SJC_Hacker

Yes, you are to wait for a launch window. But they occur roughly every 13 years, and that is with waiting for Jupiter assist (which gives you a Jupiter flyby, as well) https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/22825/when-are-there-launch-windows-to-neptune-via-jupiter Its true, the special alignment that the Voyager 2 was able to take advantage of was incredibly fortuitous as it only occured once every few centuries, and were able to do a flyby of all four of the outer gas giants in one trip. However a craft dedicated to getting to just one of them, even if you wait for a Jupiter assist, is not all that infrequent. This is what Cassini-Huygens did. I agree that having thousands of habitable systems and visiting the entire galaxy No Man's Sky style, shouldn't be part of the game. I would much rather have a half dozen interesting systems to explore than thousands of dull probably procedurally generated planets. At the level of detail that KSP has, that would be incredibly slow..

Distance Earth to Moon 384,000 km Distance Earth to Neptune 4.3 billion km. Ratio ~10,000. Yet a civilization that sent probes to the Moon, was able to send probes to Neptune relatively quickly. Maybe not astronauts, but thats another matter - we don't send astronauts to Neptune (not yet at least) because its inhospitable to human life, and we can do the science we need with probes much easier and cheaper.

I wasn't specifically talking about KSP 2 tech. I was imaging a hypothetical civilziation in which travelling was across the diameter of their home galaxy if it was roughly the size of the Milky way was relatively easy. Comparable to us travelling across the solar system. But since we can travel across the solar system, does not mean we can reach the next star. That leap is alot greater. But a civilization that could travel across the galaxy, would have a much easier time getting to the next one. Maybe not trivial (like if they could do it in a year, then next galaxy would be 100 years, which may be a tough barrier to overcome on a human time scale), but a much less of a leap, than the initial problem of getting across the galaxy or getting to the next star. Travelling between ends of one galaxy and the other, and travelling to the other galaxies is not fundamentally different except for the time it takes, as far as we know. If we could walk to the Moon, there was breathable air and resources along the way, then yes, getting to the Moon would be a piece of cake on a long enough time scale. If the Earth was only two islands separated by a vast ocean, it would be much harder for the two inhabitants on the island to ever meet.

My point was the *ratio* of the distances between Earth and Andromeda and Earth to Sagitarrius A is not as big as the ratio of the distances between Earth and Proxima Centauri and Earth to Pluto. If you can get to Sagitarrius A in a month from Earth, that means you can get to Andromeda is about 25 months from Earth. Whereas if takes you month to get to Pluto, its going to take you 10,000 months to get to Proxima Centauri. Now its true, if it takes you a month to get to Proxima Centauri, it would take you over 10,000 months (833 years) to get to Sagittarius A. So galactic distances, are of comparable magnitude to average interstellar distances within the galaxy. But the interesting aspect of travelling across the galaxy, there is alot in between. So it takes you a month to get to Proxima Centauri. Then its roughly another month to get to next star over. So you could keep making small hops and eventually get to Sagitarrius A, though true, it would take you a very long time even if you can do Proxima Centauri relatively quickly This is a little bit different than the leap from interplanetary to interstellar. There isn't much of anything in between the Solar System and Proxima Centauri. so we would have to do it all in one go. If it there were thousands of stars in between, however, then eventually getting to Proxima Centauri would be much easier. I think its inevitable that a civilization which could make those small interstellar hops, would eventually fill the whole galaxy. In a similar fashion, humans (and some other animals) eventually spread out over much of the surface of the Earth through thousands of years, by just walking, even though the distance from one end of the Earth to the other, is pretty vast in terms of walking speed. And no one could really do it (reasonably), in one human lifetime. But they could stop and settle along the way, then their descendants would make the next trip.

I second some type of mass driver / electromagnetic launch facility. Would be cool to build StarTram! It would be a bit of a departure from what they normally do, because the focus would be on building very long structures, potentially going up mountain sides. I would hope we had some control over individual sections, similar to how the rockets are designed. We could then customize how it works, such as hhow each section connects to the other, the power delivery and timing , etc. It should have a high cost, as it would in reality, and require some more advanced tech.

