capi3101

If you have the tech, launch a....oh, that's been covered. If you don't have the tech, you'll have to design a ship that includes space for at least two Kerbals - two Mk1 Command Pods will do. Leave one of them empty when you put it on the pad. Can we take a look at your original lander (or can you give us a quick parts list) and can you give us some idea of your current tech level? Both would be helpful in making suggestions for a rescue ship.

It does not deactivate automatically; it simply switches over to dampening mode. While the user's trying to turn, the game is dampening their input. That's what makes it harder to steer. And once the user has finished their input, if they've left SAS on, it will automatically try to turn the craft back to its "original" attitude (so you have to toggle SAS off and then back on to get it to hold the new attitude). The game does this regardless of the mass of your craft. If you turn SAS off before turning, both of these problems are avoided.

For the OP: "better" is really a matter of your perspective - I think everyone else has already pretty well hammered home the point that the extra engines add deadmass, and that by adding them you're trading delta-V for thrust. You have to ask yourself which one is more important to you, and really I'm of the opinion that it depends on what job you're trying to do. Long range probe to another planet? You can probably get away with one (hell, you make it light enough and you're almost better going off sans nukes entirely - use a 48-7S instead; I put one of those on a five tonne probe, wound up with 4700 m/s and a Kerbin TWR of 1.15 and was able to shoot it into orbit). Massive Kerballed Duna lander around 60 tonnes? You want four. Not really any way to have your cake and eat it too. And yes, delta-V is solely dependent on mass differential and the only parts that change mass over time are fuel tanks, so if you add more parts with unchanging mass, you decrease the ratio between full and dry mass and in the process lower delta-V. If you had a theoretical zero-mass engine, it would cause no change in delta-V. Of course, such a thing is impossible, but it's nice to dream.

** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, YEAR 1 DAY 240, 14:55Z -- KERBSTON (AP) - NASA officials confirmed today that the reported deaths of six Kerbonauts earlier this year was, in fact, a hoax. "We are deeply sorry that we lied to the people of the Kerbal Nation, and we are even more sorry that we got caught", said ex-KSC director and recently hired sewage treatment worker Charles Kerman. The hoax was revealed after one of the six reportedly dead Kerbonauts, Bill Kerman, was spotted in an underground record store listening to Enya CDs and later tracked back to an apartment in a Kerbston suburb, where all six Kerbonauts appeared to be taking up residence. After local and international media swarmed the apparent safehouse, veteran Kerbonaut Jebediah "Gimme Boosters or Gimme Death" Kerman released this statement: "To the public, yes we did go up earlier this year, yes we did have a run-in with the Kraken, and yes, we are alive and well today. As to how we got back to Kerbin......I doubt any of us would like to talk about it". No further statements were issued by any of the Kerbonauts, though Dondo Kerman, one of the rookie members of the crew, was reportedly heard muttering the words "Kraken", "swallowed", "krapped out" and "go to Ninevah". NASA has confirmed that despite the apparent hoax, the six Kerbonauts will be heading back to Duna at the next launch window, which is reportedly just over a month from today. ### Been keeping myself busy in the interim by launching probes to the other planets - got the new landers up last night and getting ready to take another crack at a Duna mission. Hopefully this time there won't be any mishaps.

Sandbox game last night. Finally am up to 45 days before the next Duna window; put the Constellation Program mission's landers into Kerbin orbit and docked the cargo lander to the KRV. May try to shoot again for Duna tonight, depending on which game (career or sandbox) I choose to focus on. Probes en-route to the other worlds in both games. I'm going to get those other SOI ribbons...

Focused on my career game. Sent Jeb to Duna; successful landing so far. Probes are en route to the other planets. Still haven't figured out how to get to Moho; time to start trawling for tutorials, I think.

I didn't want to discount it as a possibility though - a large, heavy craft is very difficult to steer in the game if you leave SAS on, especially if you have a command pod on it that doesn't provide a lot of steering authority (like a probe core). I suppose a "manned Minmus lander" generally wouldn't fall into the category of a "heavy craft" or one with poor steering authority...

It looks like you've got three outboard lander stacks. Four -909s on the lander? I suppose that would give you good TWR for landing. Good idea - I never thought of that before. I assume there are fuel lines to keep the center tank full; I see the decouplers to jettison the outboard stacks. I might recommend moving the front one so it's not directly below the hatch, unless you're planning to just use Jeb's pack for ingress/egress from the capsule (they do have the little yellow extendable ladders in the demo.

I. Thou shalt screw the pooch at least once. II. Thou shalt start small. III. Thou shalt learn what a natural logarithm is, both forwards and backwards. IV. Thou shalt learn to keep thy TWR in that sweet spot between 1.7 and 2.2 at all times during thy launches. V. Thou shalt learn the importance of a delta-V map and when to tell when the damn thing is lying to you by just a little or by quite a lot. VI. Thou shalt see Commandment Number Five again. And again. And yet once more. VII. Thou shalt remember to pack chutes, particularly if thou likest St. Jebediah, patron saint of moar boosters. VIII. Thou shalt remember that including batteries and solar panels is not just a good suggestion. IX. Thou shalt learn that it is a personal choice whether or not to use Mechjeb and not ridicule those who think differently than you. X. When thou hast figured out a better way of doing things, thou shalt screw the rules.

