Scarecrow88

For space planes I find it a lot easier to use the inline RCS ports. Placing quad ports in the right place for one axis usually means the other axis is off, resulting in unwanted rotation. Inline ports can be placed individually for each axis in just the right place.

That is perfectly true, but the principles of rendezvousing are the same no matter what craft you are flying. One of the greatest satisfactions I achieved in this game was mastering rendezvousing and docking. Until I did it all seemed like a black art. I too experienced the same problem the OP is having; getting close only to just go whizzing past. When it all finally clicked, and I worked out where I was going wrong and what I needed to do, to say I felt really chuffed would be an understatement. If I had given in and let MechJeb do all that, I wouldn't have experienced that same level of elation and the sense of a job well done.

When getting close to actual rendezvous, you're navball should be in target mode, and the speed indicated will be relative to your target. As you get closer, you need to burn retrograde to bring that speed down, preferably to zero. If it's nowhere near zero, then you are going to go whizzing past, as you have discovered. If you can get to zero relative velocity, but are still a little way off your target, point yourself towards the pink target marker and burn to get yourself closer; how fast this burn neds to be will be governed by how far away from your target you still are. As you get closer, repeat from the step above until you are actually close enough to dock.

It's a good game, as attested to by the number of people who frequent this forum, and who have already replied to this particular topic, but the best video game ever!? No, not even close. After all, it's not even out of alpha testing yet, and is still riddled with bugs to even be considered for that lofty accolade. It has very good gameplay, which is probably the most important aspect of any game, but the graphics are rather simplistic, audio is limited, and the physics for wing borne flight is laughable. Ask the same question again in 12 months time, and I may have a different answer, but not as the game currently stands.

The general rule of thumb seems to be that you need to do your gravity turn at 10,000m until your ship is tilted over 45 degrees i.e. half way between straight up and pointing at the horizon. Depending on your ship and it's rate of acceleration, you can either stay at this attitude until your apoapsis reaches the desired altitude, at which point you can cut your engines, coast up to apo, and then do your circularisation burn. For a slower accelerating ship, the alternative would be that if your apo isn't at the required altitude by the time your ship reaches 40,000m, turn a bit more so that your nose is 20 degrees above the horizon. This has the advantage of still pushing your apo up, but also increasing your horizontal speed more. There is no best apo or peri for a perfect orbit, as the orbit height will be dependant on what your aims are for that particular flight, other than both need to be above 70,000m.

You can still stack them one on top of the other, just right click the port and select undock to separate them.

I could have done that, by separating the Command Module and using the insertion stage to de-orbit the LM, but I wanted to mimic an Apollo style mission, which required the CM to detach, turn around, and 'extract' the LM from the insertion stage. Frankly I was surprised at how much surplus fuel this vehicle was carrying to achieve a Duna mission, and I'm starting to think I can probably use it for a mission to one of the Jool moons, probably Laythe or one with low gravity, without making any changes to it.

