Palaceviking

Quite a fat rocket with a far back centre of mass, it's aerodynamics and balancing will be a bit much for mechjeb, I would try to get more stuff for in-line, I know asparagus will save you a little Dv but instability is one reason it's not used irl.

Dres perchance?

Did you say mass and drag? How about adding a couple ant/spider engines to the tank and letting it circularize itself? Smaller masses are easier to move.

Laythe, done Jool at a 196/7 km pe , didn't brake as much as wanted, going to adjust for Laythe approach. https://imgur.com/a/xuJdd https://imgur.com/hc9aRrk(Encounters) https://imgur.com/Xl0OcgS The ship(changed sinced the first iteration)

Hey guys, looking for advice. I have a 197 ton vessel coming from a Jool aerobrake(not orbit) into a Laythe aerobrake and I need an aerocapture. It has the stock 10m inflatable at the front,fins at the back(attached to an Orion drive that wasn't originally invited to the party, but hey) and my COM is just slightly back from centre, I have about 4 large sas wheels in the mix but only 63 units of mono. Due to the absurd amount of time it takes to turn this thing around I really need to aerocapture on first pass. Any recommendations on altitude? https://imgur.com/KJqpsGW Also if anyone knows the formulae for this kinda thing

Let us know what happens, curious..

Yesterday my rocket didnt go to space, why?

Always.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4c5ubh0mub7aku7/quicksave.sfs?dl=0 I think it's only happened in 1.3.1 not 1.3.0 Maybe something to do with potatoroid radius methinks?

@bewing which files do you need? Just quicksave.sfs? the vessel in question is called New grappler. Possible mod conflict when you load it for KER or scansat, no other part mods I think https://imgur.com/a/IFMIo

The shuttle always took off ugly, that's the nature of it

Are you running any mods?

No, sorry but making orbit negates the benefits of gravity assists, you need to go zooming past these bodies in a situation where they speed you up, not slow you down. I see where you're coming from with the oberth though.

I'll put my save up later when at my pc,

With fuel priority settings and crossfeed ability on decouplers fuel lines are virtually redundant now.

Calibrate in Windows first, had the same problem with mine. I'm guessing it's an ageing stick that is making contact on one axis which registers first when setting up the controls. Unity seems to be very sensitive.

That sounds like autostruts, could you edit them out of the save?

@Geschosskopf and @Spricigo you two need your own thread/radio/TV show or something!

A bug @bewing I've recently encountered many times is that when you reload a klawed asteroid your ship will be partly inside it and will explode when you release. Workaround is, open quicksave.sfs,ctrl f to search the name of your ship, scroll down to find PART:potatoroid and next to pos(position) there will be three values, increase the middle one by twenty ish. And reload your quicksave.

As you're on console, I'd keep the construction simple, make your launcher a real beefcake (mammoth) that will throw you up fast enough for you to circularise on nukes which will also be your transfer stage(with a return pod and lots of fuel here), then make a light powerful lander attached to your transfer stage with a decoupler. Park the transfer vehicle in low tylo orbit, land, do flags etc the return to orbit Eva over to the transfer vehicle, set a 40k(ish) kerbin periapsis and decouple the pod when you're sure you're captured/will be captured at kerbin. Ballpark guess at fuel etc 1st stage - mammoth +4 large tanks +adapter 2nd stage - 4 nukes radially around a large mk3 liquid fuel tank /mk3 adapter +return pod Descent stage - lander can +4 flt800+4 terrier Anyway, something like that, takes ages typing on a phone

Second stage centre of drag syndrome.

Got a pic? This has happened to a few people, as good as the new aerodynamics are I'm not sure the design will work in ksp, there are also some very subtle yet effective design choices on the atlas that make it so strangely stable. Have your engines got decent gimbal? Are you keeping your turn smooth using fine controls? Are you keeping the speed up enough /too much? Is your centre of mass moving undesirably due to fuel use?

ENOUGH! Sorry about that,. Right, what you have to visualise with vtols is your focus of thrust(someone please make a mod for this!) which is where straight lines through your various thrust vectors would meet(we'll worry about torque balancing in a moment). Now, the relationship between your focus of thrust and centre of mass is almost identical to the relationship between your col and com when building ordinary planes, so closer together =more nimble, further apart =more stable. Stability can easily be applied by thrust limiting/mixing engines and placing your focus of thrust directly on or slightly above your col. This approach will allow you to tilt engines willy nilly and make stuff that looks quite cool. Btw, if you want your craft to tilt slightly forward as it speeds into take off then focus the thrust very slightly behind your com and directly into your col.

It was always going to be a rescue mission anyway, but you still don't need a lander, just a truly crazy rendezvous manoeuvre!

A gravity assist from Jool solves nearly all eeloo based problems (except for questioning why you bothered).