SRV Ron

You might want to look into Space Engineer which is a sandbox spaceship builder program. It has the capability of building huge complex designs. Otherwise, you would have to try modding them which means they would be way out of scale for KSP.

Big NovaPunch designs are less reliable; And, yet, if properly braced, even bad designs will fly. Five long tanks and no braces. Once internally braced, it no longer pitched over.

Yes, this is a planned flight where two probes separate during flight. (57 one part only rocket.) It took some Kerbal Engineering to balance the single separatron on the larger SRB to get a good separation.

I keep two copies of the game for basic play, stock, and one with NovaPunch plus KW rocketry. I have a third just to play with the Alternate Kerbal universe just for show using the Dr Who Tardis mod. Slowdown in loading and the risk for crashing will occur if one has too many mods added to their game. The parts mods give greater flexibility in designing efficient and big launchers for heavy payloads. Some examples; Fuel can stock; Fuel can mod Big Launcher; With the usual predictable instability from such huge designs

They came from Space Engine with the detail slider set to high.

Uneven flexing of the boosters or asparagus on big launch vehicles will cause unwanted spin. With the proper use of bracing, such spin can be eliminated entirely.

That flight profile is what you want. Enough fuel to orbit and start landing so you save all of the lander fuel for landing and return. Try a few more flights to see if you can do the mission more efficiently as you learn how to do the gravity turn and the insertion burn.

Congratulations for maxing out the tech tree. Now you have all the basics for placing probes or Kerbals on any of the planets, except Jool, in the Kerbal System. Next step, build space stations and establish colonies. Try some of the parts mods as well. Or, using a copy of the game, try flying in Alternate Kerbal. Enjoy

You should start out with simple designs as you build up your experience. Example first couple of missions in Career; In Career Mode, your objective is to build rockets with the limited resources you have available and conduct missions to earn Science Points. With those Science Points, you can then spend them to unlock better parts which will allow you to build better rockets for earning more Science Points. Those Science Points are used to unlock your Tech Tree which will allow you some flexibility of where to spend your Science Points to further your space program. Tier Zero starts you out with some very basic parts. Because the decoupler has not been invented yet, you will be very limited on what you can build to land safely. Therefore, I recommend the following mission, Place a MK-1 Command Pod on the launch pad. With only the command pod on the launch pad, do the following; 1. Conduct a Crew Report. 2. EVA Jeb and do an EVA report. 3. Take a soil sample on the launch pad. 4. Return to the capsule and enter it. 5. Recover the capsule. This simple mission should net you some 12 Science Points which will enable you to unlock Tier 1 Parts so you can build a proper suborbital rocket for your next mission. Now, go to the Research Lab and spend some Science Points to unlock Tier one parts. This will give you a decoupler to separate the capsule from the spent rocket, Goo canasters for some simple research, and a bigger fuel tank. Your second mission; build a suborbital rocket; Using the MK-1 capsule, add the following; 1. Place a parachute on the top 2. Using symmetry mode, place 2 Goo canisters on the side of the capsule. Be sure that the crew hatch is clear or Jeb won't be able to exit to do an EVA. 3. Place a decoupler under the capsule. 4. Place a stack of three FL-T400 fuel cans under the decoupler 5. place the LV-30 engine under that. Do the mission as follows; 1. Press T to activate automatic stabilization for launch. 2. Hold the shift key down until the throttle indicator reads full. 3. When ready, press the Space key to launch. 4. Start a sub orbital turn at about 10,000 meters by pressing the D key and releasing it several times. It may help to press the F key to temporary turn off stabilization while making the turn. Practice will prefect what would be called a Gravity Turn. 5. If you find that the G meter is getting out of the green throttle back with the Ctrl key until it comes back. Too much acceleration in the lower atmosphere causes excessive drag and waste fuel. 6. Stage the rocket when it runs out of fuel and shuts down. 7. Now, activate one of the Goo canisters and save the report. 8. When you are in space, you will hear the music playing, do a Crew Report, activate and save the data on the second Goo canister, do an EVA but don't let go, do an EVA report, and return to the capsule. 9. Turn off the stabilization by pressing the T key before reentering the atmosphere. The capsule will stabilize bottom down for reentry. 10. When reentry heating and shock wave effect has completed and your speed has dropped below 500m/sec, hit the spacebar to deploy the parachute. It will deploy into drogue mode, then at 500 meters from the surface, deploy fully. 11. When you land, either in the water or on land, do an EVA, take a soil sample, and return to the capsule. If you are unable to reenter, don't worry. 12. Recover the capsule or Jeb. 13. If the capsule couldn't be recovered because Jeb was outside, go to the Flight Center and recover the capsule from there. Go to the Research center with the 50 Science Points you have just earned and unlock all the Tier 2 parts. You can now build a multistage rocket to place you into orbit, go to Mun or Minmus, return, and get enough Science Points to start unlocking Tier 3 Parts. Do multiple missions in different biomes of those three places to unlock a ton of Science Points. Enjoy. A sample suborbital from tier one parts. As you gain experience, you can go for bigger and more complex missions. If you just want to play with flying, there are mods where you can fly the Star trek Enterprise or Dr Who's Tardis. Really, just take your time and learn what works and what doesn't.

I'm guessing that with some practice, your existing design will make orbit with fuel enough left for return. Meanwhile, it will take several days in Kerbal time for Jeb to slow down enough to return to Kerbal.

