Scarecrow88

All my landings are at 4 m/s or less. I don't have any problems with my ships exploding.

Early career flight, placed a minimum of each experiment on my craft to Minmus, only to realise when I got there that the crew member was an engineer and not a scientist, and couldn't reset them for multiple use.

1m 26s on a 4 year old PC and a handful of mods.

Burning retrograde whilst in Munar orbit will just send you back to the Mun surface. By definition, being in orbit around Mun means you are still in Mun's SOI.

Whilst in KSP it is quite easy to make a lander to go to the surface of the Mun and then return to Kerbin, I just find it more engaging and fun to have a 2-stage lander and to do a Mun mission Apollo style. Frankly, there's no right or wrong way, just do whatever you are happiest doing.

I very recently did my first successful manned mission to Eve. I sent 3 craft; the actual lander which relied mostly on parachutes for a safe landing, a refuelling craft that was used to replace the fuel on the lander that was burnt during the transfer from Kerbin, and a crew support vehicle that was used to bring the lander pilot back to Kerbin.

Having finally managed a successful manned mission to Eve, I think I am finally getting the hang of this game.

Whilst a small amount of wobble may be charming in a Kerbal sort of way, enough wobble to destroy a ship is too much. There are a lot of seasoned players on this forum who have been playing KSP for quite a while, and know of all the workarounds and tricks to circumvent such problems. Personally I don't think you should be required to do that. There are a lot of new players coming to this game all the time and not all of them will be on a forum like this to get answers when they encounter problems such as the wet noodle rocket syndrome. I have no idea what causes the problem - weak joints, excessive gimbal, whatever - but it largely goes away if you use the KJR mod, so it's obviously fixable, and I just think Squad would have a much better game if something like KJR was included as stock.

Having tried and failed to get a probe back to orbit from the surface of Eve, I always wimped from sending a manned mission there for fear of stranding the crew with no hope of rescue. Well no more. In the last few days I finally managed to put a Kerbal on Eve and safely return him to Kerbin. Mission pictures can be found in the Mission Report thread.

I have been playing KSP for quite some time now and have sent manned missions to all the planets and moons, with one notable exception - Eve. Generally regarded as the most difficult of all planets to return from, the best I have done up to this point is to land a probe on the surface, as I didn't want to risk stranding a Kerbal there. Over the last few days I decided that it was about time that I overcame this particular challenge, and set about constructing a lander that was up to the task. Once the lander was built, the next step of the program was to design a mission around it. I finally decided on putting a couple of boosters on the lander to help launch it to orbit around Kerbin, and then refuelling it before sending it off to Eve. As I currently don't have a station in orbit around Eve that could be used for refuelling or to provide a return craft, I also decided to send a support vehicle that would be used to bring the pilot back to Kerbin. The lander's main engine would be used in addition to the interplanetary engines to minimise burn times for the transfer, so a refuelling rig to top up the lander at Eve before it started it's descent to the surface was the last craft to be commissioned for the venture. This is the mission : The Eve lander, with jumbo tank boosters, at launch from the KSC. The lander in LKO One of the refuelling rigs waiting for launch. 6 of these were required to replace the fuel used by the lander getting to LKO and a 7th was launched to go to Eve Refuelling the lander in LKO The support vessel on the launch pad at KSC The excess fuel remaining in the last refuelling ship was transferred in to the support vessel The support vessel establishes an orbit at Eve The Eve refuelling rig approaches the lander in Eve orbit to top up the tanks The lander finally starts its descent Things are all going to plan so far Having transferred internally from the command capsule at the top of the lander to one of the cans at the bottom, it was a relatively short step for Jeb to pop outside and plant a flag Having shed the boosters and supplemental tanks, the core of the lander still has a long way to go to achieve orbit With most of the weight of the lander now left behind, things are still looking good The last stage of the lander, complete with it's pilot, is just about to shut off it's engines having achieved orbit A successful rendezvous and docking sees Jeb reunited with his mission support buddies. With the journey home form here being quite straightforward, they are already thinking of how to celebrate this historic occasion. A well plotted course and de-orbit burn sees the boys lighting up the sky to announce their return to the backroom boys at KSC The end of a very long, complicated, but extremely rewarding mission.

I think what he is saying is that if you are returning from somewhere with a course that will take you straight to the surface i.e. no establishing an orbit first, you should use the time warp function until your flight time to reach the surface is an exact multiple of 6. This will then show which part of the planet you will be arriving at, not allowing for atmospheric drag. Usually you need to aim a bit to the east of your intended landing spot to allow for drag slowing you down, but the exact amount will depend to an extent on your speed on arrival, and the angle that you come in through the atmosphere. ETA : Ninja'd

This is my latest Duna ship, which isn't much bigger than the one I use for going to Mun. It uses a modded capsule on the lander, but it shouldn't work any different with the standard 2-man capsule. More pics from the complete mission can be seen here.

Nice video, but there is an error in your explanation of the prograde and target markers at around the 12:15 point. The pink circle is the target, and the yellow prograde marker is your current direction of travel; you actually call it the other way round. With the correct explanation of the markers, it is easier to recognise that, in your example, your current flight direction is taking you to the right of your target, which is why you need to make a correction burn whilst pointing to the left of the target to alter your course for a better intercept.

Whilst that would work, it may not be feasible if you actually need to use the brakes command.

