UmbralRaptor

The stock barometer can't measure anything below ~10^-4 atmospheres. More sensitive instrumentation (eg: MechJeb) will show the actual pressure.

Amusingly, I find [rocket] SSTOs to be largely idiot-proof. For ascent, anyway.Now for an attempt at multi-kerbal-flight: >100 x 100 km orbit achieved. Getting Kerbin escape with this would probably be a pita, possibly require a munar slingshot. >_> Let's skip to the safe landing. Okay, not so safe. The crew cam is wrong incidentally, Bill lived. I'm unsure on how to score this -- why is the higher orbit lower points, and how should losing 2/3 of the crew (when the rocket fell over) count?

No stages, non struts, no problem. I'll probably want to bring more fuel next time, though. In the VAB: Welcome to LKO: Deorbit burn. Broke up on landing. At night, too. Still, Jeb survived. Successful low orbit, deorbit burn, and safe landing. 20+5+10 == 35. This is indeed much like the old days.

You have to make some assumptions about Isp for each stage, though. Engines that burn all the way to orbit can be treated as being in 0.2 atm. Anything that starts burning above ~10 km can be treated as having vacuum Isp more or less. For first stages, it depends on how many the craft has.

It's ambiguous. You can make some rough approximations based on ÃŽâ€V (4400 - 4700 m/s stock, depending on orbit and ascent profile, mind the changing Isp) and TWR with various payloads, but testing will give the clearest results.

Setesh -- Sort of a weird portfolio due to changes in worship, so he can be seen as both a protector and a destroyer. The desert aspect sounds appropriate for Duna. Also, storm gods are always appropriate for KSP... Ereshkigal -- a deity of both law and death, 'nuff said. $greek_nymph. There are tons to choose from, though I suppose they would make better spacecraft names?

This was back in 0.13.x It made the 100 km in 74 seconds, but current parts would be faster.

Just one? Early mistakes like forgetting a parachute, or getting the staging wrong so the parachute wrecks my ascent come to mind. The problem is that there are a lot of silly things that I've done that performed as desired. eg: (The goal was to get to 100 km altitude as fast as possible, with no other considerations)

I tried a table that actually did that upthread, but it only covers mass breakpoints. Maybe I should add craft ÃŽâ€V at those points?

I'd say at least 4 ram intakes per turbojet engine. Going for 8-12 would make things easier.

Less thrust, but also lower mass, so the engine itself has higher TWR. The craft will also have a higher TWR if each engine (LV-N or LV-909) is pushing <8.25 tonnes.

Silly question: What happens if you try the same test with an LV-T30, or an array of 2 or 3 rockomaxx 24-77s?

If the non-engine part of a craft masses more than 8.25 tonnes, you'll get higher TWR out of the LV-N, but at this point your acceleration is only ~5.7 m/s². If you need accelerations above 10 m/s² (eg: Kerbin ascent), both the LV-N and LV-909 are rather useless. For vacuum use, which has the higher ÃŽâ€V depends on the amount of fuel and payload:[table=width: 600, class: grid] [tr] [td]Fuel + Oxidizer (L)[/td] [td]100[/td] [td]200[/td] [td]300[/td] [td]400[/td] [td]500[/td] [td]600[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Payload (tonnes)[/td] [td]0.88[/td] [td]0.62[/td] [td]0.39[/td] [td]0.19[/td] [td]0.02[/td] [td]0.00[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]propellant + payload (tonnes)[/td] [td]1.4425[/td] [td]1.745[/td] [td]2.0775[/td] [td]2.44[/td] [td]2.8325[/td] [td]3.375[/td] [/tr] [/table] (No testing required, just abuse of the rocket equation)

For fuel, the rocket equation is a good place to start. For thrust, you just want to make sure your thrust/mass is higher than the surface gravity of whatever body you're landing on / taking off from. Values are in the wiki, but you'll tend to have an easier time if you go for 1.5 - 2.5x that.

