Alistone

The parachute should be attached directly to the top of the command pod. It is very common for the vessel to break apart when the parachute fully deploys at about 500m above the ground; so the parachute should always (essentially) be attached directly to the command pod. Additional problems can occur if your ship is too heavy for just 1 parachute to slow it down enough. Experience can teach you where to add additional parachutes, but usually it will simply rip the command pod off the rest of the vessel when it fully deploys above the ground. If this happens to you, perhaps try a smaller rocket to start with so, or add more chutes, or try to land in the water. A final issue which may or may not be part of the problem is that if you stop descending the parachutes will "cut loose". So if you saved fuel in your rocket to slow down just above the surface you need to be careful that you don't completely stop your descent because if there is "slack" in the parachute lines they will automatically cut free.

Burning at 90 deg angle to each other is MUCH more efficient than burning at 180 deg to each other with a direct horizontal arc. (You meant 180 degree in your post... since you were talking about horizontal burns, but the balistic 45 degree burns end up being 90 degrees different from eachother like ^) It's a balance of gravity loss (from hovering) and steering loss (from thrusting and then turning to thrust in a different or even opposite direction). If you try to go straight horizontal you end up with very high steering loss by having to turn completely around and burn at nearly 180 degrees of your initial impulse. Then you suffer gravity losses for however long you have to "hover" to avoid crashing into the surface. So in an "ideal" trajectory you balance the total horizontal thrust to speed up and then to slow down with your total vertical thrust to "hover" for the duration of the maneuver. If you try to go nearly straight up you never get anywhere and all your fuel is wasted due to gravity losses. Also, hohmann effect tells us it's better to do it as an "impulse" instead of wasting fuel "hovering". So in the end you realize that the most efficient method will be an impulse at about 45 degrees that splits losses equally between steering losses (horizontal thrust) and gravity losses (vertical thrust). Regarding time; it is fastes to go nearly horizontal and thrust prograde for the first half and retrograde for the last half. But it is slowest to go nearly straight up and then to slowly drift over to the new location. The optimal trajectory is "Ballistic" and while slower than the direct horizontal it is far more efficient.

gonna die1 as compared with my first plane suicide mark1 Ironically I haven't yet lost a kerbal...

If you really wanted to start with some science rather than a rocket: Just start with a 1 man capsule and an antenna. Right click on it and do a "crew report". Transmit. Click on the pilot and EVA. Right click on him and take a sample. Right click on him and do an EVA report. Get back in the ship and transmit. Repeat repeat repeat... When you run out of power go to the space center and recover the flight. But you start with a command module; command modules all come with built in ASAS; but it requires electric charge. To generate electric charge you will need to use a liquid fuel rocket (not all of them generate charge... much to the disliking of my "would be" first mun lander). Just include an antenna and do crew reports as you climb and as you fall back down to the surface. I actually included extra command pods on my early ship to use as "batteries" since I hadn't researched them yet. The real point is focus on what you CAN do. The primary hurdle at the beginning seemed to focus on having enough electrical charge to transmit science data. But once you get solar panels or unlock "goo" containers or "material bay" or other science instruments it is a direct extension of the make reports and transmit them. I was "creative" enough to skip exploring kerbin and I went mostly straight to mun flyby's and landings. Only getting kerbin readings as I was returning. But there are many zones on kerbin. The launchpad, the runway, the coast, the grass, the mountains, the ocean, and all sorts of different elevations that are "new zones" for science points. Just try and discover what you CAN do. That's what KSP is really all about.

I reflexively tend to agree with you... though it feels easier because we've had practice... nothing quite compares to navigating and doing orbital rendevous before there was maneuver nodes. I still remember using the old trial version to land on the mun. You can land on an engine if you just set down really really really slow and straight. (No landing gear in the old trial version)

