Dave Kerbin

When you get close to it you first need to zero out your velocity. Because there is no friction in space the burn you make in the direction of the station is only adding to your velocity, not overriding it. So when you get to around 4km or less do this: 1. Make sure you have the station as your target. At 4km you should see the orbit speed above the navball be replaced with a relative velocity. 2. Point your ship at the retrograde marker and burn until the relative velocity is about 0m/s (as soon as you stop burning it will start building up speed because your orbit is different so don't worry about getting from 0.1m/s to 0.0m/s) 3. Point your ship at the target prograde marker and burn until you have some velocity. At a range of 4km I would suggest getting up to about 10m/s. 4. Check the map again. You'll see a new rendezvous plotted a few minutes away, probably around 0.5km depending on how accurate your burn in step 3 was. 5. When you get to the next rendezvous do the steps again, only with a smaller burn in step 3. When you get under 200m you should start using RCS for your burns. As you get used to this you'll start to understand how your velocity and direction are affected by burns. You'll make fewer burns and be able to take shortcuts like accurately changing your velocity vector without zero-ing out first. If you master it you'll be able to dock without RCS at all.

This is probably the smallest feature request ever, but could the 'flights in progress' total on the load screen not include flags in that number, in the same way it excludes debris? In a similar vein I wonder if there would be a good way to modify the tracking station so that flags are not by default shown in the list on the left. That's a bit harder, since I assume a lot of people still want to see the flags on the map. Could flags be on some kind of seperate tab or be sorted to the bottom with a seperator, so that they are still visible by default but not cluttering up the list of active space craft?

Are you sure? I got the impression the craft position (and so altimeter reading) was the center of mass. Based on that I assumed that adding a tank would add half its height to the altitude reading (the OKTO2 having neglible mass), since the reading would be at the center of the tank. These where my altimeter readings for 1 to 4 tanks: 76m 83m 91m 98m The last number was not always centered in the spinning readout, so I assume there are some decimal places that just can't be seen. The difference seems to be 7m so I assumed the height at 14m.

What are the dimensions of some common parts like the jumbo 64 orange tank? There is a page with the radial sizes but it lists both a 'meter scale' and a 'real' size, I'm not sure which one is the in game measurement. I also tried to do some measurements using the altitude meter and some math and came up with a height of 14m, I have no idea if that number is right or if I messed that up.

Yes, very easily unless you are docking very big ships. How fast you can dock depends on a few things: The alignment of the docking ports and how close the velocity vector is to the docking ports normal. The mass of the vessels involved. The position of the ships docking ports in relation to the center of mass.

Same here. The start/stop is hotkey'd to CTRL+F1 specifically to match KSP.

For super light craft you don't need RCS, a properly done approach (which isn't hard once you learn the basics of zero out velocity, short burn toward target, recheck map for intercept time and distance and then repeat) will get you close enough that you can just sort of tilt one craft toward the other as they approach and the magnets will pull them together. I find it's actually easier and gets done much faster then regular docking. This is from an dry run while orbit Kerbin, it's in slow motion so you can get a better idea what's happening. I approach but the ships are not aligned - if I kept going the docking ports wouldn't have even touched. What I did was tilt the craft up and to the right (the center of mass is close to the back) which swung out the docking port so it would reach the other one. The angles where way off, but the magnets solve that. I've done this maneuver many times now and it seems for these light weight craft that you really only need to get the docking ports within 2m of each other at practically any angle and there will be enough magnetic force to do everything else.

4 aerospikes might pose a problem unless they get burned off before 10km. Unless you've got a lot of torque or control surfaces I found it was very difficult to turn east with side mounted aerospikes - once you go too off center they want to keep dragging you off center with more force then the center rockets gimble and the pods reaction wheel can counter.

