zeanomourph

Wow! That is seriously cheap! Like cheaper than the rocket I use just to get to LKO cheap! Very impressive.. I'm gonna have to start using more SRB's I think, I just have so much trouble controlling them with no thrust control and no vectoring... time to brush up on my piloting skills

Well the title basically sums up my question, I was sure this had probably been asked before but did a quick search and it didn't turn up anything, so: What is the cheapest rocket that you have built, capable of taking (at least) one crew to the Mun and returning safely? Asking purely for interest's sake, I just built one for 25,190 Funds but I'm sure it could be done much, much cheaper than that, I literally just threw this thing together in about 5 mins to bust a few contracts in a new career (Flyby Mun, Orbit Mun, Plant flag on Mun and Recover science from Mun surface all in one go!), kinda wasn't expecting it to work half as well as it did and have to refine it a bunch (I don't use mods and suck at math so do all my designs by trial and error lol I find it more fun that way) But only took 2 very minor redesigns and has now been to the Mun and brought Jeb home safe Pretty happy with it considering I'm still pretty new to the game (281 hours played is still new, right? I've only had it for about a month lol) Could have saved 900 funds on the thermometer so I will count this as total build cost 24,290 Funds because it would have made it without anyway So back to the question at hand, what is your cheapest design to land a Kerbal on the Mun and then return safe to Kerbin?

No SAS no problem, for me. It depends a lot on the rocket though, started a new career recently and been doing loads of tourist contract missions with nothing but a stayputnik for control. Just going to orbit and back with super light, super simple, super cheap rockets seems perfectly fine without it. But I wouldn't want to launch anything over say 50T without it, that gets out of hand pretty quickly. Had to do a docking manoeuvre yesterday where I'd run out of LFO and battery and only had a scientist on board, so only control I had was RCS and didn't even have SAS to keep that stable. Got it docked with only about 3.5 units of monoprop left over (most of it went on the braking move since I didn't have the main engine to slow me down).. that one was seriously difficult, but still nothing compared to trying to dock a 15-20m long solar module with my only control over it being a 'construction probe' attached to the back of it about 10m behind the CoM, so much torque every time I tried to move it even SAS couldn't keep it from spinning. Not recommended!

Hah yeah, TBH I really didn't need any of the fuel in orbit as of launch, I'm just kinda prepping the station for use as a kind of orbital gas station for future missions that I haven't even planned yet, so I can launch bigger landing vehicles with lighter/no fuel payloads and just fill them up once in orbit. I've already got fuel delivery systems designed to refill as it's needed (similar to the 2 pods connected at the bottom of the research module, but a bit bigger because those are LF only to run the NERV). Launching them to refill it once in orbit was the original idea when I half emptied the tanks to lower weight on this launch, but Hebaru's launch vehicle got it up there fully loaded so that saves me an extra launch or two It's probably still not as efficient as just getting my launch windows right and sending the missions straight where they're meant to go, but that's difficult with no mods and hey I'm having fun so that's what matters Thanks for the idea though I hadn't even thought of the twinboar. There's a lot I didn't think of lol as I mentioned it was my first time launching something this heavy (even half empty it was still roughly twice the weight of my previous heaviest payload), and most of the rockets I was trying were either too small, or got frustrated at the "small" ones not working and just skipped over reasonable size straight to absurdly big. I think my major problem was that I was thinking along completely the wrong lines, that my failures were more due to the shape and weight of the payload than my actual rocket designs, because I can get most of my lighter and more aerodynamic payloads into orbit first go almost every time now. Definitely learned a lot from this experience, and from you guys.

I'm super creative with my naming. Currently in orbit around Kerbin, I have: 2 polar satellites orbiting the same path in opposite directions, called Polar I and Polar II Another Polar satellite orbiting roughly 90 degrees from the other two at about half their altitude, called Polar III A satellite put up for a contract from StrutCo, called StrutCo Probe A space station called Orbit Base I (Currently made of 3 main parts, named in the VAB "Research Lab I", "Solar Module" and "Refueling Station") And an empty command module from the first time I got Jeb into LKO, and promptly ran out of fuel leaving him stranded up there for weeks before I could afford a rescue mission (happened very early in career) called Jeb's Exile. I also have a processing lab on the Mun, called Mun Science Base I And my first (and only failed) unmanned Mun lander out of fuel and orbiting the sun, called Lander I See? Super creative.