It took me two missions before I realized how science works. After figuring out how to make a cluster of SRBs into a decoupler and getting to orbit and back I discovered the "crew report" function. It gives "tons" of science. But electrical charge is so limited that I couldn't transmit as much as I'd like... but it was enough for mystery goo. Got "mystery goo" containers and did a bunch or readings during launch since electricity was abundant from multiple thrusting rockets. That unlocked other science containers and then solar panels and batteries!!! After that it seems to escalate pretty quickly. Just charge the batteries and make a bunch of observations. Different zones count; so over water, over land, in low orbit, in high orbit, one the ground. Visual observations; mystery goo; science material; thermometers... I look forward to testing the rest of the science instruments on Duna "soon". Even after you splash down you can still make some observations. Recovering samples is not nearly as beneficial as repeatedly sending data. As far as the interface, you'll notice that if you repeat an experiment it doesn't give as much science the next time. And the blue "transmit data" button will indicate the percentage of science value that can be transmitted (as compared to being recovered). The really surprising thing is that I haven't killed any kerbals yet (despite multiple "SRB Decoupler" failures) and many flipping rockets from before we knew about control surfaces. I'll get there eventually though...

I use a 3 man capsule for strong reaction wheels. I let the reaction wheels adjust/maintain the orientation. Just put the RCS as close to the center as possible since it is used primarily for translation you can reduce rotation by keeping it tight in and use less RCS ports to make sure the RCS rotation force doesn't overpower your reaction wheels. Makes your translations and rotations slower, but slow is definitely better than fast when you're trying to dock.

The 100x yield issue becomes OP because it seems to allow the creation of mass. That means I can burn half of my ships mass running an atomic engine and have a relatively high thrust to weight and then convert 0.5% of my ship's weight of this superkethane back into fuel to bring my tanks back to full. Doesn't really matter if it is 0.5% or 5%; it still allows on site conversion to "create" additional mass which changes the the entire thrust/mass equation. It's meant to be rare/special... but it will become standard and OP or it will not be used at all. ...thats my thoughts...

For interplanetary phase angles this site works great: http://ksp.olex.biz/

While toying with a larger rover that could "rock" by adjusting it's weight forward or backwards I discovered that the larger wheels seem to perform much better on terrain if the middle ones are set slightly lower. They carry more of the weight and allow wheels on the front/back to handle bumps better / break less often.

Something about saying this on KSP forum reminds me of a pot and kettle. Anyone see the guy launch a kerbal into duna using a ladder and some decouplers? EDIT: Also, in response to the OP, all orbits circle around the center of mass which means crossing the equator. If it were possible to tweak the center of mass to be above/below the equator you theoritically could have an orbit that didn't cross... but for all practical purposes the answer is No.

Made it over 50k feet but only with about 400m/s of surface velocity (well short of orbit). A main challenge seems to be the early stages. It is most efficient to travel at about 100 m/s + 10m/s for every 1000 feet of elevation. The problem I have is that after some very potent lower stages that each adds 30ish m/s you get to about 100m/s and your vessel is lighter so the same stage now adds 60 m/s. This quickly pushes you to 160m/s before you are even at 1000 meters up and you lose a bunch to atmospheric drag. I'm trying to split the ignition on some of the early stages to maintain a more stable velocity. If you can get efficiently out to 14,000 m then the top stages should easily make it to orbit. Will post pics tonight after I finally accomplish this.

I expanded my normal "heavy" lifter (14 jumbo 64 orange tanks at launch => 2 full in orbit) into a "super-heavy" lifter (38 jumbo 64 orange tanks at launch lifting 6 full jumbo 64 tanks into orbit.) It's over 240 tons in orbit. Knowing what an absurd abundance of fuel I can put in orbit I think it's time to put a better tug/lander on top of the rocket and visit all the planets.

I will endeavor this tonight. This is going to be fun.

The main drawback to lower T/W is that you cannot get maximum effect from the oberth effect. Oberth basically says that the faster you are moving when you burn the more efficient you are. It requires 4 times the kinetic energy to get from 100-200mph than from 0-100 mph. But for a rocket 100 delta V cost is the same for either; so it is better to use it when you're already traveling as fast as possible. If you cannot complete your burn in Low Kerbin Orbit then you are losing oberth efficiency opportunity. The further from Kerbin the slower your orbit and the less efficient your burn. This is why many calculators will have an "optimal" Kerbin orbit for you to leave from. If you have an extremely low T/W ratio you may as well refuel from near a minmus orbit before setting off since your oberth efficiency will be so low you may as well start with a full tank as far outside the gravity field as possible.

