xtoro

You mean YOU are begging for rep....

Yes, as long as one of the capsules or probes are present for the required events, docking and undocking makes no difference.

MechJeb has an option in the maneuver planner called "return from a moon" which will plot it for you. But if you want to do it manually, you need to setup a node which will let you escape the moon's SOI in the opposite direction of the moon's travel. If your orbit is counter-clock wise around the moon, setup a prograde burn closest to Kerbin. If your orbit is clockwise, then setup a prograde burn furthest from Kerbin.

Ok, lets put it this way because this works in my head... Gravity Assist: Entering AND exiting a body's SOI without ever orbiting it in order to modify your trajectory and reach a different body. The closer your PE is to the body as you flyby, the more the body will affect your trajectory/speed. Oberth Effect: IN ORBIT around a body and using its gravity to aid in your acceleration with the goal of raising your AP for cheap, or escaping that body's SOI. The bigger the difference between your AP and PE, the more you will benefit from this effect

In stock, you can do it. To clarify minimal attitude control: place single Vernor engines, or the single place-anywhere RCS thrusters centered with your CoM on all 6 sides and they will only be used for translation because they will not rotate your ship, so KSP won't use them for that. He also asked for mods that do this which is why I suggested MechJeb.

Gravity assist is a tricky terminology and I wish it had its own name to make it clearer. But I do agree with Red that they are not the same thing... I explained it in the post above yours (may have been ninja'd)

Oh I know, was just joking, I'm sure he didn't mean it that way. The easiest way to explain, I think, is that you can't leave a body's SOI and use its parent's body for a gravity assist. Same as you can't use the Sun (Kerbol) for a gravity assist unless you're outside that sun's SOI to begin with. Those cases would be considered the Oberth Effect.

Depends how he's using the term. Doing the action of a gravity assist is not possible, but using Kerbin's gravity to assist you in accomplishing the Oberth Effect is correct

If your plan is to refuel before leaving Kerbin's SOI, Minmus is best. Yes you need to correct inclination on the way, sometimes, but if you compare having a mining facility on the Mun to Minmus, you'll spend more dv launching from the Mun than from Minmus+inclination change.

MechJeb's SmartRCS option can disable using RCS for rotation, so only reaction wheels will turn you. But it will still use RCS for translating which is a great way to save monoprol/fuel for docking.

Your Kerbals are just venting the urine tanks. It's completely normal

Why not install a new copy of 1.x and try yourself? If you're on steam, copy the game folder somewhere else then upgrade so you still have the old version.

I was exporting as .mu with Blender using a plugin. The model loads, but it's all white and untextured. Just need to get the texture to work. Installed unity and the plugin last night. Played a bit but still have to work on it.

Don't get me wrong, not looking for realism, just asking how people balance engine thrust for engines based on real life engines...

I'll check it out when I get home, YouTube blocked at work Thanks!

So Unity is a requirement then? I thought you could model using only Blender no?

So I've read many tutorials and many are outdated. But I've created a model in Blender, textured it and exported as .mu file. It loads into the game, but without textures. I tried converting the textures to dss, that didn't work. Renamed them to model000.dss, that didn't work. Second problem is that although I have a collider mesh (node_collider), there are no collisions. And I can place the part and attach it, but once attached, I can't grab it again in the VAB. Is using Unity a MUST to make models or can it still be done using only Blender? Am i better off using Unity only? I'm lost Thanks!

TWR!! That's genius! Then the kN's don't really matter as long as the twr is right. THANK YOU so much! As for the isp, that's something I'll have to play around with I guess. Now if I can only get my model to come out properly and with a texture.... The old modeling guides aren't helping much with using Blender...

Thanks! I'll try fiddling with those numbers. That doesn't help with stock KSP now does it?

Pulling works much better with a free pivot. Changing directions is completely different and presents similar problems as pushing when the asteroid starts spinning, but if done slowly it can be easily done. If my memory serves me, I also disabled engine gimbal since they were at the front and directions were inversed. Not sure if this is still an issue for the latest versions of KSP... But reactions wheels and thrusters work great.

What's the guideline for this? I know everything in KSP is scaled down, but what about thrust? If a certain engine in real life produces X thrust, would it produce the same in the game or is there some common conversion done here? Or, is it just do what you want as long as it's not too OP?

Tip: Pull, don't push. I've managed to tug several roids with success. Use a long girder with claw on the end, and engines on the other end angled slightly outwards radially but towards the claw end. Leave the pivot free and slowly ramp up the engines. The asteroid will swing around a bit but eventually come to a rest with its CoM directly behind you. Keep ramping up the throttle slowly till you're at 100%.

Great mod!! Now I don't have to wait for flame outs and then shut off all the engines, I can just let them go out and not worry

MechJeb does a decent job of predicting your orbit after aerobraking. Go into map view and open the Landing Guidance window. Then click on "show landing prediction" and "show aerobraking nodes". Then maneuver your orbital path until it starts dipping into the atmosphere. You'll see a maneuver node pop up, and at one point as you lower your path, it'll become an orbit, and the M/S shown for the maneuver node is how much dV you'll bleed off from the braking. It's just a guestimate and not 100% accurate but it's close enough.

Aerobraking on both Eve and Jool are still entirely possible, and I've done both. My typical design for a ship that will encounter either has a decoupler on the top, with a heat shield above it. This way you can still have engines below to get around. Yes, you will be going in head-first. Around the main engine on the tank, I place 4x air brakes. Once I hit atmo, deploy air brakes and point prograde. Then enjoy the fireworks! After you've aerobraked, you can ditch the upper heat shield. I don't remember the alt for Eve, but Jool was something absurd like 198,500m to brake. Worked though.