Jimbimbibble

You want to pass behind it relative to its orbit and you want your orbit to be as eccentric as possible. Doing a burn at Pe during the gravity assist is also very effective.

I agree with the above. Build it in orbit. It doesn't make much sense to do this in 1 launch.

Why can't you just aero-brake? You could use 10% of the fuel and not require ridiculous thrust.

In ksp the aerodynamics model is very unrealistic, which is causing this to happen. Wings should be producing more lift when you're supersonic but that doesn't happen in ksp. If you're into planes I'd strongly recommend using Ferram Aerospace Research. It will make your planes fly more realistically (and harder to design well).

Because you have gravity and air friction losses there is no exact solution. It depends greatly on the ascent profile and the design of the ship. What I usually do is dump my stage while it still has a little fuel left because that's much easier than trying to adjust everything perfectly and it gives you a margin of error.

The first thing that I notice about this is that it's way bigger than it needs to be. You can get away with less than half the mass if you are more efficient with how you build, especially on the upper stages. You can reduce your TWR on any stage that is only going to be used in orbit and that will shrink the total launch mass a lot. Go with 1 nuke only for your interplanetary transfer. It will take a while but it's worth it. Also consider using a separate lander so you don't have to put the whole ship down. That will also have a huge effect on your launch mass. If you get the ship small enough a dozen struts will be enough to hold the whole thing together. Consider using Kerbal Engineer to see how much delta V you're getting from each stage. I hope that helps.

You need to take into account the density of the fuel because the equation you used gives you the mass flow rate, not volumetric flow rate. In KSP, the fuel (both components) has a density of 5kg/U. The mass flow rate you calculate includes both the fuel and oxidizer by the way. Thrust is given as kN in KSP so watch your units when you calculate. As an example calculation, your mass flow rate is dm/dt=F/Isp*g=1,500,000/(280*9.81)=546.1kg/s dV/dt=dm/dt /density=546.1/5=109.2U/s You said your rocket has 3600U of fuel, so the total volume of fuel and oxidizer is 3600*2/.9=8000U. So the burn time would be T=V/ dV/dt=8000/109.2=73.2s

If you really want to mess with things, try using HyperEdit.

The above posts will give you a good idea how much dV you need, but I have some advice that will help you fly more efficiently. The most efficient way to go interplanetary is to burn when you are as close as possible to the planet. Whether you're trying to go for escape or capture, get your Pe as close as possible without crashing or going in the atmosphere (unless you're doing an aerocapture of course). Also, do the whole burn at once. It's inefficient to burn for escape and then again to raise your sun Ap for the encounter. Mechjeb does a good job at transfers, so I'd suggest using it until you get the hang of it.

I think that you could get away with a lot less rocket. Consider using 1.25m parts because the only thing that really matters is your dry-mass to empty-mass ratio and specific impulse. You can get 12k dV with a fraction of the size and then you won't need to worry too much about holding it together. Also, use struts very carefully because they cost a lot of dV so you only want as much as is absolutely necessary.

One problem I see is that anything flying in the low atmosphere more than 2.3km away from the active vessel is immediately destroyed, so it would be largely impossible to recover your parts even if your design should be capable. You would need to do ssto to return the lower stages. Also, if you can just sell inventory for cash and use cash to buy whatever you want, what would be the point? I think that a cash budget accomplishes the goal well enough, but if the game can be changed to make recovery a viable option, I think recovery for cash is a great idea. Maybe the game could continue simulating any parts detached from the active vessel during that flight scene?

If you want to return to Kerbin with a single burn, the best way to do it is to burn prograde when you are on the "kerbin" side of the mun, about 25-30 degrees before the point in your orbit where you are closest to kerbin. This is assuming you're orbiting eastward in a circular orbit. You should leave the mun pointing away from the mun's orbit and you should be able to set your Pe wherever you want it (20-25km is a good target if you want to return and land). From minimus, do the same thing but instead burn pretty much at the closest point instead of before it (since minimus has less gravity). Also, if you want to do a true free-return trajectory, you have to encounter the mun and pass in front of it. Do this by aiming ahead of where you normally would on your transfer orbit, maybe have an angle of 110 degrees between you and the mun when you do your transfer burn.

I put 4 satellites in a 500km orbit and it seems to work just fine. As long as they have the same period it shouldn't matter if the orbits are perfect (as mentioned above). There are mods that give you exact read outs on this information, so I would get one of those and use that to fine-tune your satellites with an ion engine. I like using a medium orbit like 500km because you get good coverage without your period being too sensitive to adjust accurately.

To clarify the point made above, active vessel means whatever ship you are currently controlling. Since a dish can only point at one target at a time, you need dedicated dishes for each linkage you want to make. You would need at least 4 dishes per satellite (mission control, right and left com sats, active vessel) or 1 dish set to active vessel and an omni with enough range to connect with the neighbor satellites. Hope this helps.

Ahh, I see. I'll have to play around with the config files. However, taking into account the maximum angular acceleration of the ship and updating the set point to the point where the ship should stop is still something that I would recommend as a change. Also, when they implement tweakables, it would be nice to have gain as a tweakable to tailor SAS to each ship/aircraft without modding.