Thank you to everyone for your valuable inputs, I definitely feel like I've learned a lot today. In the end I went with @HebaruSan's design just because it was already there, nice and easy.. it still got a bit wobbly on me especially with the SAS on prograde hold it would get pretty out of control, so I had to baby it all the way up there but it worked a charm, twice. (side question- does anyone else have problems with quicksaves? I got a 0.0km intercept node but then overburnt ever so slightly up to 0.7km, figured I can do better than that so I quickloaded and it bumped me back to a save from last night and I had to roll out to the pad again not the first time it's happened either). Second attempt got the transfer burn perfecto and had the actual intercept at 0.0km even after closing the node, right on the target apoapsis.. super happy with that, best I'd done before that is 0.2km after the burn. What a beautiful thing! But wow trying to dock that thing controlling it from a port on the side of the module was interesting lol, second hardest docking maneuver I've done. First was using the little construction probe you can see on the mid-right side to catch and connect the solar panel module which has no control of it's own... so unbalanced lmao. It's not much compared to some of the epic stations I've seen pics of, but I'm pretty happy with it so far, first station I've even attempted in the 4-5 weeks since I bought the game... and it all started from that tiny little science probe on top of the research bay, first thing I sent into space with a docking port on it haha. Thanks again for all the advice and information, I took the easy route on this one but I have no doubt it will help a lot for future launches.

Ohhhh lol things are pretty quiet at work today so I just googled the falcon heavy, that's very different to what I had in my head, I was picturing it using the tri-coupler to mount the three cores and like what where do you get a middle engine with that, and the tri-coupler only supports 1.25m tanks. All makes a hell of a lot more sense now. I was kind of thinking that, I tried it at some point with 4 vectors mounted on a quad-coupler and it was way overpowered and was running through fuel crazy fast too. I'll definitely keep it in mind for when my payloads start getting heavier and heavier, this is just the beginning Glad to provide the opportunity then hah I think it was a reddit page I found through google I saw someone had asked for help designing their rocket and got ripped up by people saying something along the lines of 'figure it out yourself ya lazy bum that's the whole point of the game' lol. That's an awesome design, thankyou! I did try something similar but still very different, and it was probably the closest I got all night (5x 1.25 tanks/swivels instead of 3 orange tanks with bigger engines, after decoupling the first set of boosters it looked just like a much smaller version of that.. but after decoupling the second set leaving only the middle tank with 1 swivel still only maybe 30km up I guess it was just too top-heavy and that's when that one started flipping) (edit: come to think of it I think that design MAY have been for a different module I launched before this one.. would 5 swivels even get this off the ground?). But I ended up scrapping it because everything I tried was just failing so horribly, instead of attempting to refine any of them I just completely remade the whole launcher with a totally different concept every time. Including proof of launch, and with a full fuel load and everything! Thank you for that, I will most likely just completely copy that design tonight and see if I can make it work. I realised after posting this topic, and it totally skipped my mind last night, but the whole time I was doing it with no SAS as well, there's no control module and was trying to launch it with an engineer so I don't need to send another ship up to bring back one of the few pilots I have left.. massive facepalm on that one now I think of it I'm sure at least one of my attempts would have worked if I had even basic stability control derp lol.