Go for it, I wouldn't mind hearing about your exploits. I'd stick a couple of roundified RCS tanks on your CSM - the extra push from RCS thrust would've been enough to get that last ship home under its own power. Always sucks to be 100 m/s shy......

Personally, I find you can just put your rover in docking mode and save yourself the trouble of having to remap by driving around on WASD. That said, I'm pretty sure to re-map your keys you just do it under Settings off the game's main menu. One of the options there is for controls unless I'm mistaken.

Lack of solar panels would be my first guess; my second would be "not fully out of time warp". That one gets me more often than anything else when it comes to control issues. Third might be "ran out of monoprop", fourth would be "left SAS on when trying to turn". I'd need to see your ship to be able to tell you for sure on any of these.

Put a probe in orbit of Gilly - so far it's been the only successful long-range Sandstone-series probe I've launched, with all three of the others eaten by the Hell Kraken (that's five times it's struck now). Launched another multi-probe carrier to Jool; this one should arrive with much more fuel due to better piloting and provided the Hell Kraken doesn't strike again, I might actually be able to do an atmo dive with it once its payloads have been delivered. Still waiting for the next Duna window in my Sandbox game - a little over 100 days to go at this point. Discovered I'd unlocked sufficient tech to use Protractor in my career game; built a KSC ground marker lander and put it out by the Hanger, then built a Sandstone probe variant (added a goo container, used panels instead of RTGs) and launched it. Booster left a little to be desired (which is what I get for playing by ear instead of carefully planning everything out, combined with having to use four LV-T30s and a Skipper instead of just a Mainsail) but it did achieve orbit with nearly 10,000 m/s of delta-V available to it (oughta be enough to get anywhere with good piloting). I hope to replicate the Sandstone missions in my career game and use them to generate enough Science to max out my tech tree.

Tags for images are img and /img, in brackets; you put the url of the image in the center.

Definitely would not use an FL-T800 for a Münar lander fuel source. Speaking from experience here - that thing will tip over.

Sometimes this happens to me with well-built craft; happened last night with a craft that utilized one of Temstar's Zenith boosters - a design I'd launched a hundred times without flaw alreadty. Of course, I also had the Hell Kraken strike twice last night, so it's possible that my local instance of KSP was simply in a foul mood...... Anyway, couple of things you can try - 1) When you're placing your entire rocket in the VAB, try sticking the engines slightly into the ground. When the rocket goes out to the pad, the game will automatically raise up your rocket so the engines are at ground level; this is a good way to ensure that they are indeed flush with the ground. 2) Before the physics engine releases, try zooming the camera out away from the rocket. No seriously, try this; I don't know why this works sometimes but I can tell you from experience that it does. Zoom back in once you light that candle.

1) Hell Kraken ate my Jool probe. 2) Hell Kraken ate my Eeloo probe (the one I knew was going to make it there okay, dammit) 3) Dres probe mission ran out of fuel. Got an encounter first at least, but I will not be putting it into orbit. Last night was kind of annoying. Launched a new Jool probe - this one's been given more gas, so hopefully it'll actually make it there this time. Next Eeloo window is coming up next. Got my Gilly probe on a course that will take it within 75 klicks of Eve, should be good for aerobraking. About the only positive thing that happened last night. Still waiting for the next Duna window.

I cut my teeth on the demo - had a design that incorporated seven RT-10s on an initial stage, one centerline and six outboard. Never had any problems with exploding SRBs and that was with them in a tight cluster under the main stack, so I imagine they'd work just fine as an outer ring. If any part will give you problems with asparagus in the demo, its those crummy little TT38-K radial decouplers. Hard to tell when you've got a tank sitting on them. My demo design was onion, incidentally - two FL-T800s in seven stacks (center and six outboard), LV-T45 inboard and LV-T30s outboard; the RT-10s were put underneath those engines with stack decouplers for the initial stage. Usually got up to about 3000 before they had to be cut loose. The design had enough juice in the center stage to circularize, transfer to the Mün, perform Münar orbital insertion, and deorbit for landing; it usually still had some gas left in it when I had to cut it loose to land. Lander was a Phallus 7 of course, but that's really the only kind of lander you can build in the demo (I say that - you could widen the stack with additional FL-T400s, it'd just give you way more gas than you need).

