Xiphos

Welcome to the forums! May your kerbals die a most glorious death!

Have you tried asparagus staging? It should boost your efficiency up to like 60% or something. Every single rocket I make uses it now. The orbit tutorial I have in my sig goes into great detail about asparagus staging if you're interested. Good luck!

thescientist, I made a tutorial video for docking (link in my sig) It is a complete video from the build, launch and for the docking. I go through and answer all the questions you have posted here and more tips to help you become an expert at docking.

I have encountered massive lag with mapsat in the new release, therefore I haven't used it since .20.

Maybe you could try it with the Jr. Docking port? That one looks a little big for the rover maybe that is the issue.

For this, you can add the solar panels (among many other things) to action groups. And for Kerbalsake, get yourself a mouse

I'll second this option, but I'd go for the one man pods. (I prefer manned pods for landers because they have more torque, allowing them to handle the weight of the lander) I made a ship a while back that could take off from kerbin, land on mun, then take off and land on minimus, then return back to kerbin. If you're interested in that craft let me know I'll post the file. Good luck, and keep things small.

If there's one overall tip I can give you that will be the most helpful is this: Build small. Smaller ships take less to move around and are more stable. You can start off with a one man pod, ASAS, small fuel tank, and one small engine. See where that gets you. Then add more slowly. Vanamonde has posted some great resources, but if you still need more I made a simple tutorial for the complete build step by step, and the launch step by step to get a ship into orbit. I have lots of other tips in the video to share as well. Should get you well on your way to building awesome things! (The ship I build for the orbit tutorial video will escape kerbin if you launch straight up)

That first shot is now my desktop background. I can't stop staring at it! Agreed, forget resources! Gimme gimme gimme 'that'!!

Are you sure about this? 250 hrs is a very, very long time. That's 83 days if you play 3 hrs a day, every day. If so, awesome and you've got waaay more experience than me. If you're definition of an SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) is the same as mine, I don't believe it is possible with the stock engines and their efficiency. Course yours would be named SSTD I believe KSP was updated to Unity 4, allowing it to run off a Multi-core processor (up to a quad). Maybe someone else who knows for sure can back me up here. My ships are rarely even close to 500 parts. Even my heavy lifters are around 230 and I get no lag. Maybe you should try and optimize your designs a little bit. Less is more.

Welcome! Robbaz is here on the forums...maybe you can find him? hehe

Welcome! I wish you luck in your mining ops!

Practice on minimus? Lower gravity should help you learn how to land closer to targets on the ground from orbit. All of your ships that can reach the mun and land should be able to make it to minimus no problem so you don't even have to redesign anything. Some of my most accurate landings (100m or so) have been on minimus. Minimus is also a great place to learn how to 'hop' your landers around to get them even closer. Good luck!

Chris, Take a look at the docking tutorial I made. (link in my sig) I go into great detail and it has helped many others get their first dock!

Haha, I like it!!

still...laughing hahahaha

Welcome and congrats on your first mun landing! See anything interesting on the surface as you flew over it?

Welcome! I couldn't have said it better myself!

Welcome mellojoe! For Mun landings I find it works well for me to land like this: Achieve stable mun orbit retro burn at Ap until your Pe is 0 set up a node at 10,000m that kills most lateral velocity point engines towards ground and keep your speed under 100m/s closer you get to the surface, lower speed until touchdown

Welcome! congrats on your achievements! I've sent a probe out of the solar system back in v.18.2, but havn't done it since haha. Course mine wasn't a true probe, it was manned, and the poor kerbal spent 22 years in that little capsule before I ended the flight haha.

Welcome to the forums! Nice to have another veteran hanging around!

This is exactly why I enjoy this game so much! Welcome to the forums!

Loving the new update! It's the best one yet! Keep up the awesome work squad! And that new one man pod? YES! Looks GREAT! GREAT!

The newest version of the demo I believe is a stripped version of 0.18. When your craft is flying, and you're in map view, you should be able to click on your predicted path (blue line) and create a maneuver node, then you can pull the prograde, retrograde, ascending, descending, etc. icons to get a more accurate burn. I use them in my docking tutorial vid if it needs further explaination.

Looks like you've got a nice space program going there! I believe the demo has maneuver nodes so don't forget to use them! Good luck and keep up the good work! (and yes, you are correct, the correct word is orbit)