roosterr

Read captions for some details. Also, I added some of my own requirements that were not listed: Accurate motor configuration, 5 on the first stage (F-1), 5 on the second stage (J-2), and the third stage also a J2, etc. etc. Center core engines on stage one and two gimblas locked Core motors on stage one and two cut off first Initial launch sequence accurate in order of engine ignitions and clamps(see images) No aparagus stage separation Crew escape accurate motor configuration The use of ullage and separation motors RCS Thrusters placed close to real life. I used this as my building guide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Saturn_v_schematic.jpg And this for my staging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Stages Points for accurate anatomy?

You Dad's out there can concur, the love of Lego's drops a few notches when you step on one at 6AM with a hangover

If I could hit Drez, it would be magic! Some day......

I agree. I am a fan of Scott Manley, BUT his docking video confused me the first time and I found many others out there that were better. I learned from watching MANY rendezvous video's a noting all the common practices of each. Then after many attempts and dockings, I streamlined my method.

Just FYI, a moderator will likely move this post to another section of the forums soon. But maybe I can help. Here are the broad steps: While your chase vehicle is on the launch pad, click on the orbiting target craft in map view and "Set as Target" Wait for target ship to be just overhead or slightly early before launching your ship. Launch Get to an oribtal altitude around 10% lower than target, make sure you are on an even plane, no tilt in orbit relative to target You should be "chasing" the target at this time, but at a lower altitude Time warp until you are directly under the target Now burn toward target which is the purple ring on the navball Note on navball that the target location is the purple ring and your actual direction of travel relative to target is the yellow ring Gently steer the yellow ring to the purple ring by steering your ship to the opposite side of the purple ring from the yellow ring. You should see the yellow ring start to adjust Once the yellow ring is inside the purple ring, stop your burn You are now headed directly at the target, although likely at a high rate of speed, note your speed to "Target" on Navball If you have lost the to "Target" speed on the navball and it says "Orbit", or "Surface", click on that text (your speed) until it says Target again. As you drift towards target continue to adjust the yellow heading ring into the purple ring As you get closer turn your ship to the retro bug (yellow ring with an X) and slow way down. You will see how this affects the retro heading vs. retro target direction, adjust accordingly (hint, the retro movements are reverse of when you were burning to the target) You will figure it out. Use your judgement as how much to thrust to slow down as you approach target. Keep retro tick inside the retro target direction as best as you can. It is VERY easy to overshoot target and this is very bad, so go slow and repeat the prograde/retrograde approach When things have calmed down, look at the map view and make sure your orbit and target orbit look the same around the planet. But, dont get too carried away with the way the orbits look while you are deep in your approach, it will settle out if you follow the above steps. BUT, dont try to dock until the orbits are aligned. There is more to it, and even though it looks like lots of steps, eventually it becomes a logical progression that you will figure out with practice. Hopefully this gives you a good start. The key is to drive the yellow ring (bugs, aka ticks) to the purple Target ring on the navball, without overshooting the target. Good luck!

I dont want to sound like I am bragging, because I remember how seriously hard and frustrating it was my first few dozen times. Today, I can be docked from launch in about 20 minutes as long as my launch window is timed well with my target. I often dock before my first full orbit on a good day. My experience I am sharing is an example (not bragging, LOL) of what you have to look forward to. My Point to you is that now that you have a few under your belt, it will get easier and easier and easier. If I had a few hours to kill some day (not), I think I could do the world a favor with the worlds easiest rendezvous video ever, simpler than any I have seen on youTube (OK, now I am bragging about something I have yet to accomplish, LOL). Rendezvous used to be the hardest thing to do, but now setting up interplanetary transfers is my new biggest challenge. In fact I cannot do it without using Protractor mod (crutch), with the exception of Duna. I will formally ask for help with that on the forums soon, getting rid of Protractor that is. Congrats and welcome to the club

Wow! Someone should build a full enclosure, as in capsule, with joystick for landing, etc, command module and/or LEM style, with crappy canvas seat, little port hole for your wife and kids to peer in on you periodically

Thanks to the new tracking station filter, debris is hidden in capsule/lander view, which is awesome. I used to reset my profile to get rid of debris in the old days for no other reason than the clutter made it difficult to select your ship. Nowadays, bring it on, I love looking at my debris field by selecting it in the filter, it gives me a sense of productivity. Now, back to your point: I would say you were "lucky". Hitting debris is very rare, even with heavy orbital pollution. Aside from a Kerbal's untimely death, I would LOVE to hit some OLD debris unexpectedly, assuming it was not my space station. It would be a symbol of productivity and destruction in the same event.

Dont worry AT ALL about getting bored due to a lack of possibilities. And for the planets and moons, it is NOT the same experience landing on them because they all have different gravity, atmosphere (or lack thereof), terrain (or lack thereof, eg. gas giants), easter eggs (aka anomolies), and proximity to other celestial bodies. That, and it is SO cheap anyway, the worst that can happen is that you are out $23.

.... and I realized you were able to rendezvous alread, wow, excellent, that is probably the hardest part of the game to learn. NICE WORK!

I dont use your particular order or all objectives, but YES, I do have a methodology of when and why I do my missions. For example, I like to send small probes to other planets or moons, run a mapsat, regardless if I saw a spoiler or not, and use the probe to provide me with an objective for a manned mission. Then that manned mission may (and usually does) require an orbital rendezvous approach to make the mission successful. Otherwise, I dont take it much farther than that.