I recently did a complete redesign of my Apollo style Mun rocket, to take advantage of the Alcor landing capsule, which is way better looking than the stock 2-man lander can, and to try and improve the efficiency. The resulting ship was so good that I thought a few tweaks would allow me to get it to Duna and back, with no changes needed at all to the Excursion module apart from the addition of a drogue chute and normal chute. The tweaks I made included a Duna insertion stage, added between the lifting stage and the Command module/Lander assembly, and some boosters added to the lifting stage. The Mission Lift off to orbit went smoothly. The second set of boosters were jettisoned just after completing the gravity turn, together with the escape tower. The 1st stage was jettisoned once out of fuel, and the second stage used to complete a parking orbit at around 85km. A manoeuvre node was set up for the insertion burn, and the remaining fuel in the second stage was used at the start of the burn, before the second stage was finally jettisoned and the rest of the burn was completed with the Duna insertion stage. A small correction burn was made mid-insertion to make good the Duna encounter, and once the ship entered the Duna SOI, another short burn was made to bring the Pe down to take advantage of aerobraking to save more fuel. A few short burns were made to complete the capture at Duna and to establish an orbit at 45km. With a good orbit established, the covers around the lander were shed, the CSM disengaged to turn around and extract the lander from the insertion stage, which was finally cast off despite still having a fair amount of fuel in the tanks. After a couple of orbits to check out possible landing sites, Jebediah and Bill made the transfer to the lander module and, after making their final checks, disengaged from the CSM to start their journey to the planet surface. A short burn was enough to break orbit and set their resulting Pe to around 9km. Approaching Pe, the drogue chute was activated, and once it fully deployed, the main chute was also activated with deployment set to 500m agl. At 200m agl, and with the descent speed under the chutes at around 36m/s, it only took a few short bursts on the descent module engine to bring this down to a more acceptable level prior to touchdown. At this point Jeb and Bill patted themselves on the back for a job well done, and descended to the surface to stretch their legs. After a reasonable time on the surface, Jeb and Bill returned to the lander capsule to start making their preparations for a return to orbit, and a rendezvous with the CSM. At the appropriate time, with the CSM approaching above them from the west, Jeb fired up the descent module engine to commence what would initially be a vertical climb. With the atmosphere on Duna not extending as high as that on Kerbin, and being less dense, Jeb started a gravity turn at around 6000m, and with the climb fully established, jettisoned the descent stage when it ran out of fuel and simultaneously fired the ascent module engine for the final stage of their rendezvous manoeuvres. Rendezvous and docking all went according to plan, and the two vehicles were finally united with plenty of fuel in reserve in the ascent module. Jeb and Bill shut everything down before transferring back to the CSM, where they were happy to tell Bob all about their excursion. They knew it would be a while before a transfer window to return to Kerbin would be available, so they left the ascent module attached, just for the extra room it provided. When the transfer window was finally upon them, they at last jettisoned the ascent module and made their preparations for the journey home. Their initial burn was a good one, setting up a good encounter with Kerbin, and they only required a correction burn once in Kerbin's SOI, again to make use of aerobraking in Kerbin's atmosphere, though they actually had enough fuel on board at this point that they could have achieved capture without aerobraking. The final part of their journey involved a relatively simple orbit breaking burn to bring them back to Kerbin's surface, though Jeb was a little bit annoyed that he missed the runway at KSC, and had to console himself with the fact that at least they were close enough to make it back in time for tea.

I loaded a couple of planes from 0.24.2 in to 0.25, and they looked a mess. The SAS I was using is smaller in 0.25, which showed up as gaps between the cockpit and the fuselage. The new MkI cockpit is a lot sleeker, which I felt ruined the look of some of my designs. The final straw is that they have changed the existing delta wings and controls surfaces, rather than add the new designs alongside the existing ones, and this has completely ruined the look of my pride and joy, a Harrier jump jet imitation. It's for this reason that I have gone back to 0.24.2 and will probably stick with that, as I am not a fan of anything else they updated with 0.25 either.

I have just flown the tutorial (part 1) which only involves getting to Mun orbit from Kerbin, although this was in 24.2. The craft does have enough fuel for the job, but it isn't blessed with a large margin for error. After establishing a Mun orbit at c. 22,000m, I had a little under 16% left of what I started with. Disappointingly, part 2 of the tutorial doesn't seem to continue from this point, in order to teach you how to actually land. It starts with a completely different design on the surface, and seems to be about getting back in to orbit, though I haven't actually played it yet.

I would do two burns to sort that out. Burn prograde at the point where the two orbits are furthest apart and your current orbit is higher than the target orbit. This will push the other side of your current orbit higher up. Stop the burn when it matches your target orbit. Complete 180 degrees of your current orbit to the point where you have just matched the two orbits, and burn retrograde to bring the other side down to match as well. No messing about with manoeuvre nodes, or burning radial/anti-radial.

For really simple missions, 2 stages to orbit and 1 stage to the Mun and back. For a bit more fun and interest, the Mun vehicle will be 3 stages, insertion and return vehicle with a lander, and a stage that jettisons the fuel tanks and engine, leaving just the capsule for landing back at Kerbin . My simple Apollo style vehicle has 6 stages; 2 to orbit, 1 for Mun insertion and return, Munar vehicle is 2 stages, and a stage to separate the capsule for landing.

Stage light showing purple indicates that the stage has been locked, which is why the space bar isn't doing anything. Normally you would lock and unlock a stage using ALT-L as stated by Claw, but if you have re-mapped your keys it looks as if you may have locked it by accident.