Check out the tutorials and videos, then start out simple. Build something using a probe or one Kerbal capsule. Make it a single stage and learn how to fly sub orbital rather then go straight up and back. As you gain experience, build a two stage and go for orbit. Build something three stage, go for orbit, then learn how to use the Add Maneuver tool to do a Mun or Minmus flyby and return. Once you know that, you can use a Vanamonde lunar lander or design of your own and try for a Minmus landing and return. Minmus is much easier to learn landing on then Mun. (You should have enough fuel in Vanamonde's insertion stage to deorbit and slow down to vertical before having to use any of the lander's fuel for final touchdown.) After that, you have the entire Kerbal system to explore.

During launch to orbit, there is an ideal design that will place a given payload into orbit with less fuel used. With the limitations of engines available in stock, it can be more difficult to find that sweet spot using the Kerbal School of Hard Knocks. (trial and error experimentation). On my fuel can stock experiment, I first started with a launcher of all Mainsails. Later I tried using all skippers but found it way underpowered. With the use of skippers with two mainsails under the last asparagus pair, I found a sweet spot in launch that was not only very stable spinwise, but gave me a better cushion of fuel left in the core booster. The design; The results; The rocket is designed to place a fuel can into orbit to dock with a refueling station. The core booster and fuel can are designed to return to Kerbal for recovery and reuse.

It looks good enough to do a flyby. However, you want fuel left in the insertion stage to do most of the landing if you want to keep a nearly full fuel can in the lander for return. A ring of boosters on the launch vehicle may be enough to give you that extra fuel needed. Go for Minmus first. It is far easier to land in the sea there and will give you the landing experience needed for a more demanding one on Mun.

This demo one made Mun landing and back; If you design a similar lander to use with your existing launcher, you should have plenty of fuel, as shown in my demo, to land and return from Mum or Minmus. Do Minmus first to get some experience on landing and returning. The same design with landing parachutes, with flight experience, practice, and finding the correct direct transfer window, can do a Duna mission.

Your design is very similar to my Career Mode one. With fuel lines and braces as shown, you will get a stable efficient flight that can take your probe or Kerbal anywhere in the Kerbal system. You don't need the fins as the bracing will stabilize flight. Place a T-45 on the core and use T-30s on the asparagus boosters.

Hoffman transfer from low Kerbal orbit directly to an intercept is the most efficient of all. Finding that transfer window is the most difficult part for planning that maneuver. Lacking the mods to calculate that move, one can place a probe into solar orbit and using the Add Maneuver Mode, find the intercept window. Then, when that window arrives, take advantage of that window to launch your manned flights to those locations.

Rather then deformable terrain, just a sprite representing an impact could easily be used. It can be saved similar to how flags are. For water, parts of rockets will float if you follow them down and they don't hit extremely hard. However, I did have a fuel tank explode on impact with water even though it was under 10 m/sec on parachutes. This seems to vary, especially with Career mode, on tier zero flights where they have survived water landings but explode on land impact. Space Engine does very realistic water that has none of the moire pattern of KSP. It also has realistic moving clouds of various densities at various altitudes. How that would affect frame rates in KSP if it could be done in Unity is unknown.

Finally had a chance to test orbiting a Orange fuel can to 100+k orbit with the goal of recovery both the empty can and booster. Settled upon this stock design using two mainsails and skippers. (All mainsails too wasteful of fuel, all skippers underpowered for launch. Also, more stable flight.) Note the difference in fuel left in the core stage with the mainsail boosters lacking recovery and the skipper one with recovery package. Booster recovery after placing payload in orbit. Note, one should burn all the fuel off after reentry starts.

Rendering could take enough time to cause pauses depending on how detailed the random number generator is working. Otherwise, the results are eye candy even with clouds enabled.

A proper lensing effect from a Black Hole. (Space Engine at the center of a star cluster.)

Smaller Rockmax engine, battery, solar panel, antenna, still SSTO. And it even has a scientific instrument. Use a FL-T400 and Mun orbit is achievable. Three part is still possible but you will run out of power once you reach orbit.

If just delivering an orange fuel can by a remotely controlled launch, the built in reaction wheel is way too weak for the job of launching such a payload. Best to design the payload as follows; 1. docking clamp. 2. jumbo fuel can 3. decoupler. 4. reaction wheel 5. remote command module for 2.5 meter payload. 6. RCS tank 7. 2 sets of thrusters, one in the front and one in the rear. 8. Parachutes, optional, to return to Kerbal and recover for reuse. Have enough launch vehicle to place the payload into the desired orbit, then return it to Kerbal. (Optional, place a command module and parachutes on the booster for controlled return and recovery.) Use the thrusters on the payload for final interception and docking to the station. Once docked, stage the command module and return it to Kerbal. Option, take it a step further. Leave the command module connected to the fuel can. When the fuel can is empty, undock it and bring it back to kerbal using thrusters for a controlled landing and recovery.

There will be a period of several days when communication will be cut off by the sun at the point of maximum separation.

A design like this, but with a 2.5m control module and RCS placed where it can be staged and return to Kerbal after docking. Easier to have the dual pair of thrusters that can be disabled after docking. Heavy lift fueler; Image to be posted later since Imgur is frozen. Edit, finally Imgur is unlocked. Here is the lifter for the big fuel can to orbit; And the final stage in mun orbit; I would recommend having a second controller on the last stage of the launch vehicle with parachutes so it can be reused. Second recommendation is to keep the thruster and control pack on the fuel can so that when it is emptied, you can undock it and return it to Kerbal for reuse.

A standard design either with mods or stock for going most anywhere. Heavy loft fueler; Career Mode interplanetary lander Big mod Jool Mission. Payload redesign from another user. Small two stage that went one way to Laythe landing Try different things for different missions. The smaller the payload, the easier the mission.