Ok cheers, never knew you could mount vectors off the node, that's pretty cool. For now I gotta head off to work (damn job getting in the way of my Kerbal time! lol) but I will give it a shot tonight as well as trying a slower launch as per James' suggestion, and I'll let you guys know how it goes. Thanks for the help

Ahk, I will give that a go, I'd heard not sure where that it's best to keep it under 350m/s til 10km so that's what I was mostly aiming for, but it definitely does seem less stable the faster it gets so that might be on the money. Currently at ~25.5T with all tanks only half filled, . You've kind lost me a little there, how do I get 7 vectors mounted to a tri-core, and which is the middle tank with a tricore design? You mean crossfeed from outer tanks to all three of the middle ones, or crossfeed to a rhino transfer stage above the launching stage? Or a rhino center of the launching stage with 3 more cores mounted around it being the tri-core? Sorry, I am still pretty new to the game.. I've only been playing about a month so far and not quite up to scratch on all the lingo. Not running any mods at all either, prefer to eyeball it or trial and error because I find it more fun that way, but if I can't get this one up tonight I might just cave and grab KER or find something on the spacecraft exchange as James suggested.

Hey all, I know it's kinda frowned on asking people to help design a rocket because that's half the fun of the game.. but I'm really stuck with this one. I spent about 7 hours last night trying to get it into space with probably 20+ different launch stacks and didn't even come close, not a single one got it above 10km before I totally lost control and started flipping around like crazy. Tried everything from smallish rockets with super slow acceleration to crazy overpowered beasts pushing it up at over 5G's, SRB's, asparagus, no fins, some fins, crazy amounts of fins, with and without aero nose cone fairings over the whole thing.. I just don't know what to do short of having to redesign the whole segment from scratch, which I'd really rather not do because I spent a lot of time on it and think it looks pretty cool. I need (/want) to get it up to a station I'm building in a 450km circular orbit around Kerbin, should be able to handle it once I get it to orbit but I just haven't even been able to get it close, I've got intercepting and docking pretty much down to an art by now but this is my first time trying to launch something this heavy (I've already dumped half the fuel out of every tank on it because I can refill them once I get it connected to the station). I know it can be done because I've seen videos of people launching things much bulkier and lopsided, this is all done with symmetry except for a single Jr Docking Port (0.02t IIRC) on the back of the capsule (for an escape pod). Running the game 100% stock 1.1.3 if that makes any difference. I don't need a fully designed launching stage (I wouldn't be against it if someone wants to do that for me though ) but I could really do with some advice or new ideas on what I could possibly do just to get this up there, because It's got me completely stumped.

First time I've seen a kerbolar eclipse in the game... most inconvenient timing possible, just as I was trying to charge batteries to send a bunch of science home from the processing lab Bonus pic of the processing lab because I'm pretty happy with it, it's my first base on the Mun, with prior experience being only 1 probe lander and 2 single seat landers (all 3 returned home safe, as is planned for this behemoth of a thing once all the science dries up.)

Hello all, So today I was handed my first contract to explore Minmus and having not been any further than the Mun thus far, I jumped at the chance. I put together a little probe with little more than two thermometers for orbit and surface readings and a Dawn engine, the first time I have used one, and may have underestimated how much electrickery it would need to keep running. I knew I should have put some solar panels on it, but space was limited and I wanted to try out the new fuel cell that R&D had recently cooked up. Last time I trust those guys! The launch went off without a hitch, as did the long flight over to Kerbin's furthest moon. After taking an orbital temperature reading, I even stuck the landing on my second attempt, not bad for an amateur with only 4 Mun landings under the belt. I took my surface temperature reading and after only being planted on this new moon for a mere few moments, it was time to blast off and head home, though I'm not sure if you can call the Dawn's liftoff much of a "blast", more a zephyr. It took every bit of thrust that little engine had, but eventually we escaped the Minmus gravity well, and we were on our way home! This is where the problems started. I noticed a little later than I should have that the miniaturized LFO tank my fuel cells were running off was very quickly drying up. So, knowing that I would not have enough fuel to perform a normal deorbit procedure, I did what any sane Kerbal would do and put myself onto a trajectory that would just barely skim the top of Kerbin's atmosphere, to begin an extremely drawn out degrading orbit from a ~4,000,000 km Apoap down to a 68,000 km Periap With roughly 0.1% of the fuel load remaining in my LFO tank, I had done almost all that I could. With the last remaining dot of current from my probes battery, I deployed my landing struts and armed the chute, crossed my fingers and bit my nails. I no longer had any control and the rest would be up to fate. With each orbit bringing me a fraction closer to home, after streaking across the skies of Kerbin almost 15 times over the course of 2 days, my little probe warming up more and more with each slightly lowered pass, my Apoap finally found it's way below Kerbin's atmosphere and begun the final, nail-biting, totally uncontrolled descent. I was very nervous having had no choice but to arm my chute days earlier, far above the reaches of the atmosphere. And with a contract worth over 400,000 Funds riding on this probe and it's two thermometers arriving home safe and intact, stakes had never been higher. It turns out maybe those R&D guys aren't so bad after all, because the chute they had provided worked exactly as described, waiting until the last possible moment and giving just enough time to slow down enough that it wouldn't rip itself to shreds. And so ended the saga of a re-entry from orbit with no control over the probe other than what had been planned 2 days prior on the last remaining spark of the probe's battery. On closer inspection by the recovery vehicle, it was found that the landing struts had melted off during the final re-entry, but no other damage was found. The thermometers were recovered and the KSP boffins were paid their due and promptly spent it on a new Mission Control building and a rather large party. TL;DR: I'm hella proud that this actually worked and the thing didn't just burn to a pile of ash. I was really expecting it to just burn to a pile of ash every single one of the fifteen 3km/s passes through the Kerbin atmosphere Thanks for reading, hope it was half as fun to read as it was to watch helplessly while it all happened

