king of nowhere

so, you have your ship you want to reach in orbit. you start by sending your new ship in an orbit inside it, touching it on a point. if your target is on a 80x80 orbit, you want to be on a 80x75 orbit. of course, fix the orbital plane first (there are ways to skip this, and they save a little bit of fuel, but are harder) so, the smaller an orbit is, the shorter it takes. the ship in the smaller orbit will slowly gain on the other one. this will let you reach a ship ahead of you - i generally target for this situation when i lauch for a rendez-vous. if instead you are ahead of your target and you need it to catch up, just increase your orbit a bit, still touching your target. in this example, an 80x85 will do. here is an example. i am commanding the space station and want to reach the plane. i am a bit ahead of it, so i put myself in a slightly larger orbit, so the plane will reach me in a few orbits. keep this difference small, the greater the difference in the orbits, the more fuel you'll have to use to equalize the two vessel's speed ok, so here we see the orange marker for the next close encounter. the plane will still be behind me. we set up a manuever node just after the close encounter now that we set up the manuever node, the game calculates the closest approach after the node. this means in the next orbit. so in the next orbit the plane will be closer, but still behind us. so we right-click on the manuever node and shift it ahead by one orbit now the manuever node is 2 orbits from now, and it says that in the third orbit, the plane will be slightly ahead of us. that's just what we want! now we only have to make sure that instead of being ahead of us, it just reaches us perfectly. to do so, we must accelerate just a bit, enough to cover those 29 km that the plane will have made past our position. and to accelerate, we need to burn retrograde. our orbit gets smaller, and we accelerate and gradually catch up to the plane again, until we have a near perfect encounter you don't even need a manuever node; just burn retrograde very slowly, and you'll see the close encounter marker gradually shift. i hope that was helpful. the key is to have the two orbits intersect in one point, and then burn in that point, prograde or retrograde depending on whether you need to go slower or faster.

don't know what is your aerial, but an engineer can only fix a wheel or landing leg with the "broken" condition. something i've never, ever seen, despite driving rovers around many planets and blowing them up a lot of times. but i've never seen a damage that can be fixed by an engineer, even if they are supposed to exhist

those docking ports are mounted wrong. they can only connect in the other sense. i made that mistake too the first time EDIT by that i mean, the side pointing upward in this image is the one that connects to another clampotron of the same size. the other side does not connect

I just landed my exploration plane on laythe, and i just discovered that the seismometer and atmospheric spectrovariometer won't work. some more experiments on kerbin discovered that they just won't work on water. Being determined to get as much science as possible from it, I wonder if there is a way to make those measures on a water biome? what if i manage to dive to the bottom of the sea?

i'm not exactly clear on why you want to send back your pilot and science jr in two pieces when you can send them in one piece. that said, it is possible, because it's true that you can only control one object in the atmosphere, but since you are sending your two pieces on separate trajectories, they are going to hit the atmosphere at different times. anyway, an unprotected science jr cannot reenter atmosphere without burning up. you don't necessarily need a thermal shield, just an engine or fuel tank to shield it from the worst of the impact can be enough. ultimately, to find out specifics you have to experiment.

yes, i know. baobabs are surface features. but there are too few of them to feel right. in fact, they enhance the sense of wrongness. there's a tree every few km, enough to remind me there should be trees. i know, it's subjective.

for the aforementioned oberth effect, the best insertion is close to the planet. it saves fuel. so much so, in fact, that even when you target a high orbit, it's often cheaper to make an insertion close to the planet and then raise the periapsis. for an equatorial orbit you should enter equatorial, if you need an inclined orbit you enter with the orbit's inclination. changing inclination is easier when your ship is slower, so away from planets. so much so, that sometimes it's cheaper to heighten your apoapsis, make the inclination change at apoapsis, and lower it again, rather than making the change immediately

Nah, using the camera in the first place is the mistake - unless you have some complex design or are doing something else unusual. you only need the navball. unless... how big are your stations? they can't be that big, if you haven't done docking you must have launched them all in one piece. then you can still rotate them freely, and the best way is to treat them like a normal ship docking. for which i refer to the tutorial on docking. Basically, once you are close you have to select for each ship the docking port of the other ship as target, and point your navball to the target to align. do it for both ships, and the docking ports are aligned. I have some vague recollection of finding it difficult at first, but with some practice it becomes trivial. unless you have vehicle that are very hard to turn around. docking becomes much easier once you unlock the high level probe cores that can point the taerget authomatically; with them, you don't even need a kayboard except to throttle the engine. Aside from that, docking is much easier if the ship can be turned around easily. reaction wheels are recommended. A low TWR also helps with fine manuevers, and you can get it by limiting the engine's power. using rcs is... complicated. it's easier to dock without rcs, but once you learn rcs it can improve docking with complicated shapes. especially when you have your docking ports on the sides and can't just accelerate towards the target with your main engine

