Baker

I guess I'm bumping up against my understanding of the game with that. I tried as you suggest. The MK1 capsule on the MK1 crew cabin is easy enough. But there are no "attach points" on the side of the crew cabin to allow anything on its side. I've tried adding cubic struts, which will attach. But the additional crew capsules won't attach to them. Exactly how do you attach two additional crew capsules to the side of the first?

OK OK this is an interesting idea. Seems you're suggesting a space taxi system. One craft to deliver a payload (detachable crew as @Zhetaan says), the tug to move it to the Mun or wherever, and a lander to bring it to the surface. Do I understand that right? But I do have a contract in stock with six tourists to the surface of the Mun. This is difficult for me. It basically means I need to land a mk2 lander and a hitchhiker storage facility. Put those two things together and the 1500 delta v required to descent and return from Munar orbit and now I have a tall, awkward craft. And it requires refueling at a mun orbit base. And that's why I'm pursuing infrastructure that allows me to refuel. Of course I could just make a bigger lander, use drop tanks, launch it from kerbal with big engines and lots of reaction wheels. But my assumption is that the infrastructure, using reusable components and vessels purpose-built for a small part of the journey, is more cost efficient. But @steuben has me wondering if that assumption is correct. Maybe I'm just doing this because I like complexity.

200 tons?! Oh boy it sounds like I've over-designed again. My heaviest mothership part is a full S3-14400 fuel tank, with some light stuff attached to it. It weighs only 80 tons. Sounds like I need to scale back the engines. Yeah OK I was not using action groups for any of my craft. I understand how important this becomes with larger craft. Will study up and use. Thank you!

Hi everyone I'm quite a few hours into KSP. For me the harder missions now involve large numbers of tourists to the Mun or trips to distant planets. Its occurred to me recently that solving missions with a single bigger and more complicated ship is sub-optimal. (Sub-optimal from a resource perspective and my own fun. :) ) What I need is a "space infrastructure": relays, refueling bases, mining and processing facilities, ships designed for refuel and certain parts of the voyage, etc. So I need to get a lot of stuff into space. And it seems necessary to build reusable lifters and large, composable craft and bases. That's where I'm having some problems. I've attached below pictures of my medium and large lifters. As well as one "mothership" part and my tech tree. Here are my problems: The large lifter uses those beauty Mammoth engines. It's also so heavy that it's tough to get back to Kerbal's surface safely. I'd like to get similar lift with less weight. Any ideas? Because of the huge engines the heavy lifter lacks finesse in orbit. Its tough to do precise maneuvers for rendezvous and docking. It would be nice to attach Twitch engines and use just those for fine-tuned docking maneuvers. But I don't know how to "turn off" the Mammoth and use a smaller engine. How can I improve maneuverability and add finer-grained thrust control for a lifter so it can possibly dock itself? Because of heavy lifter control problems, I generally decouple my mothership parts and give them mono propellant and controllers to dock themselves to the other parts. But some of those parts (Such as my S3-14400 fuel tank) are so damn big that mono propellant can barely move them. The big tank has fuel so it could also use Twitch engines but the backbone (pictured below) only carries mono propellant. Any suggestions on how to design my mothership parts to facilitate easy docking in orbit? Or is this all solved with improved control of the lifter so it can do the docking itself? Thank you! Heavy lifter: Medium lifter: One piece of my "mothership" (the backbone): My tech tree:

OK everything you said @5thHorseman explains the TWR. But not the burn time. A higher ISP (not ISV! lol) engine should burn longer at the same thrust, right? Otherwise what exactly does ISP mean? In any case I take your point that Nerv is probably not right for a lander. This other question is academic.

I think I have misunderstood something about ISP and hope you can help. I'm trying to refine my multi-hop Mun lander by replacing the Terrier engine with a recently discovered Nerv. I was hoping replacing the Terrier with the Nerv, a much higher-ISV engine, would enable my hopper to stop at more Mun locations before returning. But something's not right. My hopper is a command pod, some sciency things, a T-400 fuel tank, and an engine. Because the Nerv's ISP is so much higher, I would expect it to either offer more thrust at the same burn time or the same thrust with longer burn time. But this is not proving to be so. Here is what the same craft looks like with Terrier v. Nerv engines: Engine Delta-v ISP (vacuum) Thrust TWR Burn Terrier 1932 m/s 345s 60 kN 8.02 113s Nerv 1064 m/s 800s 60 kN 5.19 118s The Nerv craft seems to be more efficient (higher ISV). But it has the same thrust and burns for basically the same amount of time. What am I not understanding about ISP?

Remember I wanted my mun hopper to be able to reset the science jr for multiple materials studies. That means I needed scientist. And of course a pilot. So I needed capacity for two. I recently tried going with only a scientist and a Probodobodyne OKTO but haven't confirmed this works. In my first attempts at mun landing I had a tall lander with inline fuel, Mk 1, science jr. It was really tough to land and stay stable. So I'm afraid of that still. I've not yet tried a rover because I don't have the tech for the rovemate. I'm not exactly sure how to land with a rover and something that will allow that kerbal to return home. Also it seems that rovers move so slowly. I doubt that I could get them to many biomes for my materials measurements. LOL yeah you're right. Thank you for all the help! Nothing. That's just where it attached to my return ship on the journey from Kerbal to the Mun. Do you have an idea of something I could/should have up there?

Hi everyone I'm a while into KSP and just started using MechJeb. I'm really struggling building a spacecraft that would allow me to collect a lot of science from the Mun in trip. I've shared below my tech tree, my mun lander, my return craft, and the lander+return+booster craft I launch from Kerbal. Specific questions/observations I'm hoping you can help me with: This craft has more fuel than needed. Where can I optimize? My lander is pretty big. Mainly because I struggled to build something that (a) has a science jr for materials studies and (b) carries two Kerbals for piloting and science jr reset. Can I get this down to a smaller design and hop all over the Mun for many samples? The lander+return is modeled after Apollo 11. But I'm unsure if KSP actually needs this design. Is there a design that will hit many points in the Mun and have fuel to return to Kerbal? A design that allows for a Science Jr. that can be reset by a scientist. With the lander+return design, what Mun altitude is optimally fuel efficient? I usually prefer very low Mun orbit (<10k) but in playing around with the lander's return to the return ship it appears a higher orbit is more fuel efficient. Is it? Thank you for any help! Mun return ship: Mun lander: Lander+return+boosters: Tech tree: