VoidSquid

Did you check this?

What does the engineering report (that little yellow-white wrench icon bottom right) say?

No, everyone else but me is doing it wrong, my way is the only correct way! Now, wouldn't that be boring? Hell, yes! For me, and this is one of the best aspects of KSP, everyone finds her/his own style, there is no "wrong" or "right", in the end, the result is what counts, and even more important, that we all enjoy our time while toying around with KSP So, as a final "advice", I strongly suggest you find the right way for your play style, Hyperlynx, no need to copycat what other people do, take the posts here as suggestions, nothing more, nothing less.

Yepp The reason for my approach: when I started going to orbit and further, I totally had almost zero know-how and experience how to properly build a rocket at all. And I thought to myself, those guys developing MJ, they know what they do, have the experience, and are way more into the game mechanics and required math than I am. So: I'll follow their approach. And so far, no regrets Like yours, almost all my rockets today follow the same basic design: initial stage (mostly just SRBs, with exception of the really heavy rockets) to 12k altitude, start TWR 1.3-1.4. Next stage close to circularization, the burned out stage does not reach orbit but falls down and self destroys. Final circularization does not take much dV and is done by the third stage with a vacuum engine. As I said, why invent the wheel again...

Hey @Zhetaan, I did read some time ago about that mod. No doubt, its iterative approach will, in the end, lead to better optimized trajectories than MJ's approach. The question (at least for me) though is, what solution is more practical for my play style. A huge factor here is time, time required for multiple launches and time for reverting (the latter, like all scene changes takes a lot of time for my current game, game year 29, with hundreds of deployed vessels). My question for me then: what do I gain (optimized trajectory) at what costs - is it worth it or not? For this reason, I prefer the MJ's solution, make the rocket follow a predetermined path. With this approach, I've learned to build my rockets in a way that they automatically and naturally follow MJ's ascend path, there is - save for the initial pitching - almost never any correctional steering during ascend required.Nowadays I don't even have to think much about it anymore, it's just became the natural way I build the ascend stages.

No need to reinvent the wheel again, why not check out MechJeb's ascend trajectories? They already did put a lot of work into it, I'm pretty sure their ascend trajectories are much optimized.

In your save game files you'll fine a line "ScienceGainMultiplier =", maybe try modifying that? As always, have a backup copy, better safe than sorry

Never used KOS myself, just doing some scripting as part of my job, but would'd be a kind of feedback-and-correction loop every few seconds be a good idea? Right now you're only giving a steering command once, for me, I'd expect that this particular value only works for this particular rocket. You probably have a particular ascend trajectory in mind, which gives you several data points on the graph with altitude, speed, pitch. In such a feedback loop, you could check the current altitude and then compare it with the respective data tupel and if required make steering corrections.

Reviewing this article again for the fourth time now, I still don't get it: what's the use for the Skiff? Compared to the Bobcat, it's only two small advantages are its slightly smaller weight, and the slightly better vacuum ISP, in all other aspects the Bobcat is better. And that slightly better vacuum ISP, not relevant for an ASL engine at all. Why pay more for an inferior engine? So what do I miss here???

For a direct return from low Duna orbit into the atmosphere of Kerbin (aerobreaking and direct landing) you'll need about 650 m/s, so no, you're pretty much stuck now, unfortunately. Like James said, you'll need to make a rescue mission, either with a vessel (probably manned as I assume you don't have a comm network in place yet, and don't have access to the advanced antennas), or send a refuler, provided your current vessel has docking capabilities (depending on your difficulty settings, the claw might or might not allow fuel transfer). In the future, you can unlock some advanced tech which will give you the ability to harvest ore and convert it into fuel. For further planning your missions, I strongly suggest this little sheet, it gives you the required dV values plus some more information in a very clearly arranged way:

I don't know if this is true for consoles as well, but I do remember the docking tutorial for PC stated that you should use the "Chase View". Years ago, Squad changed the view modes, but obviously didn't update the tutorials (or maybe they did in the meantime?), what used to be Chase View is now Locked View. In that particular view mode, your camera is oriented in a way that the RCS thrusters automatically point in the directions of your respective control keys, i.e. right is right, left is left, etc. Makes docking waaay easier, if you don't have much experience and don't/can't use mods.

If you're playing on PC, you can use this mod to dump excessive fuel.

Those tiny quality-of-life mods, quite underappreciated. Thanks for this, Snark!

Great, thanks!

I'm about to start a new career, anyone knows if the Rover Contract Pack works with 1.7.3?

@Geschosskopf Anyway, we're getting more and ore off topic here. I hope your question has been answered, @LaurieCR7? If not, or if you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask, the folks here are happy to help

Will try this out, thanks a lot, @4x4cheesecake, much appreciated

Sigh... landingLegT*.cfg also contains MODULE { name = ModuleWheelBase Blarg Any suggestions for a better filter, covering only vessels having wheels?

... enter OCD me here: I simply CAN'T do that Contract is contract, that's what I'm paid for, nothing more, nothing less. Idiotic me needs to setup the relay network by my own, i.e. w/o any "official" contract, but my own self-imposed contract. Self imposed rules. Yeah, pretty silly, I know

Ohkay... didn't know, that was helpful, thanks!

Another noob question (never done any modding myself), if I may: Using MechJebForAll as a template, will the following lines work and give all vessels having wheels (which, for my game, are just rovers) the BV controller? @PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleWheelBase]]:NEEDS[BonVoyage]:Final { MODULE { name = BonVoyageModule } }

...which is "off", iirc, thanks

Sorry to bother, but even after reading the wiki and this whole thread, I couldn't find what what I'm looking for: what is the general recommendation about the "Disable rotation" setting, on or off?

Omg, how embarrassing ... the purple button is from "ScienceAlert ReAlerted" 1.9.6.2, not from "[x] Science Continued". I did change the toolbar buttons but forgot about it. I beg your pardon, very sorry...

With all due respect, but I disagree here: my earliest relay sat constellation was set in in-game year 2 around Kerbin, followed immediately by Mun. Game time now is 28 years, and the Kerbin relay constellation is still perfect, the Mun constellation needed some slight adjustments only because I did not meticulously set the orbital periods to the tenth of a second. Imo, it is imperative to be very precise with the orbital periods, it pays of on the long run.