Geonovast

Thanks @bewing I'm just now coming in, I'll see if she can hold a 90 deg AoA. This specific design seemed to want to naturally hold a 20-40 deg AoA on its own during re-entry testing. Not sure how holding 90 and switching to prograde will go! Here goes nothin'

I call it: "Releasing Kerbin into orbit"

I could use some advice while fine tuning my 3rd generation shuttle design. This is the first time I'm planning on taking these things out of LKO. Just to the Mun and possibly Minmus for now. I'm curious about re-entry methods. Given that the main idea is to return with little to no fuel, what's the best approach? I've gotten pretty good at building shuttles that are stable on re-entry from a 80x80 - 100x100km orbit with 30 - 40 degree AoA. Is it best to come straight in, and try to design the vehicle to withstand re-entry at much higher speeds, or should I focus on a several-pass airbrake method? Re-circularizing would take quite a bit of fuel, and just getting to the Mun with a standard return is taking enough as it is. I'm also trying to be tidy, so I don't want to leave a bunch of spent tanks in orbit. The main external fuel tank is jettisoned after launch, at around a 100x50km orbit. I have a shuttle right now on its way back from the Mun, with ~500 m/s left in the tanks, but it went there with a completely empty cargo bay. Any words of wisdom on where I should direct my efforts? Also, if a direct descent is preferable, are there any methods that would help me get as close to the KSC as possible? It's capable of atmospheric flight, so just needs to be close-ish.

Pretty sure a rocket launch would kill me. Sooooo.... no.

You don't need them perfect. Exact degrees of separation aren't vital, what's important is orbital period, which you can match up with very small engine burns on the satellites.

I downloaded that, thank you! It does have the split tail fin, although it seems to be two stock fins melded together. I was hoping for something a bit cleaner, but this should work fine. I'm not seeing any extra chutes, though. Great pack overall as well, I can definitely see myself using a lot parts from here. I'll take a look on my lunch, thank you.

@Nuke Just stick the thing in a fish tank with mineral oil.

Except I don't use either of those mods, in any of my installs, and the only mod installed on this particular install is KER.

Portal 2 is pretty light in graphics requirements. You could probably yank your GPU and use the onboard graphics with it just fine. You could also hit up local buy/sell groups for computer parts and get a decent used GPU. I've gotten some awesome deals on mine. (i3 laptop for $20 that Windows 10 was complaining about a perfectly fine battery, 2 1GB GTX-550 Tis for $25 each). I broke my headphones. I thought one of the reviews on how frail they were was BS, and they were just too rough with them. I wasn't rough... and they broke anyway. Right at the band adjuster. They still work, so tomorrow I'm going to assault it with some superglue, then design and print some braces to lock it in at my adjustment. It doesn't need to move anymore, after all. Also this insomnia is driving me nuts. I just bought two laptops on NewEgg that are probably too good to be true, but figured, why not? If it does end up to be bupkiss, NewEgg will get me my money back.

I have to deal with this All. The. Time.

As the result of a half put together challenge idea on a whim, I decided to do this. Launch 5 Kerbals to the Mun (But not back) using nothing but Twitch engines on the launcher and transfer vehicle, and nothing but sepratrons on the lander. I spent entirely too long on this, with some interesting "bugs" on the way. Monkey flips the switch. A full 2 seconds later, 192 Twitch engines roar to life. Keep in mind I do not have a potato. First stage dump, just some fuel tanks. Start gravity turn after dropping the tanks, grab an undercarriage shot. Drop boosters. There were some explosions as I wasn't using any sepratrons to push them away, but a quick inspection shows we're all good! After a gravity turn I'm rather proud of considering the low TWR, we ditch the fairing and set up for 110 m/s circularization. Circularize, then trans munar burn to a booster disposal orbit. Separate, and do some housekeeping for setting equatorial munar orbit. After ditching the transfer vehicle. We wait for a good departure time, as terrain height is fairly critical. Any less than ~3km above "Sea Level", and the lander will crash. Fire de-orbit stage. Fire first main braking stage Fire second braking stage Several (18) small shots later, she's down! With zero engines left over. Might be interesting to see if I could get it so they came back.

I've been there. I got errors when trying to quicksave or switch vessels because I was "moving over terrain"

*whimper* I have no idea what that symmetry is. It might be 192. WHAT DID I DO

OH GOD HOW DID I DO THIS. I wish I could repeat this, but I have no idea how I did it. 32 x symmetry with a single placement.

Launch, and land 4 Kerbals on the Mun using nothing but Twitch engines in the launcher / transfer vehicle, and sepratrons in the lander. *cough*

I think that would introduce a segregation that wouldn't be needed. Most issues with KSP are OS agnostic - they apply to everyone. And someone who's on Linux, posting an issue in the Linux subforum, could easily post an issue that's not OS-related. Then they may not get noticed by Windows or Mac users who may know the answer. Also Linux specific issues are generally (from what I've seen) installation or joystick related, and get answered. The Console subforum makes sense, since this game on consoles is a completely different world than on computers. I imagine this would also increase workload for the moderators in moving threads. If you have some examples of Linux-specific issues that aren't being answered, I'd like to see them! What would help most is if the topic titles started with operating system - similar to the convention in the mod release threads for KSP version.

You can change your name if that's all that's bothering you.

Well, if that's all you're doing.. ditch the command module entirely. Just use the probe core. The probe core does not need the CM present to work. Does the vehicle it's meant to dock with have RCS? While docking is possible without it, it is much, much easier. Although you will only need it on one vessel. I was going to ask about the dual docking ports. You don't need them. You just need the one attached to the fuel tank. Put the probe core on top the tank, then the docking port, then a large nosecone. You can decouple the nosecone from the docking port in orbit. You don't need a docking port on each side. This is what I would build for your goal. 6 parts total. You could knock that down to 5 if you use the Rockomax Jumbo 64 instead of the two Rockomax X-200 32s. The only downside is it's not a whole lot of fuel to orbit. So you may need to stick the boosters back on as @Tyko suggests.

I feel this is relevant. https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/

They're probably not actually connected, which is why everything's still floppy. Curious though, what's the mission? If all you're doing is needing to get the thing to orbit, that rocket is severe overkill. If you did just the nosecone, command pod, decoupler, the two fuel tanks and the twinboar, you'd get to orbit with a significant amount of fuel to spare as an SSTO. I'm assuming you don't want the CM back as there's no parachutes.

You can see in this picture that the decoupler to the right of the orange vein is significantly further away from the vein than the one on the left, so that's probably causing issues. You also have the fins on the twinboar clipped into the boosters. This won't be a problem... until you decouple them. Once they're decoupled, they become different ships, and being clipped inside will cause weird forces to act on your rocket. Same issue with the fins clipped into the launch stabilizers. You can hit the launch stabilizers once you detach on launch. And you want to strut to the parent. So the outer boosters should be strutted to the one they're coupled to, and the inners should be strutted to the rocket's core.

Pretty much everything needs struts, especially with radially mounted parts like boosters. A few other things: No nosecone on the top probably isn't hurting you too bad, but I would put one on top of the Command Module. Your radial decouplers appear crooked. Are you building with snap on? (It defaults to off, for some reason) Do you have inline decouplers under the engines? I don't see any, but it may be the angle of the picture. I'm also not sure what's going on on the bottom of the rocket. Can you upload a few more pictures at different angles?

I don't see any struts. Are you using autostruts?

One of my favorite games ever.

I've heard of places doing that with roads / fake potholes to get people to slow down. More effective than speedbumps, apparently.