Noticeably FAT

If I was going to do it, I would build the craft as I wanted it to be in orbit, launch it so it's sitting on the launchpad, then in the persistence file swap the orbital parameters for the two ships. BACK UP THE PERSISTENCE FILE BEFORE YOU TRY THIS! All it takes is a copy/paste so you have a copy of the file, if anything gets messed up you can always delete the one you edited and rename the copy.

Whell, I finally reached the limit of my poor old laptop on that last lift, the game kept crashing. That was the incentive I needed to finally go get a new one (the mission clock is supposed to be green? Who knew!). There was still some wonkiness with that ship, so it's been scrapped and is being rebuilt. So, now that all that is gone I have an opportunity to redesign a few parts. Mostly I'm concerned about the ISA GPS unit not working right, I really wanted that on my rovers. Is there a decent replacement for that mod that is working in this version?

It sounds like your problem isn't with the gravity turn, but with circularization (or rather the lack of). The gravity turn isn't strictly speaking necessary, it's just the most efficient way to increase your horizontal velocity. A single big burn cannot get you into orbit. You need to stop burning once your apoapsis (highest point in your orbit) is where you want it (either watch the map view, or get a mod that indicates orbital information), then once you hit that point you need to burn again towards orbital prograde (the direction that will increase your orbital velocity) until your periapsis is as high as you want it.

That's why I use it. Or more specifically, I use it on the stuff that has become trivial. I rarely do a manual ascent/circularization anymore, it's just not that entertaining to me. Same for interplanetary burns, I'll set up the maneuver myself to get what I want, then let MJ handle it from there. There's so much fun stuff to do in the game, so I use MJ to fast-forward through the boring parts.

I think my favorite part of that one is the alt text. No jokes, just a description of the image. Which for him, is a joke in itself.

For the future, I've had decent luck with building a ship as I want it in orbit, sending it to the launchpad, then in the persistence file swapping in the orbital parameters from the bad ship into the good ship on the pad. It sounds like it worked out for you, but I haven't had good luck trying to swap/remove individual parts.

It isn't. Ok, that could just be due to my laggy laptop.

As I type this, MechJeb is orbiting the last three science probes for my Jool mission. It was going to be one large mission, but I'm splitting it up into three or more. The fuel drop pods/extra fuel tank are currently orbiting Jool, the habitat/science lab/two rovers/six probes are going to be sent in one mission and are currently under construction and will hopefully be on their way tonight, the lander/crew transfer and return vehicle(for getting to/around/from the Jool system)/possible extra fuel mission is in the planning phase.

So I don't need to be adding ASAS to all my ships anymore? That's what I get for leaving for six months then hopping back in with no research.

"My stuff isn't floating like I want it." "Have you tried adding more large steel structures to the bottom?" "Thanks, that worked!" I love KSP.

Quite often with KSP "Can" and "Have any desire to do it" are often not the same thing.

I once did an IVA only (and a map view only after that) launch, rendezvous and dock just to see if I could, but I don't really find it as fun.

I have an AS in Arch. Eng., which as it turns out is basically an degree to be a draftsman (what I did), or move on to other architectural related courses. I don't know if you can edit your poll, but it's missing anything related to architecture, which is a pretty large chunk to be missing.

I use MechJeb so I can wander off and do other manly things, like drink beer, and watch Spongebob, and frequent visits the little kerbal's room as a result of drinking beer while playing KSP and watching Spongebob.

I've made a couple really nice and somewhat efficient ships in the past, but after a several month (and several version) hiatus, I'm back to my old habit of half-assing a design that might work for what I want to do, then throwing parts at it until it works. It's an inefficient and ugly strategy, but it is entertaining, which I'm fairly certain is the point of the game.

The proportions are off, but the concept is there. Stock parts with the exception of the fairings. If I'd been paying attention I would have mounted them on the lower decoupler so they stayed on.

That could be interesting. By the way, that estimate wasn't just throwing numbers out there. At my very generous speed estimate, at absolute best you'll be doing nothing but holding W for over 15 days. Wanna do things like eat or sleep? Gonna take longer. Your Kerbal doesn't walk that fast (and I don't think he will)? Gonna take longer. Only want to spend 12 hours a day making a Jeb go forward? You're doing nothing else in KSP for the next month. I doubt you want to do that, and I doubt even more anyone would want to watch it. Not a terrible idea, just not practical when you get down to actually doing it.

I'm pretty sure I screwed my math up somewhere, but let's see. 600km radius gives us a 3769.9km circumference. Kerbals seem to trot along at an average human pace, perhaps a little faster so let's call it an even 6kmph. Actually, let's call it 10kph, just for some nice round numbers. That means you'll be walking your Kerbal for about 15.7 days. So, no, I will not watch a Kerbal's butt wobble around for two weeks.

Fire goes at the back. Seems simple enough.

Where's the fun in too much repetition? I haven't "flown" a single one of my Mun base components. I build them, slap a lifter under them, then say "MechJeb, take me to the Mun!". Then I let MJ do a major deorbit burn, and I take the part in for a landing and then go tooling around on the surface. Building is fun*, and is indeed a challenge* (assuming you want things to actually work). Landing is fun*. Building stations/bases is fun*. Getting a ship into orbit? Been there, done that. Other than some interesting wobbles, it's the same thing, over and over. That's what robots are for, taking over the mundane, repetitious tasks. *Fun for me. Do what you want.

But the other half isn't, and what if that's the half you enjoy?

You can use V to switch to chase cam, then UDLR is always the same on screen no matter where you are pointed.

Yeah, those fairings like to do that, especially the ones on the NERVA. As Johnno said, always test that stuff before you leave. Often you don't even need to leave Kerbin, you can test staging on the ascent and make sure that it 1) works in the order it should and 2) doesn't remove parts it shouldn't. If you haven't ended the flight it shouldn't be difficult to do a little persistence file editing to swap in a non-busted version, if you don't want to completely scrap the mission.

If you don't want to use any of the suggested mods, you can 'push' the opposite control instead of 'pulling' the one you want. That will give you a little more fine control.

Someone on Fark mentioned how much time it was killing for them. I looked into it, and now I'm the guy mentioning how much of my time it is killing.