Kerba Fett

I've made a number of stations in LKO as well as around the Mun and currently have a long term station in orbit over Minmus. I never put RCS on non mobile stations. Once the station is brought into orbit and parked where I want it the delivery tugs normally detach taking their RCS with them. When new modules are attached to the station, the RCS system used to deliver them stays with the delivery tug which is de-orbited once the module is attached. While the stations usually have a reaction wheel on the core module, I don't tend to have them on any modules added later. (they leave with the tugs) I tend to think of engines and RCS systems as a disaster waiting to happen on a station. If they're not there they can't cause problems when they fire unexpectedly. While I can rotate a station, it's very slow and I don't do it. When I approach to dock, if the port I want is on the far side I drift past the station and kill all my relative velocity then approach the port I want. (you can park a car with out rotating the parking lot, right? This is similar) In the unlikely event that I wanted to move the station to a new orbit, I'd dock a tug and drag it. It's easier to pull an unbalanced load than to push it. I've never noticed any movement in my stations. Perhaps this is because the station mass is far higher than anything I dock with it. My current Minmus operation for instance has a 7 ton lander docking with a 45 ton mobile station. (this is fairly light as far as my stations go.) Even if undocking gave the lander a push of 1 m/s it would only give the station a push of about .17 m/s. The push from undocking is actually much slower. Since I don't rotate my station for docking that little micropush is in a random direction depending on where the station is in it's orbit so it's unlikely that any cumulative effect will build up over repeated undockings.

If only it were available as an overlay on your map view for choosing your landing site.

To dock ships you'll need an RCS system as federicoaa mentioned and docking ports on each ship. When you place your RCS thrusters in the VAB you should turn on the center of mass indicator and place a ring of them in line with the COM. I like to use 4 way symmetry. 4 thrusters with 4 way control will allow you to translate in any direction and by placing them in line with the COM you don't get rotation when you translate. Normally your pods torque handles rotation. Do the balancing only on the stage that will be docking. Any boosters or transfer stages should be disconnected. Don't forget an RCS fuel tank. Once you're in orbit and close, when you're in docking mode the spacebar switches between rotate and translate. You need to press R to turn on RCS and confirm that it lights up on the top of your navball. When your navball is in target mode the yellow markers are not prograde and retrograde. They're your positive and negative relative velocity. What direction you're moving in relation to the other ship. If the yellow Rvel + marker is on the pink target marker you're going right at the other ship. You can adjust you're course to place this marker over the other ship by using wsad and Shift/CTRL just like the EVA pack. To prevent apparent control reversal you can use the chase camera or place a marker on your ship during construction and roll the ship so the top points to the top of the screen. Rather than trying to select a docking port at long range, I just drift till my closest approach and kill all of my relative velocity. This gives me plenty of time to select a docking port, control from my docking port and line up my approach. If you do want to select the docking port from a long way out though, Place your camera between your ship and the target and zoom way out till you can see the target in the foreground. If you're lucky you've got an angle where you can click on the docking port, You say you don't want mods. If you change your mind, look up the Docking Port Alignment tool by Navyfish. It shows a graphic of how your port is aligned with the target docking port and which way to thrust to get it in alignment. It's speed and distance readouts are way more accurate than the stock game. The other I'd recommend is MechJeb. You don't get autopilots till later in the tech tree, but the Attitude Stability System that keeps you pointed in a particular direction is quite handy in docking operations. (and most others also)

