mhoram

Welcome to the forums! Here are a few things I noticed: - reduce the thrust of the twin boars so that in your stages 9 and 8 the TWR is around 1.5: This will help you to not exceed terminal velocity and reduce the drag you experience. - add nosecones on top of the twin boars: For better aerodynamics - I count in your ship 5 engine stages and not 3 ( 1. start 4 twin boars 2. drop 3 twin boars 3. drop 1 twin boar and start 4 LV-T45 4. drop 3 LV-T45 5. drop 1 LV-T45 and start the LV-909 ) - your stages #2 & #3 could be merged into a single one - your stages #5-#7 could be merged into a single one - you could try, if a poodle instead of the LV-T45 in the centerstack behaves better. - for maximal effect of the wings, put them as far down as possible Regarding your ascent, method 2 is usually the best. It costs in the neighbourhood of 3200-3500 m/s of DV to reach orbit. According to the MJ-readout, you shold reach orbit shortly before dumping the three LV-T45 side boosters, which also fits with the description in your second option, so your ascent looks fine. One thing you could try is: 1. Do your usual launch until your apoapsis is near 75-80km 2. Then stop the engines and coast out of the atmosphere 3. Do a circularization burn at your apoapsis

I hope these in-game pictures help to distinguish between Oberth effect and Gravity assist: Utilizing the Oberth effect by burning in low Kerbin Orbit. A gravity assist on your current orbit (blue) by the help of the Mun (brown) with a resulting orbit (purple). The gravity assist has the effect that the blue and purple orbits are different without spending any fuel. Utilizing a gravity assist in an efficient manner means to plan the brown gravity assist in such a way that the purple orbit leads to a certain target. A powered gravity assist. The gravity assist by the Mun (brown) is enhanced by an Oberth-effect-utilizing maneuver at Mun-Periapsis to bring you on the dotted path that leads out of Kerbins SOI.

@SpaceWeaver: Welcome to the forum! Great first entry and I am happy to have provided a challenge of your liking. Added you to the leaderboard. Yes these consistency problems arise - you are not the first one who has them. ;-)

I updated the chart for V1.0.4 - Adjusted Kerbin Launch to LKO - Adjusted atmosphere altitudes for Eve, Duna and Jool - Retested Jool values (they still fit) - Changed comparison table to WAC's ÃŽâ€V-map

I also thought about the problem of calculating the ideal ascent profile. Before 1.0 it was relatively easy: - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/46194 - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58531 However currently I see no way to do this again, because of the generated drag. Drag became a much more complex calculation that now depends on - Form of the rocket - Angle of attack - Supersonic drag I can not see, how exporting these things to an external program could be done.

@Padishar: 62km is coming closer ;-) Grats! Consistency was also a problem I encountered. Made it difficult to improve on the results. @Nao: I seem to have gotten better results without timewarp, but this might just be a subjective observation.

Here are two posts that try to explain how both work: Oberth Effect Gravity Assist

Dont bother with that one. It is impossible. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Jool

Here is the first kOS-entry: 61137m SET THR TO LIST( 1, // 0 1, // 1 1, // 2 1, // 3 1, // 4 1, // 5 1, // 6 0.34, // 7 0.33, // 8 0.32, // 9 0.31, // 10 0.30, // 11 0.29, // 12 1.00, // 13 0.93, // 14 0.89, // 15 0.83, // 16 0.79, // 17 0.73, // 18 0.69, // 19 0.63, // 20 0.59, // 21 0.53, // 22 0.49, // 23 0.43, // 24 0.39, // 25 0.33, // 26 0.29, // 27 1, // 28 1, // 29 1, // 30 1, // 31 1, // 32 1, // 33 1, // 34 1, // 35 1, // 36 1, // 37 1, // 38 1, // 39 1, // 40 1, // 41 1, // 42 1, // 43 1, // 44 1, // 45 1, // 46 1, // 47 1, // 48 1, // 49 1, // 50 0). LOCK THROTTLE TO 1. // 1.0 is the max, 0.0 is idle. LOCK STEERING TO HEADING(90,88.125). WAIT 1. // give throttle time to adjust. PRINT "Launch.". STAGE. // same as hitting the spacebar. declare i to 0. UNTIL STAGE:LIQUIDFUEL < 0.001 { print i. LOCK THROTTLE TO THR[i]. set i to i + 1. wait 1. } PRINT "Fuel Depleted @ ". PRINT i. declare maxalt is 0. until maxalt > SHIP:ALTITUDE { lock steering to SHIP:SRFPROGRADE. set maxalt to SHIP:ALTITUDE. wait 0.1. } log maxalt to alt.txt. log i to alt.txt. PRINT maxalt. print "Ending".

@Padishar Another one who surpasses 61km. Great entry! For people who want to use MechJeb, kOS or Telemachus I added a ModuleManager config file in the OP.

@Nao: We have a new record! Thanks for participating and your detailled flightplan! I also updated the OP to mention the physics.cfg issue.

