Ziff

Math, lot's of math. Use the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod to accurately plot the delta-V for your stages and the Interplanetary Guide Calculator to know when to launch. Now all you need is the delta-v requirement of your planned mission so you can build your rocket accordingly. Oh wait, I've got that covered for you with This Handy Chart that Jellycubes from Reddit made.

As the number of KSP Testers has been rapidly increasing, I would like to see some usability features. These are some random ideas I've had/tossed out before. In the VAB: The ability to set a part as the viewpoint. Right now the camera always rotates around the center of the VAB, this is frustrating when trying to place fuel lines or struts as you have to jostle the camera around to get the viewpoint you want. If you could set a part as the viewpoint it would make rotating and zooming much easier for better placement of parts. The ability to Lock staging so new added parts create a new stage. Build a main center launch stage. Then add a radial stage and watch your nicely arranged staging to get all jumbled up. Rinse, repeat. It's minor, but annoying. Radial stages (ones with radial decouplers) should at the very least start their own new stage. I'd like to see some changes to the parts list. There should be a tab for Recently used/Most commonly used parts. As the parts list grows (or you add mods) finding the key components of building your craft require a lot of page clicking. Minor: The ability to raise/lower landing gear and ladders in the VAB to check spacing/operation. In flight: The ability to right click on a part in the staging menu to start/stop it. On occasion I have found I needed to move an engine from a stage that wasn't firing to one that was already active. You'd think that would activate the engine, but it does not. You have to place the engine into a previous stage that would activate when you hit the spacebar. I dislike having to turn engines on/off from right clicking fuel tanks that supply them. It would be preferable to turn the engines themselves on/off by clicking on them or the stage icons. What I really hope we see for .18 is the beginning of campaign stuff. I'd like the Kerbals to get some skills and the ability to choose who goes on a flight.

There was a fuel bug in the way fuel crossfeed worked with fuel lines and lateral fuel tanks. So you've been hit with that as well.

I have a few hastily scribbled notes here. They're probably not accurate but close enough to give you a general idea of what you're facing. Duna: Not only nice to visit, but you actually have a good chance of getting home again. Atmospheric layers at 3k, 14k, and 26k. Atmosphere is thin, so if you are using chutes you will need to add a few extra. Alternately you can just burn off the last bit of vertical velocity. Gravity: 2.94 Eve: It's a nice place to visit, just don't land.. Atmospheric layers at 29k, 56k, 85k Who needs a parachute? My 30ton craft slowed to around 75m/s during freefall due to the ridiculously thick atmosphere . That speed occurred around 3k, leaving me plenty of time to hit the engines and land perfectly. Probably one of the easiest landings I have ever had. It will take a specifically designed craft to achieve orbit again after landing. That thick lower atmospheric layer is 30km high and combined with a gravity of 16.68... I sense a new challenge! Gravity: 16.68 Jool: Haha, don't be silly. You tried to land there?! Atmospheric layers at 53k, 90k, 130k. Gravity: I forgot to write it down but I think it's the same as Laythe? 7.85ish? Laythe: I hope you practiced your precision landings, if you miss, you will have some wet Kerbals. Atmospheric layers at 9k, 25k, 41k Gravity: 7.85 Vall: No Atmo. Gravity: 2.3 Tylo: No Atmo. Gravity: 7.85 Bop: It has a pretty small SoI, so it's hard to get to. But it's so easy to land on and take off from, even a EVA Kerbal could do it. No Atmo. Gravity: 0.59

When the campaign and tech tree comes along, that engine obviously won't be available to the Kerbals during their initial Mun and Minmus missions. There will eventually be other planets beyond Jool and that engine will be required to reach it. I think it functions well for it's purpose.

Once in orbit, thrust only determines how long you have to burn in order to make orbital maneuvers. However, the engine has an Isp (Specific Impulse) of 800 which makes it twice as efficient as the small LV909 engine.

Yes, indeed. The Kraken was never quite so mean.

Seriously, the next one is a spoiler, so don't view it unless you really want to know what's in the crater. WHY JEB, WHY!? Apparently this 'crater' is actually a volcano, or something. For those that haven't landed on Moho, heat is a major issue. Be careful how much thrust you apply because engines overheat and explode rapidly. Obviously, this is not what happened to me as my engines are still intact. It appears as though all of my fuel tanks spontaneously exploded, leaving the engines to push up against the bottom of the craft as all the other pieces fell to oblivion.

Slingshot away from Kerbin. Houston, we have a problem. Landing zone in sight, and touchdown. Next up, Eve. Eve's weird atmosphere, like some kinda aurora borealis or something. A previous attempt with bad staging. That will teach me..

I don't agree with this statement. You are still only on an escape trajectory. You haven't actually escaped yet. If you were to burn retrograde and lower your velocity you would still be in the SOI.