Amen to that...learned that one myself just last night. I have been to Gilly before, and I did it after winding up in an ugly polar Eve orbit. The trick there was to eject in the vicinity of the ascending/descending node (I forget which), because in that case it was the only place where the orbits could intersect. I was lucky enough to get an encounter after only a couple of orbits once I began trying. You have to come in low for an encounter with Gilly - I think it's SOI only goes out to about 90 klicks or so. Its orbital velocity is also ridiculously low, something like 12-15 m/s or so. Landing on RCS thrust is cake (and as I recall, that's how I ultimately did it - it's the only world in the Kerbin system I've visited so far where, during the landing process, I deliberately applied thrust towards the surface (to speed the landing process up). I don't have pictures of the lander but I do remember it was during my "universal lander design" kick and I've got a parts list for it. That twenty-tonne lander was waaaaay overdoing it for Gilly.

Newton's second law is not directly applicable if mass is not constant (see "Variable-mass systems"). The Rocket Equation is Newton's Second Law, modified to account for the variable mass.

Today, I proudly display the Moho SOI ribbon on my salad bar. I just wish it had a device on it other than "impactor". But I figured "hell, I've spent all this time getting this hunk of crap space bike here so it could visit Moho, so let's let it visit Moho." And visit Moho it did, travelling at 4,500 m/s...first time I've ever seen a craft disintegrate and not leave any debris. The final crash/explosion was kinda disappointing... I suppose having the impactor device is better having no devices at all. Note to self - if using Protractor to visit Moho, add 6,500 m/s of delta-V to the transfer stage design. Hope to be able to add the rest of the SOI ribbons in a few days. Dres's orbit is in question as is Jool and its moons, but I'm reasonably confident about Eeloo; I know I'll get encounters with all three planets. Meanwhile, I still wait for the next Duna window.

Hey y'all, thanks for all the hard work you guys do to keep the ribbons going. Any chance y'all could update the Rules page on the generator site? Y'all have added some new devices lately. Still haven't figured out what "resource" is for and I don't know where "armada", "meteor" and "flag" fall on the general coolness scale.

Two bad assumptions there: 1) Your mass is not constant, ergo your acceleration formula is invalid. It could be if you take it down one more notch and get into the physical concept of jerk, the change in acceleration in time, which would account for your change in mass. 2) G in orbit is not zero. It's just not 9.81 m/s2 anymore. Probably a good thing, too...a ship with an infinite/undefined TWR (which matematically is what you would get in the case TWR = T / Mg where g is zero) would shoot off like a bat out of hell; it'd accelerate so fast there's no way its structure would be able to handle it. To calculate g at a given orbital radius, take the gravitational parameter of the world (which is just the gravitational constant G=6.67*10-11 times the mass of the planet) and divide it by the distance (in meters) to the center of the planet's core (i.e. the planetary radius + the altitude of the orbit). Well, you kinda have to spend fuel to make a rocket work; that's kinda fundamental to their operation. In that alone, the Tsiolkovsky Equation is <channel_doctor_strangelove>not only possible...it is essential!!!</channel_doctor_strangelove> No extra equations are necessary for calculating how to reach orbit. Most folks will tell you to shoot for an initial stage Isp of 1.6-1.7, with the idea being that the average TWR for the stage from the time it lights to the time it runs out of gas is around that magic 2.0-2.2 range (where thrust, gravity and drag are optimally balanced). I find for planning purposes that if you take your payload for the stage and divide it by .04, you get the amount of thrust that stage is going to need to have a TWR in that general vicinity. You then plan your engine cluster accordingly, add it to the payload mass, add the mass of everything else involved with the stage except the fuel tanks, and then you work Tsiolkovsky backwards to figure out how much fuel you're going to need (I did a rather thorough example of this just recently). Get as close as you can to that amount of fuel, then work Tsiolkosky forward to see how well you did on the stage delta-V. You wind up with the total mass of the rocket so far at that point, and can go back to check to see how well you did with the TWR. The rocket equation does not account for drag; there are no factors in it to account for it. That's the main reason why, on Kerbin at least, it takes 4,550 m/s of delta-V to get to orbit and at the end you're going ~2,250 m/s - the other ~2,300 is lost to fighting gravity and drag.

To change to answered status, edit your original post. LOL!! That is the funniest thing I have seen all day today. Particularly because it's just so true.......

Look at any part's configuration file - unless there's a line in it that specifically says "fuelCrossFeed = False", it will will allow fuel cross-feed. That's a sizable fraction of the parts in the game, incidentally. In your design, you can indeed feed the outer nacelles from the central tank; I've got that very phenomenon going on with my Thanatos Heavy 7 booster for the Constellation Challenge. You can also go the other direction, of course; it all depends on how you aim your fuel lines (stick them on the part you want the fuel to come from, connect them to the part you want to run fuel to). It's part of the usual advice I give to people who are having problems with their early Mün landers (e.g. take that FL-T400 you're using and swap it out with four FL-T100s, put three of those tanks outboard and run fuel lines to the center, put your legs on the outer tanks and voila - you've widened and shortened your stack so it's less likely to tip over while not sacrificing fuel or adding mass).