Superfluous J

Yeah the devs are a bit stingy with information, much to the chagrin of many of us. I understand the basic idea, that tossing a billion numbers at a new player is a sure way to scare them off, but still having the information SOMEWHERE in the game is a far cry from puking it all over the screen.

Yeah the OX-STAT is one of the few super critical parts in the game. Then "moar science" is always the way to go. Granted, that fuel pump is important too (It and the strut are two more critical parts, but it's the least important of the 3 IMO) but you can get enough science points just taking a barometer to all the places you've already been, to easily unlock it. I frequently max out the bottom of the tree before even getting the Mk3 engines on the top. And I frequently max those out before even considering the plane stuff.

I haven't done an inclination change burn to Minmus in years. I just target to hit it at the AN or DN. That means my inclination change is actually done AT Minmus where I'm going the slowest, am coupling it with my slowdown burn, and am getting a little help from Oberth because I'm also close to Minmus' surface. I have no idea how much it saves but wouldn't be surprised that it wasn't even worth accounting for. I figure this because I don't account for it. I just ignore that number on the charts.

You just earned yourself a "not helping." Enjoy the game.

Make sure you're watching tutorials from after version 1.0 came out. Any older tutorials will lead you seriously astray. Look through threads here where people are taking off an having troubles, there are a LOT of them and they have great info in them. In general though you want a top-heavy rocket until you're out of the atmosphere. What is probably happening is you're ditching the lower stage, which was (relatively) low on mass compared to that second stage that was totally full of fuel and high enough on the rocket to still be considered "forward." Now you've got this relatively light payload on top of a heavier 2nd stage which is now at the bottom, and that cases the rocket to flip over. Try throwing a dart backward some day, it'll do the same thing. To fix this, you need to keep mass up front somehow. This problem and its solution is one of the key tenets of rocket design. It was also totally, completely ignoreable in versions of KSP prior to 1.0.

Not guesswork per-se. More educated stabs in the dark. @Plusck has the right idea. That diagram shows exactly what I was talking about.

I am by no means defending Imperial. I'm just saying that using hyperbole to try to make it look even worse than it is makes your argument look flimsy. Sometimes I wonder, if only long ago they'd decided to ignore those pudgy little "side fingers" when deciding what base to use and we ended up in an octal system, how much quicker we'd have ramped up in computing once we got to that point. Regarding 12 and 60, I'm pretty sure any usage of "12" comes from the lunar cycles, and wouldn't be surprised if the 360 degree circle is because our year is so close to that many days long. Also? I see what you did there.

I find it easier to visualize than math/science out. Moons are orbiting planets. If you enter the moon's sphere of influence from the side, and exit it out forwards (these are both relative to the moon's motion around the planet), then your ship will add the speed of the moon to its own speed, when looking relative to the planet. This gives you a "boost." Likewise, if you come in at the front of the Moon's SOI and exit the side, when you exit you'll be going much slower relative to the planet. The big idea is, relative to the moon you leave at the same speed you come in, so relative to the planet you can gain a (sometimes huge) speed boost or slowdown based on where you go into and exit from the moon. Once you have this down, the rest is just fiddling with maneuver nodes and observing how your resultant orbit (or escape) will go when you enter the moon's sphere of influence at certain points going in certain directions at certain speeds. I should make a video about this. Or at least provide pictures.

There are roughly 800,000 steps to getting to Mun and back, from starting the game to landing on Kerbin. Without a bit more specifics on your problem I can't really help you. Are you in orbit? Can you get there but run out of fuel? Do you crash into the surface, or fly by it, or always end up on a crazy polar orbit, or don't know the angle, or can't get your engines started, or wobble on liftoff, or have staging issues, or.... ?

Not at all. I didn't do it for the points. I did it because it sounded fun Granted I can't say I'd not change it a bit to take more parts to Minmus at least, but I'm content with what I've done for the challenge. In short, do not avoid changing it on my behalf!

In all fairness, every single person on Earth would agree that was a jumbled mess. But those of use who are belabored with the Imperial System actually only use 4 of those 38 terms, making that chart almost 10 times the size it should be. Nobody but an expert in some field that uses the special terms even considers anything outside of: Inch -12-> Foot -3-> Yard -1750-> Mile, and for most of us (myself included, I had to look it up) that "1750" is actually just "a lot." Are the numbers logical? No. Are they the worst thing to befall mankind since the dawn of civilization? Nope, not that either. Are they a minor inconvenience that I'd rather be rid of? You betcha. But so are about 100 other things in life.

