SRV Ron

You can go to the Control Center and check to see how much debre has been left in orbit. If you find that it is causing lag, you can then delete them from the game the same way that you can terminate a mission. You can also remove landed missions on Kerbal by having them recovered.

I have found that when you stitch tanks together that are already attached in a ring using symmetry, not all the braces will go where they are suppose to. The fix is to build the tank stack in the center, stitch with symmetry, then take a copy of that tank set to use for the onion or asparagus stage. For asparagus, start with a pair from the set copied from the stitched center core, brace to the center core, and get a copy by selecting the tanks at the decoupler including the decoupler. When pasted as the second or third set, they should connect with all braces in their proper location. You will know when you have got it right as the design will be stable during flight.

If an XP laptop, be sure all other programs in the background, such as crapware, is turned off. Disconnect from the internet, disable wireless if you have it, shut down anti virus and other software. The less running in the background, the better. Since KSP loads everything, the fewer mods, the better when you have limited memory. Otherwise, Windows will use the hard drive to swap data which slows down everything to a crawl.

Set up a mid course correction maneuver. Activate the encounter periapsis so you can see the changes in distance as you fine tune the direction handles. Since chances are you are not coming in to Duna on plane, play with the pink up down handles first to get the smallest value possible. The radical, blue, should be able to bring you into a direct encounter when the marker vanishes. Do the burn but don't be surprise if you are not on a collision course when done. Once you reach Duna's SOI, you can set up another maneuver to fine tune where you want to hit Duna or do aerobraking into orbit. The closer to the SOI edge, the less fuel needed to get an aerobraking encounter.

The design, with careful flying, should have enough fuel for a Mun landing and direct return to an aerobraking landing. One can use LV-30 on the outboard engines. While not a lander, this similar design, from 0.202 has the thruster pack. Although not necessary, as the LV-909 and smaller tank don't add that much mass when empty, I would suggest placing a stack decoupler under the monoprop tank which would allow you to use it for a return to Kerban from Mun maneuver. This one from the demo will do a Mun orbit and return. It does need the monoprop to return to Kerban.

Eve was under 45 days. Duna much longer because I aim for a low delta v burn to encounter. That encounter can be much quicker if you hit a window where Duna's orbit is closer to Kerban at the location of intercept or you waste fuel by extending your orbital loop much further out from Duna. Fine tuning an encounter can be done using short burst from monoprop thrusters. Getting the encounter on plane is more fuel efficient then coming in from the pole. I had one fine tuned to crash on Duna before the burn. Unless everything is timed to the milisecond, the results will just be close. But, that is what mid course corrections are used for.

If you know what date you saved it, you might be able to find the craft file in your ships Save folder using the date search function. If not, it is going to be part of your persistent.sfs file in your save folder which is written in unicode. Use Wordpad to read the file. I haven't had the chance to compare the structure of the sfs file to that of a craft file. A quick glance shows that it contains the craft file for ships in flight and craft files for the debre left in space from those ships as well as info about the location, speed and other info the game needs to track them in flight.

I just post the photos to give those designing their own what works. Half of the fun in this sim is learning how to build rockets that work efficiently.

For now, just invent your own goals for a career mode starting out with sub orbital flights, orbital flights, flights to Mun and the planets. Later, you can add manned flights, flights that return imaginary samples from the other planets and moons, and finish up with a goal of space colonization.

Nowhere have I posted that I was criticizing your design. When flown properly, it has more then enough fuel to land and return from Mun. Just stating that the Nwebee is going to have problems when they first encounter a slow rotation while doing a gravity turn. Such rotation has to do with the flexing of parts during flight. Asparagus staging is difficult at best to properly brace against flexing that can cause a slow spin or worse. Eliminate that and it will not rotate unless you command it to do so. If a rocket is not symmetrical, it will promptly arc over and crash.

"Not even close. I saw one guy a while ago who had a craft that consisted entirely of solid boosters. It dropped at least one of its stages by overheating it with a higher stage. Apparently it was more efficient than having to lift a decoupler. " Tried that once. The booster remained attached and killed all the thrust of the one firing nearly crashing the rocket as it fell back to kerban.

Start with something simple. This one is stock and will reach Mun. With NovaPunch mods, this very small design will reach Mun orbit; Added on with onion staging, you can land on Mun, Minmus, and Duna. With six boosters on asparagus staging, you can land on Duna. This all stock design will go anywhere in the Kerbal system and can land the satellite it carries. Using an LV-N and drop tanks, even further; Keep working on your design, don't forget bracing, and use launch support columns so that your creation is not sitting on the engines which will damage them.

