes. This is because a well-handled manual ascent is both much more satisfying than just watching, but also better on fuel and I really need to watch my fuel now. This has so far been quite challenging; progress has been maddeningly slow with Science hard to obtain and parts - and building upgrades - bloody expensive. Reaching the first 3 standard missions was easy enough; I ran several test missions to build up enough funds to upgrade the launch pad and the Astronaut Complex. Since then, it's been a constant grind of VIP missions, test missions and any observation missions I could reach with a Hammer SRB pushing me - I'm as much worried about saving money as I am making it. All through the night it was shooting tourists off one after the other on top of a Thumper for endless sub-orbital flights to build up cash. I've managed to open 3 of 5 spots on the 4th. level (45 Science each) at R&D and been sending Rollers all over KSC to scoop whatever science I can nab. Important safety tip I just learned: don't use a Materials Bay as one end of a Science Roller. It doesn't end well. Anyhoo; it's bed for me; I'm on night shift this week. Dawn is breaking over KSC so in about an hour of game time I'm going to make my first orbit. With the Launchpad upgraded that will be easy, at least. In the meantime, the view the tourists were getting from their little Mk1 was totally awesome:

No kidding; you should be - that is one GORGEOUS aircraft! Nice job!

Sheesh; you guys always blow me away with your creativity. I can see building a MiG-17; the parts looks similar. How the blazes do you build a flippin' Tigershark?!?!?! Too cool.