Have you checked to see if switching those nukes for LV 909's gains you dV? Their thrust is only 10 kN less but they're 1.75 tons lighter each. Also, if you're going to Duna, is it for career for the science? If so you might want to work a lab in there. I did an extended mission to Minmus for my second trip as a proof of concept for Munar operations and later Duna. The main ship is my Mobile Orbiting Support Station. When fully fueled it has the same capacity as a single orange tank. To bring it up from the surface I had to have it only half fueled due to its mass. It uses a Poodle since they're fairly light and have good vacume isp. It has just under 4000 m/s dV when fueled and carries 400 units of monoprop in radial tanks. Docked to the MOSS is a lander with 2 science Jr's and 2 goo canisters. Also docked is a data courier. The mission profile is to have the MOSS arrive first and establish orbit. Two of the crew move from the capsule to the lab module. The lander then follows on it's own transfer vehicle. Once the lander reaches orbit it docks with the MOSS. Any fuel remaining in it's transfer stage is moved to the MOSS. The lander then undocks and after moving away from the station detaches from it's transfer stage. The lander then deorbits and lands on the surface to take material studys, goo observations, crew reports, eva reports, and surface samples. The lander than does a suborbital hop to a new site and repeats the process. Anything with a 100% transmit value is sent. All other data is kept for delivery. The lander then returns to orbit and docks with the MOSS. The kerbal in the command pod goes EVA and recovers the data from both goo containers and both science Jr's. He also gets the data from the lander capsule then returns to the MOSS command pod. Taking the data packs from the instruments disables them, but the crew in the lab can repair them for the next mission. The lander refills it's fuel and RCS tanks from the MOSS and undocks for another trip to the surface. Once enough science data is gathered a courier is dispatched from kerbin. The ship is small. parachute, Mk1 pod, RCS tank and thrusters, probe size landing gear and a sheilded docking port. I use a mod called Tweak Everything that allows me to start with the sheild open to put it on a transfer stage. It's about 1.8 tons so a fairly small rocket will get it off the ground and on it's way to Minmus. While it's only propulsion is RCS it's got just under 700 m/s worth of it so you can enter minmus orbit and dock with lots left. It's actually a bit too responsive when docking and I'd prefer for it to be a bit weaker. For a Duna mission you'd need a larger transfer stage that would be refueled at duna and used to get back to kerbin. Once the courier docks, he EVA's and takes the collected data from the command pod of the MOSS. He reboards his ship, undocks and returns to kerbin using the atmosphere to brake. The parachute insures a soft landing and the legs keep you looking professional. You can even direct your landing site on the way down with any remaining RCS fuel. Once the tracking station recovers the ship you get return bonuses on all that science data while the crew back at minmus is free to continue collecting more. For my Duna mission I'm thinking of a similar system but the first stage would be putting a kethane operation on Ike for orbital refueling. I can get a tanker to minmus with a reasonable payload of fuel, but I think Duna would be much tougher. Anyways, perhaps you can use some of the ideas here for your Duna mission.

Should be easy enough to test. I keep a directory in my KSP root for removed mods so that if I want them back I can just move them back to the gamedata directory. It would be pretty easy to do that with the squad folder and see how long it takes you to start wishing for something from the stock inventory. What about launch clamps though? Is that something any mod makers have bothered with?

Most important things I've learnd about KSP: Panning the camera. (middle mouse button) When using MechJeb, custom windows are more useful than a lot of the standard windows. Spend some time playing with that feature. When landing away from the KSC you're going to come down on a hill and probably fall over. It doesn't matter where you go or how flat it looks on the way down, it's a hillside. Plan ahead for it.

Since I don't think anyone else has said this, the green sticks on the maneuver node represent prograde and retrograde. The blue sticks are for radial + and - ( to alter your path left or right) The purple sticks are for normal + and - ( to alter your path for climbing or descending) To get to the Mun place a node on your orbit where the Mun lines up with the horizon of Kerbin. Drag the prograde stick (the one without the x in the end) till your projected path shows a Mun encounter. There should now be a periapsis marker in the purple segment of the projected path. Adjust prograde/ retrograde to get the PE marker where you want it. (front or back pass) You can also adjust radial a but to reshape your path. Zoom the camera out in the map view and swing it over so you can see the Mun in the foreground for fine tuning. Then just point your navball at the blue node marker and burn when the count reaches zero. Recheck your course after the burn incase you need to do a minor correction then just wait for the encounter.

You get science for orbiting, for your first suborbital flight and lots of other stuff around Kerbin. I was wondering if there's any point to unlocking better jet parts other than for launch boosters. Playing in the sandbox I managed to hit 2225 at 25km. If I could get orbital speed in the atmosphere in career mode would I get any science for it?