Interestingly, the leap from interstellar travel to intergalactic travel is not as big as one would expect. Distance from Earth to Pluto ~0.0004 light years Distance to nearest star (proxima centaru) ~4 light years. This is also roughly the average distance between stars in the Milky Way. Increase by factor of 10,000 vs. Pluto trip. Milky Way diameter ~100,000 light years Increase by factor 25,000 vs trip to nearest star or average trip between stars.. Distance to Andromeda (nearest galaxy) ~2.5 million light years. Increase by factor of only 25 vs. traversing the Milky Way Average distance between galaxies ~10 million light years. Still only a 100x increase. So any civilization that would be able to traverse its own galaxy, there would not be much of a leap to get to the next one. For example, lets say they could traverse their own galaxy in a month. Well in a little more than two years, they could probably get to the next galaxy over. Of course this is assuming there's not some barrier preventing it, like some weird dark matter/dark energy phenomena

If you want to be a traditionalist, then the Mun first. Munnus is much, much easier to land on. And this is the part where beginners have the most trouble. Takes longer to get to - like 6+ days depending on how you do your burn. But it is obvious where the flat areas are. On the Mun it is not so obvious. If you are doing Munnus, you should also match inclination prior to your transfer burn, although this is not absolutely necessary, it will make things easier if you have an equatorial orbit. For both the Mun and Munnus, If you don't orbit equatorially, try to land as close to the equator as possible, but also in a flat area. The further away from the equator you land, the more polar your take off orbit becomes. This makes it harder to get to get back in to Kerbin, in terms of dV cost and timing. Remember when you take off, launch east to get a equatorial orbit.

Try an Ironman run (no reloading, none) on Hard. Visual mods are ok, but nothing else - (especally no MechJeb). Don't use any premade rockets - design everything yourself.

Personally I wouldn't touch MechJeb. But however you want to play is fine. I can certainly understand why people would use it, particularly in late game where the focus shifts from individual missions to building colonies, etc. I think this may be something the game didn't address well. At later stages of the game, there should be a way to automate the flights once you've "proved" you can do it at least a few times, through tech and/or pilot experience. I started a game on Normal, and got to the point where I was running back and forth to Mun and Munnus, was about to try a mission to Duna, but got bored because it wasn't challenging enough, so restarted. I decided to go Hard, and also an Ironman run (no reloading) Short of SAS on the pilots (which by, the way, I have lost four total so far, I'm currently down to original Engineer and Scientist, so no SAS until I feel its worth it to invest in another pilot), nothing is automated. It made me design and fly the rockets in more reasonable and controlled way. I used to try to power through the atmosphere at ludicrous speed, I would have problems with basic control, and radially coupled SRBs striking and potentially destroying my main rocket. Now my ascent is way more slow and controlled, I use two SRBs max and roll so that the SRBs will fall off the sides, and I generally try to keep speed under 900 m/s until I reach 60k. My gravity turn is far from perfect but alot better than it used to be.

I started on Hard mode with the additional of restriction of "Ironman" (no reloading). Unfortunately already lost both starting pilots (Jeb and Valentina) because of stupid mistakes. Jeb was able to get to orbit before his untimely demise though. Now I'm down to a engineer (Bill Kerman) and a scientist. Hiring new Kerbals is expensive in hard - like 130k each. My funds are only about 200k. Its probably a waste to get another pilot until I need one for SAS. I think one of the contracts is broken -you are suppose to test the "Thud" booster engine on splashdown. However, when selecting the booster there is no "Run test" button when right clicking on the booster. Activating it through the staging sequence on splash down does not alone fufill the contract. I had another contract, I think with the Flea, with identical language, and was able to complete it by clicking ion 'Run Test'. So I'm pretty sure something is broken, so I ended up cancelling it. It drained a good bit of funds and killed one of my pilots though.

1. Probes do not require constant electrical drain,. as long as they are in hibernation mode. Probes were plenty enough viable for me early in the game, without solar panels. Batteries are cheap and don't weight much in any case. The bigger problem for me, was the lack of SAS on Stayputnick. My rocket designs would therefore have to be stable enough to be flown manually. Or else, I would overengineer to compensate for a horrible ascent. A few times I was able to salvage missions despite my rocket doing a summersaults once I hit about 10k, due to poor aerodynamics. To me, that was part of the fun of the game. 2.3 You don't need the wider fuel tanks to use the Skipper engine. In fact, there is some advantage to using the narrow tanks, if you use side boosters and place them just above the Skipper shroud. When you detach, the shroud becomes a pivot point, and they fall off beautifully (assuming your angle of attack is not too low), without risking a strike to the .engine or rest of the upper stage. 2.4 Yes you can stack them and its almost the same. However there is a small mass advantage to one larger tank vs two shorter ones. 2.5 You don't need the exact decoupler size to use the spark engine. You can use the smaller Oscar tanks attach ti radially to a larger fuel tanks or other central ship part, and use radially decoupling, or much simpler and cheaper, use a single decouple on your larger fuel tank. . Not having exactly all the right parts, exactly when you need them, and being forced to make rocket designs which compromise and kind-of-sort-of work, but have some drawbacks to me is what makes the game fun to me.

