Qumefox

Are we really gonna explode? I don't wanna explode.

I've done an eccentric solar orbit rescue before with stock parts and no autopilot.. Hell I didn't even use protractor or kerbal engineer redux back then. Yes it's possible. even exciting to do.... once.. It also took me like 3 straight hours of orbital corrections and fine tuning to match orbits, capture, then get an intercept with kerbin again. I just end missions that get stuck in solar orbit now.

The center of the top part does resemble a giant crater that covers like 1/4 the planet.. There appear to be smaller craters scattered around as well.

Ouch.. Fairly PITA orbit to rescue from without resorting to autopilots. That's a mission i'd just end heh.

I see no picture.

It kind of sounds like your lander has way too much thrust available if it's that easy to overshoot and start climbing again. You can, you just have to watch the ground.. However, the altimeter at the top of the screen reads sea level/median for whatever reference body you're in the SoI of.. Most of my Munar landings have hit ground at ~800m - 1200m. If you switch to IVA view, you then get a radar altimeter as well that shows true height over the ground, but only from 0 - 2000m.

250 thrust for 2 fuel consumption with no other penalty like weight like the nuclear engines. Yeah.. I'll stick to (mostly) stock parts, since the challenge of doing stuff is why I play KSP.

Sounds like the altitude might have changed slightly. Just tweak it until your sats quit moving.

Er, what engines are those? They're pretty fugly looking whatever they are. And by the above comments, I assume they have fuel efficiency in the 'cheating' range?

Your just recording in 480p, so resolution shouldn't be the issue.. You might try 'faster' encoding settings, that use less CPU time, but higher bitrates to maintain quality. Though honestly.. in KSP, you can generally get away with using fairly bad encoding settings, from a quality standpoint, and the result still be watchable, since, unlike most other games, usually in KSP.. the majority of the time, your not dealing with 'every pixel on the screen changing every frame' scenarios. So you can use pretty loose encoding settings. What software are you using?

Welcome to KSP..

kerbal engineer redux, and protractor can give you the same readouts... without the autopilot. In regards to the autopilot.. I don't really care if others use mechjeb or not, but I never will. If I CBA'd to get stuff into orbit myself.. i'm probably too busy to be playing KSP to begin with..

Yeah. I figured that out after staring at it more. Certainly useful for ship building.

Hmm. doesn't really make sense to me.. The numbers don't really agree with those i've seen protractor give me..

This depends.. If your still dealing with the solar map.. Yes orbital corrections are needed to catch your target. If your in visual range (the game is showing you target distance) then you can just direct thrust, because you'll accelerate then decelerate to catch your target long before your orbit has an extreme effect on your direction... providing your orbits are relatively well matched anyway.. The more matched your orbits, the longer the window you have to do this in. If your orbits differ greatly, you might end up being in visual range of your target for a few minutes to a few seconds..

Only mods I use are protractor, kerbal engineer redux, (both of which are purely information readout mods) and a few select pieces from the novapunch pack. I'm pretty against things that fly for you. Stranding your kerbals on distant planets is much more enjoyable when you get to do it yourself. kerbal engineer redux gives you things like TWR, available delta-v in a build/stage, etc. Eliminates a good bit of trial and error, but not all of it. Pretty much the same with protractor.. Gives you readouts of planetary information like current angles, etc.. Again.. takes some of the trial and error out of getting planetary intercepts.. but not all of it.

What was the listed cause of the failure when you ended the mission?

It looks like a mun arch in the last pic. Not sure why it'd be moving though.

Not sure about with mods, but I can give some tips on doing it stock. 1) high ship mass is evil and just makes things harder. 2) RCS is your friend. 3) the closer you can get the two craft via normal orbital corrections, the easier approaching/catching the other ship will be, in regards to a fuel needed and time spent standpoint.

KSP is currently in alpha.. Meaning it's FAR from finished. Right now, there are no objectives. It's a giant sandbox where you do what you want. In the future there will be a campaign with missions, etc, but right now, they're still adding basic infrastructure and content. As far as the store/forum login, i'm not sure. Since I don't remember making a forum account, I THINK they're linked, but.. Best thing to do, is just try to log in.. It will either let you, or you'll have to make a store account.. not really a big deal either way.

Aren't the engine pods a bit lighter, mass wise, than the structural fuselage?

I'm starting to detect a trend here...

^^^ This. It really boils down to physics calculations. There are probably game optimisations to be had, but in the long run.. more parts in a build will always increase the machine load due to the added physics calculations for each part, and this will always be the case. The more complicated the ships, the more CPU cycles modelling all those parts will eat, and the slower the simulation will run. You have to do some optimisations yourself with your builds to make them as efficient as possible.. and K.I.S.S very much applies to kerbal rocket science.. Generally, the more simple the design, the better it works.

Isn't this how everyone plays? lol. Certainly works for me, as anybody who's ever watched my streams can attest.