UmbralRaptor

Ack, I missed that it was FAR. (I stick with the stock aerodynamics) Rather high speeds at low altitudes is reasonable then.

Worrying about center of mass vs center of lift is a problem for aircraft. Pure rockets can ignore it -- just keep any fins near the bottom of the stack. Edit: 463 m/s at ~6.2 km? Try throttling down a bit?

...I thought it was /GameData/SomeOtherName/Flags ?

If the addon has been updated for 0.20: /KSP/GAME DATA/ If not, then the traditional /KSP/plugins/ and /KSP/parts/ folders.

Bumping for another IRC quote:

6) Altitude as used for engine Isp goes by command pod location also. 7) At some point in the past few versions, g0 (for the purposes of finding fuel consumption, not surface gravity) went from 9.81 to 9.82. 8) Depending on where you look, the higher performance stock jet is referred to as both a "turbojet" and a "turbofan." 9) Scientific instruments draw power. (0.0075/s, or 27/hr) 10)SAS and ASAS are retunable, if a hassle to do so. 11) The altimeter widget rounds down, so you're often 1 meter higher than it claims.

How much power does the probe have available? (If it doesn't have any, you may want to bring an RTG or some solar panels next time)

Getting a probe into a low semi-major axis, low eccentricity orbit around the star. Visiting lots of planets/moons. Simulating an interstellar mission by seeing how fast you can escape from the star.

Windows: Alt+F12 OSX: Option+F12 Linux: Right Shift+F12

Well, 4 km/s (or less) with FAR. Stock, you're looking at ~4.3-4.7 km/s. I aim for 4.5 km/s in typical designs.

Oh, something I forgot -- you can use MJ2's ÃŽâ€V recorder to see how much you spend on ascents, and if you need to refine your flying.

Let's see... While Isp is often expressed in seconds, it's a measure of efficiency, rather than time -- how many seconds one pound of propellant can produce one pound of thrust, or pound(force)-seconds of impulse provided by one pound-mass of propellant. This unit cancellation (lb*s/lb) leaves us with seconds, and is where g0 comes from. If you'll excuse the mixed units, one pound-force acting on one pound-mass accelerates it at ~9.8 m/s². àis the greek letter rho, and commonly used as shorthand for density. I got the units mixed up here, it should be .005 tonnes / liter. (eg: 200 fuel/oxidizer units adds 1 tonne to the craft's mass). The flow rate in units/s is the volumetric flow (or unitmetric? Depends on what assumptions you make on what a fuel unit is) The 45-55 mass split is likely make the propellants sort of like RP-1/LOX. Whether or not 3 LV-Ns is better than a Poodle is highly dependent on the rest of the craft. There's a large Isp advantage with the nukes, but the overall thrust is still lower, the mass is higher, and the size may be an issue for landers.

1) The ideal speed varies quite a bit with altitude. My rule of thumb is 100 m/s at sea level, doubling every 7 km (eg: 200 m/s at 7 km, 400 m/s at 14 km, 800 m/s at 21 km). Are there any areas where you go well above/below this? 2) Do a smoother turn -- start with ~80°, and lead or chase the prograde marker down to the horizon. 3) Go for a 70-80 km orbit (it doesn't save *much*, but it's something)

Well, how do you normally fly various rockets? Describe your typical approach to orbiting, using pictures and/or video if necessary.

From back in 0.17: Somewhere around 21 km/s available after reaching orbit, if you flew it right. (the 7 inner tanks made it to orbit full) I'm half-expecting someone to post a high mass ratio ion design now... edit: This was a proposed design for getting into a low orbit around Kerbol. It has 29 km/s ÃŽâ€V, but needs a launcher. The overall system would be ~34 km/s, but would be a PITA to construct.

If B has an Isp of 1s, either case. g0 is a constant due to the units used for Isp -- it applies in all situations, independent of current gravity. Fuel and oxidizer units can be treated as volume (in the past they were listed as liters in some menus). Both liquid fuel and oxidizer have a density of .005 units/tonne, making liquid fuel engines relatively simple to get numbers for.mass flow / density == volumetric flow Or, units/s == Thrust / (Isp * g0 * ÃÂ) Stock liquid engines burn 55% oxidizer and 45% propellant (that's what the 1.1 and 0.9 ratios end up amounting to). The 3x LV-Ns will use less fuel (as demonstrated) tn/s is tonnes/s (tonnes being by convention the ingame mass units)

Achieving 2kN using a pair of engine As will use less fuel than a single engine B. For any given engine: Mass flow == thrust / (Isp * g0) In KSP, g0 == 9.82 N/kg (or kN/Mg) For multiple engines of the same kind, increase the thrust but do *not* change the Isp. For multiple engines of different kinds, you'll need to take a weighted average, most likely by finding the mass flow of each one, adding it up, and dividing the total thrust by that total mass flow. eg: 3x LV-Ns produce 180 thrust at 800 s. Mass flow ~= 0.0229 tn/s (2.062 fuel/s, 2.520 oxidizer/s) 1x Poodle produces 220 thrust at 390 s. Mass flow ~= 0.0574 th/s (5.170 fuel/s, 6.319 oxidizer.s) edit: Demonstration pics:

That was never a feature in stock. Rather, it was part of DEADBEEF's Edtools https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40584845/EdTools020.zip

After logging in, you'll want to click on the "profile" button. Near the bottom of that page will be the link for downloading 0.20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKB

OKB Raptop. I have some names for subcontractors, but eh. (OKB == Experimental Design Bureau)

IIRC, A single profile (launching into GTO) covers ~2/3 of all commercial flight. Though really, most expendable systems offer greater flexibility than the shuttle did. (eg: you liquid fueled upper stages are an option, launch directly into GTO or even Earth-escape, etc.) ...Hubble.

LaunCh Time, maybe? In general, a craft's met and lct will add up to UT.

Cons: * Recycleable, rather than actually reusable. (The SRBs and TPS in particular required serious refits after each launch) * Low flight rate (135 launches over 30 years yields 4.5 per year. The goal was... substantially higher, and while this is better than the Soyuz capsule, it's rather worse than some expendable rockets.) * Very expensive (related in part to the previous 2 issues) edit: The large payload to ground capacity was never used. (Tying in with earlier posts on flexibility)

Change lct to the current UT value. (UT can be found just under FLIGHTSTATE, before any craft or even crew)