it depends on what you want to achieve, really. for fuel considerations, it's better to put them low. it costs less to reach them from the surface, but also - for oberth effect, look it up if you're not familiar - it's going to be cheaper to reach them when coming from outside the planet, and it's also going to be cheaper to leave the planet from the space station, unless you are going very close. still, they should be up high enough that a ship trying to make a rendez-vous can have a smaller orbit, to catch up to them (it can always go into a higher orbit and have the station catch up, but it's going to take very long if the station was ahead and have to go all the way around the planet). so, for minmus that good height should be around 20-30 km. on the other hand, as you correctly pointed out (btw, nice to see a new player who already has a good understanding of stuff like gravity turn and antenna placement), on a low orbit minmus is going to block a lot of your antennae's path. so, to have the station act as relay, you would want to put it up as high as possible, so it won't be obstructed. it really depends on what you want to prioritize.

yes, you can get a mun insertion at 90 degrees, and it's not even very expensive. you don't even need to start from an inclined orbit either, that would be expensive. just, when you make the intercept burn, fiddle with the normal/antinormal (pink direction) until you are not pointing at the equator but at the poles. here is an image. do notice the directions in the manuever. it ended up costing 60 m/s more than a normal equatorial insertion. But it's even better to make a course correction along the way, as shown here the first manuever was a normal, all prograde manuever. the second manuever, in violet in the upper side of the image, is mostly normal to push your trajectory up, plus a little bit of radial to go exactly over the pole, and it is only 36 m/s. the cheapest place to make those manuevers is around halfway, and you can be more accurate.

in theory, yes. in practice, it's all another matter

I like rovers and i spent a fair amount of time and effort building and driving them around. After leaving the kerbin system I quickly realized that every planet is a different driving experience, and I decided that someone should write a tourist review Kerbin Yes, you can drive a rover on your home world too. Kerbin is quite a nice planet. It has a wide variety of terrains and biomes, more than any other world. The giant quartz compete with Vall's criovolcanoes for the title of my favourite surface feature. On the down side, a habitable planet with large grassland but without trees feels a bit off. Also, the high gravity makes it difficult to go uphill with many of my favourite designs. All in all a balanced experience, three stars Mun Mun is a great place for rovers! The surface gravity is low enough to create stability problems, but still in the optimal window. The craters make the terrain interesting: if you have a cheap, frail rover, you can plan your way around them, while if you have a sturdy advanced rover you can use them for really cool jumps. The two canyons are great for racing circuits, and there are a lot of interesting places to visit. The gray surface would be a bit dull on any other place, but on kerbin's moon it gives a warm homey feeling. Definitely one of the best places to drive a rover Minmus Minmus has a nice coloring and nice terrain all around. The terrain is quite interesting, with all the big slopes up and down. Unfortunately, it has no special features worth visiting. But its major flaw is the gravity, too low to get any speed before capsizing. On the plus side, it is very easy to reach. Three stars, mostly because it looks good Eve The rating here is not for a rover but for a plane. But in the planet's thick atmosphere, a plane is actually much easier to use than a rover, and much faster. Most of the planet is dull, but some of the mountains are really wonderful, especially the massif around 30°S 150°W. I don't like the purple color, but twilight has the most beautiful green horizon. Gilly I never expected to give a high mark to a small moon without enough gravity to do anything, but Gilly positively surprised me. It took me several minutes to get the hang of driving there, and it certainly does not resemble driving anywhere else. It's all in slow motion, 3 m/s is the top speed before going suborbital. But this lumpy rock is so small, even going slow you can still reach places faster than on other planets. And the terrain is very interesting, full of up and down Duna Duna has a variety of terrains, mostly hilly; there are canyons, but they are too big to be striking like those on mun or dres. The gravity is fairly high, so rovers are pretty stable. On the down side, going uphill is quite expensive. the sun is more distant, but still close enough to make effective use of solar panels. There are interesting features to visit. The atmosphere also make it much easier to land. All considered, it's a nice place to drive around, though it lacks striking features like the mun's canyons. The major factor preventing me from giving it full marks is that I find its red color dull after a while Dres There are very few reasons to go to Dres, and driving a rover is not one of those! the surface is full of angles, and coupled with the low gravity it makes a rover much more unstable - and much more prone to damage if it flips. The canyon looks good and it would have a lot of potential, but its bottom is too irregular to drive through. Definitely nothing to recommend here Vall Vall has a very nice environment, I like the blue color and the criovolcanoes are spectacular, not to mention the dance of Jool, Laythe and Tylo in the sky. The gravity is in that optimal range where it provides stability without making it too difficult to go uphill. There are nice mountains to climb and slopes to tumble downhill. its only real flaw is the distance from kerbol, making it very difficult to get energy. rover wheels are quite expensive to operate when running uphill, and even multiple rtg may not be enough to power a rover. Still, one of the best places. I'd give it 4 stars and a half if it was possible, but if I have to choose, I'll give it full marks Tylo A strange world, difficult to sum up. Different areas have very different characteristics. Gravity is very high, meaning it will be possible to reach high speed (and in lowlands at least the terrain is flat enough for it), but it's also going to be very difficult to go up a slope. or to brake down a slope. The combination of high speed, false sense of security, and difficulty to brake, makes for a very dangerous combination; I don't think i crashed my rover nowhere near this often anywhere else. The landscape is not bad, but nothing special either; the best thing is the dance of the other two moons in the sky, aside from that it's mostly an uninteresting rock. But the most damning feature of Tylo is the fact that its unique characteristics basically force you to pick up speed moving downward and conserve it moving upward, and zipping at high speed with very little control. It feels less like driving a rover and more like throwing a bowling ball. I'm giving it a low score as i'm not liking it; however, i have to admit that Tylo brings out the worse weaknesses of my rover and negates most of its pros, so perhaps it would be a better experience with something designed more specifically for this environment. Other worlds I didn't visit extensively enough to rate Moho Moho is just so distant from everything else, I never visited except in tests, though I would like to. there are some nice hills and the place looks good. The large amount of solar power is convenient, and the gravity is just right. Looks very promising overall. Ike has a very rugged terrain. It could be potentially interesting, but it does not mesh well with the low gravity. That, and the lack of notable features, never gave me much reason to drive farther than the closest surface features. Laythe Laythe looks really good, but there's too little land for a rover. I think they should have made a "hydrotermal vent" surface feature that only spawns on the ocean floor, that would have been really cool. Anyway, I will soon explore Laythe in depth with an electric plane. Maybe i should expand this guide to generally include "suborbital vehicles" Bop The low gravity is just meh. Quite unremarkable except for a couple nice easter egg (cough cough kraken cough), and those are reached more easily by suborbital jumps. Pol A gravity even lowest than minmus does not bode well; however, the peculiar landscape and very rugged terrain may actually make it fun. If they don't make it even more miserable. Eeloo Nice gravity, nice surface features, looks good. Not much variety to the terrain, though. those canyons look good on the map, but they are quite unremarkable when you are inside. I did land there with a rover, but I wasn't compelled to explore further. You are welcome to post your own review of driving on various worlds. Let's expand this guide P.S. perhaps it would fit better under fan works?