My experience with model helicopters has given me an idea for a revised SAS algorithm. Heading-hold heli gyros use a PID loop with proportional gain, derivative gain, and integral gain to maintain attitude very precisely. The proportional gain corresponds to angular velocity, derivative gain corresponds to angular acceleration, and integral gain corresponds to the angle between the set point and the current orientation. I'm not sure if the game currently implements a PID loop, but I can say from experience that PID loops can hold a small heli dead strait on a gusty day. One important variable to consider in the analysis is the maximum angular acceleration of the spacecraft because SAS needs to know how quickly the ship responds in order to make sure it doesn't under/over compensate. Also, it would be good if SAS updated the attitude set point to the point where the ship should stop rotation when the controls are centered. This would prevent SAS from backtracking when you don't want it to. I would also highly recommend having SAS gains as tweakables, with d-gain and I-gain being advanced options because they usually don't need to be adjusted much for a stable ship. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this perfectly, but here is what SAS could do if it were set up to operate with adjustable d-gain, p-gain, and I-gain, like a heli gyro does. *Ships and aircraft would no longer wobble back and forth when SAS is engaged because the p-gain could be tweaked to stop this. *Accurate heading-hold on aircraft. You won't have to constantly readjust your attitude to maintain level flight because the I-gain and d-gain would work together to do this. *No more backtracking. You won't have to fiddle around with the controls to make small course changes because SAS won't try to return you to your previous position when you don't want it to. *Improved atmospheric stabilization performance. D-gain will prevent you from being blown off course, even if wind is added to the game.

The Amazing Race 2.0 To complete this challenge, players will have to complete a series of tasks in any order. Only one launch is permitted. One launch is defined as a single vehicle departing from KSC, however you can use landers, escape pods, etc. as long as they remain attached to your launch vehicle until you get to orbit. Bob Kerman must be the only Kerbal aboard your spacecraft at launch. Fuel depots will be located in orbit around each destination and are equipped with at least one of every type of docking port. As this is not a competitive challenge, all mods are allowed, so use what you like. I would recommend using Ferram Aerospace Research and Deadly Reentry with stock parts (plus heat shields) for hard mode. To start this challenge, follow the link at the bottom of this post and download the persist file. The Tasks: Kerbin Dock with Kerbin Station Enfred has been fired and must be removed from the station, (Optional) return him to Kerbin alive Pick up Jeb Release the probe attached to the station by a decoupler if you wish to time yourself Mun Dock with Mun Station Pick up Bill Visit Santa's Workshop Return the HMS Virtue to orbit, (Optional) dock the HMS Virtue to Mun Station Minimus Visit the Kiddy Pool Deorbit the Minimus Fuel Depot Duna Plant a flag anywhere on one of Duna's icecaps Ike Drive the rover that is on the surface of Ike Dres Visit the Crack of Madness Visit the Cliffs of Eternal Sorrow Pol Drive the rover that is on the surface of Pol, (Optional) drive it off a cliff and destroy the rover Eelo Plant a flag on the surface of Eelo Deorbit the Eelo Fuel Depot (Optional) save the 3 Kerbals aboard the Eelo Fuel Depot Finish Return Bill, Bob, and Jeb to Kerbin alive (Optional) Land at KSC (Optional) Land on top of K2 https://www.dropbox.com/s/e3u3nd8sbbqxtlm/persistent.sfs

Great job with this mod! As a thermodynamics student, I have to say you got your numbers right, but there's one more thing you could do with waste heat. Your radiator temperature should govern your efficiency (it's your T low in the Carnot efficiency). Higher radiator temps could reduce efficiency, especially on the lower temperature reactors. Maybe the upgraded radiators could use a heat pump so the generator "feels" a lower temp that the radiator temp (increasing efficiency or allowing greater heat transfer without an efficiency loss.) This would make the radiators a bigger part of the game. What do you think?

Can you post a picture of your rover? It's hard to say without knowing what you're doing, but my guess is either you have overlapping parts or it's just a random Kraken attack and the only thing you can do is launch another rover. I had a problem with a rover where it would explode when it became decoupled from my descent package, but that happened immediately. The solution was to reverse the decoupled so it remained attached to my rover. I hope this helps.

Do I have to upgrade every single part I put on a spacecraft individually or is it supposed to keep track of what I upgraded and make it available to me from the VAB?

Redlibertyx, I had that problem. It fixed itself by going to the VAB and back.

Lowering your Pe will increase heat until a certain point, where it starts decreasing again. The deorbits I was using gave me a g load below redzone and i died from heat, whice is what we want. I haven't heard of a shield fix, but you're right about the 1.25 shield. I noticed that it has less drag. What node values should I use to fix it?

After reading some complaints about reentry being too easy, I've been thinking about how to make it harder. I've come up with a solution that works pretty well. Since the ablative shielding is so effective, just nerf your heat shields. If you change the ablative shielding on the mk 1-2 pod to 250, this is what you get. With Ap of 2500km: Pe 25+km=safe, Pe 20km=shield failure, pod is safe but you might lose parachutes, Pe 0km=death by fire. I'm using FAR, btw. The Mk 1 pod is harder to nerf because it slows down so fast (higher surface/volume ratio). I'll let y'all know if I find a good way to modify it without detracting from realism. As for space planes, I find that stock values are satisfactory.