FloppyRocket

Maybe provide a RMB command to force the state to the correct value.

Is it Q and B, or Q and E?

Progress (or lack thereof) update: I'm in "All about Eve" mode. Never been there before, so I've got a lot to learn. I'm currently experimenting with lander designs in a Sandbox game. Right now I have a tall/skinny lander doing very gentle aerobraking passes, losing about 2 m/s per orbit. It is a very slow process.

Alt is the "Mod" key on Windows. Your "Mod" key may be different, depending on your computer operating system.

In the Debug menu, you can enable the "Aero GUI", and you can see the drag and pressure values during launch. It's available in the stock game, you don't need any mods. "Q" refers to dynamic pressure, the Aero GUI displays it. I agree with @Jestersage, dynamic pressure is not the only thing you want to monitor to reduce heating and drag.

The details for getting an efficient launch (how much to tilt after launch at at what altitude to start the tilt) depends on each specific rocket. There is no single formula. You rather have to iterate by "revert to launch" to figure out what works for a specific rocket and payload. To make it simple and only adjust one launch parameter, you could try only varying the altitude where you start to tilt over. It might be anywhere between 50 and 1000 meters. It depends on the rocket. Once you start to tilt, always set it to 5 degrees, wait for the rocket to stabilize there, then switch to SAS Prograde. Cut off the throttle when you get the Ap you want. Set a maneuver node at the Ap to circularize. Re-start the engine at 1/2 the burn time before the Ap. A useful checkpoint is the altitude when the pitch reaches 45 degrees. Something around 5K to 10K is reasonable, depending on the rocket. If the rocket gets too high too early, revert to launch and pitch over at a lower altitude. If the rocket generates too much flaming heat and never rises to orbital altitude, pitch over at a higher altitude.

I'm saving it for a big birthday present for Jeb.

Dunpollo Mission Report: Full stack on the pad: Tech tree at launch: Duna landing site: Duna rendezvous: Ike landing (after transferring some fuel to the lander) Ike rendezvous: Mission science summary: Notes: Navigation gets easier with more practice. Landing on Duna then Ike was good practice for re-fueling the lander from the main orbiter/return stage. The last two missions may be slightly more challenging. I may need to buy a few more goodies from the Tech Tree.

The HECS and OCTO core series (and their '2' variants) provide varying amounts of battery capacity and torque - but not as much battery and torque as the pods. You can add reaction wheels and batteries if more torque or power are needed. I usually refer to the handy table in the Wiki to compare different parts. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parts#Pods I have the commnet features disabled, so don't have any opinions about that.

The different cores vary in their SAS capability level and amount of built-in battery storage and amount of torque. When you run out of battery power, the ship can't be maneuvered unless you have RCS or start up an engine that has gimbal capability. If the engine also has electricity generating capacity, that will also recharge the core battery very quickly, which then makes its SAS torque capability work again.

I didn't need anything that was in that layer of the tree.

I've been experimenting with the alex moon "Launch Window Planner" web page, along with the PreciseNode mod for getting accurate maneuvers - particularly for making fine adjustments to the time. 1) In LWP, if you pick the "ballistic" option, you get a one-burn ejection from orbit that gets you to the destination without an additional plane change burn. Your departure from one SOI and your arrival in the destination SOI will not be in either equatorial plane. LWP gives you several critical pieces of information. - The Year and Day and Hour of the optimum departure. Ignore the minutes and seconds. - The ejection angle and either "to prograde" or "to retrograde". - The burn velocity, use the "info" button to get the Prograde and Normal components - How much total delta-v you'll need for the ejection burn and for the encounter burn to get into a circular orbit when you arrive. You can use these delta-v values for planning your rocket design. 2) To set up the ejection burn, you warp ahead in KSP to the correct Year, Day and Hour. Ignore the predicted minutes and seconds, those are just guesses by LWP because it doesn't really know what your origin orbit is exactly - just its altitude. 3) Add a maneuver node, and key in the two components (Prograde and Normal) of the burn velocity using PreciseNode. 4) Now you use the PreciseNode time adjustments, watching the Ejection Angle until it matches the value from LWP. Note that LWP says "from prograde" and "from retrograde" instead of "to...". Ignore the difference in terminology. You may need to adjust the time by up to a full orbit. At this point, the encounter markers in the map view may or may not show that you're getting an encounter. If they don't you can typically get the markers to show an encounter if you add a second node slightly in the future. You don't need to enter anything in the node, just having a second node seems to make KSP display the encounter markers more reliably. 5) Execute the burn. 6) After the burn, add another maneuver node and use it to fine-tune the encounter distance. The farther away you are from the destination, the larger the impact of the velocity changes.

