SRV Ron

Start with something simple. Do sub orbital flights first Simple starter career mode. Capsule, parachute, four fuel cans, LV-30 engine. Land it in the ocean. Don't forget to move the engine icon to the bottom of the staging column. Then, advance to an orbital ship as you learn how to do a gravity turn. This will have just enough fuel for a safe return. LV-30 first stage, LV-909 on the second stage.

The heavy nukes are only good for pushing large ships for interplanetary transfers. Stick with the much lighter LV-909 for landers. The elimination of 1.75 tons of dead mass per engine will more then offset the lower efficiently.

You don't need anything huge to get a probe to Duna or Eve. This design worked for me. Waiting for a window for a second probe to Duna since the Krackin ate a thruster block thus unbalancing the lander.

If you redesign the launch stage so that you could ditch the Mainsails just before reaching orbit, then use the LV-N to complete the orbit, refueling would make a lot of sense giving you tons of Delta V for interplanetary exploration. This was one such similar design where the less efficient but more powerful engines were staged leaving their unused fuel for the LV-N. You do have to run a fuel line back to an engine that is attached by a decoupler..

It is a probe controller called Stayputnik. Keep in mind that it has a weak battery, has little SAS effect, and constantly uses power. Matched with the battery pack, solar panels of your choice, and SAS unit you see in the lander and you will have a good combination that will easily control all but the largest ships. Using it first for missions will save many a Kerbal's lives. In addition, you can always make a Stayputnik mission a one way affair.

RCS can be used for thrust keeping in mind that on big ships, the force of thrusters is very low. They do work great for probe size lander on the various moons and on Duna. I have even used them for return burns on single Kerbal craft. They are perfect for small precise maneuver changes even on larger craft. However, they cannot be throttled like a small liquid fueled engine. So, make sure sticky keys are disabled when using them for landing probes. This was landed using thrusters alone for the last thousand meters. This probe was placed in precise Mun orbit using thrusters alone Thrusters brought this ship home from Mun when there was insufficient fuel left for the return flight. They are excellent for docking, maneuvering, and as a emergency return for manned capsules. Just don't waste them trying to stabilize a unwieldy design being launched into orbit. It is a waste of fuel and unnecessary weight.

I could see the construction of new and duplicate rockets taking place on a cost, time basis. You would still be able to design and build as you do at present. However, that rocket wouldn't be available for a mission until a set period of Kerbal time has taken place. That would place the added challenge of launch windows and rescue attempts, but not hamper actual time play as you can always do other research, fly existing missions, or just time warp to the time period the craft would be ready for launch. In reality, you would be managing a space program where several projects are in their planning and construction stage at once if you want to get their program advancing as quickly as possible.

It is an idea that could appear in future updates, the ability to collect science points on orbiting, landed, or deep space probes that have instruments sending back information on an automated basis over a given lifetime for that probe. Science could also be collected on Kerbals orbiting in space or on deep space missions. However, like the current research, there would be a diminishing return for duplicating such experiments. Perhaps, when cost of launching rockets get added to Career Mode, that would also limit attempts to spam space with numerous probes doing the same thing. Lets be patient and see what the Dev come up with in future updates.

Do Minmus first, then Mun The rocket used; Later, with not much more rocket, go for Eve and Duna

Currently, the physics don't work correctly for temperature changes. The science bays respond as you are in deep space at present. As far as how close, about a ridiculous 1,500 meters before your ship goes poof!

Sandbox can be more confusing to the new player in a program with no instructions and a simple tutorial. Career Mode introduces the player to simple parts unlocking more as experience is gained in building things to see how they work. Either way, it is the Kerbal School of Hard Knocks. Learning what works and what doesn't. The one thing missing in the tier zero is that the new player has to learn how the staging icons work in the VAB so that the parachute doesn't get deployed at launch. One has to click on the + under stage 0 during the mouse over and drag the engine icon into its location.

Try building something simple like this. Note that you must set staging up as shown or the first launch will be a failure. Launch straight up and observe what happens. Don't forget to deploy the parachute when your rocket gets down to about 5,000 meters to the surface. launch the next one and do an orbital turn using the Navball, say about a 20 degree change with just the D key. Do the next launch but instead of using the D key to Turn, use the S key. Play with combos of the WSAD and QE keys to see how they affect your ship during and after powered flight. Play with designs that use one fuel can, two, three, five, six, and note the performance difference. Play with throttle settings on the simpler designs. Try using a SRB on one design. Note how it behaves compared to a liquid fueled engine. Keep a written logbook of the results. You can hit the F3 key for a mission report. Do take advantage of Jeb to do science reports and take samples where he lands back on Kerbal. Now, go spend some of the science and unlock some more parts. Play with decouplers and building stages. Example, take the rocket above, put a decoupler between the capsule and first fuel can. Then place a decoupler under the LV-30 engine and attach a SRB under it. Note how that combination affect performance compared to a single stage. Note, how placing a decoupler under the capsule can make landing easier. You can also use symmintery and attach boosters to the side for increased lifting power and see how they perform at this time. Note why this might not work as well as it should with the design below. Now, go and experiment with various combos of engines and stages. Find out what works, what doesn't and what blows up.

