Spricigo

For you more pressing isue, the rover being throw in the air. Get to the Cheat menu and [hack gravity]. Hopefully you either find a setting allow you to load the vessel or at least don't make it crash so hard (in that case [unbreakable joints] and [no crash damage] may also help)

Scott Manley's KSP 1.0Tutorial: Still have some differences to current version but a reasonable good tutorial series.

@James Kerman consider installing kerbalX mod if you want to share craft with some frequency. A good description and some images is mandatory if you want people to download it. Personally, flight instructions is something I consider very important to include. As for the craft I'd include a bit of RCS in the sat, not necessary but I think would be a nice touch. Aside that small detail I realky liked how you did it.

I'm descendent of Germans and Italians. That make you feel better with you supposition? The offer of pizza, Chicago pizza, earned some points (not many because Sao Paulo pizza, mind you). You still didn't get Brazilian culture. I will just interpret it as "I'm happy to live in the same continent you live". I know is not what you mean, but that'll not stop me from pretending. Wait a minute. Are you really implying that? Tell more about that idea of Governments keeping their word. But take it easy, they not marking the exact opposite is too counterintuitive. A Brazilian would quickly know at least 3 values: to sell, to buy and to the auditor.* *Advice to German readers: don't try to understand this. Try something simpler like quantum mechanics or neurosurgery.

I confess: considered the Skipper for a moment. OTOH I have 4 Phanters for 20t of ship.

MUR-I-CA! It's tough being the leader of the free world, but we manage. You can all thank us when it's convenient for you. Following a typical Brazilian stereotype: why would I do that? The only real difference is what is the best option of a 2nd language (as long it uses the Latin alphabet not that a big deal*). I'd rather wait for people to thank me, for the contribution to the free word by my country, regardless the fact I personally really have not to do with it. That is what we call being American, Latin American, South American...the best kind of American. *better yet if a Latin language but we don't need that much

I really like to point out this: USA agreed to become part of the civilized world* and use metric system in 1866 and UK did the same in 1897. Because of that customary units are defined in terms of the metric system. A yard is exactly 0.9144 , a mile is exactly 1609.344 m, a pound is exactly 453.59237... so you are just using more basic units. Maybe you should blame the Government for that. *as civilized as adopting an idea from French revolutionary terrorist may be...

The purpose is not mass shedding, its to get an effective TWR (I guess also for an acceptable price). You can either do it by reducing the mass or by increasing the thrust.(yea, Moar boosters!!!) The actual problem with replacing the Nerv with a chemical rocket is not so much the added weight of the engine+tanks (that may even be less than the weight of the Nerv). But rather that after you run out of oxidizer you have one less nerv at a flight phase the gravity/aero losses are still relevant. In any case there is a 'philosophical divergence' there, you like to design your SSTO to smooth ride to orbit while for mine I trust in thrust. Your use less fuel, mine reach orbit faster, nonetheless both get the same job done, and probably neither is the ideal for anyone else.

Next steps: 1.Replace jets with SRBs 2.Remove wings.

That Impression fit a typical Unitestadian stereotype: too self-centered to notice how diverse the rest of the world is. English and American akin to Portuguese and Brazilian or Spanish and Mexican. Portuguese vs Spanish? Comparable to English vs Deutsch or Chinese vs Japanese maybe.

For an educated guess, close enough. Any idea of how far off is my supposition in regatd to dampers?

"difficult to land, like on Gilly" it's not a new challenge. "it's like landing on Gilly but worse" seems out of the scope of stock KSP for me. In any case OP already provided a satisfactory answer to that question: Rendezvous with an object with a very small sphere of influence while close to a massive gas giant

That is a guess, hopefully an educated one: KSP suspension is very simple with just two elements: A)A spring that respond to compression/stretching with a force proportional to [how much the suspension is away from its rest position ] , [spring force setting]. F=-kx B)A damper that respond to suspension movement with a force proportional to [how fast the suspension is moving] , [damper strength setting] F=-kv No other adjustment except those two "k". Suspensions are 'self-adaptive' to how much it is away from its rest position and how fast it is moving, nothing else. And they are 'smart' because that behaviour don't requires user imput/oversight.