Looking at the picture of your revised lander, 2 things come to mind. You've got plenty of room under your radial mounted tanks. You could mount your rcs tanks there and lower your COM quite a bit. The small radial mount tanks or even the small stack mount ones would work and still leave plenty of ground clearance. Also, if you made your center tank shorter than the radial mount ones you could nestle the science Jr between the fuel tanks and the capsule would sit lower. By the way, you have tried putting it on the launch pad and making sure a Kerbal can get up the ladders with those struts there right? Those helmets of theirs are pretty big and space looks limited from this angle. As for your launch stage, you might want to consider a modification of this design. My launch stage consists of 2 jet engines mounted on a bicoupler. (you need to rotate them a bit) I then put 2 of these on another bicoupler for 4 jets. I haven't unlocked quad couplers yet and these are quick to reconfigure. I use a single jet fuel tank with 12 intakes using 6 way symmetry. On top of that is a structural fusalage. This provides a grab point for the launch clamps. I'm not sure the fins are needed but I had a rotation issue in an earlier payload. This setup provides 600 kn at launch and burns a negligable ammount of fuel going up to 20 km where you fire the rockets on the next stage. The advantage here is that you're not using rocket engines in the lower atmosphere where they're less effective. While this ship got my transfer vehicle into orbit, I did have to transfer some fuel from the lander to do it. I was already planning on an orbital refueling so it wasn't that big a deal, but next time I'll probably radial mount a pair of dual jet booster for a bit more kick. I've radial mounted the dual jet versions to larger rockets using 6 way symmetry, but it really starts to eat your framerate with that many parts. Did get a 120 ton station to 350m/s and 20km though. These things have become the workhorse of my launch system. The only thing you need to do different is to stage the engines before the launch clamps and wait till the engines come up to full power before releasing the clamps.

Thanks Claw, I tried the advanced menu before asking, but was looking for a drop down menu to change it like when I posted the message. I changed the title of the thread, but not sure if it took. Apparently it didn't. Still don't see anything there about a message prefix.

Thanks. That looks like just what I needed. And now that ive got that, how do I change the tag to answered?

If I'm coming back from the Mun or Minmus, I usually use the atmosphere to brake for landing and it takes about a half orbit to come down if I make my PE 40 km. If I just wanted to drop my AP down to 200km, what altitude would I make my PE? Anyone know from experience rather than just guessing?

Congratulations on your Minmus landing. It feels great the first time you set down off of Kerbin. I can't believe you landed on a hillside though. lol. There's those gigantic plains that you can see from orbit that are prefectly flat. A question about your lander, Was the RCS system was intended to stand you back up if you fell over or were you going to keep your capsule mostly vertical and use those to control your horizontal speed? I recently managed my first career landing on Minmus as well. This is the lander I used. To make it less tippy I put the legs on decouplers and angled the legs out a bit. This gives it a nice wide stance. Originally I was using girders but noticed that these are much lighter. As a bonus you can put stuff on the ship hull under them but not with girders. I used 3 legs to keep the weight down and 2 way symmetry on the goo containers for the same reason. I left off the science jr since I thought it would raise the COM too high and I didn't want the extra mass of an RCS system. Once I landed I took a surface sample and did an EVA report. Put them back in the pod then used the EVA pack to jet over to 2 nearby biomes for another surface sample and eva report. Of course you can only carry one of each and have to take it back to the lander before going on to the next. You get some nice range from the EVA pack on Minmus. For my next version of the lander I'm thinking of getting rid of the goo containers to save the weight. I then make little disposable probes that I launch from the same transfer vehicle that brought the lander. If I can get one in each biome I try bring down the lander within range of the EVA pack and go collect the probe data and take a surface sample and EVA report. By taking the data I get the return bonus without using dV on the lander. I was looking at the science returns on this as well. A goo report from Minmus paid 50 science while a surface sample and EVA report from the same location was worth 190. It's great if you can get both, but less goo equals more dV for more landings. I notice you use mechjeb. As you can see I prefer to use the translatron to manage my descent rate. Have you played with making custom windows with it? There's some amazingly helpful info in there that you don't normally see. Notice my hover time in the fuel window. I had to chuckle when I noticed that. If you like to fly with a manual throttle you can Display local gravity and current accelleration in a window. When they're the same you're at hover thrust.

For info on using a specific mod I've always had better luck going to that mods topic on the addon release forum. Half of the people on this forum have probably never heard of that mod. I've looked at it, and it seems interesting, but haven't tried it yet myself so I can't be much help to you.

