Ultermarto

Hey Squad. First of all, I'm enjoying the update so far. I feel like I've got a real progression system working against me, though the gameplay honestly doesn't feel as refined as the science tree did when it was released. Anyway, I just want to suggest that, when the time comes, you should scrap the procedural mission briefs. The humor in KSP delivered by the flavor-text and whatnot is something of a cherry-on-top to the game, and the awkward-to-read, unfunny procedural briefs are a real subtraction. I suspect you've put a fair amount of effort into such a daunting feature, and that your first urge will be to try and fix it rather than scrap it, but I'd really say that you should just do away with the procedural briefs and replace them with some of that witty writing we were all surprised to find in a space-sim game. Of course, I understand that there are a lot of contracts to write descriptions for - even if you start reusing them - so man-hours may be an issue. With this in mind, I'l tell you that, at least from my perspective, I'd rather have a small quantity of often-repeated hilarious mission briefs than a large quantity of unfunny ones. Good luck with the writing, devs.

Thanks for answering my question. But yeah, I guess aerobreaking it is.

So as anyone who's ever tried visiting another planet, or even anyone who's ever just wanted to get their kerbals from the Mun to a stable orbit, will know, re-orbiting and stabilizing the orbit around a planet takes a lot of delta-V. Say you're hurtling toward's Duna at 10,000 mps, for example, you need to burn most of that to achieve a stable orbit. Normally these kind of maneuvers take up a significant amount of my mission fuel. Anyway I've got this ship, consisting of a large lander coupled with a LDFB (long distance fuel buddy, carries fuel, you know), currently on its way back from Mun. What I want is to get it into a stable 70,000 km orbit around Kerbin, so that I can reuse it again (assembling these things is a pain). I'm pretty sure I can do it, but what I want to know is what's the most efficient way of doing it? I know, for example, that with our good friend the Oberth effect, adding 10mps to your orbit at a low periapsis can make a much greater difference than otherwise (since your additional velocity is introduced at a time when velocity is most poten), meanwhile, it's obviously much easier to kill your orbit whilst orbiting at 10mps at a very high altitude, rather than at 2,000 mps at a low one. So I know how to make use of the Oberth effect whilst escaping from a planet, but what about returning and stabilizing? For example, right now I can see two options; 1. I do one relatively small burn at Mun's altitude to lower my Kerbin periapsis to 70,000m, then do another, necessarily much more powerful burn at the periapsis in order to lower my apoapsis. 2. I make several burns at varying periapses and apoapses, lowering my orbit each time, such that the route makes a sort of spiral shape. This way, I avoid making one huge burn whilst travelling at stupid-meters-per-second at 70,000m. But as far as I can see, the twi approaches seem to require the same amount of detla-V. So what do I do?

Already did the rendez-vous thing and I certainly didn't take my six nuclear engines down to duna, but I get the message. The thing needs to be lighter. Thanks. I think I need to start working out my Delta-V then, however you do that. Also, using less nuclear engines for such a large craft may be more efficient, but it takes SOOOO LOOOONNNGGGG to get you anywhere. Are there any mods that can let me, I don't know, burn whilst fast-forwarding, because I've had this problem so many times before. They don't let you throttle-up at all in orbit, god forbid.

What? No, where did you get that idea? It took three mainsails to get the damn thing into orbit.

I had some kerbals stranded on Duna from my first attempt at a landing on and return from another planet. I sent a rescue-craft designed to bring them back, giving it more fuel, but still the damn thing pretty much used all of its fuel halfway through the journey (it actually crashed into the planet). So after watching some Scott Manley vids, I decided to get a nuclear engine into space, composed of one large orange fuel tank and six nuclear engines, to which I would attach my actual rescue lander. It took forever to get into orbit and was very tedious, but I was convinced that it would get my rescue mission to and from another planet with fuel left to even out the orbit for another run. But oh, I was wrong. Despite the fact that Scott made it to the outermost planet and back with a very similar craft, I had used up all my fuel by the time I had undocked from the nuclear engine and landed on Duna again. One whole orange fuel tank. Six engines. A reasonably small lander. Does not make it to Duna and back. I'm tearing my hair out here.