well, I just use the vis-viva equation a few times to get into the ballpark. v=orbital velocity GM = standard gravitational parameter of the central body r=current altitude (measured from body's center) a=semi-major axis. First lets use it to find GM, you ended in 125km orbit (r=a=(600km*3.2)+125km=2.045Mm) at 4.2km/s. Insert everything there (or whatever calculator you prefer) and we have GM=3.62x1013 m3/s2 Now, in most screenshots you have the navball in surface mode (obvious reasons), so you are not accounting for the little boost from the rotation of the planet (something I didn't noticed earlier). If that was stock I'd just add 175m/s and carry on, you could just check the value for the scale you are using or calculate it. From the screenshot you had Pe=-1750km (170km from Kerbin's center) and Ap32km(1952km form Kerbin's center), so r=1.95Mm, a=1.06Mm, GM=3.62x1013 m3/s2 using the solver again v=1.7km/s. (rotation speed is about 290m/s?) Ok, at that point I will assume that we can have an instantaneous boost of velocity that raise the orbit to 32km x 125km. (r=1.95Mm, a=2Mm, GM=3.62x1013 m3/s2) solving fo v=4.35km/s. so we would need that instantaneous boost to be 4.35-1.7=2.65km/s. At the apoapsis of that 32x125km orbit (r=2.05Mm, a=2Mm, GM=3.62x1013 m3/s2) the velocity would have dropped to 4.15km/s, which is 50m/s short of a 125x125km orbit. So you have it, 2.7km/s to raise your velocity (2.5km/s) and orbital height (200m/s). Obviously, there is no instantaneous boost of velocity by 2,7km/s, you need to break it down into smaller steps to makes the calculation more accurate. (How much would you like to make a spreadsheet?) Also notice the roundings along the way. You are already taking in account lift, weight, drag and thrust. Add to the mix the centrifugal force* =mv2/r where m=mass of the craft, v=orbital speed and r=distance from Kerbin's center. About the idea of replace one of the nukes with a chemical droppable stage: why not try a Swinvel, Relliant or some Thuds? There are two advantages, 1.more excess thrust to deal with losses 2.faster consumption of fuel, thus weight reduction, thus increase in TWR. . Off course there is issue of how the higher wet mass and drag of all those parts will affect the jet performance and the cost in comparison with the cheaper terrier or recoverable nerv (beside the point: to some extent solvable by making the chemical engine recoverable also) *for the sake of calculations, not entering the whole force vs pseudo-force vs just inertia debate.

As long is the kind of American used there on Southern Brazil, I'm all for that idea.

Real life springs obey Hook's Law: [Force]=-[constant]*[distance from rest position] If KSP springs are anything like that [spring force] is related to the [constant]

Inb4 demands for En-Sc and similar kinds of British.

A good sum up of the advantages of a bit of extra TWR at the right moment. The hard part is, with all those variable, figure out when the right moment is happening.

@RX2000 maybe you didn't get to the point where stock mechanics are easy enough or (more probable) I have a lower expectation for how easy it should/can be. In any case its more a matter of how much I'm willing to mod my game to get a more pleasing gameplay and how much of a contribution each individual mod can do. I don't find necessary to add yet another mod (that I will need to manage updates and cope with the eventual performance hit) for base building. However, I have at least one mod that give me a big advantage for base management and resource transfer in general: EVA resource Transfer (thanks @DMagic).

Backup is trivial to do, even with an 'stealth update' you can still revert to last stable version and get the game out of steam directory.

You also raised the altitude what also have its deltaV cost, meaning that your losses are lower than you expected (unless you are counting that as 'gravity losses') Off course the that losses, or either the ratio at which you accumulate it, are not constant, aero drag decrease with altitude, effective gravity decrease with horizontal velocity. So you don't need a higher TWR all the way, as Aegolius suggested with rapiers, just enough to get through the demanding phase and get enough time to your weaker engines do their thing.

IMHO actually not that much easier, the 'difficulty' of stock bases is mostly lack of experience about what works and what don't work. Experiment a bit, learn a bit and 'proper' base build become second nature like pretty much everything in (stock) KSP

I suppose you don't need oxidizer for jet mode. In any case this is a matter of Power. The vessel engines need to be able to 'pump in' more energy than what's lost to gravity and aero drag.

There are a few ways to deal with that issue. 1.Don't connect. Make each module self-sufficient (batteries, generators, antenna, etc). To transfer resources between the modules use a mod like Simple Logistics or Dmagic's EVA resource transfer. 2.Pipes and cables from KIS/KAS mod. 3.The Klaw or Advanced Grabbing Unit, which can 'dock' to anything without requiring a matching docking port. 4.Docking Ports need to be designed in such way that permit docking. More often I just let the modules separated and use EVA resource transfer. For when I want yo dock I tend to let a downward facing senior port and enough room for a rover with a matching upward facing port get under the module. Then the module retracts it's landing legs/gears to easily couple into the 'flatbad' rover.

The image (with all that info tabs) is quite telling. Weight 350kN, TWR 0.27 Quick math tell us 3 nervs are providing 95kN of thrust (so Isp it's nowhere near 800s). And we need to cope with 65kN of drag. So there's only 30kN left to accelerate the vessel. Conclusion: A single rapier would provide better TWR and consume less fuel. edit: I wondering where that 0,27 come from. Certainly an optical illusion cause by my phone tiny screen. Thanks for the correction, @Aegolius13