Vanamonde

1) At launch, most of your thrust is coming from SRBs, which do not gimbal to aid in steering. 2) You hit physics warp while under thrust, which causes forces to be enacted in chunks rather than smoothly, which is when your rocket starts to get squirrelly. 3) After the SRBs run out, your remaining rocket engine is much to small for that ship (notice how your speed starts dropping?), so although it is a gimballing engine, it's not applying enough force to hold you straight. 4) Using RCS in atmosphere is relatively ineffectual, and a big waste of RCS fuel because control surfaces are more effective and require no fuel. So, replace the central engine with a more powerful version, don't use warp during a launch, and leave the RCS off until you get to space.

Can you explain the Oberth effect to me in terms of the forces involved but without the math? Because the momentum equations don't tell me what's happening in a way I can visualize. Also, gyroscopes: 1) black magic, 2) or what?

You could try this one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25779-Orbital-refuelling-tanker

Scatter is not persistent. When you resume a landed flight, whole forests can appear or disappear.

Here's a craft file you can download for mobile floodlights: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25254-Self-deploying-floodlight After placing, eject the wheels to reduce the part count.

This http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25779-Orbital-refuelling-tanker is a robotic refueling tanker that can deliver an orange tank to a ~300km orbit without calling upon the fuel in the tank itself.

Do you want advice on how to build your own ship, or an example ship you can download? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25029-A-moon-rocket-for-newbies

I am experiencing black sceens (with the little solar system animation) of from 10 to 30 seconds every time I transition from space center to VAB, or any other such view change. That being said, there's no reason to assume that the guys at Squad are "sitting on their butts." I am not angry about these delays, bothersome as they may be, because Squad has consistently demonstrated that they are aware of problems with the game and work to fix them. It may not be as fast as we would like, but then, there's no such thing as "soon enough" for gamers. And they may not address the bugs in the order we would like (the Mainsail overheat drives me nuts), but then, they can't fix every bug at once. But bugs WILL get fixed. That is Squad's performance history.

I'm also experiencing several issues with 21.1. The SAS now works quite well for medium-large ships, but very small vessels go into a rapid shake that persists as long as SAS is on, and when you turn it off, the vehicle is thrown into a spin by whatever instant of momentum was last imparted to it by the shake. I've experienced moments of lag on Mun, not due to my ship. And occasionally I've experienced a bit of lag in the VAB, which has never happened before. A ship with many parts in the VAB might cause the game to pause for thought when moving or adding parts, but this new little bit of lag happens just while panning the camera over a stationary ship of medium size. Also, a very rare thing that used to happen in 20 seems to be more common in 21, and that is a crash upon game start up. And as others have noted, load times are slower rather than faster in this version. I also have experienced a temporary freeze of up to half a minute or so upon entering Mun's SOI. I am gathering info and will submit these as bug reports once I have the info that requires, but right now, I'm just wondering who else is experiencing these things.

It was both, and if you think it was easy, let's see your version. That is a ridiculous thing to say. Have you not paused to think about the number of parts that went into each ship, and the testing required to make sure they'd work, not just singly, but together when they got to Duna? Then there's the matter of simply balancing ships that complex so they fly straight. No mean feat in itself. Folks are free to like this or not, but trying to downplay the accomplishment, work, and skill involved only makes the complainers look petty and jealous.

Remap the throttle keys.

It's been done:

Updated for 21.1.

First, you wait 383 million years to evolve fingers. Then you post 5 times. Then the forum gives you permission to customize your profile.

Hold down the middle mouse button or wheel while panning.

You can find some IP ship configurations in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37952-Round-trip-ships

Updated for 21.1.

So can I, but isn't easier and the broom more stable if you're holding it in the middle?

Yes, I can, and always have been able to. I'll get a pic if you want one, but I haven't bothered to capture the excitement of the moment so far, and so don't have one to post right now.

Long, thin rockets are inherently less stable. As you burn fuel in the lower stage, the center of mass shifts toward the top, and then you're trying to shove the thing around like balancing a broom in the palm of your hand. Try side-mounting the boosters around the payload instead of stacking the stages one on top of the other.

I have always been able to right-click on a docking port from almost too far away to actually see it, though that's only to select one on a ship I've already targeted, because I always target the ship itself from a distance on map view.

For long missions, I like to install one Hitchhiker module per 2 crew, to simulate living quarters.

1) Poking around the demo for a few minutes. 2) Getting into orbit was kind of hard for me, reaching Mun was cinch, landing on Mun seemed impossible, getting to other planets was not terrribly hard, but airplanes are still just about impossible. So it's different at diferent times, and for different people. 3) Building a station requires docking, which can be kind of hard, and building large launchers can be hard, but you only need large launchers if you're sending up big chunks of station at a time. Send small pieces, and it's not hard. 4) You'll need to leave at an angle, as I explain in this tutorial: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25008-How-to-reach-orbit-and-a-rocket-that-can-do-it-a-walkthrough-for-newbies 5) It's possible, and there's a discussion about it here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37952-Round-trip-ships 6) Smaller is usually better. If you're ship isn't getting where you want it to go, try removing things instead of adding fuel. (And this forum is messing with my post formatting again. AAARGH!!)

I don't believe there is a fix for that particular bit of misfortune, but I hope it doesn't kill all your enthusiasm for the game. It is very hard to get good at KSP, but that makes it all the more rewarding when you do finally achieve whatever your current goal may be. When I was learning the game I found it quite easy to get ships to Mun, but I crashed on every landing attempt for 4 straight days and began to wonder if I ever would figure it out. But I persisted, and now Mun landings are so easy that I test my new deep-space designs by landing them on Mun. Try something else for a while. Build a car and drive it around KSC, or something like that. Then go back to rockets when you're less frustrated.

Each part can only be attached to 1 part when you place it in the VAB. Even if it touches another part, there is no connection. But you can link two touching, or even simply two nearby pieces, by stretching a strut between them. But the strut will only connect those 2 parts, and nothing else. A strut can not connect 3 parts under any circumstances. I hope that was clearer. And yes, I think mcirish was talking about the X200-8; it's what I use for that purpose.