in addition to what others said, i like to make reusable stuff, so i can fulfill a contract and then go on a mission of my own. I want to make a mun landing but i'm only paid for bringing tourists in mun orbit? i make a ship with two modules, in mun orbit i detach them, the tourists stay in orbit and the lander lands. i want to make an eve probe but i'm paid to put a satellite in orbit around minmus? i send the eve probe with plenty of extra fuel, i place it in minmus orbit to fulfill the contract, then i go on to eve after i unlocked isru, that was magnified exponentially, because i could keep reusing my stuff infinitely. shortly after, i stopped playing the career as it was not challenging anymore.

it's not good enough for my purposes, as the push can be off-center by just a little bit and it will already set the ship rotating. even with a dozen large reaction wheels. and while this game has a mod for everything, i am reluctant to install them. ultimately, i solved this by trial and error. deactivate sas, turn on rockets at full speed, see which way the ship deviates. shut down one of the engines on the opposite side, and repeat the process. i was able to find a good enough balance that sas could keep me stable by shutting off two of my 24 engines. with that i was able to land on minmus and refuel, and with full tanks the ship is balanced.

i've done challenges where i had to launch stuff without sas because i could not afford a module and i had to prioritize other things than sending a pilot. including doing mun landings without sas, keeping manually aligned retrograde. so, i can testify that managing without sas is indeed something that may turn out useful

yep. actually, the main skill there is being able to focus on the navball. if you will just look at the tumbling spacecraft, it will be hopeless. look at the navball, and try to figure out just one motion at a time. ok, the ship is wildly out of control, but let's ignore that and focus on seeing if it's actually spinning on its axis. let's fix that, then continue with another axis. if you can focus on one movement at a time, you'll do it

ok, i worked on it. i added another cargo bay, and i arranged the stuff around. the science bay has no parts clipped in it. As for the rover arm. i can't fit it into a cargo bay because there isn't a bay large enugh. i even tried to remake the whole plane as a Mk2, and there the cargo bay works, and it also flies very well, and it has exceptional resistance to reentry. but it's much heavier and it has no chance of taking off from water. too much drag. But! I moved the three non-propellers cargo bays together, and I placed the robotic arm in a way that is entirely contained in the bays and it's not clipping anything else. In my mind, those three bays would be joined by a hole where the robotic arm would pass. It's a tight fit, but there's no clipping for any piece, except the arm is going through the cargo bay walls. It's the best I can do with the lack of a longer cargo bay. Will that be acceptable?

ok. another question, since i'm going for science. the orbital scanner adds another 20 science when scanning a planet. do those 20 science count even if they don't generate a report? if they do, can i get them by launching a few disposable probes (which will separate from the main ship in jool orbit) that i will never recover?