Those 180 degree turns always seem to end with "you'll just crash into the ground trying." Very Kerbal. (90 would be turning to the horizon; 180 would be turning completely around and pointing back into the surface) Gravity turn between 10-15km depending on the T/W ratio. Lower T/W means I usually wait longer to start my turn; but this is often because I want to empty and eject radial tanks from a stage while I'm still going vertical. If I lean over first they may hit my main rocket.

I usually have a heavy lander and use the LV-N almost exclusively. If you maneuver your periapsis to 5km-12km above the mun then you can "suicide burn" retrograde at full throttle at periapsis (your maximum speed for excellent oberth effect) and simply adjust your nose to slightly above the horizon to keep your vertical speed in a controlled descent. If you want to orbit and choose your landing spot you can circularize instead of completely eliminating your horizontal velocity. Then it is a fairly short controlled descent that is just as efficient as a mechjeb suicide burn.

They are connected almost like a decoupler. To seperate them the first time you right click on the port and select "decouple node". I have had an atomic engine-orange tank-docking port lower stage that I used as a 3 part orbital tanker. Just have to be careful because without a command capsule it is classified as debris. But yes, you can "dock" to debris too.

Bump. I'd be happy if I could select multiple tanks and select in or out on one of them and it would pull or send evenly from the tank I click the button on to all the other tanks I had selected. I often want to tranfer fuel to or from radial tanks to/from a center tank and have to suffer some imbalance because I can't do it simultaneously.

It's not really a "no starter". It is actually an intermediate step for people with low T/W ratios. They will burn at periapsis and create an eliptical orbit and they will continue to do this each pass of their periapsis orbit to do as much burning near periapsis as possible. BUT as soon as their apoapsis is no longer in the Kerbin SOI, they cannot do this again because they won't be coming back to Kerbin's SOI any time soon... so at that point they just do whatever is left for their interplanetary burn. The main point is that there is no reason to try to setup your elliptical orbit first. You may as well just let it fall where is falls as you do your interplanetary burn.

Follow above suggestions to reinforce connections. The problem is almost certainly coming from the lost fuel mass. If your radial tanks are 3/4 empty then instead of your engines spnding most of their energy speeding up the own fuel tanks, they are tranferring more force to the main rocket. This extra force can often break connections. You can also help avoid this by reducing throttle as the tanks have less fuel and by keeping your ascent on the slower side of terminal velocity. Sometimes a "crush" can occur even in a single column. To avoid this I turn off the tank at the bottom of the rocket and pull fuel from the top instead. This keeps the weight closer to the engine to avoid squeezing the stuff in the middle during the rapid accelerations accomplished outside of the atmosphere.

You're nearly there. The "trick" is to just place yourself in a nice circular orbit at 2.5 million m and you will be orbiting with a shorter period than kerbin. This means you will slowly progress until you are almost above KSC. When you get close, increase your apoapsis to the magic number; when you get to your higher orbit apoapsis circularize and you should be nearly perfectly above KSC. EDIT: And if you don't have an electric generator on board you need to add one to your vessel. Not a battery; an actual generator. (Alternately you could probably get by with battery & solar panels).

I had a similar thought to you; and I thought that the wider orbit would make docking maneuvers easier; and you already have more potential energy when you're that high up. But to be efficient you need your transition burn to start at as high a velocity as possible. At 31,000,000 you are orbiting at less than 100 m/s. By starting with such a low velocity you can't take advantage of the Oberth effect during your ejection burn. Higher orbits tend to be better for a Duna trip because it requires a relatively slow ejection velocity. But for trips that require higher ejection velocities they are far more efficient to start at a higher velocity in low kerbin orbit to take advantage of the Oberth effect.

Because gravity is only calculated by your SOI and not via a 2-body problem this would have to be outside the kerbin SOI. The way to do it though would be to have an orbit just inside Kerbin's solar orbit and then tweak it above/below the plane and make it slightly oblong so that you have the same orbital period as Kerbin. That's my best guess anyways.

hmm..... so that's why my "tug" turns so slowly; the atomic engine vectored thrust is counteracting the command modules' turning force. I'll try locking their gimbals to see if it works better.