Those numbers are... high. They would tend to result in 0 payload (aside from unspent fuel) rockets that would have annoying large gravity losses. As such, I would suggest: [table=width: 500, class: grid] [tr] [td]Engine[/td] [td]Propellant (Fuel+Oxidizer)[/td] [td]Payload[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]LV-T30[/td] [td]2,400 L (3x T800 or x16 + x8)[/td] [td]1.6 tonnes[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Skipper[/td] [td]8,000 L (1.25 orange)[/td] [td]4.6 tonnes[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Mainsail[/td] [td]16,000 L (2.5 orange)[/td] [td]9.5 tonnes[/td] [/tr] [/table] Pure rocket SSTOs seem to offer the highest payloads (and highest payload fractions!) at lowish TWRs. You can get rather more at 1.4 than at 1.8, let alone 2.2. That said, the designs in the table aren't the simplest possible. (Adequate payloads are possible with Skipper + orange tank, or LV-T30 + x16) edit: On a related note, the Poodle and LV-N are lacking more in TWR for this than Isp. >_>

In no particular order: * The size 2 parts have a lot more wobble and structural failure issues, so struts (especially between vertically attached tanks) are necessary. * Attaching a Mainsail directly to an orange tank will give you a great deal of heat issues. Put a gray tank, structural plate, or octagonal strut in between. * Giving a mainsail only a single orange tank worth of fuel is also a waste. Aiming for ~2 (or the equivalent in smaller tanks) will get you substantially more ÃŽâ€V, and only costs TWR that you can't use anyway. * The Poodle is rarely a good choice for smaller (<50 tonne) craft. Try an LV-T30 instead.

The big thing is to do a mid-course correction. You can partially check on where you're going by cycling the map view (tab, shift+tab).

You can stack them! Alternatively, try cubic octagonal struts with symmetry. Electricity is handled ship-wide, so getting sufficient flow shouldn't be an issue. Insufficient power, maybe?

It's vastly easier in 0.21.1 than 0.12, though the progression hasn't always been linear. An incomplete list of things that made Mün landings easier: Radial attachment of (stock) fuel tanks, fuel lines (0.13) Lander legs (0.14) Lander engine (0.14) Additional fuel tank size (0.14) Quicksave/load (0.14) Even more engines, including some aircraft parts (0.15) Greater variety of rocket parts including higher TWR engines and larger tankage (0.16) Multiple conic patches viewable at the same time (0.17?) Maneuver nodes (0.18) Docking (0.18) Probes (0.18) Some things that have made Mün landings harder: Increased terrain height (0.14.2) RCS nerf (0.15.2?) Lower Isp parts (0.16) Fuel line and throttle bug fixes (0.17) Aerospike nerf (0.18) RCS bugfix (0.18.2) SAS/ASAS/reaction wheel changes (0.21) Increased terrain height again (0.21)

Stock prices are completely wonky, in part because they aren't used at this time. The 'campaign' mods tend to replace them with saner values.

alt+L locks the current stage

Every time someone suggests a sharp 45° turn at 10 km, Jebediah launches a kitten into oblivion with a pile of boosters. The best starting altitude varies. With stock aerodynamics, between ~5-10 km (later for low TWR rockets/earlier for high TWR ones) works with an, initial pitch of 80-85°. Then chase prograde (lagging with a low TWR rocket, leading with a high TWR one) until horizontal or you have an apoapsis outside of the atmosphere. FAR should work similarly, but you can begin turning even earlier (perhaps right at launch)

Low mass, high ÃŽâ€V, TWR insensitive missions. Say, sending a <5 tonne probe to Jool, or low Kerbol orbit. Or interstellar probe shenanigans. The PB-ION has 5.25x the Isp of the LV-N. That's a... rather substantial difference. Also, see my above comments. An LV-N + FL-T400/800 might well increase the probe mass by >5x. Good points, but mind the extra launcher part count. (And mass if you care about that sort of thing)

It's doable, at least in theory. Just make sure you enter the moon's SOI on the leading side and exit on the trailing side.

In principle, the change in inclination can be avoided (off-plane intercepts), but would be much more finicky, you'd need more initial ÃŽâ€V, and you'd likely get a less useful sling. It doesn't that I'm aware of.