technotica

Hmm I redesigned the plane and it seems to fly better now. The strange thing is, I just took off vertically from the landing pad using the two jet engines and the nuclear engine (and it really took off!) then flew around a bit. It worked pretty good until I cut the engines to try landing. After cutting the engines the nose started to turn upwards and the plane started to tumble! Does that mean I have too much lift on the nose or is the rear part of the plane too heavy?

Hmm, thanks for the tips. I keep my nose above the horizon but when I cut power to the engines I start to gain speed again after a certain point. So I guess that means my plane doesn't have enough lift to glide? Should I just put more wings on it? It takes off at about 100+ m/s from the runway. p.s. This is the plane: p.p.s. Hmm do spoiler tags not work anymore?

Hi! I built myself a spaceplane with a pilot and space for four passengers. The thing is propelled into space via rockets like the spaceshuttle but can fly on its own (tested it with the same design built in the spaceplane hangar). Everything works so far with it, I can take off, get into space, dock with my spacestation and return to atmosphere. What I can't get to work is the landing, when trying to land I never get my speed below about 80-90 m/s. I could fly around with the plane until the fuel is gone but I can't land safely. Does anyone know what the problem could be? Do I need more lift? There are no flaps to airbreak, are there?

Thanks for all the help! I'll try again this evening, I'll try a low irbit, target a lake, use my RCS and slow down below 1 m/s. Why the heck does the wiki say landing on Minmus is easier than Mun?

I run it unmodded so far but I'll definitely try out the kethane and rover mods someday. Probably MechJeb too at some point if getting to other planets prooves too difficult (haven't gotten past Minmus yet).

Hi! After having perfected my Mun landing and return I today decided to try a landing on Minmus, I had read getting to Minmus is harder but returning to Kerbin is much easier. So after a few false starts having my approach too close to the planet I finally managed to get into an orbit around Minmus and approach its surface, surprisingly I had even more fuel left over at that point than on my trips to the Mun, I didn't even have to chuck my two atomic engines during the landing. Everything was going beautifully: Until I actually touched down, now I was landing on an incline (which I couldn't see this being the dark side of Minmus (which would make a great title for a novel)) but I was only going about 3 or 4 m/s at most at that point... But this was the result: I ended up bouncing, flipping around in the 'air' a few times while frantically trying to right my ship with everything I could think of (ASAS, RCS, main engine, button mashing). I landed on the side twice, taking of into the air again each time and starting to flip again and then all my tanks exploded on the third contact. So in the end I have a Kerbonaut , a command pod and 3 engines (which miraculously survived their tanks exploding) stranded on Minmus... So what could I have done different? I had no sideways motion and my craft was approaching the ground reeeaaalllyy slowly. Any tips? Thanks!

I use my Awesomely Oversized Rocket for landing on Mun, your approach to getting to Muna nd landing on it is probably a lot mroe fuel efficient than mine butwith my setup I still have half a 2m tank for each of the three nuclear engines of my lander left when touching down on Mun (or crashing more likely). It's pretty slow though I have to be over 200k m to actually accelerate towards a decent speed. But there is a lot of fuel in those tanks! What does your rocket look like?

Gratulations! I just got my first Mun landing too... unfortunately I also botched teh landing, blew up everything except for the crew pod, so now I have three kerbonauts stranded on the Mun... Maybe they can keep your Kerbonaut company though! How did you do it? I usually burn until my 'orbit' (which starts and ends on the planet) is high enough to intersect the Muns orbit, then I burn parallel to the Muns rotation until I get the yellow line to indicate Mun escape velocity, then I coast close to the Mun and then I burn away from the Mun and towards Kerbin until I get an orbit, then just burn away from Mun until the orbit starts intersecting with the surface. And then the landing! Which hasn't worked out for me so far. I had enough fuel, even to take off but I did not burn hard enough and landed with 16 m/s which exploded everything...

Gratulations! The full version is a lot more fun than the demo (especially with interior view, can't wait to fly my ship from the inside when I get home!). I have the orbits down pat now, thanks to my new ship design I think, its really maneuverable:

Oh I wasn't even aware it had gyros, I always thought you'd have to have thrusters on the ship to make it maneuverable I guess I'll have to be careful with those decouplers... Now to make a Mun lander for extraplanetary missions

Aaaand touchdown! I managed to land, though I think the forces of entry should have atomized my spaceship *s* I managed to slow the ship down a bit: Once I entered the atmosphere the ship slowed from over 2.2k m/s to its final 5,5 m/s speed on touching down. Unfortunately my little Kerbonaut ended up near the south pole... But at least the parachutes worked: But now he is all alone, cold and miserable... maybe he'll become feral and join the ice bears.... Now for the future I will pratice my orbiting, I don't know if I want to look at youtube videos, I like to discover stuff myself not follow a video of someone else! (But I will if I can't get it right on my own) edit: Hmm, I accidentally attached one of the images, can't seem to delete it?