It takes the right engine tank combo to get an efficient lift. Too much fuel or too little thrust on a Asparagus or onion stage and that booster is contributing almost nothing to getting the payload in orbit. result, a monster rocket with very poor payload performance. Get a good balance, either with stock or mod parts and this is possible; And, sometimes, those multiple engines setups can be more efficient then a Mainsail or Skipper when relying on stock only parts. A cluster of four LV-30s gave me better performance on a given fuel load then either a skipper, too weak, or a mainsail, too powerful.

Lower the rocket until the engines almost touch the ground. That will help a lot with stability when the physic engine kicks in.

You will just dump the new files into the folder with the old ones and click on yes when asked about overwriting files with the same name. Just to be safe, back up the old folders before changing them.

I couldn't figure out the flight log. Just did a second test. The booster had not completely overheated on failure. So, I added a decoupler under the Stayputnik. That fixed the problem which was caused by a compression failure. Note the G force at 10,000+ meters

Just did the following experiment; Note, no antenna Yes, it flies and can be steered. However, near burnout: Time to go back to the VAB and rethink the design.

Your staging is correct. The Stayputnik doesn't show up in the staging setup. However; Since the Stayputnik only has a tiny battery of 10 units of power and you have been setting on the pad for a while, chances are the on board battery is now dead. No battery power = no control.

Mini landers mean much less boosters needed to get them to their destinations. Once Career Mode implements a budget, small is going to be the way to go for cost efficiency. An early design; A later design. Launch vehicle based upon NASA's Minotaur moon rocket; Simple Mun orbiter; A tiny asparagus interplanetary orbiter. In orbit ready to send to Eve or Duna. Small is challenging with missions to do. For Career Mode, this is my probe of choice. And the launcher that sent it there;

The updated LV-N core with the drop engines has been successfully flight tested. This design without the SRBs worked with sufficient fuel to justify the drop engines. Did the escape burn and still had lots of fuel left. The 4 step modified asparagus design. Be advised, the staging is wrong. Refer to the orbit picture where the staging is correct. Launch; Orbit. The engines are dropped just before orbit and the LV-N used to finish circularizing. Escape burn; The SRB ring design as originally posted from 0.2101 built in 0.22 Launch, The SRBs reached over 5,000 meters at burnout. In orbit, Note the extra fuel available, almost doubled. The liquid fueled engines are most certainly needed for orbit, but, once achieved, the LV-N can do the work at over twice the efficiency.

Here is a asparagus payload design that works well. The drop tank LV-N, while giving much longer burn time, has nearly twice the delta V for the given weight of the engines. That is one case where the efficiency of the LV-N more then overcomes its inherent weight disadvantage. The launch stage is the same design.

Usually, it is better to drop heavy engines with empty fuel and stay with a more even acceleration rather then risk compression failure from too much acceleration. Here is one design that I will play with more by allowing the last asparagus stage to drop heavy engines so the remaining fuel can be used by the LV-N. Due to overheating, the LV-N is not used in the launch phase. It uses a booster ring for launch, then switches to a four place asparagus until orbit. Note how much fuel is left once orbit has been achieved. A small final stage is used to land the probe and is staged just prior to landing so thrusters alone control the final touchdown. In orbit ready for interplanetary travel. I have tested using stage-able engines. Fuel lines have to be run back to the engine from the center core stage. It does work.

Another example, a bare minimum suicide launch to orbit two stage with 3 kerbals. Flown correctly, there will be fuel left for a return. Note how small this design is. Preferred launcher is this one with the added safety of the RCS for a deorbit burn.

So correct. Only take what is needed for the job. Get the efficiency into orbit down to around a 6 to 1 ratio. That takes good design. Anything way over that is just wasting fuel. (Exception is a SRB ring for the first 3,000 to 8,000 meters) Two examples: Minmus lander in Career Mode; Launch vehicle; Lander; A heavy lift to orbit. Launch vehicle; In orbit, Adding a half tank in the core state and a short burn of thrusters placed the fuel can into a 100k Mun orbit.

The universal stock explorer, the LV-N Interplanetary Probe, has more then enough power to reach any planet or moon of the Kerbal system. Orbiting Moho.