annallia

One thing that always helps me with manual landings putting them on point is starting from a very high orbit (the higher the better). This will use a lot of fuel, and I really mean a lot of fuel which isn't a problem for me since I over engineer everything anyway. Next step is to get your orbits inclination to cross directly over your landing site. Once done select your target on the ground (assuming you have a craft/flag down there already) Now pick the spot directly over your site and plan a maneuver, you are basically going to be flipping your ship around and doing a breaking burn until you more or less come to a dead stop letting gravity bring you down. I then use the map view to make course corrections until I enter atmo, at that point I use the gimbal to navigate with an overhead view keeping myself as close to directly above myself as I can get. Rest is all standard landing, deploy chutes, series of small breaking burns before the suicide burn and so on. Laythe has always been somewhat tough to do this (perhaps because of rotation speed?) but I have managed to average less than 70m from my target doing this. Longest being just shy of a km, shortest breaking the solar panels of the habitat module I had dropped earlier...

I find that a heavier rover works well for me. My current Mun rover has 8 wheels and weighs in at just over 2 tons. Of course it also helps if you go slow, keeping it around 12-15m/s is very safe on the mun (for mine). I did have it up to 28 but hit a bump and flipped it, fortunately it managed to land right side up.

I've made a few different rover designs. Before attempting to even figure out how to get them to where they are going I have been testing them on kerbin. Now on Kerbin everything works just fine. I goes forward, K back, L right, J left. However every single one of these rovers, even when no change has been made to them other than the skycrane added when they get to Mun, Minmus, Eve, or Laythe the controls are reversed. Back is now forward and so on. And that is supposed to be unanswered but I don't know how to change it

I thought the same thing when I sent my probe... Rocas finally did something useful...

The drogue chute (orange) is the MK-25 not the 16XL That said the two are the same, the only difference is their size which gives the larger one a more aesthetic look when attached to larger modules than the small one would.

I launched my programs newest ship, the first (in this save) built entirely in space. DSX MK IV: KSP Jebediah Rocas doing his pre-flight checklist Dropping a probe that will later be picked up and de-orbited around Laythe Just cruising about... Next step is to go back into orbit with the sun, and then off into the middle of nowhere so I will never have to see that clutz err hero Rocas again.

Looking around at the pictures and whatnot from people I would say a good number of us already use them for that reason (even though we don't need to) so why not?

Eerie view from my Jool probe attempting to make contact with anything below... Was planned to be a manned mission to get rid of one troublesome Kerbalnaut but with all the modifications to my standard probe launcher to ensure it had the means to reach Jool I decided against adding a cockpit shaving weight any way I could. Maybe when I make my atmo probe...

Started construction on my new space station after Rocas knocked a piece off... the clumsy oaf later knocked a piece off of the lander that I was using to deliver a rover to Mun.. after a stop to Minmus to pick up the stranded Bob (care package landed on his ship...). Plan was to stop for fuel, go to minmus since the old station was way out there anyway, and swing by Mun on the way home to drop off the rover and then home. Ended up landing on Mun because of a flaw in the design of the rover, or rather I packed the wrong rover (this one was designed for landing on Duna and had chutes rather than thrusters) somehow in Rocas's EVA he managed to knock the command capsule off the lander... He was trying to be all cowboy and land right on the hatch and I guess hit the capsule just right to knock it off the ship. So once again, Bob and Rocas are stranded on Mun. I was also planning a probe ship for Jool, I think I will build a lander to go to Mun, pick up Rocas, return to the station when it is completed, hope he doesn't break anything, and make my Jool probe a manned probe...

MechJeb hater aside... It is trying to calculate the most fuel efficient route for you. This requires waiting for Eve to be in the right orbital path when you leave. And no need to edit anything to speed up time. Move to a higher orbit and it will let you time warp fast enough that those 160ish days will go bye in about 2 mins. Even better leave the Kerbin system and get in orbit around the sun then adjust your orbit to intercept Eve.

Put a pancake tank on the bottom (the smallest of the big tanks). Technically abusing the mechanics of the game but at the same time since it is a broken mechanic that is causing the overheat with the x64 tanks it evens out.

Actually, it was already. When I first tested it on Kerbin it ran backwards so I put it back in the VAB and rotated the probe body, so it ran straight. Still did when landed on Eve, only when Jeb is in the seat does it reverse... The seat which also needs to be rotated

Rover finally arrived... sort of. Deleted the old one after Eve rover 2.0 landed just 3.2km from their base. Jeb and Bill checking out their new toy: Jeb seems to have found a flaw in the design.... For whatever reason when he is on it the controls are reversed so W is back S is forward A is right D is left... almost crashed it a few times getting used to it but its done.

