Scarecrow88

Just use small dabs on the control buttons so that his speed doesn't get out of hand, and be prepared to give a dab on the opposite button to keep things steady.

My Duna lander consisted of a 2 man lander can underneath which was a X200-16 fuel tank, supplemented by 4 FL-T400 fuel tanks. It was powered by a single LV-T30 engine, and had 4 drogue chutes mounted on top of the FL-T400 tanks. It was good enough to land and return on Duna, and subsequently a few other planets and moons as well (on separate missions I hasten to add.)

I believe that changes with the number of posts you make, and can also probably be altered by a moderator.

Yeah realised common denominator wouldn't give solution whilst i was driving to work, as it doesn't take in to account the actual position if the planets.

Shouldn't be too difficult to work out, just need to know the orbital period of all the planets and find the lowest common denominator.

You did have batteries as well? Solar panels on their own won't be enough.

Equatorial orbit is better than a polar orbit because, unless you launch your two ships very close together, the rotation of the planet will mean that your second ship will launch with a built in inclination plane difference. And the bigger the time gap between the two launches, the bigger that difference will become. Only when the planet has rotated 180 degrees will your launch point be under the orbit path of your first ship again. With an equatorial orbit, as the space centre lies on the equator, your launch will always be underneath the orbit of your first launched ship.

If you designed a craft to get in to orbit, why didn't you equip it to get back down safely again? Much easier than trying to rendezvous a rescue vehicle, which a lot of people find to be one of the most difficult manoeuvres to master. But congrats on the orbit anyway.

If the part being docked doesn't have wheels, it is usually put in to position and docked on the back of something that does have wheels. That's how I put my Mun base together anyway. I had a rover type vehicle which was basically a set of wheels with a docking port on top that I would drive under each section, dock with it, raise the legs of the section so that I could then drive it about, and once it was docked with the rest of the base, I would lower the legs and drop off the rover/mover.

I agree that a docking aid of some sort is not really cheating, as you are trying to perform a 3D operation using a screen that only gives a 2D view, and a docking mod can help alleviate that particular problem with the extra info it gives, as long as the docking mod you use doesn't actually do the docking for you. But saying that not being allowed to use MJ is unfair is rather overstating it. There are many people here who have managed to visit all the planets and moons without using MJ. Some of them may a bit more difficult than others, but if everything in this game was really easy, it wouldn't be worth playing.

It's possible to get there and back without having to refuel if you build the right ship. This is my ship during it's burn to leave Kerbin. Slowing down to get captured by Eeloo 2 Kerbals on the surface On their way home, having ditched the lander All stock parts, no MJ, just a docking mod to assist with docking the lander when it returns from the surface.

I would say pass on trying to rescue your stranded Kerbal with the ship you have just landed as it's too far away. Send that ship back to Kerbin so that your second Kerbal doesn't need rescuing. Build a probe rescue craft to rescue your first Kerbal. That way, if you don't land close enough, you haven't got the possibility of stranding more Kerbals.

There is a mod available that allows you to attach a small part to your craft that will give you the orbital period readout in real time. Think it is Engineer Redux, but someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

Be careful driving it on Minmus. The very low gravity there means it won't have much grip and it's easy to hit a bump and crash if going a bit quick.

Once you get in orbit around Mun, remember to press F5 for a quicksave. That way, if you do screw up the landing, you can press F9 to revert back to that position.

I made this one, but looking back through the thread I see it's almost identical to Slugy's, but he beats me as he used one less fuel tank. My piloting skills aren't up to achieving orbit with anything less than what I pared my design down to. 0.975 tons and 5 parts, if you don't include the engineer add-on which is only there to give me the weight.

You can use Kerbal alarm clock to kill time warp if you are using it, or get it to pause the game. It's a useful tool to use when you have several flights on the go, as you can set alarms for when manoeuvres need to be undertaken by various craft, and save you the problem of possibly missing one.

Can't vote as my first visit to Jool was a ship with 4 probes that went to all the moons with the exception of Bop.

If the engines on your lander are overheating then I would suggest that you are using bigger engines than you actually need. For a 3 man capsule, I find the Skipper engine is more than enough to get them to the surface and back again, and doesn't suffer from overheating. As to tipping over, try and keep your lander as short as possible to keep the centre of mass low, and fix your landing legs to give as wide a footprint as you can.

Looks fairly orange on my monitor.

I built a small one-man 2-stage lander for small hops to Mun or Minmus. Have tested it to prove that it works and just need to iron out a small fuel flow glitch now.

I used flags for all my anomaly markers. It's useful to add something descriptive as the flag site when planting the flag, as this then shows up in the tracking station.

Two things I can think may be causing the problem. Either you are setting up the manoeuvre to go the wrong way, or the point on the ship you are controlling from is facing the wrong way.

