magnemoe

I use this all the time, Typical probe and fuel tank who act as an satellite with ISO and kerthane mapping. this carries 2 to 8 small probe landers. Another approach is to use an orbital tug or mothership as an reusable transfer stage, here I use docking ports and add the parts in orbit.

If your decoplers was on the middle of orange tanks of the boosters they would be above the center of mass, the decopler force would push the boosters out but also rotate them around the center of mass so the engines would rotate inward. However you will always use struts on large boosters and struts cancel out the decopler force, also during launch you are accelerating so the boosters will fall behind faster.

One way to solve this is to use an small fuel tank on radial decopler to stabilize, decople rover, transfer fuel from tank to lander and decouple it. Main benefit of bottom placement is that its better for larger rovers and easier to use an docking port so you can pick up the rover again.

True, longbow tactic was to start firing at long range using an ballistic path around 45 degree angle, fins was designed to make the arrow rotate. However in KSP we use controllable fins, they can be placed anywhere, I usually add them at top of boosters. Benefit is that the drag after separation rotates the top of the booster outward. Bottom placement rotate the bottom inwards where it might hit the core stage.

An robot is an computer with an body. Depending on the brain size for an intelligent robot or at least an brain size the robot would want to be as smart as he could be an spaceship makes some sense. An cyborg is an creature with an direct brain to computer interface. Has the benefit that he could run everything by thought avoiding most interface issues. Yes the robot can move its brain from one platform to another or simply network.

Worse, far worse if you has to remind yourself that the Oberth effect don't work on turnabouts.

I sent an probe with 6 landers/ rovers to Mun, planed to land at all the abnormalities. Well I put the decoplers the wrong way blocking the engine. moved all fuel into probe / transfer stage, made the orbit so it just intercepted the ground, decople the reminding 5 rovers and circulated again. Switched view to the rover who was highest up to watch the show, one of the rovers did an cool crash, it came down very shallow, disintegrated and the parts blew up one after each other, except an wheel who was kicked out again did an half orbit and crashed at the other side of the Mun

Before the stock rovers I used the prometheus rover a lot http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-2-prometheus-solar-rover-v5-0/ However I usually put an skycrane on top of the rover pod, and used the airbags to give me more margin then landing, it survived a lot of horizontal movement.

And yes wait for the marker where you orbits cross, reducing speed to 0 here will put you in the same orbit. Its pretty easy to end up circling the target, Very easy if you have to high twr. Regarding TWR, it might be an idea to have some tiny engines like two orange radials for orbital work, an mainsail on an almost empty orange tank is hard to control.

You can either hit it on the way inn, would start plan outside Bob orbit. or you can slingshot around Jool, One warning an Laythe direct aerobrake will be an high g braking and could damage an fragile craft. You might also not be able to do an complete brake. Last time I did this I had to use 500m/s extra as mechjeb landing autopilot did not give me an orbit either pass or land, but I lost 6000 m/s. Mechjeb 2 might be more accurate here.

With the flat 2.5 meter tanks and thee small 1.25 meter tanks you get an very wide base. With the three man pod and a 909 you get over 3000 m/s dV enough to take you from LKO to Mun and back. two orange tanks over mainsail and three large solid boosters take you to almost to LKO.

Three ways of solving this, 1) do the 1/10 scaling, this would require some new class of engines like advanced fusion or antimatter to bring the travel times down to say 20 years, problem is that this engines will make traveling inside the solar system trivial as in single stage grand, would also require decent trust so you could land on all bodies at least without atmosphere. 2) scale down interstellar distances to something like 20 times the distance to Jool. It would still feel like an long distance but you can travel with existing systems like an nuclear asparagus or ion with an sun slingshot. In both of this settings you will have to solve the accuracy issues. Sending an probe far out in kraken land and follow it all the time tend to deorbit things back home. 3) FTL escapes most of this problems as you load the new system and unload the old. Would probably work like the ftl drive in Nivens know space, you has to be far out to activate it. both 2 and 3 is posible but 3 is easier to make in the game.

Balloons work great at Eve. Going up. Reduce the dV requirements to less than 6000 m/s Talking about Jool. Been where. All the way down. Getting out is pretty hard but doable.

Struts, one one each side toward center stage, for an long stage I usually put one in middle to. Struts from top of booster to payload to keep it stable during launch. Use two or more struts between the lower gray tank and the orange one, if you get up to two orange tank lengths this pretty much required. often one between the boosters at middle. This work for two to six boosters. Put control surfaces at top of boosters. If they are long and you use six boosters use seperatrons at top to get them to seperate fast.

