Temeter

That's not really necessary anymore. Using a reasonable start T/W ratio (~1.6 atmo to 2 usually goes well), start a very early turn (it's viable to go 85' at 1km), and otherwise keep the rocket locked to the apoapsis. You should start youir gravity relatively early and then just keep the rocket inside the airstream to lower drag. With a well build rocket and a good flight path terminal velocity is so high you don't need to slow down.

Might be some heat problem with 2.5m nosecones. I had them instantly exploding on the launchpad at one time and needed to go back to the VAB and relaunch to fix it (revert to launch didn't work). Another issue, the engines always have their heat glow, in VAB after placing and ingame. Or is it just me? Weird nobody noted it until now, since it also occured in a otherwise vanilla install.

Awesome, thx for the update!

U4 64bit is probably just broken.

Please, increasing the version number is a due job and completely warrants an update.

I wasn't even aware of a minmus launch window.

Just use an emergency battery. You can disable fuel flow from a battery just like you can with fuel tanks. And then, when you are stranded without energy, just active it again to get some valuable seconds of control. edit: dem ninja's

Oooooooooooooooooooh. Is that stuff ice?

Easiest way to seperate boosters is to put a single (backwrads pointing) sepratron radially on the outside of the nosecone. Or/and limit the fuel to the absolute minimum. Most of the selfdestruction occurs because those things are faaaaaaaaaaaar to strong, half a second burn is already more than enough for huge booster-sets. There isn't to much point in using sepratons, though. The decoupler bug seems to be fixed (didn't occur for me a single time since i started).

Fixed in 101.

Exactly what i was talking about. There isn't atmosphere in KSP, there is a bunch of numbers treated as if it's an actual atmosphere. For all it amounts to gameplay and vehicles, the atmo got 'thinner', everything else is just playing with words and numbers. Afaik it's actually thinner than before starting around 20 to 35km.

What exactly does 'thinner' mean if not less drag? Considering a game like KSP uses arbitrary numbers anyway.

The exhaust would only cover a small cone behind the tip of the nozzle. It would need to cover the whole backside of the rocket to fully migitate the low pressure area. That's just logical assumptions tho, might be complete nonsense.

Those numbers fit my experience with nukes. You usually should go for a T/W between 0.5 to 0.3 (can go lower if you have the patience), although I recommend to go closer towards 0.3 for heavy freight and long range ships. Nukes generally become efficient upwards of 3k dV in a single stage. And of course, if the freight justifies the weight.

You think? The aircraft parts make nice looking interplanetary motherships. At least if you use adapters (which need fuelswitch to be liquid only at full efficiency, tho).

Btw, an observation: Rockets with cones on their underside are alot more stable and less likely to tumble. Drag difference can be huge btw, especially when it comes to high t/w ratios and supersonic below 10k. Another result, putting a nosecone below the rocket and using radial engines is more stable than using an inline engine.

Oh yeah, those are very old issues and rather annoying issues. Unklickable trajectories close to the border of a SOI switch is an old issue. The action groups are mainly related to symmetry, if you remove and place a symmetric part, then all associated action groups on the mirrored parts will be lost.

Yep, fuel flow for rocket engines stays constant, and the thrust changes depending on ISP. Eve ascent should be easier btw, especially with aerospikes (which are btw even more efficient in atmosphere than the ISP indicates). Your rockets will have a lot less less dV due to the nerf, but Eves atmosphere, the biggest issue during ascent, is also a lot thinner now. An Aerospike's atmospheric losses are lower too, so they are even more efficient than their atmo ISP would make you think.

That's interesting. I usually just put some detachable caps below rcokets for the visuals, didn't expect them to be actually useful. Tried it, sadly not. Although a rocket nozzle probably wouldn't completely mitigate the low pressure area.

20km periapsis tends to be a failsafe reentry height. Keep your plane at a high angle to get slowed down by air resistance.

You don't really need them, Nukes take a very, very long time until they come close to critical heat.

Nice, looking forward to the rebalance (I know its easy to adjust part cfg's, but that's just not the same)! Can't wait to try to recreate a Ariane 5 (cryo mid+upper and giant SRB's).

Not really. Thrust provided by a booster will always be cheaper than rockets if you disregard weight. The midsize-booster isn't exactly great, but still at least slightly better than almost every 2.5m construction at a given T/W ratio. Compared the huge booster is quite a step up and will save you a nice bit of money. I recomment trying to put actual 'booster-stacks' connected via quad-coupler (put a cone atop, reroot the whole thing to one of the SRBs and use as subassembly). Generally cost and efficiency slightly improves with booster size.

What? "MOAR BOOSTERZ" is more valid than ever! And btw totally realistic. Just look at the Ariane 5, probably the world leader for commercial satellite launchs: Main and Upper stage are basically 'weak' but highly efficient cryogenic rockets, which work because they are jammed in between to huge SRBs. Launching that thing costs around half as much as an Ariane 4 in relation to weight. In numbers: Those boosters deliver 14,000kn of thrust, the main stage around 1,000kn. Works, among other things, because the Main Stage only weighs half as much as the booster. Never underestimate the BOOSTA.

You could also go for the modular fuel tank mod, that should be the easiest way to do it: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64117