Chads

I was able to get it into space finally by using fairings over the draggy parts (which pretty much included the entire top stage, as well as the bulk of the science lab), and by monitoring the TWR, maintaining it around 1.5 until I got pretty close to the edge of the atmosphere. Thanks to all for the assist!

Thanks, I'd been reducing weight at the front...doh!

Thanks for the info. A lot of things to take away from all the suggestions! I do have 4 Deluxe Winglets on the tail of the central rocket. To the best of my recollection, it looks something like this: Hex probe (I was trying to launch it unmanned, and I'd bring crew up later) Cupola (I'd swapped this out with an adapter to make it less blunt, to no avail) Science Lab - 4 Clampotron Sr. ports radially attached Hitchhiker's Room Clampotron Sr. Fairing (to close the space around the Clampotron) 8 support bars for stability Decoupler Medium Fuel Tank (the Mainsail size ones from here on down) Poodle Engine Decoupler Big Orange fuel tank Mainsail The boosters are the cone fuel tank, a medium sized one, and an engine on the bottom. 4 of them total, radially in pairs. First pair drops when fuel is spent, then second pair. However, I never get to the point where the fuel is spent to drop the first pair. This is happening just at the end of the first portion of the atmosphere, just as I'm starting to see the visual effects of resistance. It makes sense this is entirely a drag issue. I was NOT draining tanks from bottom to top--I thought you go the other direction. This would only really affect the boosters. I'll switch that around. I'll turn on the aero readings, and pay attention to that. I didn't even think of that as something to look at. I'm thinking, maybe I need to go with a slower launch until I get to the mid-atmosphere. I am considerably off from Prograde on this launch, so that's certainly something else to watch. Thanks very much for the info!

Hello, I'm trying to start launching larger payloads, and one of my missions is to build a fairly large station around the Mun. I thought I'd lift the Cupola, Science Lab, Hitchhiker's Cabin, and the 1.25m RCS fuel in my first launch. I have a few docs on the science station, some extendable solar panels, a few batteries--typical stuff. The rocket is fairly tall, but not monstrous. I think I have it set up as 2 stages plus "boosters" (asparagus style liquid--4 of them, all attached to the main fuel tank). The main engine is the Mainsail, and the "boosters" are each pulling a Skipper. Just before the first pair of boosters is ready to be dropped, the rocket snaps back from a 10-25 degree bank to the east, and flips over to the west. I thought perhaps there was something causing asymmetrical drag, so I flipped it around (so the drag would be on the opposite side from where it started), and I'm getting exactly the same result. Any thoughts on what might be causing this? I've tried stripping it down (got rid of docks), lowering/raising the boosters, removed a stage to shorten the rocket, etc. No idea what's causing this.

Cool. I think I probably spend way too little time on Kerbin. I tend to like to launch and go. But, it makes sense that testing things out, in a properly simulated environment, would be a good idea. I tend to follow the flow of the original space programs, and should really reconsider that.

That's pretty amazing! I'm not sure I get how the crane works (how the rotating part fits into the seat of the base), but certainly something to strive for!

Hello! I'm back to KSP after a few months' hiatus. Unfortunately, due to a stupid decision, I lost my progress in career mode, and I've since started over. However, that gives me the chance to do things better, I figure! When I left, I was starting to get to the "build a base" type missions. I have been wondering, how do most people get bases connected, if they aren't landing them in one piece? I'd looked at putting things on wheels, but it was pointed out, that's not ideal, as the various gravities affect the struts differently, so what works on kerbin may not on the Mun, etc. Any pointers greatly appreciated! I'm mostly vanilla right now (KER, and a few other basics, but I don't have KAS/KIS, etc. re-added yet).

I am trying to build a rover similar to yours, but I can't get the wheels to work properly. I get them so they either both turn in or out. I can't get them to synchronize left to right. I typically disable the rear wheels for steering, but they are doing the same thing. I added them individually. Not really sure what the problem is. Full disclosure, I don't have Advanced Motors unlocked yet, so I don't have the largest wheels. Nonetheless... Thanks for the tips about the Klaw. That's a huge help.

I appreciate the responses. Follow up question-many of the responses talked about a 'fuel truck' type device. But, they also talk about some of the intrinsic problems, like the effect of gravity on the various parts, such that your ports may not line up. Wouldn't a fuel rover suffer the same problem? Or, is there something I'm not thinking of here? Thank you!

What is generally the proper way to fulfill a "Base Station" contract on Minmus, the Mun, etc? De-orbiting a space station, I suppose, could be one way, but that doesn't seem like the best of ideas. Do people generally land stations in parts, and then dock them together? Thanks!

OK, need something clarified. I'm reading through Snark's full post, and he mentions starting on the night side of Kerbin to go to Duna. I thought it was the other way around--start on dark side to go in, start on light side to go out. I'm assuming I have it backwards? (I thought I picked that up from Scott Manley videos....) My bad. Just looked. I messed up with Mr. Manley said. Might explain why my dV requirement was so high getting to Eve....

Quite Useful indeed! Many thanks! Totally agree that it's dV inefficient. I was about 4 days ahead of the ideal transfer when I did this. More than anything, I wanted to see if I could even get intercepts (since I hadn't tried before). Looking forward to visiting more places! Duna was my first choice, but it is now about 60 degrees behind me in orbit. It'll be a while before an efficient transfer to Duna comes back around. Like, 2 years.

