Scarecrow88

Because the inclination change is so big, the amount you need to burn is enough to take you out of orbit. As Voculus said, try tweaking the retrograde handle on the manoeuvre node as well.

I believe as default they are set up to mimic the action of an aircraft joystick i.e. pulling back raises the nose and pushing forward lowers it. For anyone who flies or has flown, pressing W or I to go 'down' and S or K to go 'up' feels perfectly natural.

I downloaded your persistent file and loaded it up, and looking in the tracking station at what ships you have on KSC, there isn't one called Crane. Looking at what there is, I am assuming the one called Lifter is the one you need.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87518-21-Jul-KSP-First-Contract-(v0-24)-Frequently-Asked-Questions http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86495-How-do-I-complete-a-rescue-contract http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87434-How-to-rescue-somebody-who-s-in-orbit-over-Kerbin-with-only-his-spacesuit

Essentially, linking external tanks to a middle tank with a fuel line means that the external tanks replace the fuel as it is used from the middle tank. Once the external tanks are empty they can be jettisoned as no longer required.

In Hyperedit the first thing you need to do is put your craft in orbit around the body you want to land on, in this case Eve. Select Orbit Editor and then Select a Body. Change the body to Eve, and set a height for the orbit above the atmosphere. Once you have the body and altitude entered, press Set. Your craft will magically now be in orbit around Eve. To land, click the Ship Lander button, and enter the lat and lon coordinates of where you want to land. The altitude can be left at 50 or 100, as this will give you enough time to orient your craft correctly before touch down. Click the Land/Drop button. If the coordinates are off, re enter them while your ship is still floating down, and then press the Land/Drop button twice. It's important to press it twice, as the first press will put it in Drop mode, which will damage your craft on landing if it is still at any appreciable height above the ground. HTH.

Hyperedit will do that.

The second one looks like a photoshop job to me, as the Kerbal on the left isn't casting a shadow.

Fixed that for you.

Have you tried looking for hints/tips/help/videos in the tutorial section?

If you are struggling to see things at 300m, have you got your markers turned off. F2 (default) toggles the markers on and off. With them switched on, you should see things at much greater distances.

Seems a strange choice to me too. Don't think I have ever launched any of my rockets with a 50% throttle setting. As you have to change it anyway, why not leave the default as 0, as that solves other possible problems caused by the current default setting.

Actually it was a couple of days ago, but I have just created a number of scenarios that will allow less experienced players to practise aspects of flights and missions with craft that have been tested as capable for their assigned roles. I've created a thread in the Tutorials subforum, with links to download the scenarios.

