Turvok

Can you see the two pictures in my OP? not sure if they are working or broken links or not, they show up for me.

no it was yesterday, i just added a couple fuel tanks but reduced my pod from the 3 man down to a 1 man. The other thing i changed was the center gimbling rocket was an LVT-45 and this main one is a poodle. (on each booster and center) Also instead of stack decouplers i'm using stack seperators. one of the tanks on the upper part was getting caught on my LV-N's and not getting left behind, so i figured that would help a bit getting it off the main stage. the stack seperators seem REALLY wobbly, i had to strut a couple of them to keep them from floating around on the launchpad. What more do you want pictures of? I did manage to get it into orbit finally, but i saved the asparagus area as a sub assembly so want it to work in the future either way. Want some design issues ironed out before i make it my bread and butter so to speak

it's 67 parts and only 51.46 tonnes. not a WHOLE bunch. I did something similar to this last jool trip. This worked so well with a better ISP then mainsail. (actually a little more thrust too) But not sure why i'm having issues this time.

So i tried to do the thing using tail fins to add more rockets to my launcher and boosters with a higher ISP then mainsail. I ran into a bit of a snag though as i needed extra spacing for everything to have enough room. I used a TT-70 radial decoupler with a modular girder segment on the outside then tried to strut the crap out of everything. Most of the time the launch seems to be going good but i've yet to make it into orbit. One time i'll be going straight up then all of a sudden one of the boosters will break off and start passing me with no warning. Or i'll get to the last stage and start the gravity turn and the torque seems to tear one of the last 2 boosters off. Any advice on how to accomplish this better without everything just falling apart? Also seem to be having issues with the whole craft going in and out of time warp. Just trying to get the timing right to get to jool. Everything goes fine and then i take it out of time warp and everything goes boom. If you need more pics or whatever just let me know.

So i just did some fly by's in jool for my first time. I aerobraked around jool, circulized myself, went out to Laythe and ended up in a polar orbit. I probably spent 1k delta v screwing with my orbit around laythe. At this point i was down to around 3900 DV and doing some calc's i figured i might be able to get one more fly by of one of Jool's other moons. After screwing with maneuver nodes i got an intercept with Tylo, that happened to be a fly by. Then i was going to circulize around jool and hope i had enough DV in the tank to get my guys back to kerbin. But on my way to Tylo i started playing with nodes and managed to get an encounter with kerbin, and it cost me only an extra 450 ish delta v to get it. I'm rather pleased with myself for getting a gravity assist off tylo without even really intending it. Question though is when coming into jool system, is it best to intercept laythe if that's where you intend to go? or get into jool orbit first then go up to laythe.

My personal thing is no part mods and no mechjeb until I've done it without. Once I've gone to all the systems maybe I'll consider mechjeb then. I have nothing against people that do. I just feel I should be able to do it myself without first. I must use my own crafts and designs. It's Ok to borrow ideas but the craft must be something of my own creation.

My other comment here is that you might be waiting too long to open the chute. You can technically open it at any time even when u are having the re-entry visuals going on. When it's partially deployed it will still slow you down a lot. Also the other stuff mentioned above. Mass. And physics warp being the top 2.

For the Rover part there is a thread with a few pictures ideas here. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58909-Suggestions-for-a-good-Mun-payload-lander I like speed daemons picture the most about halfway down the page But Specialist290 has a couple nice posts as well.

I can't link u the picture of mine as I'm on my cell atm. But back in 0.19 I used the truss pieces and built a large T of them coming Off the center of my station. I then put 8 gigantor solar panels on it. 2 top and 2 bottom for each of the 2 sides. When everything unfolded it definitely looked a little more impressive. The light truss pieces I'd assume are quote a bit lighter then structural fuselage. U just need to add a few struts to get it into orbit.

Thanks for the info guys. I never even thought to see if there was an android app for it. Gonna figure it out now. gonna switch it to answered +1 for previous poster linking the map. It's exactly what I was looking for

Does the infamous delta v map show what altitude the values are based from.? Sorry on my cell at work atm and can't pull it up easily

So after combing through Tonnes of videos I found hocgaming explanation of whento leave kerbin for Duna and back. (Duna ahead about 75 degrees) is there a map somewhere like the delta v map that tells u where the other planets should be for optimal burns? Using engineer redoux I tried a couple different angles to get to Duna. But it seems like it might be slightly greater then 75 to Duna. (like 76 to 78?) So far I've been to Duna manned and Eve with a probe. But would like to know when to leave kerbin to get to the other planets. Timing wise. As for delta v. I find going to Duna I'm consistently about 12-1400 m/s burn. Does the altitude of your orbit around kerbin affect the values shown on the delta v map?