Explorer III - or there and back again This craft came out of my first attempt at going to Duna, which left my Kerbals stranded there due to a severe shortage of fuel. A quick redesign resulted in Explorer III, which successfully took off from Kerbin, flew to Duna, put 2 Kerbals on the surface to plant their flag, brought them back up to the orbiting command craft, which then brought all 3 safely back to Duna. Following that mission, I then decided to see just what the craft was capable of and have so far sent it to to land on Ike, Dres, 3 of Jool's moons, Laythe, Pol and Vall, Eve's moon Gilly, and out to Eeloo. In each case the lander put two Kerbals on the surface, and then all three Kerbals have returned to Kerbin. Action groups: 3 to toggle the solar panels 4 to toggle the ladders on the lander I know it seems like a strange choice, but these just happen to be the default keys for those functions that I use on all my craft. Notes: The lander is fitted with drogue chutes to help with landing on Laythe and Duna. If you are going to a moon or planet with no atmosphere, feel free to remove them to save some weight. All the missions I flew were done with the chutes on board, so it's not an issue to leave them The craft uses a lander for excursions to the surface, leaving a command ship in orbit. Therefore you need to be able to rendezvous and dock to use it successfully. To save weight, the lander is not fitted with RCS, which is instead fitted to the command module. Once you get the lander back close enough for docking, you should change ships and perform the final docking with the command ship. Once the lander has returned to the command ship, any fuel remaining in the lander should be transferred before ditching the lander. This just gives an extra safety margin to the returning vehicle. You shouldn't have problems with fuel supply on the lander, but if you need to save weight getting back in to orbit, the external tanks can be ditched once they are empty. However, don't do this before landing, as the legs are attached to them. Whilst the craft has enough fuel to visit and return from the bodies mentioned, it still pays not to waste it by transferring outside optimal transfer windows. If you do happen to find yourself getting low on the return trip, you can always rely on aerocapture at Kerbin. Downsides: This design does use a big asparagus stage for the initial launch, so the first few tanks become empty fairly quickly after launch, so be ready to drop them. Despite the large number of tanks at launch, it is stable. If you don't like leaving debris out there, I'm afraid this is not a design for you, as it does tend to shed quite a bit. After the initial ejection burn, which uses a skipper on the second stage, most of the interplanetary transfer uses the nuke engine, so be prepared for longer burn times. Pictures: After dumping the launch and second stages, this is what you are left with. Laythe Vall Pol Dres Gilly Eeloo And this is all you are left with when you start heading back to Kerbin, and most of that gets dumped once you are sub-orbital! You can download the craft file here: Explorer III

This craft came out of my first attempt at going to Duna, which left my Kerbals stranded there due to a severe shortage of fuel. A quick redesign resulted in Explorer III, which successfully took off from Kerbin, flew to Duna, put 2 Kerbals on the surface to plant their flag, brought them back up to the orbiting command craft, which then brought all 3 safely back to Duna. Following that mission, I then decided to see just what the craft was capable of and have so far sent it to to land on Ike, Dres, 3 of Jool's moons, Laythe, Pol and Vall, Eve's moon Gilly, and out to Eeloo. In each case the lander put two Kerbals on the surface, and then all three Kerbals have returned to Kerbin. Action groups: 3 to toggle the solar panels 4 to toggle the ladders on the lander I know it seems like a strange choice, but these just happen to be the default keys for those functions that I use on all my craft. Notes: The lander is fitted with drogue chutes to help with landing on Laythe and Duna. If you are going to a moon or planet with no atmosphere, feel free to remove them to save some weight. All the missions I flew were done with the chutes on board, so it's not an issue to leave them The craft uses a lander for excursions to the surface, leaving a command ship in orbit. Therefore you need to be able to rendezvous and dock to use it successfully. To save weight, the lander is not fitted with RCS, which is instead fitted to the command module. Once you get the lander back close enough for docking, you should change ships and perform the final docking with the command ship. Once the lander has returned to the command ship, any fuel remaining in the lander should be transferred before ditching the lander. This just gives an extra safety margin to the returning vehicle. You shouldn't have problems with fuel supply on the lander, but if you need to save weight getting back in to orbit, the external tanks can be ditched once they are empty. However, don't do this before landing, as the legs are attached to them. Whilst the craft has enough fuel to visit and return from the bodies mentioned, it still pays not to waste it by transferring outside optimal transfer windows. If you do happen to find yourself getting low on the return trip, you can always rely on aerocapture at Kerbin. Downsides: This design does use a big asparagus stage for the initial launch, so the first few tanks become empty fairly quickly after launch, so be ready to drop them. Despite the large number of tanks at launch, it is stable. If you don't like leaving debris out there, I'm afraid this is not a design for you, as it does tend to shed quite a bit. After the initial ejection burn, which uses a skipper on the second stage, most of the interplanetary transfer uses the nuke engine, so be prepared for longer burn times. Pictures: After dumping the launch and second stages, this is what you are left with. Laythe Vall Pol Dres Gilly Eeloo And this is all you are left with when you start heading back to Kerbin, and most of that gets dumped once you are sub-orbital! You can download the craft file here: Explorer III