tuguley

What is the best place to change inclination of my orbit? Closer to the gravity source or further away? Or does it not matter at all because I am not changing my velocity? (theoretically) An example of when I would encounter this problem is when intercepting Jool and performing an aero-capture, I am left with a highly elliptical orbit around Jool. And more often that not, it is at an undesirable inclination for intercepting Jool's satellites. So the question is, without circularizing my orbit at the desired Moon's alltitude, where is the best place perform my inclination correction burn, at the peri or apoapsis? As a side note, I have landed on all the planets and their satellites, I'm just looking to see if there is a slightly more efficient way intercept orbits of other satellites.

I like using the mailsail as a "rich mans SRB". It has a massive thrust, higher efficiency and thrust vectoring is always a bonus. I add 3 of them with 3 large fuel tanks to basically get me out of the lower atmosphere. (10-13km) I use the poodle as a guidance engine more than anything else. In my orbital maneuver stage, I have 2 aerospikes and 1 poodle to provided enhanced steering. I use this stage to break out of Kerbin SOI aswell. Ofcourse on the topic of thrust vectoring, for me atleast, the ASAS tends to over-compensate causing massive wobbling in the ship (with the mainsail and with large ships), more or less destroying it or making it a nightmare to control.

The purple orbit conic was supposed to be predicting a solar orbit. (I moused over the AP, PE icons and they said Sun apo / peri). I am using conics mode 3. I may be wrong, but I do remember harv commenting that conics 3 was still buggy and under development and that's why it wasn't the default. (current default being mode 1) I have previously noticed other garbled patched conics with mode 3. But those were on very complex paths (very high speeds, very low altitude, with 4 SOI changes). But this was just plain surprising and very comical. I guess there is a reason mode 1 is the default. Here is another weird mode 3 conic: http://i.imgur.com/nP0SR.png I was attempting an aerocapture on Jool, after the Mun interfered with my orbit and changed my velocity.

Don't get me wrong, I love the patched conics system as much as everyone else does. But this would even make Jeb scream. I think my conics mode was 3 with a conic limit of 5 http://imgur.com/a/YEgl3 But quick thinking by Shepger Kerman saved the ship, which is now sitting in polar orbit of Ike.

One of the good things about low-g landing areas is that if you feel your landing is going to fail, you can always floor the engines and abort the landing, to gain some altitude rather quickly. Giving you some breathing space or maybe even find a new landing spot.

It is technically possible if you copy/paste the .craft files from your Ships->VAB folder to the Ships-> SPH folder. I think you could move specific sections if you carefully edit the craft files to keep only what you want. But the whole point of the 2 different buildings is to differentiate between horizontal and vertical ships.

Here is that video, Kerbin -> Minimus -> Mun -> Minimus -> Kerbin

The satellite jumper or "Happy v5.1" is capable of easily visiting the natural satellites that orbit Kerbin (Mun and Minimus). It is a 3 way symmetrical rocket. With 3 major stages. (atmosphere escape + orbital maneuver stage + lander stage) Apart from just visiting 1 satellite and returning to Kerbin, "Happy" is able to tour the entire Kerbin system with fuel to spare. On my latest mission with this space craft I was able to- takeoff from Kerbin -> land on Minimus -> land on Mun -> land on Minimus (AGAIN) -> and then return to Kerbin with about 100L of fuel remaining. (Im actually uploading a video of this right now. It was a 1hr long mission, 80+ days Kerbin time ) Being a mediocre pilot myself, I feel there is much more potential in this rocket. It isn't the biggest rocket, but it sure gets the job done. Here is what it looks like: http://imgur.com/a/ZvQhz Here is the .craft file: http://pastebin.com/ZjhnhWPa I do not know if the .craft file includes staging so I'll just briefly explain how I staged this ship. You go at 100% throttle on the liquid fuel engines from the beginning. (That means both solid and liquid engines are firing as the VERY FIRST stage) When the solid boosters run out, they will also take 3 empty fuel tanks with them when they are ejected. (This is why you need to go at 100% liquid fuel engines from the beginning) In the second main stage, you will also be able to eject 6 fuel tanks when they are empty. (these will be the first to get over on this stage) PS- the aerospike engines never overheat on this ship. They heat up slightly but will NEVER cross the half way point on the overheat bar. Feedback is greatly appreciated!