This is not quite correct. You are talking about a gravity assist by the Mun. This gravity assist (with a retrograde-Mun-Orbit) has the effect that after leaving Mun's SOI, your orbit around Kerbin has usually less energy compared with before you entered Mun's SOI. In order to get into an orbit around the Mun, it does not matter if you get into a retrograde or an prograde orbit around the Mun. Both variants costs an equal amount of fuel. One difference is that for landing on the Mun, you will need less dV if you are in a prograde orbit because of the rotation of the Mun. The reason why the Apollo mission used a retrograde orbit, is explained here: http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=251198&postcount=2

When you focus the view on the other body you can see two markers on the new orbit: - a Pe (Periapsis) - a circle denoting where you leave the SOI of the other body. So you travel in the direction Pe -> SOI-Exit. From this you can easily see if the orbit is clockwise or anti-clockwise.

@ SkyRender: Thanks for the list. Lets compare it with the next entrant that has the same problem. I have KER and KAC installed on a 32bit KSP-Windows version and don't have these problems. Feel free to submit a new entry with a clean install.

Thanks for providing the physic-numbers. I just doublechecked with a clean install without addons that the numbers you specified are NOT stock-defaults. So most likely you have installed an addon that tweaks these numbers. Sorry, but this means that I can not accept your entry for the leaderboard. May I ask you which addons you have installed, so that we can figure out which addon causes this trouble? Edit: Have a look at this thread for possible problems and where a correct physics.cfg is available: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92231-The-Linux-Thread!?p=1380984#linuxthread03

I would like to encourage you to learn about the hohmann transfer. This is the most fuel efficient way to reach the target orbit (for simple cases like this one). This basically means that your transfer orbit (the brown dotted line) has its Periapsis touching your current orbit (the blue one) and its Apoapsis touches the target orbit (the yellow one). So I recommend that you reduce the burn amount of the maneuver node until it's Apoapsis touches the yellow orbit. This also means that the red markers are much further away from each other. To correct this, adjust the position of the maneuver node to a later point on your current orbit, until the red markers are now closer to each other. You might have to repeat this step until the red markers are close enough to each other. Welcome to the forum!

@Kaboom!: Added your entry to the leaderboard. Thanks!

@littlebuddy0: thanks for your submission. Added it to the leaderboard

From how I understand gravity assists, it is the following: - Using a type "A" gravity assist typically increases your orbital energy when you travel prograde - Using a type "B" gravity assist typically lowers your orbital energy when you travel prograde Since you travel retrograde, it becomes difficult to say, if A or B are better. Try plotting nodes and see which one boosts your orbit more. The biggest problem I see is timing. Using http://ksp.olex.biz/ you can get an estimation where Ike should be while you are within it's SOI (ejection angle ~ 96°) Since you travel retrograde this can not be applied! Then you time your low-Duna-Burn so that you reach Ike while it is at the stated angle - and try to plan the burn so that after the SOI transitions Duna->Ike->Duna->Kerbol you reach Kerbin. The amount of dV for the low-Duna-burn you have to find by experimenting with the maneuver node. Optinally a correction-burn at Periapsis while within Ike's SOI might be necessary. Depending on the orbit after leaving Ike's SOI, it might be necessary to adjust the location where you meet Ike on it's orbit: your periapsis (around Duna) should be at the ejection angle and it's altitude should match the parking orbit altitude. Never tried such a maneuver before however - seems like a lot of detail-work is needed to make this work.

Gratulations on the new record! 62km is now really the new goal. I also believe that MechJeb or kOS would help with throttle control. And it seems like I misunderstood your comment about the Attic. Handling thrust with the mouse wheel is an interesting idea. Perhaps Malah would extend his list of quick mods with one that maps modifier-key+Mousewheel to throttle control in flight- and map-view.

Great. Exactly what I was looking for! Thanks, I did not find that one.

A while back I used Part Catalog. It had a simple feature that greatly enhanced my VAB-experience, because it allowed me to utilize my mouse scroll wheel when browsing the parts in the VAB/SPH to switch to other part-pages. So I wanted to ask, if there is currently an addon availabe that does just that? Or if there is someone out there who wants to reimplement this feature. I was able to track the functionality down to this source-code file: https://github.com/BlackNecro/PartCatalog/blob/master/Source/GUIEditorControls.cs The functionality was basically that while the mouse was in the red marked region, I was able to switch to the other part-pages by using the mouse wheel, instead of clicking on the "next page" button:

You are right, it might be interpreded in a wrong way. Altered the title.

Gratulations on that altitude! Thanks for FAR-testing - seems like the ship is of no good use. And I nearly missed your entry, since I do not get notified when posts are edited. Next time I suggest that you simply write a new post with your entry. Since the readout from the altimeter can be smaller than the f3-screen, I will subtract 10m from your result and accept it as such - otherwise feel free to launch again. Thanks for your submission. No worries - I added a badge. Now you just have to participate Yes it is a problem, since I can not verify your claim. Have not tested dropbox as image-hoster so far. Here is a FAQ on how to embed images: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48073-Forum-FAQ-%E2%80%93-Answers-for-New-Users?p=637095#post637095 And welcome to the forum!

For what? If you provide screenshots, I will gladly include your submisssions to the leaderboard, but thanks for the info of your reached altitude. Don't know ... you tell me. From the other entries it seems like the maximal reachable altitude is around 60km, but if you were able to push this to over 70km it would be a huge step. Please provide more info on how you handled the throttle during the ascent, so that it can be reproduced. Do you have any physics or part changing addons installed?