I am still on the same mission I started when 21.1 released. Although that mission will be complete any day now, I dont really care if the new .22 breaks my .21 saves. I will just keep my .21 folder handy and start a new mission in .22, no harm now foul in fact I like starting over with a blank slate. Before I get hit with a barrage of disagreements, I am in the demographic that only gets to play a few hours a week. My thoughts may be different if I was playing heavily and had a lot of time invested in ships.

Pay for the game, it is extremely CHEAP entertainment, you wont be disappointed.

I just upgraded to a quad core i7 3.2 with 3.9 boost with a 1600MHz FSB mobo. My latest ship just hit 350 parts and it still smooth as silk. I used my same graphics card from my old PC, NVidia GT 260, several generations old now. With that card and my new CPU, I am running a 23" monitor and in native reoslution with 4X Anti-Aliasing and high level graphics quality. SO, yeah, its a CPU thing.

I voted no, but I admit, this part is true. Coincidentally, I have had a Mun landing about every other night for the last 2-3 weeks. I have an anatomically correct version of the Saturn V Apollo ship that I am VERY VERY close to completing an accurate mission. In fact I got it, but a water splashdown is my last hurdle. Difficult to do when you are low on fuel and Kerbin is rotating while you are setting your maneuver nodes. Maybe tonight!? Anyway, I am good for an answer because my first Mun Landing was v.0.16 and here we are again almost a year and a half later.

There is even an "UFO" saucer easter egg Kerbin. Ya, Moonfrog, I got it as an example of an event, and not that you wanted aliens. I appreciate your suggestion and it is a feature I would like to see in the future. It would actually add some realism (minus aliens ) .......... and you had me at "Female Kerbal"

I dont see an advantage between gliding down to Eve or parachuting down to Eve. They both can make a soft landing using little or no fuel, and then either way you are stuck with a mass that needs enough delta-v to get back into Eve orbit. The only thing that may help is IF jets work in eve's atmosphere, I dont know, but still you could mount jets onto a rocket core just the same.

I envision minecraft cow herds around KSC

One of the few private space ports in the world is right here in Alaska, at the Kodiak Launch Complex about 120 miles south of where I live. My problem is I will need a boat or plane to get there. Although it has been very quiet there in the last few years, I wish they would launch something so we could at least see the chem trails.

It is worth watching WillHop. I used to watch as many Shuttle Launches/Landings as possible and almost never miss a SpaceX launch. The experience is even better now than before because of all that I have learned from playing KSP and related research of the subject of rocket science. In the old days I did not really pay attention to what flight ops was saying over their comm's. Now I understand most of it and it adds a ton to the launch and even is a learning experience. If there is something spoken that I dont understand, I look it up. Term's like MECO or MAX Q, I heard many times, but never bothered to understand it until I started playing KSP.

OK, here is at least one source to watch the launch. I am sure there will be more than one, but if anyone out there find better coverage (like the way SpaceX does a great job on theirs compared to NASA etc.) please post it here. SPACE.COM: http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html

I recently upgraded my system. I went from a 3.4 GHz Core2 Duo, old skool, to a nice shiny newest generation quad core i7, 3.2 GHz (technically a slower clock speed than my old chip). My FSB speed went from 1333Mhz to 1600Mhz. I kept my original graphics card and just moved it into my system, so nothing has changed there. With the Core two duo, I too never maxed much more than 60-70% when my frame rates would plummet with bigger ships. My new i7 is not much different hovering around 50% (average between 4 cores, with one settling at less than 20%), with even larger ships. My point is, no matter how much lag I had in the past, I never maxed my CPU with either system. Also realize that KSP only uses one of the cores. Yet performance is MUCH better on my new i7. So it is puzzling. Might there be a difference because of L2, L3 cache, buss speed, DDR2 vs. DDR3, or maybe some inherent change in chip architecture? I dont know, but I am just sayin' and agreein' that lag is not necessarily caused by lack of CPU clock speed.

Not a newb question, thanks for asking, it is a great question. I have been playing for almost 2 years and with my latest creation my first stage was struggling to perform and burn too much fuel. So I began to wonder if my throttle settings and the overheating (which I always like to keep to a minimum) was a factor. I never figured out for sure. I did figure out that one of my fuel lines (x4 with symmetry) was detached and I was flying with 4 fuel tanks that were not being consumed :-) . I fugured that out a few days ago, but I am glad you asked because I was starting to wonder. Now that the rest of you "experts" have provided an answer, assuming it is correct, I am going to push my engines up to the red line for speed.

Question: What is the optimal thrust to weight ratio for obtaining a 100k orbit? As we all know, with not enough fuel you cannot achieve orbit, BUT, with too much fuel, you cannot achieve orbit. It would be nice to know what is the most efficient TWR to get into LKO. I think the "efficiency" could be judged by how long it takes to get into orbit. I know from experience as long as at every stage separation your speed accelerates, things are optimal. OR Maybe SSTO might simplify the experiment. You could use Engineer or Mech Jeb to collect the TWR numbers. Its about all I could come up with first thing in the morning, but will give it more thought as my day moves ahead. PS. I am inspired by your question because I JUST got hired teaching Middle Schooler's Lego Robotics 5 days a week. So I need to come up with some engineering idea's myself.