I finished the trip. I landed on another hill, not as steep as the first one. Docking was touch and go - the orbiter doesn't have enough batteries to run the entire time it is behind the Mun and I was down to about 3 power when it got near the lander on the dark side. I didn't have time for zero-ing out my velocity so I eye balled a few burns that sent me as straight as I could toward the lander going a bit faster then usual (about 3m/s). Then I quickly switched to the lander and eyeballed the alignment as best I could in the dark. Fortunately the extreme light weight means that I really just need to get the docking ports about 2m away from each other at any angle and they have enough force to pull the ships together. Final fuel left on Kerbin aerobraking approach was about 30 which I used to hasten my landing (instead of going around a few times, though I didn't burn it very efficiently). Splashed down about 150km east of KSP by my reckoning just as the sun was setting. Splash down all but guaranteed that one of the two engines would be damaged (with fuel removed always the big engine on the orbital module) but it is the second safest type of landing. On flat ground it can set down on its legs, on rough terrain it risks falling over and in mountains the pod is at at high risk of destruction from rolling. Final weight was: Launchpad: 34.32t Landing: 1.64t (deliberately burned all fuel)

I did most of the flight yesterday, landing on the Mun and coming back up, but during the orbital docking I switched back to the lander and found the space Kraken had torn it apart. I had a single save from initial Mun orbit so I'll need to pickup from there again. Maybe on a second try I'll get a better landing - I landed using the cockpit view and when I switched cameras I found I was on a gentle hill and very slowly sliding down it. I had to wait patently for it to stop before I could get out and plant the flag. It also made me a bit worried about getting back in - with no ladder my Kerman needs to jump or jet up about 2 feet to reach the ladder, and in past tests he has hit the craft with enough force to make it wobble. The lander was on the hill with the hatch on the higher side, so hitting the hatch hard risked tipping it over. My flight leaves no debris either - the booster gets dropped a bit before stable orbit is reached and the rest of the craft comes back to Kerbin. When I'm done I'll probably try something along tavert's idea. I originally got on the idea of a light Mun mission after I did a very light orbital mission with some lander legs and realized I had a huge amount of delta V, so I took a detour to the Mun and landed (just not enough fuel to get back). That orbital craft was very similar to what tavert described (it was the MK1 pod, a T400 fuel tank, LV-909 engine, probe legs, and a 2x3 solar panel and retractable ladder).

This is important, you don't need to lift up full tanks. You can build a fueling ship to bring up fuel incrementally, you'll need this to top off the stations supply anyway. Consider using the Skylab concept - carrying the tanks from your booster stage up. I don't really have a screenshot of my smaller, single tank modification that I used to setup my first station but here is a different one I did later. A 4 tank 'station' in orbit raised on a ship that didn't need much else.

I don't use jump seats and try to avoid stuff that seems especially unrealistic within the scope of the game's current physics (I don't like making those really wide rockets and pretend there is a shroud on the top of my launcher).

It is asparagus staging as I understand it. At the bottom you can make out that I have 2 pairs of side boosters. You can't see the fuel lines from this angle but they are linked up so that fuel draws from the tanks on the aerospike rockets first, then those get dropped and it draws fuel from the LV-909 tanks before those get dropped and it finally draws from the center tank. During this time all 5 engines are lit (then 3 then 1). I got this into orbit with fuel to spare, based on the fuel used for the previous orbit to Mun trip with the same upper stage.

I've been working on a low mass mission to the Mun and I'm wondering if my launch weight goals are within reason. Parameters: 1 Kerbal to the surface of the Mun and back to Kerbin safely Single launch, Kerman must be inside a pod except for any EVA transfers (no jump seats!) Stock, no mods I went through some orbiter/lander designs until I reached about the 5th revision. Then I worked on some booster designs and got 25t, but that wasn't enough to get into orbit with enough fuel for the mission. From there a test set resulted in a new booster with enough power to get into orbit and have fuel for the mission (34t). However it was not quite enough fuel (to the Mun but not back). So for revision 10 I added an extra T200 tank to the orbiter and to make sure it got up I added some solid boosters. I was able to successfully complete the mission but it weighed 47t. So I've stripped off the solid boosters and went back to revision 9s booster with revision 10s orbiter. An orbital only mission seems to show that it has enough fuel left for the Mun journey and it weighs in at 34.5t on the pad. Is 35 tonnes a reasonable weight for a Mun mission or am I still throwing too much weight at it?

