AnalogAddict

I built a new lander for Duna and beyond. Started working on a tiny SSTO rocket to make continuous runs between Laythe and Laythe Orbital Station

Make sure your target craft is perfectly still before you swap, with SAS turned off. For instance, if you swap crafts just as SAS was making a slight adjustment then the craft will continue it's rotation in the direction of the correction maneuver. By swapping crafts, you have effectively disabled SAS thus allowing rotation to continue if any rotation were applied or induced by last second SAS adjustments. Frustrating, yes, but I've experienced this issue many times and no matter how many times I dock, it all comes back to plain patience.

Teachers don't like for kids to blow their minds with Orbital Mechanics... even if it is just a game they get offended - although, name another way besides notecard memorization to feasibly get trigonometric functions in your head.

I... I can't lie, I find my mind is often scattered between future ship designs and what I can do to make my space program better even while out with friends.

Here is my spaceplane, reliable and efficient. More details on how to fly in the link after the image. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/30368-Laythe-Nuke-SP-SSTO-20-OK%21

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/30368-Laythe-Nuke-SP-SSTO-20-OK%21 Here is my space plane and a guide on how to get it to orbit. Maybe it will answer some questions for you. Also, in your attempts, are you firing your aerospikes early? I see where can reach 1km/s @ 20km, which is normal, try pushing that up to 1.3~1.4km/s and nudge your altitude up to 24~26km and then fire those aerospikes while pitched towards the heavens. (45 degrees or such, maybe higher depending on if you're catching your apoapsis.)

I've noticed at high altitudes, symmetrical placement of intakes is a must, especially if you're using the radial mount intakes. If you have a single radial intake on top of your fuselage without a matching one below then the drag from that intake will cause you to pitch upwards uncontrollably. Naturally, the opposite is true, one on the bottom means nose down at high altitudes. Disabling the intake will momentarily correct the issue; however for the end all solution remove them all together and use the ram air intakes. I'm not sure if the description is accurate on the item, but Ram Air intakes are for use at high altitudes so I deploy them as such.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/30368-Laythe-Nuke-SP-SSTO-20-OK%21 This is my spaceplane which gets to and from any station I have in LKO, HKO, LMO, LMinmusO. Deorbiting in a manner unto which one may land at KSC is just picking a method and sticking to it. As someone else mentioned in this post earlier, keep your periapsis placement similar in all of your deorbits and you should land on target. When I develop a new spaceplane I always go for one standardized approach to KSC: At 65 degrees to KSC I lower my periapsis to ~5km, not the most efficient deorbit method but I'm guaranteed to at least hit the mountains just west of KSC. If you have spare fuel left in the spaceplane, kick up them turbofans to bring you in nicely. Depending on how much fuel your plane has left you might drop quicker or slower than with my "standardized" approach as I usually build <30T.

Thank you TheWanderer

Built a lander and went directly for the moon. Needlessly threw more parts at it trying to test the performance of .20. No more sound stuttering for me.

I'm very anxious to get home and try. I have a couple 1k part crafts I could attempt to launch.

I've been playing KSP for a while. Yeah no reason to get your panties in a wad, the game is Alpha, and under Steam is labeled "Early Access" for a reason. If you don't like .20, go back to .19.1 until they work out some kinks.

Oooh nice, new large docking port? I must try this out

That is some sweet re-engineering there

Looks legitimate to me, did you have to use part clipping to make it? Watched your vid, great job bringing that thing in for a vertical landing. I'm trying to get mine to a point where I can bring her in like that.

All right, I got all the links sorted out and exchanged throughout the post. Hopefully there are no more broken links/downloads. Thanks for everyone's patience.

These are some beautiful rovers, I agree with the other posters, can you post the .craft file so I can ninja it?

There is no real reason to build satellites unless you use ISA MapSat or Kethane in which case satellites can map the surface to provide valuable information. Building probes is always useful when getting started IMO. Produce a few cheap probes that you can practice landing on bodies, and if you happen to land in a good spot that probe will act as a beacon so you can land there with your manned mission. Also, place some sensors on your probes to get some useful readings, I.E. gravity, atmospheric pressure, temperature, etc...

Usually 4 radial shutes stops my landers of up to 30 tons... But I'm a daredevil and minimalist.

Fixing it now, Also, updated to .20! https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33011069/Ships/SPH/Laythe%20N-SP%20stock.zip

I am fairly decent at designing rockets and spaceplanes. I only have a couple good rovers, but they each have atmospheric and non-atmospheric landing variants for self deployment. I would say I am just a regular old blue collar engineer.

My favorite planet thus far is Laythe. I like the Joolian body floating effortlessly in the skies. Least favorite is probably Minmus or Dres, I think someone else in this thread said Dres was like a cheap placeholder taking up valuable real estate that a body of some interest could hold if it weren't there. I guess that may have something to do with Dres being the last body I visited... I was underwhelmed upon arrival. However the mission wasn't a complete loss, I drove the remainder of the ships directly into Kerbol.

Thanks for the heads up sir, I'll see what I can do about getting that changed to a download link vs a view link. Got this downloading as a .zip file vs displaying as a plain text file. Sorry for any confusion this may have placed on some players.

Here is the stock version, updated to download vs display as text. Here is the stock version, sir. Let me know if there is an issue loading it. Note* Edited original post to include stock version as well.

However it cannot go directly to Laythe from the runway, it has the on-board fuel to rendezvous with a refueler or refueling station in LKO, HKO or one of its moons, then the craft is capable of the interplanetary transfer.