cybersol

I haven't explicitly tried it, but I'm pretty sure that should work because docked ships count as one vessel for the games purposes.

Are you waiting until you speed is below 600 m/s and your altitude is less than 10 km to stage your chutes?

Post a pic of the stage that spins. On a rocket control fins should be as low and outside as possible. If you are using control fins on more than one stage, the CoL needs to stay below the CoM at all times, even as the tanks empty.

Can you post a craft without the Scansat pieces?

Spinning out of control essentially comes down to a contest between drag and control. When the drag overcomes your control authority, you go for a spin. You can decrease drag by staying closer to prograde and building a more aerodynamic rocket. You can increase control using engine gimbals, stabalizer wheels, and control surfaces. Also note that drag increases significantly right around mach 1 (340 m/s). So you should stay pointed as prograde as possible at speeds around 280-400 m/s.

Spinning out of control essentially comes down to a contest between drag and control. When the drag overcomes your control authority, you go for a spin. You can decrease drag by staying closer to prograde and building a more aerodynamic rocket. You can increase control using engine gimbals, stabalizer wheels, and control surfaces. Also note that drag increases significantly right around mach 1 (340 m/s). So you should stay pointed as prograde as possible at speeds around 280-400 m/s.

I love nuclear tugs. An SSTO is a great round-trip ride, but a nuclear tug is forever. They serve from launch forwards. They don't need parachutes. They just wait to push/pull the next thing anywhere and everywhere in space.

Nice one on the last pic -- that would be great for bamboo staging.

Try here. EDIT: And IMHO the Science Alert mod is great for learning what you are missing.

High CoM in more stable. Early gravity turn is generally more efficient, unless its too early or too fast. Actually, you are likely better off with those tanks lower, especially if they have fins attached to they are shown in my example above. Balancing ejection force with discarded stage CoM can get the outer stages to leave in the correct direction, for example in your bi-radial cases. If you want something more complex or need to overcome gravity or aero, you are going to need more force... sepratrons.

Yep, my bad. You are correct sir, and the drag errors appear correctly when you divert from prograde, so they are definitely in the right spot. Seems like a bug in the aero arrow code, a bad rotation matrix or cross product somewhere. EDIT: More information. If I surface attach the side tanks using just an S rotation from default, I get the pancake/no arrows behavior. However, if I surface attach using just W they work normally.

Yeah, if I place the outer tanks just right and then offset them radially, then the drag arrows all seem to overlay the central arrow exactly. Therefore it looks like they are not producing drag, when they actually are using the action menus.

Its [*IMGUR*]ZIc7q[*/*IMGUR*] with all the * removed

I am unable to reproduce this bug in 1.0.2 stock aero, at least in a rocket version very close to your last picture. How are you attaching your tanks, as I have tried both using both surface attachment and cubics?

For nukes, which run on liquid fuel only now, you really want to be using LF only tanks like the Mk3 parts for efficiency.

Hard to tell definitively, but one engine looks to have a bad rotation angle. Its the one that starts on the lower right in the video. As it spins to the top you can see its thrust going in a slightly different direction than the other engines.

For you particular problem with the lone command pod, I bet raising the opening altitude as others mentioned will solve it, even with fewer chutes than you have. Meanwhile, I still use http://ksp.freeiz.com/ for parachute planning. The site is not perfect for the new aero model, but I find it works well enough for starting guidelines.

Wow, you are the man! Thanks again. I am actually quite surprised by how consistent the atmospheric charts are from TWR 1.2 all the way through 4.0. All throughout the thrust range it seems the story is very similar from Mammoth to Mainsail to Skipper to Reliant depending on how much you are lifting.

First of all, these charts are awesome, so thanks! If you have the source code and are willing to share, I would love to look at it (I <3 Python). Second, it would also be great to also have a set of charts for TWR 1.2 - 4.0 for Kerbin sea level to use for first stage liftoff optimization. Third, it may seem absurd, but some would probably find value in going up one log higher to 1000 tons payload It looks to be around 16k dV to me.

Backup you save first! I think what you want is under FLIGHTSTATE, UT = XXXX.XXXX.

Going faster enables more thrust lower, which actually SAVES you fuel. Terminal velocity is much higher than you think now, and you save gravity drag by going faster. Its a fact, and you can empirically test it to find it out for yourself. Also, there is a video around of someone with starting TWR of 4+ using a ridiculously bad ascent profile and still getting 3150 dV to LKO in 1.0.2. Cheers, CyberSoul

I've also had KER say 0 dV remaining for rapiers in closed-cycle many times when I still have 500-1000 dV left. I think it has to do with starting your tanks with uneven amounts of LFO. I'm guess the code to account for the air-breathing engines drawing from all tanks, while the rockets drawing using the old fuel flow scheme is not fully worked out for rapiers in closed cycle when combined with uneven starting LFO percentages.

I'm just too stubborn to let the air win, plus going faster saves dV to orbit if you can stay in control. So I have just been learning to design rockets that can punch through the transonic region with enough stability and control to not spin out. At a fundamental level "cicatrix" is right that is seems to be about enough control authority, especially for heavy rockets. However, he is wrong that TWR needs to remain low to make it work. My most effecient rockets to orbit tend to have TWR in the 1.7-2.2 range, but I admit it can be a challenge to keep them flying true. Challenged Accepted!

To some extent, but struts are stronger than the axial part joints. So if you lock everything completely down then the joints become the weak link. Without the joint reinforcement mod, you have to transfer the load along some directions, but allow everything to flex in others or the rocket will self-dissemble. It's quite an art form.

Have your tried the tail cone, as they work surprising well on the front if they survive the heat?