"Did they not learn from the LAST TIME they mixed up standard and metric measurements on the same mission? Please NASA, for the safety of the probes, settle on ONE UNIT OF MEASUREMENT! " That happened to a commercial route for Train Simulator. The results were elevations in meters using feet from the elevation topography of the route. the results, track grades three times+ what exist on that route making it completely unplayable for hauling ore cars from the mine to the docks. The rolling hills looked like mountain ranges. The F units, even though modeled correctly with the correct physics, couldn't pull their rated number of consists for the route. They would bog down on grades with wheels spinning on dry rails or slide out of control down 6% grades that in the real world are 2% max.

Yes, the spin of that rocket on launch is, at least, easy to compensate for. For a newbee attempting a gravity turn for their first couple of times, it can be a problem that will result in wasted fuel and an inclined orbit making it much harder for them to reach Mun. WSAD keys don't function on rockets like a character in a FPS shooter. That can be confusing to the new player when the rocket has rotated out of the 90* path that D would normally send it.

After 100 days in solar orbit, I got my window to send probes to both Duna and Eve. The Eve one arrives first but comes in so fast that it takes a lot of aerobraking to land it. The Duna ones 60 and 63 days later and can be slingshot around Ike to slow them down if you are lucky.

Generally, the problem is caused by flexing that changes as the fuel is used up. That can cause a variable in spin and direction as the SAS attempts to counter it. You can sometimes see it in the wobble of joints and on the bottom of the strap on boosters. Small amounts of spin can and should be cancelled out to make flying the gravity turn much easier. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to do the turn having to use ever changing combinations of the WSAD keys when faced with a spinning rocket. And, you are right. It is difficult to eliminate entirely and on big rockets may require a second larger SAS in an upper stage.

Drop tanks are an efficient way of shedding weight for interplanetary flight when TWR is not an issue. And, asparagus type staging of drop tanks is feasible. One set dropped; Both sets dropped; Unrealistic is the tanks directly below the engine Goddard style. However, future updates could make that impossible without the use of a heat shielded cone.

An easier way get much closer to the orbital plane when it is difficult to see if you are on plane or not is to set up a maneuver mode, activate the parapsis marker of the encounter, and pull on the pink up down handles to get the value to the smallest distance possible. Then, use the other handles to further reduce that distance. Go back to the pink ones to adjust further if needed. Otherwise, the only other alternative is to do a slingshot around a moon to adjust the plane using minimal fuel as shown by this example; The completed slingshot

Get into prograde escape velocity from Kerban. Keep the solar orbit as circular as possible. Set up a maneuver mode with Duna as a target. If you are not getting a encounter anywhere along the orbit, you may have to wait, accelerate time, until you have traveled far enough in solar orbit to get an encounter window. Currently, I have three test probes waiting for that window to appear which is available every second or third Kerbal year from the lest one.

"it looks rather like ICBM than nasa rocket " That may be due to the fact that the first stage is fabricated from recycled Peacemaker ICBM SRB stacked three high.

If you get the bracing just right, they will not spin upon launch and the first few minutes of flight. The lander flies properly. This test concept, with the six added boosters under the asparagus, was uncontrollable until I added the bracing. Then, it flew flawlessly using only the standard 1.25M SAS under the probe stage.

Wouldn't it be interesting if they find out that much of the atmosphere on the moon consists of the exhaust products from Apollo moon landings and unused fuel from crashed boosters and abandoned LEMs?

This is not the easiest ship to get into orbit since it wants to spin on launch. Properly flown, it has plenty of fuel left after entering into low Mun orbit to start the landing cycle before using any of the lander's fuel to land, then return to an aerobraking window to Kerban.

An extreme example of added boosters. This is under an onion stage Eve probe lander. Not a recommend setup. Cross bracing is a must for stability during launch and flight or it will tip over. The six boosters reach about 5K at burnout. The asparagus hit Kerban escape velocity with 1/2 a tank in the core stage. The design did not spin, with or without those six boosters. Without the SRB, the design reaches 100k orbit just as the core stage ran dry. Edit; Experimenting with the asparagus stage rocket. With three boosters instead of the asparagus, I got a good results with the probe capable of reaching Duna under ideal conditions. With 4 boosters, I had 20 more units of fuel on the second stage for orbit. With six boosters, an additional 20 units. Not much bang for the extra bucks. There is an ideal number in which doubling them yields little additional benefits for a given design. Same for liquid fueled boosters unless they are asparagus staged which cannot be done with SRB.

Not only are they useful on bigger rockets as strap on or first stage. the Nova Punch pack has some real monsters in SRB to experiment with for your interplanetary designs. Again, only useful for first stage or boosting your first stage during launch. They are too heavy otherwise for upper stage use. Be sure to brace them so they don't wobble and fly off. They also tend to be hard to steer so are best for boosting your rocket straight up to 5,000 meters.