Remember that the new craft must have an way to flip the other lander so Jeb can escape.

Using the new KAS you can dock with anything even if it don't have docking ports, this let you transfer resources. You can even use it to tow parts for deorbit. Add an probe core this let you select and kill it from the tracking station. For doing this more realistic you should add three small flat solar panels, this give power so you can control the stage. Its mostly two sources of derbies. Upper stages for putting things in orbit and transfer stages. For upper stages you might want to switch to transfer stage before fully circulate your orbit this will not bring it to orbit. Now if the upper stage has enough dV left to take you halfway to the Mun you might want to use it so you have larger reserves on you lander. Use it and disconnect. You might want to add an small fuel tank on an strut who give the empty stage 50 extra m/s, this should be more than enough to deorbit if you burn at AP. Now for transfer stages, use them to do the deorbit burn.

Flight test of an new rover with dockable skycrane, landing was almost successful. Touched the wall of the wab this caused the lander to tip over just 5 meter over the ground, Yes I was aiming for the wab. The 8 legs are for docking, the lower four lift the skycrane so high I can drive under the other four is to prevent tipping if the docking ports don't connect.

Depend, long items should be pulled as they tend to buckle if pushed. Heavy things like sets of orange tanks should be pushed as they might decouple if you have high trust. This ship pulls an huge miner who weight more than 5 orange tanks, works as I use docking struts, if I forget them it would either separate or break.

My thought to, an impact on IIS would not deorbit it, energy requirement would reduce it to small fragments first. Better do it with a space shuttle during reentry burn, or even better do it with an fail under an aerobraking on an mars return with an spaceship. Lots of damage and loss of all engines, then it comes back for another aerobrake without control or two before burning up. Use Mars to get known with characters and set up subplots.

I made one of this who can land on Mun and return to orbit. It use an home 3.75 meter fuel tank and two radial engines. Doing it stock I would use the flat 2.5 meter tank and some extra 1.25 to get required dV Either the small orange radial engines or two 909 under small tanks. The lander can is lighter than the 3 man pod so you should use it. Downside it that this will not be an nimble rover, for long trips you might want an skycrane with docking port so you can drive under and raise the legs to lover it on rover, doing this you want an extra set of landing legs or struts to avoid it from tipping over if you miss. You can even take the skycrane empty to orbit, refuel and land it at a pickup point. This depend on use, is this mainly an lander with an rover option so you don't have to walk, or an rover who can be lifted to orbit and reused.

Very good written. 1) have three versions even without cable, one who uses landing legs and often wrap around the rover, perfect for Tylo. Subtype with two or more side mounted engines and fuel tanks, this is nice for large rovers. The simple one with fuel tank and radial engines on top, 2) an very small probe rover can be mounted upside down on top of an probe and flip down. I have used this a lot with bobcat solar powered rover. 3) This is nice for an rover on a manned lander Mun lander. done it a lot with the ant rover. balance with an small fuel tank you empty and drop. Also used this metod with KAS to make an ant rover able to redock after use. http://i.imgur.com/oVludaR.jpg 4) This can also be used to make very light probe rovers for low gravity worlds. I have an picture of it over. Can also be used to make the combined rover and lander reuseable who is nice for an grand tour type expedition. 5) using an robotic arm would be an easy way to make an rover redockable. KAS can also be used but I have had issues with it on low gravity worlds.

Going faster than 20m/s tend to either shake the rover apart on high gravity worlds or get you airborne pretty fast on low gravity worlds unless you are careful. But yes getting symmetric wheels can be an pain.

You can without problems. they only stop the automatic transfer to running engines.

I have been experimenting with roverslander combinations. For unmanned rovers this has the benefit that you save weight. 800 kg, 1000m/s, a bit top heavy then full but manageable with asas, you can stack the oscar tanks inside each other but not sure if this is safe. Adjust tanks for wanted dV. Bonus is that you can jump around with it. Manned version, this weight 20 ton, and have 2500 m/s, main benefit is that its fully reusable, you get an rover with 20m/s ground speed and you don't have to return to the lander before taking off.

Dont talk about it, pressing space and decople the pod from the ship then going in for an Jool aerobrake is pretty classical. Pod will do two orbits and crash into Jool.