Specialist290

I'll be honest -- for the first few months after I got the game, I absolutely obsessed over it. Then I "crashed" for a few months and wanted nothing to do with it, to the point of withdrawing from the forums for a while. Took another update to bring me back. Since then, I've been trying to take things at a rather measured pace and leave time to pursue other interests as well. It helps me stay balanced.

Granted, but that breaks the purpose of the thread. Thus you have created a paradox, and the world divides by zero and eats itself. I wish that I had more wishes than just one wish.

Wrong thread, friend. Also, 4/10: I'm fundamentally against the commercialization inherent in corporate advertising.

Granted. You get the power, but no control. Also, you work in a munitions factory; have fun! I wish I could see the Great Wall of China from space.

EDIT: Banned for having the gall to ninja me when he keeps complaining about being ninja'd himself. Seriously?!

Banned because I have POOOWER!! UNLIIIIIIIMMITEED POWER!! *evil cackle*

Granted. EDIT: Ellipses are now banned by the grammar police. (Man you guys are fast.) I wish I had my own private tropical island.

6/10 Run into you in a few different places before. EDIT: Ninja'd

Granted. Then the machines rise up and kill us all, since they have no empathy. I wish for a lucky penny.

Welcome to the forums! There are a number of tutorials you can refer to for your first Mun lander -- I'd highly recommend Vanamonde's tutorial and training rocket, as well as on how to conduct an efficient landing.One general tip from my own experience: Don't aim straight for the Mun's surface on your transfer. Instead, put yourself in a low, stable orbit around the Mun first. This will allow you a greater degree of control over your final landing site and reduce the amount of guesswork involved in your final landing burn. Hope this helps!

The parts at the top are actually from the Procedural Fairings mod, which I've found make for useful aeroshells due to their high heat tolerance (since I play using Deadly Reentry). They're not quite as good about not transferring heat to other parts, though, which sometimes makes things interesting, and is why I now mount most of my payloads upside down with the heat shield facing towards the top of the rocket underneath the fairing. As for how fast I was going, I don't rightly remember, but it must've been pretty fast indeed, as I do remember that I completely botched that aerobraking a couple of times (again, thank Deadly Reentry for that) and ultimately had to still use my orbiter's engines to slow the craft down to achieve true capture.

Nicely done! I like the modular approach of using multiple specialized transfer vehicles.

AmpsterMan, you don't know what you've unleashed. You've tempted me to dust off my old install and give it another go. I'm going to drive myself mad trying to actually win it now, and it's all your fault.

That's exactly correct, and the effect you've been noticing is called "gravitational drag." Actually calculating it is rather complicated (although you can have a look at the math over at this page on Atomic Rockets), but you're right in that a higher TWR will ultimately result in lower gravity losses because of the fact that you're spending less time accelerating against gravity. At the same time, of course, you also have atmospheric drag, which will also reduce your effective delta-v as you try to ascend through the atmosphere, which gets especially significant if you try to surpass terminal velocity. Ultimately, for takeoff from Kerbin, you want a happy medium that accelerates quickly enough to negate most of your gravitational drag while not so quickly that you end up generating too much atmospheric drag.

Welcome to the forums! Glad to hear that you've been enjoying the game so far. If you have any questions about what you're doing, feel free to ask questions and look at tutorials. Don't be afraid to jump into any other discussions that are going on as well.

I think this fits slightly better in Gameplay Questions Curiosity-style aeroshells do indeed seem to be quite popular (and fun!): It's not a perfect "skycrane" since I landed the rover before decoupling the whole assembly.

Build the most massive payload you can think of, and try to put it into orbit. Doesn't even have to have a purpose.

Nicely done! That's the same way I approach my Mun landings (and most other bodies), and for the same reasons. I especially like how you explain your reasoning for the lower periapsis altitude in the latter part of the video.

Your math sounds about right, but I'd like to add a few notes and caveats: 1. The calculator generally assumes a machine-perfect transfer, which is extremely difficult for a human being to execute manually using stock-only tools, so I'd definitely include a little extra buffer fuel, just to be on the safe side. Usually about 25-50% extra delta-v (which doesn't exactly correlate to 25-50% extra fuel mass, but that's a whole different topic of discussion) for your transfer stage is a safe estimate. 2. On the other hand, you've got an atmosphere at both of your destinations, meaning you can reduce the delta-v for insertion considerably using a technique called "aerobraking" -- basically, you dip partway into your target planet's atmosphere to let air drag slow your craft down, allowing you to save fuel. That means that you can effectively almost zero out the insertion requirements if you perform your aerobraking correctly, although it's probably a good idea to carry a little bit of reserve fuel (or use your leftover maneuver reserve) anyway, just in case you need it (for instance, for correcting your trajectory after reloading your quicksave upon discovering that your first aerobraking pass takes you straight into Eve's surface ). 3. Since you're releasing both a probe and a robot lander (and possibly a separate manned lander, if that's a different vehicle from the Kerbin return vehicle you're using), your final vehicle is going to be lighter leaving Eve than it was arriving. Thus, you can probably cut your Kerbin return delta-v estimates a little closer than you would for just a single there-and-back craft, since your engines won't have nearly as much mass to push back to Kerbin. That being said, an 8k transfer stage should definitely be enough to make it to Eve and back, even if your piloting gets a bit sloppy. Hope this helps

Alright, keep us posted!

I think this doesn't quite fit in Gameplay Questions... That being said, nicely done! Hope you go on to bigger and better things from this.

Impressive work That looks like a rather handy little rover you have, as well. How's it drive?

Just a friendly reminder from the moderation staff to keep things civil. Rudeness, personal attacks, and inflammatory comments are still against the rules and may result in infractions. We don't mind if you air out your grievances if you can do so in a calm and reasonable manner, but let's not let things escalate.

First off, welcome to the forums! I'm not sure what you're referring to -- planets do rotate about their axis in the game. Do you think you might be able to go into detail? You aren't playing the older 0.13.3 demo, are you?

I'm going to second blizzy's tutorial scenario, and I'm going to also recommend you read luchelibre's tutorial as well. There are a number of other useful tutorials and resources at the Drawing Board, which is conveniently linked through my signature. That said, the keys to a successful rendezvous are mostly patience and familiarizing yourself with what's available on the navball and in the map view. The maneuver nodes and the targeting system in particular will be quite helpful.