gmcnew

You seem to be running this from IDLE, not from the command line. You need to run it from the command line. 1. Open a command prompt. (On Windows, this is cmd.exe.) 2. Browse to the directory where these python scripts are. 3. Run "python learn-ascent.py Kerbin 0 100" (with no quotes). If this doesn't work, please take a screenshot and attach it.

What you should be doing is running learn-ascent.py (from the command line, not IDLE) with arguments, as shown in the example in my Reddit post: > python learn-ascent.py Kerbin 0 100 Let me know if that doesn't work. =)

It works fine for me using Python 2.7, 3.3, or 3.4. What happened when you ran it with 3.4?

I actually wrote some Python code to help answer this exact question! =) It simulates a bunch of ascents and reports the attributes of the best one. http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1tavqb/finding_the_best_ascent_profiles_with_a_script/ One thing the script taught me is that limiting your acceleration (to a fixed number, not just to terminal velocity) can help. If you achieve a high apoapsis too soon, you miss out on the benefits of a slow and steady horizontal climb and end up spending a lot of delta-V to circularize. You can run the script for yourself, but I'll go ahead and tell you that your gravity turn is ending too high. Assuming your ship has a drag coefficient of 0.2 (MechJeb can show you this), try limiting acceleration to 2.2 g's (21.6 m/s) and using a turn from 8.12 to 45.64 km, with a shape of 57.1%. (Your final flight path angle should always be 0 degrees.) My script says this'll result in a delta-V of around 4399.76 m/s (with losses of 1415.29, 902.19, and 44.14 m/s to gravity, drag, and steering) to get to a 100 km orbit. (Note: My script also assumes you have MechJeb's "corrective steering" setting -off-, though it doesn't make a huge difference.)

1. Is there a reason you're using RCS for rotation? Pod torque is slower but uses no fuel, and it sounds like this might be a small ship anyway, so a probe core's torque might be enough. 2. Instead of having one set of thrusters very near your CoM, have you tried using two sets (one ahead of CoM and one behind)? Once again, if you can file a bug and upload your ship, that would be helpful.

Can you upload your .craft and file a bug report containing a very clear list of the steps you take to see this behavior? https://github.com/MuMech/MechJeb2/issues

Are you using version 2.0.6? 2.0.7 is the latest.

Did you read the very first post? The version history is linked immediately after the line that says "2.0.6":