SiliconPyro

One trick that might make the process a little quicker for you is a mid-point adjustment. When you are equal distances from your AP and PE, a radial burn can adjust both at once. If you're heading toward your AP, point your craft toward the planet at -90 and burn or use RCS. Your AP will decrease and your PE will increase. I used to be pretty OCD about my orbits, but now if they're within .005km, I'm good.

Yeah, that's going into my "KSP Math" spreadsheet, which I need to start organizing better. Or maybe I should just turn it into a Python script with a Tkinter GUI. That sounds like a fun project.

I would really love to see the math to calculate that.

For many it might be their first Mun landing. For others possibly reaching orbit before a map view. The moment I felt most excited about what I had just done was when I rendezvoused two spacecraft in version 17.1, just a few days before we got maneuver nodes and docking. It took a lot of work and even more patience, but when those two rockets gently bumped nose to nose over Kerbin I was totally elated. Better than I felt landing in IVA, better than landing on Dres with almost exactly the fuel I'd calculated I would need. It may not be much to anyone else, but that was my highest point in KSP. What's yours?

Oh, yeah. That's standard operating procedure. I try to adjust my encounter as early as I can to be as low as is safe.

Winner is the least game time and I forgot to mention, this is 100% stock. Are you sure? According to the wiki, Tylo and Laythe have the same gravity and Vall has much lower gravity, similar to Moho. Is the wiki that far off, because if it is, I have to go back to the drawing board!

That's on our list of things to do, but for the sake of actually possibly completing this before another update comes, we decided to give Eve a pass. I AM looking forward to our differing approaches to the Eve return though. After completing this challenge, I think we will have learned enough to make Eve a bit easier.

My buddy and I are both racing to finish a KSP grand tour. The idea is that since flags came out, we're going to send the same Kerbal to every planet except Eve and Jool to plant one. Eve and Jool get satellites placed by that same Kerbal. It's not a public challenge, just a little sport between friends to see how our designs differ. The rules are, if you lose your Kerbal, you have to plant a flag in memorial, return to Kerbin, then continue the tour with a second Kerbal. If you get stranded, you just have to send help. Right off the bat I realized I am the Bill to his Jeb. While I'm using as much math as I understand to plan my builds, he's strapping on MOAR BOOSTERS to get out there. Unfortunately I didn't do much math on my Minmus and Mun lander. It's currently stranded in Mun orbit. I'm sending a beefier version though that (with a few modular assists like parachutes for Laythe) should be capable of landing on and returning to orbit from every body in the system except Eve, Jool (of course) and Kerbin. Here's where I'm logging my progress: http://imgur.com/a/q4YZc His album: http://imgur.com/a/xZciQ For you who have completed or attempted a grand tour like this, what advice would you give? I must admit, this will be my first time visiting many of the planets. Despite playing for over a year, I've never been to Moho, Eeloo or any of Jool's moons. I'm most anxious about the DeltaV to reach Moho and the ascent from Laythe.

Looks a lot like my first landing. After that it became routine. Landing something that could safely return however....

Somehow, Jeb always comes out on top.

I voted for Launchpad McQua....I mean Jeb. I like his "crash by the seat of your pants" approach to life.

Yeah, I couldn't get it to work. Breaking up groups works fine though, so that's awesome.

I launched an unmanned craft with the original intent of placing it in Kerbin orbit for some orbital maneuver practice. When I had reached orbit I found that I had plenty of fuel for some adventuring, so I started looking at destinations and Eve was looking pretty tempting since Duna was at a bad angle. Long story short, I managed an encounter with Eve, but failed to consider Eve's atmosphere. Grazed it just enough to do some aerobraking, lol. Now I'm in a stable but eccentric orbit. Here's the first pass.

Oh, don't get me started on the fuel lines! I hate that you can't attach them two at a time, that the symmetry tool automatically switches to whatever the item your attaching them uses.

Hey, there's an idea. PERFECTION!

I was thinking six radially mounted stacks dropping in pairs and if you place them manually, they will be slightly higher or lower than each other. Place SRBs outside of those and the problem gets exponentially worse. To be honest though, even if their being slightly uneven didn't affect controllability, I still would have made this thread just because it drives me nuts knowing they're just a little bit off.

That's so obvious I can't believe I didn't at least try it. Thank you, sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

If I place parts, say decouplers, radially with symmetry turned on, they become a group in the staging. How do you un-group them so they can be part of separate stages? I'm asking because I like to stage a pair at a time with fuel flowing from the first stage, through the next, then to the central engine for efficiency, which is apparently called asparagus staging. Anyway, do you just have to place it all manually, because I suck at that.

This is an extremely efficient way of staging and can get pretty complicated when you have many layers, hence the point of this thread. That's a great shot. I had no idea my recent staging experiments had resulted in asparagus staging.

For SCIENCE! I'm looking forward to seeing other entries. I love efficiency challenges.

All so epic. I was thinking of using the same recovery method, but I've yet to accomplish an orbital rendezvous, so first things first.

Well played, sir. Well played.

My first few missions were utter disasters. I feel your pain. Now though, a Mun landing is almost routine. For me the biggest challenge is getting into Kerbin orbit efficiently, but then I'm talking about some big landers. What are your difficulties exactly?

Some sort of downward facing camera with a monitor inside the capsule would be great for this, or a monitor showing a line drawing or greyscale from the radar.

at a nice 9m/s or so. The lander comes down with full tanks in reserve for the ascent and orbit to meet a Kerbin-return ship.Care to share more about that mission and your craft design?