Question: I built a spaceplane for this challenge that uses some moderate clipping. I thought it was fine, but I'm not sure anymore, and I'd rather find out before spending weeks on a science run and then being disqualified this is the plane. looks good. which is why i resorted to some clipping to make it look like this I put the mystery goo and 2 rtg inside the science jr. but hey, the science jr has a lot of empty space inside, i thought it was fair game. isn't it? I can easily fix that if needed. I only put them like this because a scientist in eva can restore both experiments without needing to leave the cockpit I did a little bit of clipping with the propellers to fit two in a single cargo bay. Only a little bit. I suppose I can rearrange that too if needed, though it would be a lot less convenient. the inside of the science and electricity cargo bays are a huge mess, but as far as i can tell, there's no clipping inside. except... the rover arm is just spanning multiple parts. but there was no cargo bay large enough to accomodate it using the mk1 size, and i wanted it to be inside a cargo bay. mostly for aesthetics, because the extra drag from putting it outside would be negligible, and if i put it behind the cockpit, it would be shielded for atmospheric reentry. The alternative would be using Mk 2, but everyone around here says they are evil I've spent one week building and optimizing this spaceplane for this challenge. I avoided clipping of engines, fuel tanks, and most other parts. I certainly never abused clipping. I've mostly done it for practicity, or to make the plane look better. at worst i'd have to put in an extra cargo bay, which would not be a huge deal; this thing can ssto from kerbin with 2 tons of fuel left, it would still be able to perform all its tasks Please tell me the plane is fine as it is; I'm already in jool system, having performed the gravity assist for capture; having to go back would cost me several hours of gameplay. If the plane is not fine, please tell me which of those licenses I took are acceptable, and which are not

while in the VAB, we all know to visualize the center of mass and the thrust vector. but i know no way to do so in flight. i just assembled in orbit a complicated monstruosity; i had checked that all its parts would be balanced before the flight. but that was with full tanks. the thing on the top was balanced with the rest of the ship, provided its fuel tanks were full. now they are half full, and the ship is tilting to the side. and i have no idea how to check the new CoM. I can fix the problem. I have 24 engines radially, i can turn off a few of them until they compensate the imbalance. but trying to estimate the deviation by eye is a nightmare. that's why i'd really need to see the CoM. and i can't really do that in the VAB. P.S. imgur is not letting me upload stuff at the moment, so no picture. not that it would be particularly relevant anyway, i'm just asking ways to see my CoM

hoe do you meat the requirements "before" the test? anyway, generally those contracts also sepcify a target speed. check that.

No, it cannot. I normally always get a positive number, even though i am accelerating with rockets. only exception, as i mentioned, is when i accelerate with propellers, because the thrust from propellers is counted as negative resistance. but that's not what's happening here i didn't check when i shut down the engines - i was more concerned about not screwing up the ascent. but i have plenty of experience of using rockets and getting positive - and high - resistance

No, it's just the window that pops open if you open the debug menu and go on physics-aerodinamics-show aerodinamic data alas, as i said, it does not generate actual propulsion. the plane slowed after shutting down the engines

I was launching a plane, when i noticed something very strange: negative air resistance now, i know of a case when you get negative resistance, and that's when you use propellers. i made many things with propellers (it's basically infinite fuel without cheating), and in this case the effect of the propellers is rendered as negative resistance. which incidentally makes it awfully hard to figure out how your plane is doing aerodinamically, but i'm going on a tangent here. anyway, i'm not using propellers here. this thing has propellers, but at the moment they are safely enclosed inside a cargo bay. they wouldn't be able to work at this speed anyway. for the sake of science, i tried to shut down the engines; if the resistance is negative, i should keep accelerating without it. but didn't happen, as i shut down the engines i started decelerating. unsurprisingly. anyone has any idea what the hell just happened with the resistance data? P.S. I was uncertain if i should put this under gameplay questions, but then, this is not a question about gameplay.

did you autostrut the various parts? from what i can see without downloading the craft file, your ship inside the fairing has a narrow attachment. it doesn't have much strenght, so it wobbles. autostrut all the parts (or at least the heavier ones) inside the fairing and it may fix. if the problems are the boosters, put more struts on them