I think I did it! This is my orbit right now: Its pretty ellipctical but that should work right? I also still have fuel left! So maybe after a few orbits I can try a reentry! Edit: I do wonder how I can still maneuver my ship using the canards and control surfaces though? Should that work? Edit2: Hmm you know, looking at my first post with the solid boosters that orbit looked a lot better than my current... And also my current orbit will take me farther out than even the moon Mun, thats at 11million m and my highest point is 17million m, maybe we will meet!

I put some control surfaces onto the tail end of the wings, now maybe I can really fly it like a plane, I'll have to get rid of teh parachute and try, maybe add another engine for atmospheric flight.

Ah, will do, how exactly do I use the spoiler tag? its not in the edit menu is it? *tries out shutting the engines down 85km apoapsis* edit: Oh! Nevermind! *goes to edit* edit2: It's really odd, whenever I move the throttle above about 70% my solid boosters all blow up without the overheating showing up. Maybe they get so hot instantly that the indicator never gets a chance to show?

Hrm... Well I didn't manage to get into orbit, but think I did get to escape velocity: I modified the design again, I thought about doing the 2m tanks and three engines but then I just put in the big tanks and big engines, I will try putting the boosters next to the engines next time so it won't be so tall. I also thought about redoing it with a traditional rocket design, frankly I don't think the wings and stuff are actually doing anything? But I want to get this thing into orbit now!

Thanks for the tips, I modified the whole thing a little. I tried putting boosters next to the liquid engines but the whole thing just broke apart. For now I will try it this way: It flies, lets see if I can get it into orbit.

So I improved on the design a bit, it now looks like this (Jet Rocker Mk. 2a): I haven't had it go into another successful orbit yet because I noticed something on the last launch and that is that its toom top heavy to launch without SAS. I have to keep SAS on to have it reach space otherwise it'll just turn around and crash. Do you think its cheating if I keep using it instead of building a stable rocket that can launch without? Edit: Hmm I guess those liquid engines aren't strong enough to get me into orbit: But the single parachute works: But I guess it really needs landing gear, all four engines were destroyed upon touching down (also upside down again): (I hope these images aren't too big?)

Thanks for all the tips! I think I shall donate my design to NASA as a blueprint for the next spaceshuttle, I launched it again and accidentally hit space too early, separating the first stage too early, this set of a chain event with all the solid boosters exploding with me hitting space as often as possible to seperate them before they blow up the ship. In the end one of the four ship-engines got ripped off, all three parachutes were deployed and my ship tumbled towards the planet (it wasn't that high up to begin with), I managed to right it but when the parachtues unfurled both wings ripped off and the ship hung on its last parachute nose poiting in the sky. Despite all this and despite finally landing upside down witht he cockpit buried in the ground my kerbonaut survived. Now if that isn't a design worthy of Nasa I don't know what is! Or maybe it was just really good luck !

It looks like he is dancing on top of that barrel, must be happy to be back on kerbin?

Thanks to both of you! Well I guess that means my kerbonaut at least won't be lost forever up there in the sky then, which is good! I guess I will switch those decouplers out for smaller ones, and see how the liquid engines work, I liked my tower of boosters though! Hmm this is all stuff for Jet Rocket Mk. 2 though, first I'll see what happens when those parachutes actually deploy!

Hi! I just bought the game and even though I am at work I couldn't help myself, I had to try and get a rocket into orbit. I tried a lot of different designs and this is what finally got me into orbit (though this is on a second launch): I call it the Jet Rocket 1b! (Unfortunately Jet Rocket 1 and 1a did not make it) I actually was trying to see if parachutes like this could work: But I guess I had too many rockets strapped under the ship and spent the fuel too fast, when I reached orbit I had no way of getting back out of it... The map showed me this: I think that means the orbit is stable? I accelerated time for two revolutions and the ship didn't come down on its own. Though it does get pretty close to the surface at its lowest: Oh well, poor Kerbonaut will have to spend the rest of his days up there alone... Now on to Jet Rocket 1c, lets see if this thing can actually land, though I am not very confident, the liquid fuel engines are permanently attached and it has no landing gear... but maybe the three parachutes will be enough!

Hi! I just bought the game, downloaded the demo tried it out (at work even!) and bought the game ten minutes later. Now I have it sitting on my laptop next to my work computer but can't play it! Maybe I'll dare to start it up during the midday break! I managed to crash three rockets (twice killing my kerbonauts) and send one into the stratosphere in the demo though so I am content.