Thanks for the warm welcome everybody @Xyphos Hah yep I noticed the option for that when I started the game, but that first career where I lost him was on hard mode, I think that stops them from respawning. Glad I switched to an easier career at least while I'm learning the game or I probably would have thrown my PC out a window by now Revert To Launch is da real MVP hahah @colfighter Damn! Out of the hundreds of screenshots I've taken, I somehow didn't think to take a pic of that one! No worries, I thought to myself- I have a named save from when I was there I'll just load that up and take the pic... no such luck, for some reason it won't load, just sits on the loading screen forever This one will have to do, took a while to get the rocket right, so Jeb only finally made it up there tonight.. and this is probably the most generic screenshot that's been taken by everyone who's ever landed on the Mun... but here you go Glad to say he made it home safe as well, with about 1500 science stashed in his back pocket.

Well I kinda just wanted to introduce myself and say hi everyone, new member to the forums. Bought KSP just over 2 weeks ago now and totally obsessed, 161 hours played already up there with some of my favorites that I've been playing for years. On my second career mode, first one jumped straight in the deep end on hard mode as I tend to do, but then killed Jeb and couldn't live with that so started fresh with a custom difficulty career basically normal mode but -20% funds and +20% science. So one of the first things I did in the new career was take Jeb into orbit and run out of fuel.. nice one lol. Learned quicksmart from that how to intercept (had to do it three times in a row cos the first two that other starter pilot V-something took the only seat in the pod I sent up to save him and I didn't notice till he was hanging onto the side and couldn't board) and from there basically everything in LKO seemed pretty easy and I've been doing loads of contracts saving stranded Kerbals and putting up satellites to make bank... Finally got to a million funds about 3 days ago and decided to do something for myself because a contract for it hadn't come up yet... A land and return mission to the Mun! And I just finally did it.. 3 damn days! I can't believe how difficult that was compared to everything else I've done so far! A bit less than ideal lmao, landed on my side on the stage before the actual lander, didn't wanna ditch the 1/4 tank of fuel it still had incase I needed it to get back (winging it with no mods and no idea how to work out dV). Getting that thing back of the ground was a mission in itself! Ended up using RCS and a tiny bit of fuel to taxi it to the top of a hill, levered myself up sideways on the landing struts and blastoff! I can't even believe that worked. And I made it back with just enough fuel to retro burn into the atmosphere just enough to slow down and bring the whole lander stage back 100% intact. I am so happy and just had to share But that was just an OKTO probe to see if I could do it lol. Tomorrow it's Jeb's turn, time to go put up a flag! Woohoo I love this game!