Gijs

KSA, eh? I guess I should've known it wouldn't really be original when I chose that for my name.

Not necessarily! As you can see in one of the pictures, she is close to Gilly and the nuclear engines have plenty of fuel left. I wasn't even very efficient. If you want to use the landing legs, you do need to amputate her, but she doesn't mind. She will do anything for you. And on Gilly, you can just lay her down on her side if you prefer that over using the landing legs.

Of course she will bring you back! She will take you home and tuck you in. Take note of the asterix. Due to the extremly low gravity of Gilly, you might not even need to detach the nuclear stage. Just lay her gently on her side. But even without the nuclear stage, you can easily make it back to Kerbin. The command module can be detached when you are in the atmosphere, so you can safely deploy the parachute without all that extra weight.

Meet Miss Gilly! From the moment her shiny golden rings catch your eyes, it is obvious Miss Gilly has class. But she is the right amount of slutty, too! She will take you anywhere.* Her tender legs are perfect for landing on low-gravity celestial bodies, and her big lower body has enough power to bring you there; with fuel to spare! *Only tested on Gilly. Please refrain from going to celestial bodies with atmosphere or you may not make it back home. Are you impressed by the charms of Miss Gilly? Do you want to roam the solar system, alone with her? Then try her now!

Oh alright, nevermind then. I'll try it with docking ports, see what works better.

You sure? Because I have tried it without struts. It just wobbled too much. I figured the struts would stabilize it. But I could get into orbit without the struts. And the struts get deleted the moment I detach the orange tanker anyway.

I figured, shand. But I like the styling. I was messing around with adding extra tanks to the side when I got this. It is now in an orbit around Eve. Just have to get it to Gilly. As you can see, I cheated a bit by putting tanks inside other tanks. You have the white ones inside the main tanks. Then the smallest tanks that exist (5.74 liters of fuel) inside the white ones, and on top of that the yellow rings, mainly for looks. Every "ring" has a solar panel, except for one at the top which has a small battery. It is the only battery on-board, but with the way the solar panels are attached I don't need more. The idea is that with the nuclear engines, I get to Gilly (turned out I could almost get to Eve with one orange tanker still attached). Then I detach the nuclear engines and only use the top ship, which has 4 small orange thrusters at the sides and 4 small lander legs (should be enough for the low gravity at Gilly). With all the fuel I should be able to get back to Kerbin. Or, that's what I'm testing at least. The command module can be seperated as well, and has a parachute, for when I get back to Kerbin.

I think I found the solution to this problem. Well, I'm not taking the credit. But docking isn't necessary, that's what I have found out. See this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/48147-Nuclear-engines-and-tri-adapters?p=624153&viewfull=1#post624153 As you can see, I had the same problem. I explained here how I solved it: And here is the picture (note that the craft in the picture does NOT work. Please refer to the quote): Again, it works fine. No exploding engines. They are all attached. If you guys want, I can upload the .craft file. But I think the picture + quote speaks for itself.

Well, the way I have it now (exactly the same as in the pic, but with three blue seperators instead of three yellow/red ones, and, as you suggested, the engines turned 90 degrees), it works perfectly fine. First I detach the big orange tank with the big seperator. Then I activate the engines, and then lastly I detach the seperators. I could upload the .craft file for that other thread.

Nevermind, I got it to work with the seperators Johnno used: the blue ones instead of the yellow ones. For safety measures I'll keep using the big extra seperator. Thanks!

So I tried it, and while two stayed attached, a third detached.

Oh hey Johnno, thanks! I'll try that. In your tutorial you don't use a second tri-adapter at the bottom. Will it still work? And do you recommend using the extra coupler? It does seem to lower the chance of it all blowing up for me.

Hey everyone, This is the prototype of my first interplanatary ship: Miss Gilly. As the name says, it is designed to get to Gilly. But there is one problem. Adapters and staging don't seem to work together very well. Yes, I know. This is due to the way the staging works in KSP. I have used the search function, where I found this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/47673-How-to-get-TVR400L-quad-stack-adapter-into-space?p=617803&viewfull=1#post617803 It doesn't seem to work for me. In fact, often my nuclear engines explode for some weird reason. It works better if I first seperate the whole thing from the orange tank, hence the extra coupler. At least then it doesn't all explode. But in whatever way I use the stages (engines first, and then the three couplers), the engines get detached from the upper adapter. Is there any way to make this work? I just want the three nuclear engines below the ship. I can use struts if needed (in fact, I already did because the thing wobbled like crazy with the orange tank still attached). Thanks in advance!

The gimble balancing mod probably is useful with Project Minmus. The first stage works okay, but once you start to turn and approach 15km, using the wasd keys all the time can be tiresome. I just like to try new things. With the first Project Minmus I noticed how useful those 4 outer rockets are. Make the whole thing really stable and very easy to land. Then I improved it a bit and added the rover and extra ship. Originally I only wanted to bring the rover, but I designed the one-man ship to balance it out. Ah yeah, with strutting it can work. It always looks so fragile though.

Ah, that sounds like a fun project. But first things first. A trip to Gilly with my new ship I'm designing: Miss Gilly. It will also be my first interplanetary rocket. (One post still needs moderation approval because I uploaded 2 craft files, but I tell some more about Miss Gilly in there).

