TerLoki

Got through nearly all of my first manned interplanetary mission, a Duna fly-by. I say "nearly all" because I still have to return the crew and deorbit the ship, but it's currently parked in a nice LKO waiting for a crew transfer vehicle. I'm calling this a success right now though, docking and deorbiting will be a cakewalk. I was going to reuse the ship for an Eve fly-by at some point, but every module of it needs tweaking of some kind.

Not sure if I'm missing something, but I downloaded the plugin from the first post and no new parts appeared. Is there a second link I need to download?

I've always used MechJeb, at first mostly because I was having a hard time even getting some of my designs to orbit, then to rendezvous so I could build space stations. Now I've been playing career mode, and I really like that it implements MechJeb incrementally. You don't start out with the ascent autopilot or automated orbital adjustments or anything, but you DO have enough to assist you in rocket building and help you learn what to do, which is awesome. Warp to phase angle is a big one here. It can be a real pain to get those lined up manually, without anything to really tell you what the exact angle onscreen is. Warp to phase angle lets you time your launches correctly without having to eyeball it. Yes, it's automation, but you still have to know the phase angle and ejection angle of your burns, plus how much delta-V you'll need.

I very nearly lost Bill and Jeb on a simple trip to the Mun, in career mode. Basically, I made a two-man lander that didn't quite have the delta-V to land and return, so I opted for a fly-by instead. And rather than play it safe and go by the book when headed back to Kerbin (they weren't on a free return trajectory), I gunned the engine in prograde and put the orbital path down in the atmosphere. Then, at about 3 minutes to periapsis, I separated the capsule, which apparently gave them enough of a nudge to just barely graze Kerbin's atmosphere and skip off. The "nearly" part is that I thought I'd screwed up royally and sent them on a one-way trip outside of Kerbin's SOI, but upon zooming out a little I noticed that that was not the case. Their orbit had changed to go out past Minimus, yes, but stayed firmly in Kerbin's grasp. So now I'm blaming this on Jeb and leaving him up there to think about what he's done (they've already done 5 or 6 laps, enough to bring them inside the Mun's orbit) and let aerobraking do the rest.

There is no such thing as too much Delta-V.

I'd love to build an SSTO or shuttle of some kind for crew transfers and launching small probes and stuff. Heck, I'd really love to build one that could refuel, do a run to station orbiting the Mun or Minimus, then come back and land ready for a new mission. Buuut as it is I use rockets only because I cannot into spaceplanes, they always veer off the left and crash for some reason.

I know I could use a winch. So many career mode probes defeated by gently sloping craters... .

So, I'm just looking for general advice here. I haven't been on KSP in a long while, and before I left I remember being really frustrated with trying to build spaceplanes or even fixed-wing aircraft of any variety. When I tried Kliper-style vertical launch something would always spin out of control, or snap off, or I'd get a bad stage separation that ripped off my engines. I tried horizontal take-offs, but those were even more disastrous, as everything I made just listed lazily to the left until it wingtip caught pavement and the whole thing cartwheeled itself to death. At least one I know COULD fly, I managed a weird hybrid take-off from the runway involving stabilizing clamps and it flew all the way to 60000m before running out of fuel. I even got the same results when using premade ships from mods and the vanilla game. And now I'm trying again, and guess what? The results are the same. I just don't get what's wrong. I have symmetry on everything as close as I can possibly get it. The center of lift and center of gravity line up; AND center of thrust in the case of rocket-assisted launches. I even installed FAR for the first time thinking it might change at least something, but all that's changed is the addition of a stall warning to show me just how much I'm failing as my not-Kliper tumbles out of control from the sky. Is there something I'm missing here? I mean, obviously this is something that can be done as I see awesome spaceplanes and other aircraft all over the forums, but I just can't figure it out for the life of me.

