Noticeably FAT

I've been considering adding small 'booster packs' to the bottom of my interplanetary drives if I know I'm going to need more than 1km/s for the transfer just to save on that precious liquid fuel. I suspect that they will be more trouble than they are worth, but I still wanna try.

Couple hours a day, for several days. I watched a lot of videos at the time, so that helped a lot. I don't remember what version, but I do remember landing on fins instead of legs. I think I may have done that for weight reasons instead of not having the parts, I don't think I've been playing that long.

I was referring to the 0° position on the parts themselves. For instance, if you place a docking port on top of the three man pod, if you are looking directly at the nose of the rocket in chase view 0° will be up but the capsule hatch will be about 170°. Or, you may have built your station with tri-symmetry and you need to work with 120° increments. In those sorts of cases you can't just assume that you can line up the docking ports at 0° and be where you want to be.

The non-combined items issue seems to arise when you have that item placed, then remove it, and add it again using some symmetry setting. The 'original' item will be on its own while the others will be combined. I haven't run across any way to stop this behavior, but reloading the ship seems to re-combine the items. Removing/replacing items while using symmetry seems to also mess up action group settings (even if they still look like they are correct they still seem to not behave correctly), so if I've done any moving around of items that are in an action group I remove and re-add them to the action group. For the same reason I try to leave setting up action groups for last whenever possible.

Without having another object in orbit that you can target, I'm not sure. You could set up a maneuver node and eyeball it close, then once that burn is finished just burn manually and keep an eye on MechJeb.

Have you tried copying a ship or two from your corrupt save to your new one? You may not be able to recover your entire game, but you may be able to get your station back.

I do, it's easier to be more precise. As you are learning how to use it you can use the graphical indicators and get close enough. The solid white lines are where you need to be pointing. The dashed lines are where you are pointing. The red cross is your direction of travel in the X & Y axis (to find Z you'll have to use the distance readouts to figure out if you're moving toward or away. Note that if you are adjusting your x & Y distance fast enough, it's possible to be moving away in Z and still have your distance to your target dropping. However, if that's happening it doesn't matter much, you're likely far enough away to fix it later). The red triangle is your Z rotation. If it's pointing up*, your docking ports are rotated to the same position (the indicator is pointing toward 'up' for the target port). However, the rest of the ship may be rotated relative to the docking port (though likely in 90° increments) so you can't just make your Z rotation 0° and assume you're in the position you want. If you want to use the numeric readouts (and you eventually will), check the How to use section for the mod on the SpacePort, it explains what each number means. *The arrow actually 'points' to the center of the crosshairs. The indicator rotates about the center of the crosshairs, where it is in relation to the crosshairs is the readout. If you look at the screencap on the SpacePort, the ship needs to roll to the left.

I use: This calculator to get an optimum phase/ejection angle, and approximate dV requirement. MechJeb to find my current phase angle The equation in this thread to find the time to the next optimum phase angle Kerbal Alarm Clock to let me know when that phase angle is coming up (I started using KAC before it had phase angle alarms, I still don't use them because it's more fun to break out the slide rule and calculate the time manually) All that gets me close to the required phase angle, and close to the required dV. At that point I eyeball the ejection angle and set up a maneuver node. I start out with the dV value Olex's calculator gave me, and futz with it from there. I've gotten an intercept within ~200m/s each of the half dozen or so times I've tried it. The only times I've had to to mid-course corrections is when I tried periapsis kicks (I didn't do them well) and once when I wasn't paying close attention and was going to end up in a highly inclined orbit that I didn't want (though I still would have ended up in an orbit).

You can eyeball it, use multiple docking ports, or install a mod. If you go the mod route, I'd suggest the Lazor Docking Cam.

Some parts seem to only feed fuel in one direction. The tri-coupler and adapter are included in that list, IIRC. Is there a reason that you aren't using the larger tanks? You could avoid the fuel issues, and it would be more stable. Parts can only be connected to a single other part, so while it looks right your lower tri-coupler is actually only connected to one of your fuel tanks, the others are just sort of hanging there.

I don't know what you consider "heavy", but this will get 80 tons into orbit. The four nuke engines at the top of the screenshot are sitting under a jumbo tank + orbital maneuvering stuff.

Form is as important to me as function (why take ugly ships to space?), but one side affect of that is my spaceplanes tend to work better if I knock a few parts off on the runway. The one I was testing last night just did not want to leave the ground, then with just a little runway to spare I smacked a couple engines and the tails into the concrete, and the bastud calmly rose into the air, pretty as you please. Nothing quite like a percussive redesign to show you where you're going wrong.

Well, after some more dinking around I got it figured out. More fuel for the aerospike and a lower angle got me into orbit, with enough to get me up to my station for refueling.

Ok, here's the math as it was given to me. I can't remember who that was, if that person sees this please let me know so I can properly attribute this. theta 1: Your current phase angle theta 2: Your desired phase angle T1: Current orbital period T2: Target orbital period w1: Current angular velocity w2: Target angular velocity delta-w = w2 - w1 w1 = 360 / T1 w2 = 360 / T2 The equation for the time to your desired phase angle is: theta 1 = theta 2 + (delta-w)T If you come up with a negative number for T, just add 360 to theta 2. Olex's calculator with give you the necessary phase angle (theta 2), various mods (I use MechJeb) will give you your current phase angle (theta 1). The KSP wiki will give you the orbital periods for each planet (T1 and T2). Here's an example from one of my Duna missions theta 1 = 28.97° theta 2 = 44.36° T1 = 106.52 days T2 = 200.44 days w1 = 3.38°/d w2 = 1.80°/d delta-w = -1.58°/d 28.97° = (44.36° + 360°) + (-1.58°/d)T T = 237.589d Wolfram Alpha is awesome for doing the math, and converting decimal days to D/H/M.