Hi there, Round two of my questions regarding reaching the other planets. I pulled down Astrogator, which shows me the optimal burn times, and necessary Delta-V based on those. (If you don't know about Astrogator, it'll create your nodes, too. Not bad!) But, I'd like to know how to "eye-ball" these, as well, so that I'm not always dependent on mods, etc. for everything. I'm assuming that some common sense comes into play, and some trial and error. I've started the latter (I'm not sure how much of the former I have...). I was able to successfully get to Eve, but burned up in its atmosphere when I misread the nav charts for how high it's atmosphere is. Doh! The process I used was : execute a burn on the dark side of Kerbin, to get a Kerbin Escape moving toward the center of the solar system. Once out of Kerbin's SoI, I started to play with a node to get an intercept with Eve. Once I got a reasonable one (500,000KM--I thought it was reasonable), I executed the maneuver. About 1/3 of the way to the intercept, I played with another maneuver node, and got an Encounter. Performed that maneuver, and smiled until I started hearing explosions.... The ship I built to get there started with 10k Delta-V (non-atmosphere value, and when my ship hit the atmosphere, I still had close to 3000 d-V left. So, I see that it was overkill, but in the future, that may give me some idea of what it'll take to get back. So, the question is, barring the use of Mods to do the calculations/flying for me, is the process I used roughly correct for inter-planetary exploration? (Minus the explosions part...) Thanks!

I appreciate the feedback. My Duna window is coming up in about 70 days, so I'll probably give that a try with a probe first. I think I have a contract to put a satellite in orbit around Duna, too, so I'll give that a try. I appreciate the pictures. It helps confirm that I've got the right idea on some of these. Reactordrone, what's the engine on this guy? I can't quite tell. Looks like you put the whole thing in a fairing? I've just started playing with those in earnest.

Hello! I've gotten to where I can get to Minmus and the Mun easily, and have labs around both. I even got my rover to the Mun finally (now I understand why my previous rover questions were met with a collective, 'meh' from the group. ) I haven't done much with space planes yet, and I'm thinking my next step is to start visiting the other planets. I need roughly 10000 science points to finish unlocking the whole tree. I do have many biomes to exploit yet on both the Mun and Minmus, but I've gotten the low-hanging fruit. So, for my first probes to other planets, I'm trying to decide if less is more, or if I need to power of the really big guns that are out there. I've only got about 1 million in cash (I forget what it's called), and still have some key upgrades to make (Kerbonaut center needs one more upgrade, as does Admin and the plane hangar). I've been concerned about running out of funding. Perhaps I shouldn't sweat it.

OK, good. I think I'm getting it, then. Many thanks!

So, it looks like those numbers are bi-directional, then? I assumed those numbers were from the perspective of "Kerbin-to-..." So, 3400 to escape Kerbin, 860 for transfer to Mun, 300 to circularize orbit, and 580 to get to surface. I looked at Astrogator--I'll give it a try. I believe it took me 280 to get into Kerbin Orbit from the Mun, but then another 290 to get the Periapsis into the atmosphere (at 20km). Now, I was not waiting around to optimize that--it's quite possible I could have done it all in one burn, if I'd worked on it more.

I'll check those out! Thanks!

Hi there, I really like the subway-style Delta-V map on the wiki page for Kerbin (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:KerbinDeltaVMap.png). I'm curious, is there anything out there that talks about required Delta-V for returning to Kerbin? I was able to safely return to Kerbin from Low Munar Orbit on 575m/s of Delta-V. Along with the 810m/s escape velocity of the Mun, that'd be nearly 1400 Delta-V necessary from the surface of the Mun, correct? Any pointers, tricks, lists, etc. to go on here? Or, do I just need to experiment? (Which I'm happy to do. )

I have a contract to put a satellite into orbit at a 180 degree inclination. What's the right way to do that? Should I just launch to the west?

Hello! Question on using the prograde/retrograde markers while in Target mode on the nav ball. If I get my velocity to 0.0m/s, am I effectively in the same orbit as the target? Or, over time, will the velocity match begin to degrade? I'm not exactly sure what I was seeing last night, with respect to velocities and distances, and so I'm trying to get in my head how that would work. What I noticed is that, despite holding a 5m/s relative speed, I would move toward, then away from, the target (distance would decrease, then increase). I can visualize that--I'm moving through the plane of it's movement, and at some point, I'm moving further away as opposed to closer. However, I couldn't find the right spot to keep it steady. But...if I zeroed out relative velocity, it seemed that I'd sit at the same distance for extended periods of time (I did not play with it with time warp, though--I was low on fuel, and didn't want to completely screw my mission up). Thanks!

Thanks to all for sharing ideas/concepts/pointers/tips! I marked Velocity's post as "best answer" because, well, I'm new here--I assume something needs to be marked, and I liked all the pics. I've contracted both of my kids to try to come up with a neat rover design. I bought a copy of KSP for my son (a college student), but my daughter only gets to get her hands on it when I'm not playing. So, sort of a separate question, but...why can't I find this when I click "Addons and Mods" from the game menu?

For when one flips over and becomes useless, right?

Again, thanks! Appreciate the ideas. Still haven't grabbed KAS...I might do that tonight just to have it. I kind of like the idea of giving my astronauts something to do when they're on the surface. So, I've heard about the "sky crane" idea in other posts (and I'm aware of its use on Mars with Curiosity). Not sure what parts that would entail. I haven't looked at the "stock parts" (or whatever they're called) at this point. I'll try to track those down.

Thanks Streetwind! I was trying to figure out a way to put a fairing on it, but I couldn't get it to work. I'm assuming it's a problem with drag, and perhaps the fact that the wheels turn (changing the air flow, like ailerons on a plane) while in flight. It is kind of big, and maybe that's the problem. I have a Science Jr. on the back, the RoverMate in front of that, 2 panels to make the frame. It is connected with a Clamp-o-tron Jr. Getting it connected was a challenge, and I can't entirely recall what the configuration looked like. I'll look into getting a screenshot. I'll look at including reaction wheels. I may have one on it, but perhaps a second would be helpful.