This was for the original scoring. I did up a ship last night but since I haven't mastered ascending (I still do a lot of brute force correction at AP) I couldn't get it into a stable orbit. This ship helped me understand a bit more about how to pilot into orbit economically. I finally made a successful orbit this morning (after many PE 68km) when I figured out I should let my AP go higher then 70km, then after my altitude got to 70km I should just coast to almost the AP before continuing the burn. I did it one more time so that I could shut down the engines a second sooner (I needed to reduce fuel use by just 10kg) to meet my 50% of mass to orbit goal. Final orbit is PE:72km AP:135km, launch mass was 17.24t vs orbit mass of 8.68t with one Kerman piloting. 8.68 / 17.24 = 0.5035, 0.5035 * 1000 + 1 / 10 = 503.6 (old scoring, stock parts, no mods, no mechjeb/engineer) http://s8.postimg.org/rn16mgkxh/Orbit.jpg Final orbit Warming up to launch First stage engines, straight up to 16km while burning 250kg of mass Second stage engine, need the torque from the pod to keep it straight since there is no thrust vectoring

In the demo kerbal life was cheap because there wasn't many other options. I my full version main game I don't build escape towers, but I do rigorously test my manned spaceships on remote control before a Kerbal ever steps foot in them. Getting kerbals into orbit is exclusively the domain of my 'fool proof' crew transporter which is over engineered in fuel and lift capacity rather then relying on complex staging or pilot (it has enough fuel to get into orbit flying straight up with the booster and then circularising with the service module). The closest I've come to losing a kerbal in my current campaign was during my Mun landing. I had a station with a fueled up crew transporter and crew, and I sent up an aux fuel tank and Mun lander module to dock with it (design here). While the orbiter had plenty of extra fuel (I later sent the same ship configuration for an easy Minmus mission) the lander was really tight since this was really the first time it was being used. I used about 49% of the fuel for the landing, and that from a 5km orbit. I should have had just enough delta V but I screwed up the ascent - the only other Mun return I'd done was with a single stage system so I didn't think twice before just burning straight up for a few seconds until I felt I was clear of the surface. However by then I'd used 12L of my remaining 28L of fuel and sent Bob on a course then went way above 5km with no hope of making a stable orbit on the remaining fuel. I had no intention of leaving Bob in a little can to wait for a rescue mission to be planned and sent from Kerbin so I did the only sensible thing, I applied a course correction to get the lander in line with the orbiter as it fell back to the Mun, waited till they where close and then burned all the remaining fuel to get the velocities as close as possible before Bob jumped out and eye-balled a final orbit with his jetpack (he managed to get an orbit with a PE of 4.5km). Over in the orbiter Lodfel Kerman, knowing that his own fuel situation could be in trouble (it turned out he had lots) managed to do an intercept almost entirely using RCS and getting the orbiter 40m from Bob at nearly zero relative velocity. Bob jetted over and boarded the orbiter even as the lander had crashed back into the Mun a few minutes earlier.

It may not be the most efficient way of doing it, but I like docking stuff and I sent up this 'kit' into a 150km orbit where it was assembled into a structure composed of 3 orange tanks connected to a center tank. All have regular docking ports on the sides (all 4 tanks are identical) and senior docking ports on the ends. There is a temporary station keeping core on one end (the one with the solar panels) and a set of assembly drones randomly parked on 4 of the docking ports. Do you think this would be structurally sound enough to use as the basis for an interplanetary ship (I'd send up nuclear engines, solar panels, crew modules and some kind of detachable lander), or is it only of use as a stationary fuel depot / space station? I don't intend to ever use it in an atmosphere, going up it needed structs to prevent those senior docking port joints from buckling under the strain of the main sail engines.

There is something in the VAB I'm having trouble with. I have no trouble attaching a radial part to something like a fuel tank, for example attaching a radial docking port to the side of an orange tank. I also don't have any trouble correctly attaching a matching radial docking port to the first one (with the correct side attached). However I can't seem to find any way to attach another orange tank to that - I basically want 2 orange tanks linked together by radial docking ports. I've tried clicking and moving the orange tank onto the already assembled docking port pair and I've tried linking an orange tank with docking port to another orange tank with a docking port, both by dragging the orange tank and dragging the docking port. I've tried rotating but the tank always wants to fly around and attach somewhere else as soon as I bring it near the docking port. Is there a trick to make this happen?

I want to develop a fuel depot in Munar orbit for future interplanetary trips. Is there any benefit to building it in low Kerbin orbit first, then using station thrusters to fly it to the Mun?

Thanks. My battery was at the very top of the orbiters service module (just below the dummy payload) and didn't suffer any problems. I'll try moving the SAS up there. Then I'll try to fix the orbiter modules problem of not packing enough thrust to stabilize the orbit in time to prevent it from becoming a not orbit.