If I understand your ship, you've got a rocket, then a bi coupler, then a pair or lander cans, then another bicoupler, then a docking port? One thing that my be causing some problems is that the hierarchy used by KSP works like a tree. A branch can split just fine, (like your lower bicoupler) but it can't merge back together. (like your upper bicoupler is trying to do) KSP is seeing a setup that goes rocket, bicoupler, 2 pods, bicoupler attached to 1 pod but just blocking the attach node for the other pod, then the docking port. I've also heard of people having problems with docking ports if they're on a splitter that's attached to the rocket by a node that's not it's root node. (the first one defined in the config file)

Interesting thing about using those decouplers for leg mounts is that a goo container will fit inside one. That allows for 3 way symmetry on the legs and 2 way symmetry on the goo containers to keep the weight down.

Consider the example of the humble ship in the following images. In the first the Mk1 pod is on the front of a rocket. I consider the parachute to be the front and the engine to be the rear. The entry hatch is on the top. If I want to pitch the craft down I press the W key. If I want to Yaw the nose to the right I push the D key and if I want to roll the ship to the right I push the E key. Just like flying planes in the game and quite intuitive. You want to go in a direction, you push the button on that side. In the second Image I've detached the final stage to use as a lander. At this point I'm thinking of the parachute as the top, the engine as the bottom and the door as being on the back. If I want to pitch forward for more speed I push W. If I want to roll right to strafe sideways I push the D. Still pretty intuitive. However, if I want to rotate along the vertical axis to yaw right, I push the button on the left. and pushing the button on the right makes me yaw left. It seems backwards. So I end up pushing the wrong button most times and going, "oh yeah, that's backwards when I'm doing this" Now I realize that none of the controls have changed. Only my perception of what I'm using them for and where I put the camera. Pitch stays the same, yaw becomes roll, and roll becomes backwards yaw. Flying from IVA in a craft based on one of the lander cans makes it even more noticable since you have to use yaw more to see your surroundings. If the capsule were tweakable to reverse the roll axis then flying in lander mode would feel more natural and you could put it back once you get back into orbit and want to to fly like a rocket again.

I've got a few tips for your next lander. Unless you really need 3 guys on the Mun switch to the Mk1 pod. It's about 3 tons lighter and you'll gain loads of dV. If you want to move your landing legs out a bit, use the radial decouplers with the most offset. They're lighter than girders and you can fit stuff inside them. If you're really short on dV you can drop them once you lift off. Finally if you keep tipping over you might want to try Minmus first. It takes about 100 extra dV to get there compared to the Mun, but you can get from orbit to the surface and back to orbit with less dV than it takes to get to the surface of the Mun. There's also gigantic areas that are totally flat to land on and your EVA pack will let you travel in about a 10 km radius of your lander to visit other biomes.

2 tips for you; if you havent already done it, try Minmus first. It only takes about 100 more dV to get there, but a lot less to land and get back to orbit. Second, use jet boosters for your initial ascent. If you've got the bi couplers unlocked you can put a pair of jets and a fuel tank with some intakes to replace each SRB. They only work up to 20 km, but you're probably not getting anywhere near that with the SRB's anyway. (note: you need to turn the jets about 45' to put a pair on a bicoupler)

If you hadn't said it was the Novapunch pack I'd have guessed those modules were from the FustekStation Expansion. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35043-0-21-FusTek-Station-Parts-Expansion-%28R0-03-5a%29 With those you can only eva from 1 of the end hatches on each module and you usually cover them when you connect something else to the module. The crew manifest mod that Taki117 suggested is what the mode creator suggests. Is that the airlock module on the far side of your station in shadow? You'd normally use the manifest to transfer crew there to EVA from. When they come back in you use the manifest to move them back to their duty station. You could go back to the space center, put a couple of crew in one and stick it on the launchpad to see where they EVA from. Then you'll know for sure.

Navyfish's plugin is really helpful. Particularly the fact that it shows the distance between docking ports not just between the ships COM. So is MechJeb. You don't get any autopilots early in the tech tree but you do get basic Smart A.S.S. functions that help with docking and you can easily make custom windows that show you all sorts of details about your target. (closest approach distance and relative velocity, time to closest approach, ect.) One thing I didn't like about the tech tree is that the docking ports are all spread out. One node gets you basic and sheilded ports. If you want small ports for probes that's another node to unlock and large or inline ports is a third node.