Of all the people to post a hoax, AncientAstronaut would be one of the last. Seriously. So I'm going to bring this topic back onto the rails with some observations of my own. It resembles Minmus, but obviously since you checked where Minmus was and then later it disappeared it could not be Minmus. Minmus doesn't exactly disappear. What do you mean by 'Minmus was on the other side of the Mun'? Do you mean that Minmus was behind the camera view? As far as it being a graphical glitch, is it possible that the game was somehow drawing Minmus where it shouldnt have been?

You were on an escape trajectory, but you did not actually escape. There is currently nothing beyond the sun, so it's not actually possible to escape its SOI yet. You can be on an escape trajectory, but you never get there. It is fixed at 68yrs.

Softweir, HarvesteR wrote in his blog about the .17 Status Update that a Nuclear Thermal engine part would be included. So the discussion of NERVA is actually on-topic, I would think.

Only if you launch at the appropriate time. Go to the launch pad, go into map view and flatten out Kerbin's orbital plane so it forms a single horizontal line. Zoom the map out and then time warp until the plane of Minmus flattens out into a single line as well. If the orbital plane looks like then you would launch at 84 degrees. If it is opposite this one then launch at 96 degrees.

That's because it is the fuel bug. Notice how Delta-V per kg of fuel used increases dramatically as throttle is lowered? Yeah. Not to mention that Isp is 3490 at 10% throttle. Isp should not change with throttle adjustment.

There is another method which I actually prefer. This method involves timing your launch so that your craft is orbiting Kerbin at either 84 or 96 degrees (instead of the 90 you use for the Mun). Your orbit around Kerbin will be on the same plane as Minmus (if you launch at the right time, that is) and then you can simply wait for Minmus to rise over Kerbin and do your prograde burn just like you would for a Munar injection burn. Here's how you do it. Sit on the launch pad, go into Map view, and flatten out Kerbin's orbit plane like this. Make sure the camera is pretty much centered over the launch pad too. Zoom out so you can see where the plane of Minmus is. *Don't move the camera! Just zoom out. If you move the camera I am not responsible for lost Kerbals in space.* Chances are Minmus' plane isn't flat, but if you timewarp there will be 2 moments where it will flatten out. Those are your launch windows. If you wait until the plane of Minmus flattens out like this, you can launch at a heading of 84 degrees and you will end up on the exact same plane as Minmus. This means you will not have to make a plane change orbital maneuver. If the plane of Minmus is the opposite mirror image of this, or from top-left to bottom-right, you could launch at 96 degrees to be on the same plane. Now if you follow these directions you will find yourself on an inclined orbit around Kerbin, which happens to match the plane of Minmus exactly. (Or very closely, at least, depending on your piloting skills.) Now all you have to do is wait until Minmus rises from behind Kerbin and you can burn prograde just like you would for the Mun, and you will easily intercept Minmus. Good luck!

If you can post some photos of your designs, or even a .craft file, we would be in a much better position to give you some ideas on how to directly improve your craft. Pick the one you like the most that has gotten the closest to orbit. Some general basics. Start with the smallest Mun lander you need. Larger landers require larger rockets which makes things complicated. When you fail to reach orbit, ask yourself why? Common problems are thrust to weight ratio too low at launch, inefficient engines, too little fuel in radial stages, heavy Mun landers..

Yeah, I used the hide the chute trick. Actually, I have several new designs that don't even use ASAS on those stages anymore.

Sorry, I added the link to DYJ's crewtank mod in the original post.

It sounds like you aren't calculating them correctly. How do you incorporate them into your space-plane design? I don't fly space-planes, only rockets, but my thoughts are this: Do you fire them at takeoff or later in the flight? If you are not firing the SRB's immediately after takeoff then that is part of your problem. You are carrying around dead weight, so to speak. If you are actually firing them immediately, you should be throttling down your other engines until the SRB's burn out, you lose a lot of delta-v to atmospheric drag when you are below 9km or so.

Pay close attention to where the failure occurs, or check the flight log at the end. Does it, by any chance, appear that the large decoupler is failing and the rocket engine is pushing straight up through the rest of the parts? There is a small, albeit catastrophically dangerous, bug within the large stack decoupler. If you look at the stats on the large decoupler you will notice it has a 10x increase in mass and no increase in strength over the stock 1 meter decoupler. This causes them to fail when under increased G forces. I recommend modifying the part.cfg file and increasing the strength. You can find a post in the Bugs section about this issue.

I think he meant molecule of water, not atom of water. (At least I hope so.) And yes, It's held together with a polar covalent bond.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. It is clearly possible to land using SRB's, this challenge is not impossible. It is difficult, yes. It requires some thinking outside the box, and a bit of luck. Still, it's totally doable.

This is the Fuel Consumption Bug thread that first raised the fuel bug issue. HarvesteR's response is on the very first page so you don't have to read very far. This is the current player created fix that works very well. Hacky Fuel Consumption Fix

The 2nd set. They fold back farther out of the way then they do the 1st set. Obviously, this lowers the chance of something Kerbal happening.