I'm designing a heavy lift rocket, and after getting a preliminary design worked out (one that didn't explode on the pad or wobble and then explode) I encountered a problem during testing. I took the booster stage straight up and things seemed to go well with a smooth if noisy trip. As the booster stage was almost out of fuel the whole thing suddenly exploded. After rerunning the launch I found the cause: as the booster+orbiter reached about 950m/s the "Advanced S.A.S Module, Large" in the orbiter suddenly compressed or blew up, resulting in most of the orbiter 'falling' into the still accelerating booster stage and causing a massive explosion about half a second later. I reran the launch with the SAS removed and it didn't explode, though the orbiter was a whale to turn without it. Are certain components more delicate then others when it comes to compressive forces?

Updated the lander with an extra fuel tank and battery. With 3 tons of unused lift capacity I also updated the overall module to include a drop tank to extend the delta V of the orbiter by about 300 (the drop tank stays with the ship, it doesn't go down with the lander. When the lander returns the empty drop tank and the lander get left behind once my Kerbal transfers over).

I've already got a station in orbit with lots of fuel and a pair of my crew orbit modules attached with 3 crew members on the station. I've been playing conservative with rocket sizes - no monster rockets, no dead Kerbals - and I'm trying to get the most mileage out of my tested and proven design for a launch vehicle, rather then strapping on boosters and hoping for the best. My plan to go to the Mun involves sending up a lander craft and parking it near the station. I'll then fuel up one of my crew modules, transfer 2 kerbals into it and dock it with the lander before setting off for the Mun. The orbiter would get us to the Mun, orbit it and return to Kerbin. The lander would be responsible for sending one of the Kerbals down to plant the flag and bringing him back up to dock with the mothership. For reference the tested crwe vehicle is shown here attached to the station (there are 2). It weighs 17.86 tons fully loaded and carries 8 tons of fuel in its Rockomax X200-16 tank. With its Poodle engine I believe the delta V is 2270 m/s if I've understood the math correctly (390 * 9.8 * ln(17.86/9.86)) and this seems to jive with what I've achieved with it as an orbital vehicle. With the 1.001 ton lander attached the delta V would be 2109 if I use the same math. This is my lander. It is very minimal (perhaps too much?) and can only be flown by a Kerman. With all the remote testing done up to this point my Kerbals don't want the first Mun landing to be done by a machine. It is currently upside down on the vehicle that will deliver it to orbit, where it will undock and be docked to one of the fueled up crew modules. With the Rockomax 48-7S engine and Toroidal Fuel Tank I figure it has a delta V of 403 (350 isp, 1.01 ton craft, 0.111 tons of fuel). According to this map it seems that while my crew module would work, if I read it correctly I need something like three times the delta V if I want my lander to actually land and then return to orbit. Am I doing these calculations right? Any advice for my lander (it can't be more then about 4 tons without needing a new launch vehicle, and even at that a heavier lander might endanger the crew modules journey) Edit: I should note that I don't use MechJeb or any mods, so I'll need some wiggle room to account for only human piloting.

I think the purpose of the stock craft is to give new players an example of what they can build and the rough shape a craft might be expected to take - this means showing things like how staging is setup or that aircraft probably need an air intake in addition to a jet engine. Just enough of the basics so that a player isn't frustrated and unable to even get something off the pad because they don't know the basics. With that in mind I don't think there should be 20-30 stock craft. In fact I think there may already be too many stock craft in the SPH (I think Spartwo might be in agreement with me on that). VAB should probably have a stock rocket that shows off a basic 2 stage launch to send a sputnik satellite into orbit, and another stock craft showing off a manned lander design but without the rocket to launch it (You don't want to complete the players first few accomplishments for them, just get them enough to start).

At the point and time that decals are added to the VAB, would it also be possible to have a special decal that gets filled in when you go to the launch pad with an automatically incrementing number. This way if you launch two or more copies of the same craft you'll be able to tell them apart visually by the serial number printed on the side. Taking the feature a bit farther in the place where normal decals would have a menu in the VAB for selecting the image, the serial number decal could let you choose the color of the text and choose an optional letter postfix (A-Z). This way if you have a craft with two pieces, like an Apollo mission, you can put decals on both parts and add the letter postfix to tell them apart. So on the Apollo mission the orbiter is 012A and the lander is 012B. If I launch another Apollo craft it automatically gets the decals 013A and 013B.