0.25 hasn't done it for me either, so I will be rolling back to 24.2

Did you download that craft and try flying it? At 60 - 70 m/s it has all the flying qualities of a brick, with a flight path that is heading towards the ground as much as it is going forward, which doesn't make for the gentlest of touchdowns.

I downloaded your craft and have the following observations after trying to fly it: You have used a really small pair of wings. With all the fuel and engines you have, it's not the lightest of craft, and the small wings means the craft has a very high wing loading. What this means in simple terms is that to generate enough lift to stay airbourne, it has to be moving quite fast, which makes it tricky to land. Another problem is that the control surfaces don't provide much authority, especially in pitch. This makes it difficult to keep the nose up when flaring for a landing. I tried a quick redesign, by removing the two outer engines and associated fuel tanks. Like this, it flew a bit better, but still suffered from a lack of lift and poor control authority, which still made it tricky to land. I think you would have more success if you used a slightly bigger pair of delta wings, as this should give more lift at slower speeds. Currently it doesn't fly very well at low thrust settings, as it is very difficult to stop it losing height really quickly.

I was disappointed that they redesigned some of the aircraft parts, rather than keeping the existing parts and adding the redesigns as new additional parts. My passable Harrier imitation looks completely different in .25 due to the delta wings and control surfaces being given an overhaul and now looking completely different.

I had a quick look at career mode when they first introduced it, unlocked a couple of things at the second level, and decided that obtaining enough science to unlock the parts I actually wanted was too much of a faff, and haven't touched career mode since.

Recently I realised that of all the easter eggs in the game, I'd never been to 'Stonehenge' on Vall, though I have been to that particular moon. As it looks like one of the more interesting eggs in the game, I thought I'd set up a mission to go there and take a few snaps for posterity. I pressed an old Duna ship in to service, as it had bags of delta V and would easily make the trip, though the parachutes on the lander would be a bit redundant for a landing on Vall. Launch from Kerbin was in two parts - Command module and insertion stage, and lander and habitation stage - which were docked together whilst in Orbit around Kerbin. Transfer to the Jool system went swimmingly, and an elliptical orbit established around Vall. This was when the problem occurred. At this point, a staging event should have fired a decoupler to release the insertion stage, which basically consists of a jumbo fuel tank and two nuclear engines. Unfortunately, it fired but didn't separate. The Command module engine should have then been used to circularise the orbit around Vall, and when the mission was completed, used to bring everyone home. With a jumbo fuel tank still hanging off the back end of the craft, this is no longer an option, so the bods back at the space centre have got their thinking caps on to try and come up with a solution. I'll add more as the situation develops.

Jeb wanted to show the visiting dignitaries how good the new plane was, given the problems they had experienced with earlier models and the misgivings that previous failures had fuelled. So during his demonstration flight, he decided to climb out of the cockpit to clean the bugs off the canopy whilst in hover mode, leaving no one at the controls. Officially he got a bit of a telling off for his stunt, but unofficially the developers were slapping him on the back for showing just how reliable the plane was.

Don't use difficulty or autopilot mods, just ones that give additional information. Have put a manned lander and returned from all bodies with the exception of Eve. So far I have only graced that one with a probe lander. Oh, and I haven't bothered to do anything with asteroids as I just don't see the point, but I did intercept and dock with a capsule coming back from Eeloo to refuel it, so pretty much the same as intercepting an asteroid. And I rarely use the quicksave button, as I forget it's there most of the time. Think that probably puts my score up around 130 or 140 or so.

I guess the simplest explanation is tht you are mistakenly burning retrograde instead of prograde, but I don't imagine MJ would make that mistake. The only time I had something similar was when I needed to make a really long burn, starting some time before I reached the manoeuvre node, which meant that when I started my burn I was actually pointing at Kerbin.

That's the one. Thank you.

Had a look at your Dealership thread, as that little Wraith looks like fun, and I enjoy flying VTOLs, but you only have the gunship version there. Do you have a link for the Wraith?

In the stock game, I have found that all of my aircraft designs fly perfectly well with the engine off, or at least the ones that fly well with the engines on do. I've never bothered looking at any of the data for my craft, so have no idea what the typical mass or lift numbers are. If you design a well balanced craft that flies well under power, you shouldn't have any problems with it when you turn the engines off.