petrichorAM

Lol that's put the image into my head of the scene in Serenity during the 'end battle' when the Reaver ship grapples the Alliance fighter and flings around like a shotput!

I was fiddling around on KSP last night and after a few tests I got an escape tower design to work the way I wanted. As I will now be using this on my next few mission programs I was just wondering, when you launch normally and nothing breaks what would be the minimum 'safe' altitude to decouple the tower when it's no longer required?

Well I downloaded the B9 mod (plus Mk3 Fuselage Expansion Pacl and H.O.M.E for other projects) and had a go fiddling around with a design and this is how it turned out. Pretty much what I intended and is built with docking ports in certain areas so it can be built in orbit in 3 sections - cockpit section, hab/science section (including the girder with 2x gigantors and 4x RTGs and the first grey/yellow RCS tank) and engine section. Obviously its not fully finished as I need to add a few minor parts to it such as RCS thrusters, a docking port for station docking, docking ports on the 'bottom' for two landers but all in all this is what I pictured in my head. My next question is: are the fuel tanks enough for transfer to Duna, retrograde into Duna orbit and then return home again or should I add more?

OMFGBBQ! Good sir, that is incredible!

Not today but a couple of shots from my recent accomplishments. Bob Kerman became the third Kerbal to walk on the Mun during the Aquarius IV mission, though he reported back he didn't like it and wants his mummy Kerbal (smile is fake and for the camera): Finally launched Kerberos III and IIIA and succesfully completed my first orbital rendezvous and docking maneouvres trial:

I'm not planning a spaceplane, more a 'realisic' looking ship that I'll build in orbit, design is inspired by the ship from the Mission to Mars film - just trying to make it work visually, maybe I'll give the B9 pack a go and see if there's anything suitable in there

I've been playing around with parts in the VAB to fiddle around with a design for a future long term Duna mission and noticed that when using the Mk3 parts (cockpit and fuselage) the connector nodes are not central to the parts so unless you use the Mk3 to Mk2 part anything added is offset. Is there a way to correct this with a mod?

Assign all your legs to an action group (one of the three blue tabs to the left of the craft name in the VAB) and when you press the corresponding number key (number keys along the top on the keyboard not the number pad) then all the legs should lower together Edit: gah! Ninja'd!

What's even more amazing is that everything was calculated and run using a computer with less power than a basic smartphone!

Practice, practice, practice! A lot of KSP is trial and error, an awful lot of trial and error to be exact so patience is your best friend. Saying that if you're truly stuck I'd personally recommend a trip to YouTube and watch the tutorial videos people have created, my two top picks are Pebblegarden and Scott Manley.

Also make sure your landing legs aren't too high up your lander otherwise you'll be coming down on your engine nozzle

Finally completed my first manned (kerbaled?) Mun landing! Bill Kerman deftly set Aquarius II down on the Mun despite a potential crater-forming design flaw on my part. Landing legs appeared to be slightly too short on descent but thankfully they must've been longer than the rocket nozzle by millimetres as nothing broke! Next its time to bring him home (for which I have plenty of fuel thankfully!). I'm a bit annoyed though as I took what I thought were some nice pics but they haven't saved for some reason

I use KAS, Crew Mainfest & Procedural Fairings to add the minor things missing from vanilla KSP that I personally want to use. Other than that I'm stock as I want the challenge and fun of the vanilla game without something like MechJeb doing everything for me. I want to work out my own interplanetary transfers so when it goes wrong I'll go back to the drawing board and fix it and when it goes right I can feel some pride in the fact I've accomplished something on my own merit. I do understand and respect the choice of people who want to play KSP with mods coming out of it's ears, I'm just not one of them.

On the subject of G turns I've always performed mine to the east (this was how I learnt it from tutorial videos) - do you HAVE to turn east or could you perform the turn to the west, north or south and suffer no detrimental effects (other than your orbit path being different)?

Just started the Aquarius Project, the first manned (Kerbaled?) missions to the Mun. Aquarius I crewed by Bob Kerman is currently about 370K above the Mun preparing to retrograde into an stable orbit for a few fly-bys before coming home again (I'll post pics tonight when I'm home and on KSP). Following this Jeb will be launched with Aquarius II to actually land on the Mun (previously landed a probe in preparation) so I'm trying to convince myself that I can do it without smearing him across the surface!