We all know that this is a great game, but it has a steep learning curve and can be a bit daunting for someone coming to it that doesn't have a degree and Masters in rocket science. Want to go to orbit, just burn straight up, right!? Trying to rendezvous and dock, and need to catch up to the target vessel. Simple, open the throttle 'til we catch it up! I'm not saying we've all made these particular mistakes, but I'm sure you'll understand the point I am making. When I was struggling at the beginning of my Kerbal adventure, I wasn't sure if my failures were down to ship design, or piloting error. I have no doubt that there were times when it was a bit of both, but it made it difficult to know what to adjust in order to improve. The scenarios that I have come up with put a number of craft in different positions that will allow the player to practise various aspects of flight in the local system, knowing that if they fail it's down to them as a pilot, rather than the craft not being up to the task. These scenarios aren't designed to try and teach someone how to complete a particular task, there are plenty of tutorials out there for that. They are designed to give you craft set up for a particular situation, and which are capable of meeting the requirements of that situation. The scenarios Flight Practise (BASIC) Includes :- Simple jet on runway, for anyone wanting to practise flying airplanes Lander orbiting Minmus, because Minmus is the easiest of the two moons to land on, and a good place to practise your first landings Orbiter on launch pad, for anyone struggling to make a simple craft capable of reaching orbit Docker in close proximity to target satellite. Great for practising those final stages of docking with another craft Flight Practise (INTER) Includes :- SSTO on Island runway. Slightly more difficult to fly than the simple jet. Not enough fuel in this to try for orbit, but useful for practising switching engine mode whilst in flight Lander orbiting Mun. Having masterd Minmus in the basic scenario, this allows you to take that skill and practise on the slightly more difficult Mun Mun insertion vehicle. Set in Kerbin orbit, allows you to practise flying to Mun, getting captured in orbit, and returning to Kerbin Docker set on intercept course with target vehicle. Comfortable with actual docking, now you can practise the rendezvous part. Flight Practise (ADVANCED) Includes :- SSTO in Kerbin orbit. Comfortable flying these, you can now try de-orbiting and getting back to KSC, or maybe try docking with the nearby space station before returning Mun insertion vehicle. This one includes a lander, which allows you to bring together the two skills from the inter scenario to try for a Mun landing, but starting from Kerbin orbit Docker. This one is in a lower orbit than the target vehicle, so you will need to set up your own intercept and rendezvous Flight Practise (EXPERT) Just two vehicles in this one, which are designed to pull all the skills together required to fly an SSTO to orbit, or to fly a Mun mission with a CSM and LEM. Includes :- SSTO on runway. Fuel is tight, so you need to fly a good ascent profile to get this one to orbit. If you are feeling really confident, you could try docking with the Station to refuel before returning Mun mission. Two stages to get to orbit. Extract the LEM from the lift stage, so close docking skills required. Insert to Mun and EVA to transfer crew from CSM to LEM. Land on Mun. Time your launch to intercept and rendezvous with the CSM to get the crew home. Again, fuel is tight in most of the stages, so you can't afford to be wasteful. The craft in the early scenarios are designed to have plenty of fuel for the task in hand, so as not to be difficult to fly. In fact the landers in orbit around Mun and Minmus have more than enough to return to Kerbin after landing on their respective bodies. I am hoping that by using these scenarios for practise, it will enable a player to build up the confidence in their abilites to start looking towards flights to bodies outside the Kerbin system. To use these scenarios, download them to your Kerbal/KSP_winxx/saves/scenarios folder. When you start the game, they will appear in the Scenarios option. At any time, the position of the craft can be reset by selecting the restart option. Very useful if you have been practising your Mun landings and then want to have a go at the docking option, only to find that the two docking craft have drifted apart. Restarting the scenario will put everything back to where it was. Scenario Downloads: Flight Practise (BASIC) Flight Practise (INTER) Flight Practise (ADVANCED) Flight Practise (EXPERT)

Am I the only person who just hasn't bothered to play this game in career mode? I enjoy dicking about in the Sandbox, and can't see that changing anytime soon.

As no one else has offered a flag yet, I thought I would put this forward if anyone would like to use it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qqua94aohf7pit9/45.png

I still fly to the Mun a lot, and enjoy making different designs to meet different requirements. However, as I have never played career mode, I have no idea what constitutes 'top end' hardware so probably won't be able to comply with the rules as they currently stand.

Or how about a triplane?

Have you got a link to that no stock fairing technique?

On my Apollo style rockets, I did what you suggested above and used two small decouplers back to back. The first one is set to decouple from the lander. Once the 180 and reattach manoeuvre is completed, the next stage releases the engine shroud and frees the CM engine for use.

That's a nice looking craft, but I am having problems with the staging. Specifically, after detaching the two lifting stages and having achieved a nice orbit using the 3rd stage, the next staging event seems to detach the command module ready to spin round to attach to the lunar module, which is what I would expect. However, the decoupler that fires at this point detaches the command module but remains attached to the top of the lander together with the CM engine shroud, which makes it impossible to redock the two together again.

I only bothered once to make an SSTO spaceplane capable of operating to Mun or Minmus, and for that I designed a VTOL craft that used a 909 rocket engine for take off and landing and the usual arrangement for horizontal flight.

If you are not seeing intercept markers, it's because your encounter is not close enough to generate them. Try putting a manoeuvre node along your flight path and adjust the handles gently to see if you can tweak the encounter sufficiently to bring the markers up. Once you do, you can fine tune the encounter to get it as close as you need, which will also give you a blue target on your nav ball for direction of required correction burn.

Stock Harrier

Completely stock SSTO that serves no purpose other than being able to get to orbit. By using the Rapier engine in auto-switching mode, it's a simple case of flying a standard SSTO ascent profile without having to worry about swapping engines etc. It's the one on the left in this shot.