Kegereneku

I've got several question before I can answer you. - Where does your lander design will start from ? Earth Orbit ? Mun Orbit ? - Do you intend to pick-up Kerbun at different place in the same flight ? - How do you feel about low thrust landing ? The reason I ask you this is that each point require special consideration. - If you start from Earth's orbit, assuming 3334 m/s of DeltaV, you 'll use fuel like this : ~800 for TLI, ~200 for Mun orbit insertion, ~640 for each landing, then around the same for ascent and 200 for going back to Earth (with aerobreaking). - If you need pick up at different place, you'll need more fuel, and have to do suborbital hop to save some fuel on the ascent. You may need more than one rockets. - Last, you can double your DeltaV by decreasing the number of thruster. You'll keep more than enough acceleration to land on the mun, but it will be harder to shed velocity. tips : put some lamp on your ship if you are landing by night.

Here's some I made fast. Even got sponsors. NEW FLAGS I thank the following person for the logo used in my flag : http://thedoctor45.deviantart.com/ and http://zombiedawgs.deviantart.com/

On the next picture there is 4 independents parts. - a fairly small Duna Lander-Ascent - a tank with 3 nuclear engines - a fuel-tank alone with a Mechjeb - an orbital-truck with 4 nuclear engines (that I don't mean to take to Duna) I have also built this mothership long before, each tank+engine can be separated and replaced. Later I intend to build a mothership with fixed orange tank but swappable engine.

"Mechjeb" isn't cheating in any way, and you will learn just as well with it. Even without autopilot, all the information like the "Delta Velocity" per stages is a prerequisite to become good at the game. Purist be damned, Computer are the future. With the autopilot, you'll have the time to watch how it does it, what went wrong, what could make it better. The last version of Mechjeb offer so much setting that you'll learn to understand concept like "Homann Transfer" and "Terminal Velocity", or why doing an interplanetary plane-change mid-course is cheaper than doing it during the original burn. I'll even go as far as saying that Mechjeb will be obligatory late-career mode, because not everybody have fun launching 800 tons tankers and 12 geostationary satellite repetitively, but everybody have fun building them.

Ok, Here is a few tips : Regarding staging : *- Don't be afraid of using several stages. *- Each Stage have its own use, including boosting the next one. - Useless Mass is the enemy. Get rid of it as soon as you can. - Use engine at their maximum. - ...but if you have too much thrust : you may have too much engine, get rid of them. - Gain Horizontal Velocity as soon as you can (around 15km, out of the dense atmosphere) Regarding how to choose engine : - Always prefer Higher "ISP" to thrust, unless needed. (ISP = Specific Impulse) - If you can take your time for a maneuver : use the lightest engine with the highest ISP. - For Kerbin Launch : aim for 3G of acceleration Regarding the quantity of fuel : - the "range" of a rocket, depend of how much you can change your speed, - The metric for this is the "Delta Velocity" (Dv in m/s) - You cannot reduce the DeltaV needed for a maneuver, only the Dv your rocket have. - DeltaV depend of : the mass of the "fuel", the mass of the "payload", and the efficiency of the engine. LAST, if you want to do GOOD engineering : Use tool-mods - You'll need mods to show you in real-time how much Dv your rocket have. (ex: you need 4400 to take of Kerbin) - Each Stage have its own Dv - Once you learn how to dock, leave behind mass you don't need (including fuel sometime) Mechjeb can do that, it also include enough autopilot to save fuel during boring maneuver.