MockKnizzle

You're gaining extra orbital energy, not extra speed. The change in speed (dV) is the same, but that same dV changes your orbit more when you're going faster.

If KSP abides by normal Newtonian physics, then the Oberth effect is by default in the game. You don't have to code up anything special. It is a consequence of physics, nothing more. Doppler effect, Hall effect, Leidenfrost effect, Oberth effect... all of these are simply interesting (and useful) consequences of the underlying physical framework of the universe.

A lot of people have mentioned that the Oberth effect gives you more energy for the same dV, but not many people have explained where that extra energy comes from. When you're accelerating a rocket, you're accelerating your remaining propellant as well as your payload. Your fuel is moving as fast as the rest of the rocket is, and as a result is has kinetic energy. Additionally, as your lift your propellant up into space and away from the planet, it's gaining potential energy. Typically we think of the energy in fuel as purely chemical energy that is released when the fuel is burned, however all three components must be added together to find the total available energy of the propellant. When we make a burn at periapsis (prograde for simplicity), several things are happening: 1: We're combusting our propellant, extracting its latent chemical energy and using it to accelerate the exhaust gases out the nozzle and consequently accelerating our spaceship. 2: We're at the lowest point in our orbit, meaning our spaceship has the lowest potential energy. Potential energy isn't really something that we can use to accelerate our spacecraft in a helpful way, so we want to trade it off for increased kinetic energy and more speed, which we can use. 3: Since we're moving fastest at periapse, our propellant has the highest possible kinetic energy before it's burned (oftentimes this kinetic energy dwarfs its chemical energy!). When it exits the rocket nozzle, its velocity is equal to our current orbital velocity minus the rocket's exhaust velocity. When the rocket is traveling near the exhaust velocity, this number gets small, meaning our exhaust is left with a relatively small amount of kinetic energy. The best case scenario is when we're traveling exactly at the exhaust velocity - we're essentially leaving our exhaust motionless in space. Since energy is conserved in the rocket-exhaust system, our ship gains all the kinetic energy that our exhaust loses, and we fly away with the most possible energy extracted from our propellant. I think you're a little confused about what exactly the Oberth effect is. You're talking about how it increases fuel efficiency, and you're technically right about that, but not in the way you explained. The Oberth effect can't magically increase the chemical energy available in the fuel, or the exhaust velocity of your engine. It doesn't do that in real life, and it doesn't do that in KSP. The reason burns higher velocity are more efficient is that your rocket is extracting the maximum total energy, chemical and kinetic, from your fuel. Additionally, saying that the Oberth effect increases the dV from a burn is incorrect, because you're wrongly equating orbital energy and dV. If my spaceship is capable of an average acceleration of 10m/s^2, and I burn my engine for 10 seconds, I will be going 100m/s faster than I was before the burn. It doesn't matter what my initial speed was, accelerating at a given rate for a given time will always result in the same change in velocity. However, the same change in velocity does not always give you the same change in orbital energy. It's not some magic device that makes your engine better, it's just a name for a specific consequence of physics.

The rod's propulsion system is used briefly for deorbit, and after that it's unnecessary. As for terminal guidance, the rods have small fins and a computer in the back for control. However, as you say, re-entry heating was a problem for the non-tungsten components and the ionized air around the vehicle essentially blinds any on-board sensors.

From my understanding, the system is more like a rocket launcher than a gun. The rods have their own propulsion system and as such they don't impart any forces onto the carrier satellite when they launch.

Have you seen the VAB? I don't think they're all that bad.

For a challenge, build a ship that can launch from Kerbin, land on Tylo, launch from Tylo, and then do a powered landing back at Kerbin. With 100T of dead-weight payload. (for science)

Well, I picked Jool since you can aerobrake. Kerbin-Moho or Kerbin-Eeloo would still have very large braking burns.

Not even. You can get an EAV down under 40, maybe 30 tons if you build small. If you're careful with the landing and end up somewhere even a kilometer or two above sea level, you can save a significant fraction of that 11k dV. 40 tons is pretty simple to launch, even with earlier career tech.