Achievement wise, I think landing on Mun, and mastering docking. With those two skills, you can go anywhere in the Kerbal system. From a piloting perspective, it was a rescue mission. I had Jeb on a fairly straight forward Mun flight, but shortly after leaving Kerbin SOI the Kraken intervened and destroyed his ship. All that was left was the capsule, with absolutely no means of propulsion, and he was on collision course with the Mun. I had to design and build a rescue ship, launch it and work out an intercept course to catch up with him before he met his fate. That was pretty thrilling.

Couldn't do without: Kerbal Alarm Clock Nice to have, as it makes things so much easier: Docking alignment indicator RCS Build aid Kerbal Engineer Not essential, but a useful tool: Landing height

Yep, I would say that your first Mun landing and a successful rendezvous and docking are two of the most satisfying achievements to get under your belt.

One I made a while ago and made available for download is a pretty stable flyer. Haven't pushed it's limits so I have no idea what it is capable of. The craft download file is in a thread in the Spacecraft Exchange forum. Just search for Voodoo.

I've been playing KSP for quite some time now, and have built several different rockets that have allowed me to visit every moon and planet in the game, so have a fairly good idea how to put a rocket together. I'm just saying that I've never experienced wobbles as bad as I did on a fairly simple rocket I put together just to visit Mun. It consists mostly of 3.5m parts, which I thought would have made for a sturdier rocket. Most of the flex seemed to be centred around the connection between the transfer stage and the capsule/lander, but it was also evident at the decoupler between the 2nd stage and the insertion stage. Or at least that was true of the original design, which wasn't that far removed from my final solution, a pic of which is included just below my original post. I finally got it to a point where it was manageable, but was disappointed at how many struts I had to use to achieve that. Someone above has said that Squad likes wobbly rockets, as it encourages people to design better rockets. Personally I feel they are forcing us to build rockets with inferior parts. The KJR mod has shown that it's possible for the joints to be connected in a way that doesn't lead to flex and impossible to control rockets, and surely that has got to be better in the long run for the longevity of the game.

I have just tried that tutorial again to see what they give you to do it with. The supplied ship has enough fuel on board to do the burn to get you to Mun, and also to burn retrograde when you get there to establish an orbit. Once in orbit, you should still have fuel left, though I found it wasn't quite enough to actually land on the surface, though with slightly better flying it might just be possible. Having said all that, you say you are virtually running out of fuel after your first burn. I found that with a correctly positioned manoeuvre node, with the prograde handle pulled out far enough to get a good Mun intercept, the indicated burn was less than 800 m/s. If yours is showing a lot more than that, then you need to juggle the manoeuvre node to give you a more favourable burn. I can't imagine that there is anything you are doing during the burn itself that would waste fuel unnecessarily, so have a play with the node, and let us know how you get on.

Strangely enough I didn't have a problem with my Saturn V looky likey.

I've just downloaded KJR, and it does make a difference. I don't like relying on such mods to make my rockets flyable, and I've never had to in the past. Any wobbles I have had previously have been manageable, but what I experienced with this latest design was in another league. Admittedly, I did resolve the problem eventually, but I think it would be nice if a mod like KJR was standard, as I am now aware that if I build a rocket that I'd like to share because it flies perfectly, the first person to download it that doesn't have KJR installed could be in for a nightmare ride.

I did think about trying it with the SAS switched off, as most of the wobbling did seem to be centred around where decouplers were attached to rocket nozzles. Here's a pic of the final ship that I finally got to behave itself after a lot of trial and strutting.

I have to say that I thought the era of rockets behaving like wet spaghetti once they had left the launch pad was long behind us, but apparently not. I recently thought I'd put together a simple rocket to go to Mun; no separate CSM/LEM or rendezvous and docking here. Just a basic lander with enough dV to land on Mun and return to Kerbin, on top of a two stage rocket for getting to LKO and a munar insertion stage. Boy oh boy. On launch of the first iteration of my design I thought someone had snuck in to the VAB and replaced all the rocket parts with imitations made of rubber! This thing would have given a bendy bus a run for its money in a 'how close to your tail can you get your nose' competition. After a few tweaks and design alterations, I now have a rocket that fulfils the original design brief, and pretty much behaves itself in flight, though I have still had to use rather more struts than I would have liked. But that first flight is indelibly printed in my memory, and all Kudos to Jeb and the rest of the crew for not hitting the abort button when prudence dictated that's exactly what they should have done.

I discovered that my standard Duna mission rocket from earlier versions of KSP was lacking sufficient dV in the lander for it to return from the surface of Duna to orbit and dock with the CSM in the new aerodynamics of 1.0.2, so thought this would be a good opportunity to re-work it. This is a modded craft, but the only modification it uses is the Alcor lander can, as I prefer it's looks over the standard 2-man lander can. Everything else is stock. Flight profile is pretty standard; 1st and 2nd stage get you to LKO, with some fuel left in the 2nd stage to start your interplanetary burn. This can be important, as the interplanetary stage is tight on dV, and relies heavily on aerobraking at Duna to establish capture and orbit there. Once in orbit, the lander can be extracted and the crew transferred from the command module. A short de-orbit burn and parachutes, with just a short deceleration burn near the surface means you can get down to the planet in the lander with most of your fuel intact. It's a two stage lander, but the first stage is used for both getting to the surface and doing most of the work when returning to orbit, being jettisoned when out of fuel, leaving the lander can to complete the orbital burn and rendezvous with the command module. Once the away crew are back in the command module, the lander can be discarded, and the command module can burn for home when a transfer window comes up. Lift off Second stage burn Interplanetary stage arriving at Duna Extracting the lander module Final burn for landing On the surface Returning to orbit Rendezvous almost completed Burning for home Hope they've put the kettle on to welcome us back Craft download file