Sent a simple rover to Eve for Jeb and Bill to explore with while they await me to finish building my rescue ship. Nuke engines got me all the way into eve orbit, at this point they did more harm than good so moved on to the landing stage, but didn't ditch them until they had me on course for the planet. Starting my descent into Eve, about to fire thrusters for breaking burn. I could of sworn I had one of my rover after it separated from the heat shields/aero break module but I cant find it. Due to placement of the chutes we had an issue where for me to keep the rover upright I had to be holding down W, it landed on its rear two wheels so you could say it hit the ground running... unfortunately my landing was a bit off target, fortunately the rover has a probe core so it can be driven to Jeb and Bill... just not right now because its a rather long drive... Also what I found noteworthy. While my lander was capable of 36 m/s on Kerbal it tops out at 26 m/s on Eve.

I use them on my satellites so I can change their orbits if need be, same goes for probes but ultimately they end up unused as I tend to leave it in the capable hands of the rockets that get them there. That said I did make an ion powered rover for minmus, was fun to drive but didn't go very fast.

What stats about it don't look good? Only down side to it that I see is its minimal thrust (it does have a slight heat problem but in space it seems to be ok). Best if used in vacuum. Once out of the atmo it has the best fuel efficiency around.

Interesting. I always liked the idea of an emergency power supply that could only be activated by you so that if a probe or something ran out of juice with its solar panels packed up I could hit the emergency stash to get me a bit of power to unpack the panels.

I've never noticed it wasting fuel, RCS yes but fuel? Generally it picks the most fuel efficient route.

I found a happy medium for me, I too found myself getting lazy and using mechjeb for everything. Now I use it more as a nav-computer than I do an auto pilot. I do all the flying myself (unless it is an unmanned ship for obvious reasons) and just use mechjeb to plot my course.

My current station (first attempt at building an entire station in VAB, and putting it in orbit in one launch) has 1 broken solar panel. Normally I don't retract them, they are far enough away from the docking ports that I don't need to but this one I clipped the panel on my approach somehow. Also this station has high power requirements and not very many batteries so I kinda have to leave at least 1 panel open. Fortunately this station orbits the sun rather than Kerbin so it is never actually on the dark side.

Nuke engine is liquid fuel, once you hit vacuum they become incredibly fuel efficient. They are a little under powered however.

Honestly, it has never bothered me. Then again about 99% of the time when I am using a flag I am using more as a nav beacon, as in I target it from orbit in my landings.

If it is wobbly add more struts, might not be pretty but it will help. (looks to me like it might be) That said I have a few thoughts. 1 You need an SAS module unless its tucked in there and I just cant see it. 2 Without copying your design and testing it I cannot say for sure but you look under powered once you drop the side rockets. 3 I was having a fuel concern but you may have enough to make orbit, I would however swap out your rocket in the middle for a nuke engine (not the first stage one the one right below the fins). 4. I have personally never had success with designs like this and instead go for more of a square design. In other words 2 more rockets on each side to balance thrust all the way around the rocket. 5) Its tall and skinny, its going to be hard to maneuver If you can work it out to put your (assuming station piece?) mounted sideways do it.

I prefer my rocket rover for disposing of unwanted kerbals. It is very similar in design to your solution though. I just use the small SRB same capsules and it has wheels (built in SPH).

I started my new Eve base... sorta. Things, as they tend to do when Eve is concerned went wrong. Personally I blame Jeb, he built the damned lander module! After a few test drops on Kerbin he decided instead of strutting everything together like we normally do he would just hop out of the command module and go down to the hitchhiker can before starting his descent. Sounds fair right? After all when the chutes fully deployed on kerbin everything else broke away from the can. This is why Jeb isn't allowed to have nice things. Although his ship did make it to Eve without a problem, and he did manage to do his little EVA, while landing the RCS tank failed to break away from the Hitchhiker can, shouldn't be a problem right? Its just a huge weight (nearly empty anyway) on top of the can. Except the landing struts no longer extended to the ground, not to mention Jeb had planned on lowering the struts after landing to put the can on the ground. Jeb was able to get out, but promptly fell on his head. Also since the lander was upside down, and eve having gravity and all he couldn't get back in the can (I wan't a rope ladder!) Not that it really matters because while Jeb remembered to move the solar panels to the can, he forgot to move the batteries so they blew up with the rest of the junk that broke away. Jebs unnecessarily long spacewalk to transfer from command module to can. With this Operation Rescue Jeb was launched. Step 1 was getting a new module to Jeb ASAP so he could get out of the sun. Bill having remembered that Jeb still owed him $5 from the last time they were on Mun together and went Bowling volunteered to go. After a few adjustments to the lander, namely struts between every section of it, additional chutes, and landing struts on both ends (new lander couldn't decide which end to land on in tests) he was ready to go. Bills descent into Eve, almost dead on target. And Touchdown! As it turns out however Bill isn't that much better at engineering than Jeb is, while he did do the smart thing in adding landing struts to both ends, he forgot to add a ladder going each way so again, no way down... What he lacks in engineering ability however he makes up for in ingenuity, he found a simple solution to get his lander on the ground. Solar panels even still worked! By the time Jeb finished his trek to the new module it was dark out. Not wanting to admit that his failed he decided to just not acknowledge its existence and plant the flag at the new one dubbing the site the "Jebs place" ... Bill wasn't amused. And that's what I did today.