What kind of manuevers are requiring a 20 minute burn? Longest I've had I think is 3 minutes. Anything longer and I will tack on more engines

Agree on career mode somewhat. Too many rescue and survey missions. Also, low-altitude survey missions on Kerbin seem out of place. Perhaps the motive was to encourage the player to get their feet wet with aviation tech and the spaceplane hanger, before hitting them all at once with legit spaceplanes. However when you fly a plane, you have to dedicate yourself to the flight completely ( you cannot leave as its on the surface), and your ability to speed up time is limited. The later survey missions are very far away from the KSC and it wastes alot of time.

How so? Yes its seems annoying not having access to simple parts earlier in the game, but that forces you to design around it. For example, the fairing solves so many aerodynamic issues on the upper stage. If its available early, then you never hare to worry about upper stage aerodynamics.

In addition to burning retrograde to make your lateral velocity zero, I also recommend switching the altitude indicator to altitude above ground level.. You have at altitude above sea level. Of course they is no sea on the moon, I guess they define sea level as the it as lowest point on the surface.

Go into/start in high orbit, like maybe 200km. Then use a manuever note to calculate a very steep entry near the KSC, ideally as close to 90 degrees with respect the surface as you can get. Since your entry is steep, you don't lose much lateral position due to drag. The height required depends on how powerful your retrograde burn is. You might also need to burn retrograde during descent to prevent the craft from burning up. Edit: So I can see specifically say Falcon 9, probably you wouldn't have enough fuel for my approach.

This makes sense. Since the game doesn't care about how long your in space, probably better for newbies to for lowest dV, which means you want Mun encounter as close to Kerbin orbit apoapsis as possible. But the orbit has to pretty circular, unless you get lucky with the periapsis and the relative Mun phase. I'm pretty sure the Apollo missions did a more direct shot, since they were trying to minimize time in space for the human crew. I'm not sure about what the probes do, probably minimum dV approach so they can save money and/or maximiize payload. Yes, the Mun has zero inclination wrt Kerbin. However if you don't get to orbit perfectly, you will have some inclination. Even with SAS, I'm always off Mun orbit by at least a half degree. Its not a big deal unless its several degrees off. OTOH if it is bad enough, probably means you wasted too much delta-V on ascent, and should probably just relaunch. Personally i don't bother and just load up on the rockets to give me alot of delta V wiggle room. I only have second tech level in rockets allowing the LV 909 Terrier engine and the "Thumper" SRB. With a upgrade to VAB allowing and launchpad to accomodate, you can stack radial decouplers on SRBs and create a huge, if wildly unrealstic rocket with effectively 5000+ dV, although the calculation in the VAB will be much less. For my rocket the VAB said around 3200 but when I actually launched, it must have been way more than that because by the time I discarded all the lower SRBs and one Swivel, my two LV909s stages alone had something like 1500 a piece. By the time of reaching low Mun orbit with my lander it was still over 1200. On top of that, my ascent piloting was ****.

Are you adjusting the orbit after you encounter the Mun? I've never been able to one shot and get into stable Mun orbit without adjustment. After you the "Mun Encounter" you will enter the Mun's gravity. However, you will probably escape the orbit quickly if you do not adjust it. Create a manuever node just after you the "Mun encounter". Depending on how you approached the Mun, you will need to adjust prograde/retrograde (the green icons), until you see a stable orbit. In addition, you may need to adjust the blue icons in the manuever node, though i can't remember what their names are. Make sure the periapsis is > 5000m. Personally I try to "hit the Mun" and not let it catch up to me. Although i think you use less delta-V with the catch-up approach. I also suggest matching the Mun inclination prior to leaving Kerbal orbit (the purple icons), although if it is only slightly off, by maybe max a few degrees, its not a big deal.

When I first started using Stayputnik for unmanned missions, I noticed I have no attitude control unless I am using an engine with thrust vectoring that is turned on, or unless I add something RCS or reaction wheels. This lead me to the question - how do the manned command pods have attitude control "built in", and what do they use? I did notice if I don't have electric change, I lose attitude control on the manned pods, so it seems like reaction wheels are the answer. But I noticed they seem to work alot better in the manned pods than when I add them to a Stayputnik. Or was this simply a developers choice to make the game easier for beginners? Thanks.