I've had the same happen with a few of my ships. I have no idea what causes it, but leaving to the space center and then coming back to the flight seems to fix it.

I've been tinkering with some spaceplane designs lately, and I've actually come up with something that does pretty well when it comes to atmospheric flight. I've been trying to turn it into an SSTO craft, but I'm struggling with the TO part of that equation. I think it ought to be able to achieve orbit (I can get it out of atmo easy enough, but I don't have enough rocket dV to circularize), and I have a feeling it's my flight profile that is screwing me. Right now I take it up to 16-20km, let it hit top speed on jet engines (1.somethingkm/s), light the rocket and stand it on its ass, shut down the air breathing engines before they flame out. This... doesn't work well. So, how should I be going about things to get this thing into orbit? I can't remember the exact numbers and don't have access to KSP at the moment, but here is what is powering it: 2 turbojet engines with 2 jet fuel tanks and 4 ram air intakes. 1 aerospike with 4 FL-T400 fuel tanks. I don't remember the weight of the ship, but it's little more than fuel, a couple wings and a cockpit. Does this sound like it should get into orbit? I can post a pic later this evening when I get home.

I had a thread asking pretty much the same question, and there is a pretty simple equasion to figure out when your next launch window will be. The thread is 'http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/showthread.php/45624-Calculate-time-to-phase-angles', but Google's cache only displays the second page, and the well-written answer is on the first. I have it written down at home, I'll post it this evening if nobody else answers. If you don't want to do the match yourself and are willing to install a mod, Kerbal Alarm Clock is pretty handy, and now lets you set alarms for phase angles.

The orange tank + mainsail ought to work, but yeah, it's gonna flex. Strut the crap out of the side tanks, And put some sepotrons on them. Also, assign the outside engine gimbals to an action group and shut them off before you launch (leaving the center gimbal on should help). Then just launch it and watch it wobble. There's really no such animal as a solid jumbo and mainsail ship.

D'oh. I keep forgetting that there are two versions of MJ now. Also, bonyetty brings up a good point on gimbaling. Too much (especially with mainsails) can cause a lot of problems. That ship I posted is set up to turn gimbaling off on all but the center stack using action group 0.

When I build rockets with emergency abort systems I end up sticking a couple sepatrons pointing sideways for just that reason. 1-2 on the nose seems to get the capsule rolled off the stack.

I start with an interesting (to me) name. Beagle (Duna system mission) Draco (Apollo analogue) Topaz (first crack at an Apollo mission) Infinity (Kerbal station) Xerxes (current big-ass mission to the Jool system) Add Mk. numbers if it's a design I'm testing and want to keep backups. Olympus Mk. 1.2 (SSTO spaceplane I'm futzing with, first design, second minor redesign) Add descriptive module names for multi-part ships Beagle Lander Draco CM Topaz Lifter Infinity Electric Xerxes MapSat The name that stays consistent is my Endurance series of long range probes. They all look different and perform somewhat different roles (anything from just sending a probe to a planet to mapping), but they all get called Endurance Mk. X.

No need to add RCS to the payload, the payload thrusters should share fuel from the tug (just make sure your tug carries plenty. I would assign all the payload RCS thrusters to a common action group so you can shut them down once they are on the station. If you don't you'll end up with the situation I have, that is you either manually disable the ones you don't need on the station or you have dozens of unnecessary thrusters firing.

You can transfer RCS, but you don't need to. It gets shared through the entire vessel. RCS is pretty much your best bet for stopping the spin without a workaround. If you don't want to do that (or it's just not going to work), just time warp for a second or go back to the space center and come back. That'll stop the physics from being calculated, stopping the spin.

Sure you can, you just have to really want it. And carry a couple extra ion drives. And lots of solar panels. And plenty of zenon. I did a Jool braking burn inside the Jool SOI on four ion drives (had a wee miscalculation on the fuel supply). Sure, I burned (ionized?) through about six tanks of zenon, but I did it.

I'd start removing stuff before I'd add more. You design looks very similar to one I have, but I'm lifting a little more with a little less. If you can wait another hour I'll clean it up and post a link. Until then I'd: Get rid of the little SRBs. Replace each of those clusters with one, maybe two of the bigger SRBs. Drop your control fins down to the bottom (I'm not sure why they work better there, but they do). Add some more fins to your central tank, that way you'll still have some control as you drop your asparagus stages. By that time you ought to be about out of the atmosphere, but they should help. Get rid of the 8 way symmetry on your RCS, go with 4 way. Get rid of all those little RCS tanks, put one big one on your center orange tank, and then whatever you think you'll need on the payload. You don't need nearly that many quantum struts, they're pretty strong. ETA: I just noticed that you are using MechJeb, so I don't need to get rid of it. I don't think I'm using any other mods on this craft, so here it is