Specialist290

As the others have stated (directly or otherwise) in previous posts, the ideal landing trajectory from orbit for a given craft is essentially the exact reverse of the ideal takeoff trajectory from the surface to that same orbit. In practice, though, unless you're using some sort of autopilot, you're more likely than not going to want at least a quarter again as much delta-v (I usually aim for half again, myself) for landing as for takeoff, just to give yourself a bit of a safety margin, since without resorting to an autopilot your actual landing will be less than ideal simply by virtue of the fact that most of us tend to slow down our descent earlier than we really need to so we have a little more time to react to unforseen circumstances.

Seconded, especially given they started out as the front runners in interplanetary exploration.

Fixed that for you.

Mine's actually fairly similar to Tiron's, except for two key differences: 1. There's no SSTO spaceplane involved, but that's because 2. I cut out the middle man and just have the rover land itself.

You missed the "I've already done it manually, and I don't want to repeat the same things mindlessly over and over again when I know I can do it and just don't want to" option (which I consider legitimate) and the "If Scott Manley uses it, so can I!" (which falls under the logical fallacy "appeal to authority," but I've seen it an awful lot). I am trying very hard not to parse that as a double entendre. I won't deny that MechJeb makes the game easier -- in fact, I believe that that is its intended purpose. However, as my counterpoint to the "MechJeb allows any silly person to get a rocket into orbit," I submit for the reader's review these two threads. Yes, it is certainly easier than piloting manually, but you still have to know how flying a rocket is supposed to work in order to make good use of it in the first place. (For the record: I do not currently use MechJeb for my own personal use, although I have tried it. Most of the information I need for casual play I can get from Kerbal Engineer, and I'm still sufficiently entertained by piloting my own craft manually that I don't need an autopilot to cut down on the tedium. That said, I have made comparisons of the informational displays on the two mods, and MechJeb actually does display more information -- it's just that I've never really needed it to play for my own satisfaction. The other response I could make to the attitudes of those who think using MechJeb is a mortal sin falls squarely under the "crashed rocket" section of the infographic (although it isn't actually on it as yet), so I won't say it.)

The thing is, though, I wanted an abort sequence that would activate the LES, separate the command pod, and shut down all other engines at the same time. So I mapped all that to my Abort Group, separated the LES with another action group, and deployed the parachutes with a third. Being able to do large numbers of things in sequence quickly is important when your launch gets wonky and you want to save the pilots' lives.

Both of these are very good and practical ideas, especially when taken together. Send a fuel depot to a planet you intend on visiting soon, so that you can go there an refuel before you leave if you need to. Kill two birds with one stone, as they say.

I could have sworn that pewdiepie did do a KSP video at some time in the past, several months ago... Or maybe I'm just misremembering him as another LPer with a similar reputation. Either way, the forum has weathered this sort of attention before, and I'm fully convinced it shall again. The sorts of people who the doomsayers are worried about tend to have short attention spans and little regard for places with fairly strict moderation, and will move on to the next shiny object that catches their attention. The ones who really are interested will settle in, learn the proper etiquette, and integrate seamlessly. Also, one final note: I was one of the people introduced to KSP through kurtjmac's videos, and I remember when people were afraid that his fans getting interested in the game were going to ruin it forever. (To anyone who might have been throwing those accusations around back then: I'm still slightly miffed about that.)

Just so we can say we've been over the checklist: You didn't launch it with any parts clipping into one another, did you? Also, a screenshot of the craft in its pre-exploded form might help us determine if there's anything wrong with the craft itself, or if it is just the Kraken stirring in its slumber.

Like Steve-S has noted, I've also seen a few posts by people who noticed that things like joysticks were giving out "ghost" inputs even after they had been unplugged. If you've used any type of input device besides a standard keyboard and mouse, you might want to double-check that the same thing isn't happening.

Yeah, that's actually his album, not mine It's the same one as in the OP, just properly formatted.

Another option is to use drogue chutes instead of / in addition to your main chutes. They both open and deploy at higher altitudes, and they don't decelerate the craft quite as quickly when they fully deploy.

This looks like it could be useful. Keep us posted on how progress goes.

Seconding this. The Enhanced Navball plugin is fantastic, and it's convinced me that something like it should very much be in the stock game.

You can't use HTML code on the forums. What you want is to put the album subdirectory code inside "IMGUR" tags, like this (except without the asterisk): [imgur*]QsKBB[/imgur] Which should give you:

Yikes, that's 27 tons of dead weight right there! That can't be easy on the delta-v... You could probably also get away with leaving the RCS off of your main stage, or at least not using 3 of the huge tanks.

I wouldn't exactly call them "weird," but a couple of clever tricks I'm willing to share: 1. Fitting OKTO2 probe cores under docking ports, allowing me to launch a craft manned or unmanned as I choose. 2. Building my own LES out of Sepratrons and structural pieces, then crafting a simple abort system that's more than just "frantically stage until the command pod separates and deploys chutes." 3. On that note: Fitting the decoupler for your LES upside-down is a great way to get rid of it once you no longer need it without creating too much extra debris or leaving an unsightly decoupler on your craft. Same goes for rover-skycrane combinations. 4. My personal favorite at the moment: Fitting a probe core onto a rover in such a way that I can land it on its wheels like any other lander, then drive it from the cockpit.

Sounds about right to me.

My first "landing" smashed into the ground horribly. There were no survivors. My first proper landing, however, I almost jumped out of my seat with joy. Then I took screenshots, did the whole silly "jumping around in low gravity thing," etc. Then they flew back home. Fond memories

Well, that's a start. I'd still highly encourage you to take notes on what MJ is doing and eventually try it manually, but all in good time.

I think you're running into the same problem I've run into on the Mun and have heard other people talking about: Sometimes, the terrain graphics don't quite match the actual surface polygons. Sometimes, I've noticed that my wheels don't exactly "catch" on the surface, so (since the rover design I've been using lately has a ludicrous amount of torque from reaction wheels) I'll occasionally "tweak" the forward end down just a tad, which usually helps.

It took me forever to learn that you could actually drag maneuver nodes around the orbit to change where they'd execute. I had always assumed they were fixed.

If a "Hadfield Kerman" ever shows up, I want him to have the most glorious moustache in existence.

Huh. Not only has my silly idea been tried, but people have done studies on something similar in real life. Looks like I have some more interesting reading ahead of me.

Well, now you people have done it. I'm blaming all of you for my latest silly idea. Specifically: What if we made the drop tanks reusable? Properly, I suppose, they wouldn't really be "drop tanks" anymore, but the principle is the same: I'm picturing a large nuclear "booster" in orbit which other ships can dock to. The booster pushes the fully-fueled craft that's acting as its payload past escape velocity and onwards to its destination, then undocks, drops itself back under escape velocity, and aerobrakes back into LKO, where it's refueled for the next mission.