I like daid comment to be honest. It's alot more like what I did. I just jumped into career without knowing anything about science. I just got enough points to unlock the things that I needed and started exploring. I went mun first then minmus. (2 missions with same ship) I then started sending probes to Duna and Eve. As I didn't have the tech to have Docking yet. And so forth Don't think I had nuclear engines yet either. With some self restraint and not being just a min-max player I'm finding career mode brought me back to the game after a 6 month absence. That and how sas works now is so much nicer for landing small craft on other celestial bodies.

Well I'm not feeling adventurous enough to go to a Linux based OS. But if it's only a Windows 7 issue with the sound does anyone run Ksp under Windows 8? Any better?

Personally I want them to work at fleshing out career mode more. I know they have their own plans for it so they can do what they want. But besides that. Observatory. A reason to have a space station in orbit. Or a hubble. (parts for science like a telescope or something) I'd really like Ksp to get to 1.0 do more of my friends might play. A cool xmas gift would be for that second gas giant with rings.

When I left home I was in the same boat as the original poster. I did manage to get a 60 ton payload. (pusher and lander) into orbit without mainsail. I could have used something like the pictures above but didn't know how to do it. What I personally did was use 18 solid boosters to get the initial oomph. Plus a 6 way plus middle engine in esparagus stage. The last engine did get me out of the atmosphere. But I had to use my 2 nuclear engines on my pusher to have enough thrust to get it into orbit. Once I was in orbit I could transfer fuel back to pusher stage. (I put my nuclear on an action group to toggle them) I tried transferring the fuel and tried a number of ways. But for shear amount of patience I ended up not transferring fuel and just letting the last remaining main engine help with my boost to Duna. Otherwise it was going to be a 4 or 5 min burn. My final stage before pusher had a TWR of 0.86 I think. So I knew I was close. Also want to point out that I couldn't go more then 5 degrees into my gravity turn until I was close to the 60 or 70 km range or I would just fall back to kerbin. It wasn't a great shop but it got me to Duna and back.

Not exactly sure what quantum struts are. That in a mod pack? Also did you use a pusher stage to get that to Duna or was there enough fuel in it? I'd build something like it and check the delta v. But I won't be home to my computer until Tuesday.

Would something like what speed daemon shows in his pic use a Docking port to hold his Rover? I'm learning a lot from this thread. Didn't even think of some of these concepts . And sorry to the original Op for sort of high jacking his thread

Specialist290 what are you using for attachment? Does a large Docking port have the holding power to lower something with that much mass to the mun? Ie. It looks like it's just hanging there. If that's all it is. Would it survive a parachute opening? Or 4.

Alternatively you can change your orbit to lower or higher (circulize it I think) and that will change your orbit period so u are less likely for the ike encounter. If u happen to get an encounter still then just wait 1 orbit and try again. Jus an alternative way of doing it.

Wow thanks guys. That's what I wanted. + rep allmhuran! In the top picture if I understand it right up is the direction of the planets travel so that would be from eve's North pole facing down on the planet and kerbol would be on the left of the picture.? I'm going to study the gifs when I get to my pc at home next week. Special thanks to specialist290 for linking the trajectory optimization tool. I was kinda looking for something along those lines with Google already.

I'm going to add that during career mode I got to a point (I thought) where Iccouldn't get any more science to get enough parts to do a manned mission outside of the mun or minmus. At that point I had no choice but to send probes to Duna and Eve to get enough science for the next sets of upgrades to be able to send a manned mission. (docking ports being one) Istill ddon't have access to a mainsail but I keep screwing up my Duna flight. But as soon as it's back I should be able to purchase the mainsail.

Thanks Supernovy. That helps that it is possible. But is there any savings in it over top of going directly to a planet. Ie if it takes 6000 delta v to get to jool but only 3000 to get to eve and a slight burn of 2000 from there to jool u would be saving 1000. (I'm on my cell at the moment sorry I can't look up the actual numbers) I'm more theory crafting here but mostly wondering if you can get a craft to one of the outer planets using less then the generally accepted amount of delta v or a ship that can't technically get there. Nasa does it all the time with real world physics sort of Curious if the engine allows that complex of maneuver

Has anyone worked out the timings or if it's even possible to use the gravity of other planets to get to the outer planets using less delta v? Eg. Swing around Eve or Duna to use less delta v to get to jool or eeloo?

I like that you're having this discussion. But I believe it's probably covered elsewhere. I'm on my phone atm and not quite as proficient at finding that stuff anyways. I'd like to add a few things though. We know that there will be an Observatory coming at the ksc at some point. But I'd like to see some more science type parts to build something akin to the hubble in orbit. Not necessarily a requirement but some sort of encouragement to do so. Also more encouragement to send probes to other celestial bodies before sending manned missions. This could be done with something as easily implemented as the financial system that we also know is coming in some form to career mode.