They orbit. I learned that when doing the mission in the image on the right side of my signature. I snagged that bad boy from Dres orbit and landed it on the surface. Because Dres. And regarding interplanetary outposts: Minmus. I know you said it didn't count, but that's the only place worth really investing time and effort into a refueling platform. Or, as Francois said, Pol for Jool. If you're going to a planet or moon a lot, then sure set up a base there, but if all you want is a fuel depot and mine, it will never be cheaper (time or effort wise) to go anywhere but Minmus.

I agree with everything you just said except the "for some reason." There is a very good reason they haven't done it: It's buggy, and nobody has figured out how to make it not be so. Infernal Robotics is a mod. You install it and read the disclaimer and when you reload your ship and it looks like something Salvador Dali would paint, you accept that as your mistake because you are using mods and went against what the modder said. If that happens in the stock game? You (rightfully) get mad at Squad for selling you a buggy game. I would expect the very next update after the bug gets fixed, to contain multiple hinge parts.

Okay my last spammy post here. I uploaded an edited (all the way down to 45 minutes!) version of the 3+hour livestream to YouTube. It could probably be shorter but I wanted to capture the iterative design process because I for one found it interesting, even on a rewatch.

Very cool craft. I especially liked the "landing gear" on the final Mun lander.

Which is currently all we have to work on, which is probably why the HypeTrain is barely keeping ludicrous speed.

I'm not sure the "halfway to destination" is that important. I mean, The thing needed 3300m/s of dV in atmo to get to orbit, I just used the remaining 400 or so to start my way to Minmus. Maybe change the points for each thing to be "x points + how many parts you had when you did it"? So if you get to the Mun flyby with those 157 parts (I didn't, I'd have needed a few hundred more m/s) then you'd get those points extra. Actually that may streamline the whole thing. No need for an SSTO requirement (though maybe give points for that too), just give points for how many parts on the pad, how many parts in orbit, how many parts flying by Mun, how many parts in orbit. Though that'd be a bigger pain to document and score, so maybe not

I have a whole line of prospector probes I've used in pretty much every game I've ever done mining in. All they need is the ground truth device (Don't remember the name. The one you use on the ground), a probe core (I like the ones that can hold pro/retrograde, makes landing a breeze), and enough dV and TWR to land and return to orbit, say, twice on their target world. That way, you never have to worry about if you're running out of gas and if necessary they can even probably get to to the fuel base or even orbit to refuel. The probe should also be nimble and comfortable on slopes. Then I just send them into good areas, find a nice flat spot (by hopping around with their plentiful fuel) with good ore (known because of the ground truthing) and then I have a marker that I *KNOW* is a great spot. Send the drilling rig down there and land right next to the probe on that wonderfully flat and prodigiously oreified ground.

Is that a stock contract? I've never seen it, but I've not played career for a while. You can hit Alt-F12 and turn on biome overlays in map view. It's not perfect (It won't tell you what biome is what, just where they are) but it's pretty logical. 90% of the biomes are logical. Tundra is non-icecap white. Shores is shores. Etc. You may need to hunt a little but as you get each one, at least you'll know where they are. Also, you could check http://kerbalmaps.com and turn on the biome overlay.

Long story short, DID IT. 157 parts, did everything but the spaceplane part. All 157 parts made it into orbit (and halfway to Minmus) before decoupling just the Minmus/Mun lander. All 3.5 hours (in 27 parts because I kept dropping on and off of Twitch) are up on Twitch and I'll have an edited down version on YouTube at some point, probably next week. But my calculations put me at 1082 points, assuming slapping wings on a rocket doesn't make it a spaceplane. If it does, then my score would be 1182.

I should be on in a few minutes. https://www.twitch.tv/5fhhorseman

There goes my detatchable Mun lander Though... The Claw... Hmmm. I'm hoping to start this in a couple hours. It'll be on Twitch and I'll also put it up on YouTube eventually. I'll post here if/when I start.

By the way I just listened to that speech again and holy cow. Holy. Cow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jfk_berlin_address_high.ogg It's a joke.

I have no idea what any of you are saying. The only thing I know how to say in German is "I am a doughnut."