Status report: Moho mission complete. Summary of science collected: Docked after post-landing rendezvous: On the surface: Moho Stack B ready for launch: Pre-launch Tech Tree Lessons learned: 1) Sometimes you just have to trust that a planetary encounter will happen when it is expected to. 2) Sometimes point 1) is a total lie. 3) Precise Node makes it very easy to make small changes in the maneuver time. 4) Pack a parachute or two. 5) A charged battery is a useful thing

So, you're indirectly saying I should EVA and then right-click on the pod. Thanks. Speaking of flags and mishaps, funny story. I landed on Moho, planted a flag, and got back in the pod, and did a quick save. When I reload that quick save and time-warp forward, the flag explodes with enthusiasm (awesomeness = 0.5).

I don't know if it's a bug, or just what happens naturally inside the KSP software when the encounter distance falls outside some limits.

"Optimal Rocket Calculator" says 3800 tons to LKO can't be done in the stock game.

Yes.

I put Jeb on EVA, and while he was hanging onto the plummeting capsule, I right-clicked on him, and there was no "take data" option visible. I was confused. Reading @5thHorseman's reply, I guess I'm supposed to right-click on the capsule, not Jeb? Seems funny because I want Jeb to take the data. Maybe I misunderstand the syntax of "take data". I haven't used it much before. Maybe I should read it as "take the data out of the capsule"? Meanwhile, my re-run of the whole mission is in low-Moho orbit right now, waiting for me to revert from a crashed landing attempt.

"p" and right-click did not seem to work (no "deploy" button), but I didn't have a lot of time to sort out the UI issues in real time. I've decided to re-run the mission entirely, as I didn't want to lose the science points that were in the crew pod. I could not get "take data" to work from an EVA Kerbal either. But, plummeting toward ground, there wasn't a lot of time for reading the manuals.

Tried that, could not get anyone's parachute to deploy. Is there a trick?

I have discovered another flaw in my mission strategy - forgot to attach parachutes to the command capsule. Oops.

Update on Moho mission: I finally managed to figure out how to get an encounter using the alex moon Launch Window Planner and Precise Node. There is some information in the maneuver planner that is non-obvious, and some other things which should be ignored because they seem like they should be important or significant, but really aren't. A bug in Precise Node was also identified and repaired by the developer in the process. Several reverts later, Val landed, EVA'd, looked around, and got back into orbit and rendezvous. Now the trio (two pilots and a scientist) orbiting Moho and waiting for the inspiration to plan a return trajectory back to Kerbin. Partial lesson learned - forgetting to install even one solar panel really causes a lot of hassle in battery management.

Fast work, that is admirable.

Hi all, Please forgive a rookie question. I just installed Precise Node. Either I am totally confused, or I'm missing something obvious about how the UT time system works. In this image, from the upper left, you can see that the current UT is Year 19 Day 289 I just created a new maneuver node about 4 minutes in the future. In the Precise Node window, it says the node time is set to Year 18 Day 288. This confuses me. How can a node I just created have a time mark that is in the past? Thanks much,

Installed 1.2.10 via CKAN, got a warning that it isn't compatible with KSP 1.6.1. Is that expected?