I put all my stations at either 200 or 250 km in a circular orbit. I'll assume you know how to use maneuver nodes to rendezvous with the station. When you launch a ship that's going to dock with the station you just raise it's AP till it intersects with the station orbit. Once you get up to AP you raise your PE till it's out of the atmosphere. 70 to 80km. Since your orbit is faster than the station all you need to do is sit in the map view and wait till your intersect distance starts getting low. On what you think will be the final orbit you add a maneuver node to fine tune your PE to minimize the intersect distance. I can usually get mine down to 2 or 3km. Finally you make another maneuver node to match orbits with your target. This goes right at your intersect point and is usually just burning prograde to circularize your orbit. While you could also put your ship into an eliptical orbit above the station and get the same effect, you'd need to burn fuel to get above the orbit then burn more to drop down into it again later. If you put your station too low then the smaller difference between the ships and the stations orbital periods will mean it will take more orbits to line up. This image is a bit cluttered, but the blue line is the ship and the station is on the yellow line near the orbital inclination marker. You can see my position at intersect lined up with the AP marker and the stations position at the next orbit just below it.

Another way to keep your RCS balanced is to put a ring of them in line with the COM as already suggested. (I use 4 way symmetry) Then using the tweakable controls empty your fuel tanks. Place another ring of RCS blocks in line with the new COM. Finally you place a third ring of RCS blocks halfway between the others. Now refill the fuel tanks and assign each ring of RCS thrusters to an action group. The idea is that when your ship is full of fuel you use the first ring of RCS blocks you placed. When it's empty you use the second ring of RCS and when it's half full you use the middle ring of RCS. You can also use the first AND the middle ring for 1/4 fuel or the second AND the middle ring for 3/4 fuel. The three sets of RCS blocks allow you to move your center of thrust as your center of mass changes.

I don't like to have thrusters on stations either. They're just a problem waiting to happen. I've used 2 different approaches. One is to put a pair of girders on the delivery stage that give me a mounting point for the RCS. I use a short girder to come out from the hull of the delivery vehicle then a long one running parallel to the module I'm delivering. This way you can mount the RCS in line with the COM and strut the payload to the girders. You dock with the station, separate the delivery vehicle and back away from the station. The delivery vehicle takes the girders and RCS thrusters with it. The other thing I've done is to put radial decouplers in line with the COM and mount the RCS thrusters on those. Once you dock you decouple them and let the space junk float away. Of course then you've got the decoupler mounting hardware left on your station. (they all leave little stubs after you decouple) Hadn't seen the_bT's design when I posted. I like it. Looks much cleaner than the girders at 90' I was using. Once your station is built you can just refuel those tanks rather than swapping them out. Your refueler would be pretty much the same ship minus the I beams. You probably should add some lights though. Sooner or later you'll find yourself wishing for them. You might also want to add a marker so you can tell which is the top of your ship. I use the friendly green light of my MechJeb module. While the chase view works well to keep the top of your ship pointed to the top of your screen, I find it makes the camera a bit too twitchy for my liking. If you're OK with mods, a couple that make this a lot easier is the Docking Alignment in Indicator by navyfish and MechJeb. I've never tried the docking autopilot in MJ, but the attitude holding features make manual docking much easier. It's also easy to make custom windows to show you info like closest approach distance and relative velocity at closest approach. Some of it's default windows can be a bit cluttered with info so its nice to make your own with just the info you want to see. One other thing that took me a while to learn is that the distance readout to your target is to it's COM. (labels are F4) If you want an accurate distance between the docking ports the docking alignment plugin does it and also has a more accurate readout of your approach speed. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/12384-PART-0-23-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-1-1 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43901-0-23-Docking-Port-Alignment-Indicator-%28Version-3-0-Updated-12-18-13%29

Your mod pack looks really handy so far, but I've got a couple of tweak able requests that I haven't seen yet. The first would be the ability to adjust the thrust of the EVA pack. It makes a great jet pack on low gravity worlds, but seems way overpowered for precise movement around a station in zero g. The second would be the ability to invert the roll axis. If you're flying a rocket or plane all of the controls seem pretty intuitive. When you pitch up to use your capsule as a lander the roll and yaw controls trade places. A and D roll instead of yaw while pitch stays the same. So far everything is great and wsad to fly seems pretty intuitive. You want to pitch forward push the front button. You want to roll right press the right button. However, when you want to yaw right it seems like you should push the button on the right. ( the E button) Pushing E actually makes you yaw left and makes the controls less intuitive. I understand exactly why this happens, but it's still annoying and it would be nice to have a switch to invert the roll axis when you're flying in lander mode and back when you're in plane/rocket mode.