TubaHorse

I've made a pretty versatile rocket that can carry seemingly any payload to Eve or all the way out to Dres! Image attached shows the "Eva Tower" probe payload which went to Gilly *Requires SpaceY and all Near Future plugins [download here] It weighs 1,144.66 metric tons and consists of: 2 S3 KS-25x4 Mammoth Boosters fueled by 3 Kerbodyne S3-14400 fuel tanks with fueled nose cones 1 SpaceY R7 "Super Rattite" main engine fueled by one SpaceY F51 5m fuel tank F9A5-3 fuel-filled adapter (5m to 3.75m) 1 Kerbodyne KR-2L+ "Rhino" transfer stage fueled by Kerbodyne's S3-14400 and S3-3600 fuel tanks. 83,903 liquid fuel 102,548 oxidiser 2,531 monopropellant 6,000 electric charge 6,469 m/s ΔV total 3,885 m/s ΔV in booster stage 2,584 m/s ΔV in transfer stage Using this rocket I was able to perform five missions last night! Getting a com sat, named "Eva" around Eve Landing Eva's sister, the Eva Tower, on Gilly Getting a com sat, Mara, around Duna Getting a com sat, Dibella, around Dres Lastly, it launched a research station in orbit between Dres and Duna to bridge the signal gap. Named it Malacath.

Thanks a ton! It was a nice feeling being able to do the thing finally. Also, I sent up a polar Kerbin scanner since my last message okay I'll stop spamming now

So, I may not be Duna-worthy, but just tonight I got a com sat around Eve and a com tower landed on Gilly with no heartbreak at all. I finally figured out how to use ΔV and what the numbers mean. The communication dishes may be overkill but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'm pretty proud!

Well I've gone and tried following the advice given. I took some weight off, changed my lander around, reduced the # of nuke engines, and made sure my window was right. I launched, got to orbit, circularised, and got on my way to Duna with an... 11 minute burn? Okay whatever I had an encounter. I then added a node in the middle of the path to Duna and found that even a single second of burning would make me miss Duna by kilometres. I'm honestly ready to just give up. I don't know what I'm doing and am missing something important I guess. Thanks for trying everyone. I really appreciate the time taken, even if it didn't work.

I thought I'd need it, but on my next mission I'll be removing it! Thank you! I didn't know that they were so heavy.

Thanks, I appreciate it! I can design things well enough, but it's a bummer they never make it anywhere lol

The video is up!

I really appreciate the responses. I actually did put together a video of a second attempt that (to no surprise) ended in failure. I, as you said, have a lot to learn and have literally no clue how to calculate and use ΔV in any way. I have Kerbal Engineer redux installed and I hope that I have the right window open for info. But I hope you can understand the frustration and disappointment I feel when I see people like Matt Lowne doing amazing things and I try to do similar things and end up never being able to get the simple stuff done. The video will be uploaded sometime in the next few hours. My upload speeds are horrid, even with ethernet. It's not sped up or edited, my apologies, but hopefully you should be able to hop though and find the information you need. Also, have a good time laughing at some of the mishaps as well.

So, I've always known that KSP isn't an easy game, and I'm not the best at it. I kinda picked it up and fiddled until I learned it. However, I feel I'm lacking something. If I ever try to go to any other body that isn't the Mun or Minmus, the mission never works out. I've watched countless videos seeing people do things that seem impossible, and yet I can't get to Duna with an overpowered rocket without cheating. Just recently I installed Space Y and some near future mods. I made a rocket to send to Duna, waited for a window, and went on my way. Things went great for the most part. Getting into orbit was easy, circularising was no problem, and the Duna encounter was a piece of cake. However, when I got there (after a 6 min. burn with 7 nuke engines), the game told me it would take a 15 minute burn to get into Duna's orbit. So, what am I doing wrong? I really want to enjoy this game and eventually land on every planet/moon, but it seems currently it's just a $30 Kerbin orbit simulator.