A brilliant brute-force method to search the solution space for a low-cost Kerbin-Jool transfer window

Mah boy Newbles.

Basically you wanna swing around behind the planet in its orbit. Its gravity will tug you along behind it, accelerating you around the Sun and increasing your orbital energy. If you mess up and pass ahead of the planet, it will decelerate you relative to the Sun and decrease your orbital energy. Imagine bouncing a ball off the front of a speeding train, and you'll have a basic picture of what's happening. The ball comes in opposite the motion of the train, bounces, and then leaves in the same direction as the train but at a higher speed.

Quick rules of thumb for eyeballing: - To transfer up to something higher, your target needs to be ahead of you. To transfer to something lower, it must be behind. - For all but the closest bodies to Kerbin, the transfer windows are at nearly 90 degrees. - Duna and Eve are about 45ish degrees ahead and behind, respectively. - Moho sucks, eyeballing there can be dangerous since delta-V requirements are so high even with a perfect transfer. Any inefficiency can add nearly 3 or 4 km/s to your capture burn. - Returning to Kerbin? Good luck, I have no advice.

Perhaps your issues with quad/tricouplers are because of a different operating system?

Your best bet for smoothness is probably Eeloo I think, but Tylo is the largest airless body, so your altitude/planetary radius ratio is the gonna be the biggest. You're also gonna be orbiting the fastest since Tylo is so massive, so a station there is probably gonna be the most exciting.

It's never more efficient to run a rocket engine at anything less than maximum thrust, unless you're in an atmosphere (but only in Kerbal Space Program, not even in real life). If you have too much thrust, use a smaller, lighter engine.

Well, that is definitely not normal. Try re-installing your game.

I just opened up the game and started a new career (in version .23) and I have the Mk1 command pod, the LV-T30 engine, the RT-10 solid fuel booster, the FL-T200 fuel tank, the Modular Girder Segment, the Mk16 parachute, and the Communotron 16 antenna all unlocked and available for use in the VAB. Did you actually check what you have in the VAB before you went to the R&D building?

You start with the small 1-kerbal pod, the LV-T30 engine, and some small fuel tanks already unlocked. You can use those to build a small suborbital rocket that you can use to get your first points of science. Or, even easier, just launch a pod and have Jeb get out and collect surface samples from the launchpad and the dirt around KSC in addition to some EVA and crew reports.

Like others have said, lock the suspension. Don't rely on wheels to stay at the same height. I haven't had any problems at all with my Temstar-inspired modular base, both testing on Kerbin and up on the Mun.

Why make fuel silos out by Minmus when you can refuel in LKO? Burning up there, circularizing to rendezvous, and then leaving for Duna is gonna be less efficient than doing the same thing down in LKO due to the Oberth effect, plus it's a bigger pain to time everything.

Pretty darn reliable. It's hard to mess up if you do the math beforehand. Whether or not I'm reliable as a pilot is another thing, however after playing since .17 I've gotten to be fairly good at flying.

This shouldn't be a surprise if you are aware of what real-life ion propulsion is like.

The TWR and asparagus requirements for an Eve ascent vehicle make it unsuitable for deep-space travel. You're carrying around so much extra mass in engines and they're most likely Aerospikes to boot, which limits your Isp. While an EAV does have the dV to go pretty much anywhere, it's nowhere near an elegant interplanetary spacecraft.

Newbles Kerman. He's the commander of my Modular Munbase and he's persevered through more screwups than I can count. He's overseen base construction, miraculously managed to save the base control module when it tipped over on landing with only minor damage to the comms dish, salvaged supply crates when the pallet they were sitting on spontaneously exploded and scattered them over a 500 meter radius, towed spacecraft wreckage over the Munar hills, jerry-rigged a crew transport rover when one of the robotic base crawlers flipped and lost its docking node, and I hear he's even beaten Jeb at low-gravity Ping-Pong once or twice.