My ships are anything but efficient. Bringing too much RCS and batteries with me is something I have always done. I don't even know why. Regarding the central rocket: you are probably right. At first I didn't have it. Now I have. But with the fuel ducts, it runs so quickly out of fuel that it's rather useless. I already wrote another post answering some of the questions, but it is awaiting approval. I uploaded 2 craft files, which is probably why. And you are right, I used this method because it looked prettier. I saw the beam structure (and balancing out two crafts) in a video somewhere and I wanted to try it. But the rover -below- the ship? How does that work with the launch staging? I have actually tried something like this, where I turned around the whole lander and put it upside down on my launch stage. The rover was on top, but actually on the bottom when you landed. Problem was that all my controls where inverted. Which made it more difficult than you'd think. The rover is **** anyway, but I'm just happy I could get to Minmus and back. My next ship will be more efficient.

What can I say. Scott Manley is really helpful. With docking, I learned that you don't have to mess around with getting the orbit exactly aligned. As long as it is roughly the same, and as long as it interesects somewhere (within the 50-100 km range would be good), then you should be able to dock. The further away you are, the more fuel you are going to waste of course. But 50km isn't as far as you would think. Thrust towards the target, be sure to thrust the opposite direction soon enough, repeat this a few times, and eventually your orbit will align by itself (naturally so: being in an orbit besides another ship means you are in the same orbit). At first I could get to the Mun, but not back. So I learned to dock and built a whole space station around Kerbin. It lagged like hell because of all the parts. Now I don't use it. With Project Minmus, you can get to Minmus and back without refueling.

Is that fast or slow? I don't know, first I thought docking was incredibly difficult. But now I just set target on the docking port I want to dock at, use "control from here" on my own ship, then roughly put the two at the same angle and then just use the navbal with target mode. I don't even have to use chase cam. Can be confusing that sometimes left, right, up and down are inverted, but there is no left, right, up and down anyway in space. I just look at the navball, and I just "slide" in place, at the end only at a speed of 0.2 m/s. Then I turn off SAS and the rest it does automatically. The only thing I have to watch out for is that my angle of approach isn't too horizontal. If I dock larger payloads, that can make the whole thing wobble too much to dock. But that is easily fixed by backing up for a moment, positioning yourself roughly in front of the target and then try again. I like designing ships as much as flying them, so I won't be using the Project Minmus design for interplanetary trips. It is designed to land on Minmus (and Mun), and that's what I will use it for. Right now I'm in the process of designing an interplanetary ship called Miss Gilly. She is supposed to get to Gilly, but should be able to get to other places as well (and back!). As long as these places don't have an atmosphere. By the way, I do not use MechJeb. Still not really sure what it is, but apparently one half of the community uses it, and the other doesn't. And apparently it is important to mention it. Oh, and here are the craft files: Project Minmus (original, without rover and one-man ship): http://www.mijnbestand.nl/Bestand-WTG3VPPUVBZN.craft Project Minmus Mk2 (with rover and one-man ship): http://www.mijnbestand.nl/Bestand-8KRR3WCPL6I3.craft Note that Mk2 lags a little at launch. Also, as said before, the launch is a little unstable because of the unstable payload (rover and one-man ship). I think it has a few parts too many. The launch stage probably isn't the most efficient, but it gets into orbit.

I've been playing Kerbal Space Program for a couple of days/weeks now. I really like the learning curve in this game. First I was happy I could get my ship into orbit. Then I was happy I could get it back safely as well. Then I got to the Mun (but not back). Then I was able to dock crafts, build a space station and refuel my ships. Then I could get to the Mun and back. And my latest pride is Project Minmus. It consists of one big lander with attached to it two crafts: one small ship and one rover. The small ship can be used as a one-man return craft. It can easily get back to Kerbin. You could even stop by the Mun if you wanted to. It also has a bunch of equipment used for testing. You could get it into orbit around Minmus and then land it again if you want to. The rover isn't really that great for the low gravity at Minmus. You have to drive really carefully. In case you flip over, it has RCS to get it back on its feet. Both the rover and the one-man ship are roughly the same weight, but at launch it's best to keep an eye on your navball because you might tilt over a bit. Here are the three of them on Minmus: The main ship only has place for two, but you can always put an extra Kerbal in the one-man ship if you want. The main ship has parachutes, but the one-man ship has not (I forgot to add them). But because you have plenty of fuel left in the one-man ship, you should be able to land at Kerbin. The main ship also has a big docking port at the top. Just in case. The rest of the staging is below the main ship engine. Just regular asparagus staging. 5 x 3 of the second largest tanks, 1 in the middle and 4 at the sides. So, what do you think? I'm just happy it can get to Minmus and back. Next step is Laythe, or maybe Duna. I heard nuclear engines are best for that.

Alright, great guys! Thanks a lot. I'll just update the ship for future versions, and for this version I can use the crew manifest mod. Sounds like something I would want to have anyway.

I've been starting to build a space station, and it was a real accomplishment (for me) when I finally got two parts docked together. The craft is now in an orbit around Kerbin. Problem is, I now noticed I accidentally blocked my crew hatch by placing an illuminator over it. Poor Jeb can't get out. There is another capsule right below the capsule Jeb is in, but I don't think you can transfer Kerbals within the ship. My idea was: maybe I can edit the safefile, and then edit the craft that is currently in an orbit. Would anyone know if this is possible? Thanks in advance!