Loved this mod ever since I downloaded it, even used it to make my first SSTO spaceplane (not to mention first spaceplane that actually WORKS). I\'ve just got one problem right now, and it\'s not the cargo bay: When ever I attach an engine to the tail RCS section for the mark 3 shuttle it doesn\'t work, but I\'ve seen a lot of screenshots of it working in this configuration. Do I just need to try reinstalling the parts, or is there some kind of voodoo magic that I\'m supposed to be using?

By sheer luck I managed to make SSTO spaceplane this morning. After a bit of modifying (before it could just barely make a stable 150km orbit) I found that not only had I made a version that was (relatively) stable, flyable, and capable of reaching high orbit, but also that it could make it to the Mun and back easily with just the two add-on tanks I had placed on the sides. I\'ll probably fail at least one of the landings, but I think I\'ve got a shot, so here goes nothing!

I don\'t think so, look around for a little triangular solar panel in the structures tab, I\'ve used that to recharge my ion drives before without any .cfg edits or anything.

Just wrapped this up, unfortunately I forgot to grab pics. May do it again and photograph everything, had a little hiccup with the engine on the final booster anyway. The Minimus impactor was launched atop a two stage 'Slepnir 5' heavy lift rocket, with the first stage (plus four 1.75 meter SRB boosters) providing the ascent burn from Kerbin, plus the initial Minimus injection burn. Stage two handled the rest of the Minimus transfer, insertion, and orbital maneuvering, then went on to kick-start the final descent burn. Once jettisoned the probe\'s first stage activated, burning 4 60 second mini-SRBs to boost the impactor to its final acceleration toward Minimus, due to a staging error the central liquid fuel engine failed to ignite until after the impactor separated. The first stage then performed a course correction to avoid impact and trained its cameras to monitor the impactor. The probe achieved a velocity of 2207 m/s on impact, observed by the main stage from an altitude of 17km above Minimus.

Hitting the spacebar by accident when I want to accelerate, separating the capsule from the rocket.

The only way I can think of would be to get the whole thing on a suborbital trajectory long enough that you could detach the rocket, switch vehicles, make a burn to put the rocket into a stable orbit, and then swap back before the spaceplane hits the atmosphere again.

Oh man, I think I have more fun designing rockets and testing new equipment than actually flying them. I used to have every rocket I launched named for the design series it followed, but that got a little confusing once everything was up in orbit, so now they\'re all named for the payload instead. Still, I do sort of follow a design series for each rocket, so I can still classify them. I\'d list all the mods required for each, but frankly I\'ve forgotten which parts go where on a lot of these. The Selene series was really my first attempt at serious rocket building. They were mostly test vehicles so that I could figure out what worked before going to the Mun, and the last few (7, 8, 9) were even capable of carrying a functional lander that could make the return trip all the way to Munar orbit. Of course none of them ever safely landed (thought a few ended up as smears on the ground), but that was due to my own piloting ineptitude rather than any design flaw. Mostly. There\'s also the Vulcan series that was developed simultaneously, but it isn\'t shown because they were basically the same thing, and the only one that really stood out was Vulcan 2, which was just a stack of multiple SRB stages. Lessons learned on the Selene and Vulcan rockets were finally applied to my first purpose-built Mun rocket: The Proton. At the it was the biggest rocket I had made, and was classified as a 'heavy lifter'. Though I still use it sometimes, recent designs have downgraded it to 'medium'. I currently have about five Proton variations, each with a different payload. The one shown here is the MechJeb equipped Proton MLTV (Multiple Lander Tug Vehicle), which can transport up to three independent landers to the Mun or Minimus and return to Kerbin. The closely related Proton EDV (Extended Duration Vessel) was my first vessel to break Kerbin\'s gravity, and the later Proton KEDO (Kerbol Extended Duration Orbiter) was used for my first (failed) try at the solar flare challenge. When I was looking through all of these designs I found a couple that I hadn\'t seen in a while and, frankly, couldn\'t quite remember why I\'d made them. Well that\'s not entirely accurate, I know why I made them just by looking at the basic design, I just don\'t remember when I ever used them. The first was the Antares, of which I have only one saved. Honestly, I don\'t even know if it works, but my gut says it\'s a medium lifter meant to go to the Mun, at least that\'s probably what it\'s SUPPOSED to do, I have no idea if it will or not. Then there\'s the Ares series, and by 'series' I mean 'one rocket with different crap stuck on top', it looks like it was supposed to be a simple orbital lifter, possible Mun-capable, but I\'m not sure. The odd one out in all this is the Neutron, a simple middle-weight rocket modeled on the Soviet N-1. It\'s carried a few of my more recent lander missions but mostly launches small orbiters and satellites. This dude comes in two versions: The standard Neutron with four SRBs and two fuel tanks on the upper stage, and the Neutron heavy that replaces those fuel tanks with a single long 1.75 meter tank and adds two more SRBs. I only remembered to take a picture of the former. Last, but certainly not least, is my current workhorse: The Slepnir. If I\'m not using a Proton or Neutron, chances are I\'m either testing something new or using one of these bad-boys. The Slepnir series ranges from heavy to super-heavy carries the biggest loads I\'ve yet to launch out of the atmosphere. These guys do everything. They ferry landers and orbiters to the Mun and Minimus, carry ion-drive powered long-duration vessels into orbit, and the largest (the Slepnir 3 or 'Yggdrasil', shown with a Destiny orbiter) can launch every component save the add-on SRBs into Munar orbit and carry payloads to an orbit halfway between Kerbin and Kerbol with fuel to spare. There are a few others, but they\'re all either confirmed failures like the Rama series, or just variation on older designs like the Charon series (lander prototypes and small spaceplanes mounted on Selene series rockets).

