breakthrough

The common sense of someone who owns a computer like the one I will buy after I save up enough money will think 300 parts is perfectly fine. For someone who owns the computer I have right now, 250 on the launchpad is the absolute maximum. But if you want to leave it open to interpretation, I will abide.

I really think the escape system should be a requirement. The stack separators and parachutes on the cockpit are quite conspicuous, and its inability to fly a useful mission implies its a training platform for practicing powered landings. Also, an explicit part count limit so its clear how powerful of a computer we are assuming this 'theoretical new player who is trying to learn the game by looking at the stock craft' owns. I'm not sure I can even load mhoram's entry in the VAB much less test it for voting purposes.

When in red circle mode the tank will not feed engines. You could use it to have a small tank of reserve fuel on a booster so it can use its engines to deorbit itself without micromanaging the timing of staging or spending extra part count on a transfer blocking part. Oh, and if you didn't know already you can set it to start that way in the VAB.

[thread=39812]Tavert[/thread] does all the math in a thread on the tutorial board. The TL;DR of it is more TWR is better, but it has decreasing returns so much above 2 won't make as big of a difference.

I take back what I said earlier, if I take stage 1 and just build a cluster with the same number of engines and fuel tanks it should be the same difference right? Following that line of reasoning, it would be nice if there was an option to force stage 1 to have at least one gimbaling engine.

I delete persistent debris that is on an aerobraking orbit and manually deorbit anything higher. The bulldozer tug is good rendezvous practice.

I use the advanced stabilizer to balance the center of mass on aircraft.

The RCS Build Aid plugin has an 'engine' mode that displays the offset with great precision.

So both the payload and part counts are inaccurate since I would have to have non payload parts underneath my craft that invariably have landing legs and other equipment mounted radially. Still, it is interesting to see how my launchers compare to the optimal ones it generates.

I was curious how it would handle part count and got this Attempt #41 Stages: 2 Part Count: 49 Cost: 55650 Mass: 243.850 Delta-V: 4857 Time: 270.4 Stage Part Cost Mass (t) Delta-V (m/s2) TWR Time (s) 0 Payload: 37t 0 / 0 37.000 / 37.000 0 / 4857 0.00 0.0 / 270.4 1 TT-38K Radial Decoupler x7 Rockomax X200-16 Fuel Tank x7 LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine x7 22750 / 22750 71.925 / 108.925 2623 / 4857 1.41 135.2 / 270.4 2 Asparagus TT-38K Radial Decoupler x7 FTX-2 External Fuel Duct x7 Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank x7 LV-T30 Liquid Fuel Engine x7 32900 / 55650 134.925 / 243.850 2234 / 2234 1.26 135.2 / 135.2 What exactly are the radial decouplers attached to when it returns a stage made entirely of them? Similarly, are all 7 stacks of the asparagus stage feeding onion style into the stage above or is it actually dropping 1 stack at a time spiraling around?

Aphobius, is there supposed to be commentary in the video? I see the mouse gesturing, but I don't hear anything besides a pair of ant engines firing continuously for 15 minutes.

The VOID mod adds a hud element that displays your current biome taking the guesswork out of it. Mechjeb can display biome information as well. VOID is here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54533-0-22-VOID-Vessel-Orbital-Informational-Display Mechjeb is here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/12384-PART-0-23-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-1-1

Lower your apoapsis as far as you can and the speed at periapsis will be lower thus requiring less burn time to come to a stop. Also, consider putting a high TWR stage under the rescue lander and ditch it after killing your horizontal speed.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57787-Jaekelopterus-Heavy-Lifter Only super-heavy lifter I've come across with a tolerable part count. Dissect it to learn Corona688's secrets or just use it yourself.

Not the planets per se, but my interplanetary craft must be delicious, because the Kraken eats them before they even get to the target SOI.

I think you should probably go play your next most favorite genre for awhile rather than ruin your enjoyment of an awesome game. If it works anything like RTS games did for me, you'll come back after a little break and suddenly find you have ideas 10x better than you did before just by coming at it with fresh eyes.

Solar panels blocking the thrust of some of the upper engines causing it to be asymmetric. If the thrust is 'blocked' it provides no acceleration at all and it can be blocked by a surprisingly small obstacle that is quite a distance from the nozzle.

I interpreted the challenge as implementing the apparent mission of the stock craft better than the stock one. The VAB description of the Kerbal X specifically points out the landing legs, so in my mind that means it must be capable of a landing somewhere. The description does not have the word 'Minmus' anywhere within it, so I figure a person whose knowledge of space travel is limited to that cool SpaceX video on Youtube is going to assume (incorrectly) that the Mun is the first and easiest landing target. As the only stock craft with asparagus staging, that building technique needs to be showcased as well. Debris-free launches is more a advanced technique than is necessary for a stock craft, so I didn't consider it a factor either way. ...and none of those image descriptions I typed in appeared in the preview post. Pros: structurally sound Soviet-style crasher stage makes it easy to choose landing location very low and broad lander Cons: unacceptably high part count no asparagus staging I wouldn't beat you up over the part count if I couldn't prove it could be done better, so here is a craft with the same delta-v and tech level. craft file also, it appears mediafire loses the file extension, or I'm doing it wrong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_navigation Is where to start if you want actual missile guidance.

Your cfg file is not working for me. Where did you put the mod files?

Space fountain seems the most plausible of the things I've read about. Rail-gun-assisted SSTO like SargeRho said might be a contender too.

@Andrew: Did I do something wrong when I uploaded to Mediafire? It was my first time using it.

With fine control on, RCS ports will throttle their thrust based on how far they are offset from the center of mass. Combined with torque, the sway stays manageable as long as RCS ports are surrounding the center of mass. Swept wings are very lightweight for how long they are, so I use them as arms for mounting RCS blocks on. Variations of this claw docker design have always translated without trouble for me.

I've used the inline stabilizer as a counterweight on spaceplanes to keep the center of mass form shifting too far backward. The same could be done with a fuel tank cut off from the engines but the stabilizer at least does something.

The craft you are not controlling during docking can't use its RCS, remove the mono-propellant from the ship that is going to just sit still and receive the docking craft. Consider mounting engines to the bottom of the Science Jr pods and remove the poodle so the lander can attach the other way and use its engines to help the transfer vessel brake. Start burning retrograde before entering the target's SOI, LV-N efficiency will probably be good enough to justify not having Oberth effect, and while in solar orbit you'll have plenty of time for 0.08 TWR to get the job done. If you wait until you are 'only' one day out you should be able to do a lot of braking without losing the encounter.