Well, I\'ve made three attempts so far, and it looks like all of them are going to be failures. Ran out of fuel on the first one when trying to break away from Kerbol, ran out of fuel on the second one while trying to brake into Kerbin orbit, and even though I\'m using an ion drive now so I can\'t run out of fuel I can\'t seem to get the orbit right to rendezvous with Kerbin.

Well shoot, I think I already have a rocket that can do this, and it\'s mostly stock too. Guess I\'ll go ahead and give it a shot, wish me luck!

So, so many fails... First was when I decided to be really fancy and have Munar lander on my Rama heavy lifter be mounted to the side. No matter what I tried to even it out that always led to a rather spectacular fireworks display. Then there were the spaceplanes, all of them. I think the only ones I ever got off the ground were little Kliper-type things the size of a lander and strapped to the nose of a rocket, and most of those wound up in deep space because I hadn\'t learn how to use the map or how much thrust was TOO much just yet. This has also happened to me more times than I care to admit. The most recent, and probably most soul-crushing in that 'so close, yet so far' way, were my latest batch of Munar landers. The first one blew up on impact. The second one blew up on impact, but the crew module survived. The third one was my closest to a perfect manual landing, it lost a landing strut (Soyuz mod), fell over, then fell apart when I tried to turn the ascent stage upright (it\'s currently trying to push the Mun out of orbit). Then came my first MechJeb design, I get to orbit and separate the lander with no trouble, but when I tell the autopilot to land it flashes 'insufficient thrust to land'; so I ditch the descent stage and land with just the ascent thrusters... Into a hill which rolls it over causing all but one engine to detonate. FINALLY I get everything perfect: MechJeb capsule, more powerful descent engine, smooth landing site, it\'s all coming together. The lander touches down and promptly falls over, and in my flailing with the RCS and the solar panels I added for decoration to right this thing the ascent thrusters, once again, blow up.

Hey guys, I\'m a CAD drafter with a love of sci-fi and drawing up starships in my spare time, so when a friend recommended this game to me I just had to try it. I\'ve been playing for about a week or so and loved every minute of it. I\'ve designed a few (mostly) reliable rockets (can\'t get the hang of spaceplanes though), made a few trips around the Mun, gotten the hang of getting to orbit, and even had a few survivable landings.