derhp

I should have said, I can get it to work for payloads of 1m or less. However If I use it to hide 2m engine, it just won\'t let me apply the fairing to the base plate. The only time I was successful was using various spacers, I think it was 3x RCS blocks before the decoupler that worked.

Loving the new decouplers. Pod - > Decoupler -> command module looks like a proper space vehicle, yet still very kerbal. I\'m pretty much only using this pack these days, making a mun candidate as we speak. Only thing is, I can get the payload fairings to work for me. Someone explain like im five.

Initially my mun run is going to consist of launch, orbit kearth, transfer, intercept mun... hopefully. However what do you guys think about setting yourself up in an orbit slightly higher or lower than the mun, but orbiting in the opposite direction. This way it wouldn\'t matter if you missed the mun first time round, you just wait for your next intercept and the muns gravity should catch you. Then your just have to do a retro burn to make your mun orbit stable. Win win?

Well done. Though I was referring to the fact you get a bit of a boost if you burn horizontally at around 12000m. I\'m genuinely surprised that it could be done with a direct ascent.

I challenge you to do it with three. I\'m sure you can make it work, though it might require a TURN in your thinking

So I like to think I\'m pretty good at guesstimating things in this game, DV requirement, orbits, transfers and all that guff. However one thing eludes me, de orbiting my pod and having it land as near as possible to the KSC. Preferably I would get it just off the coast. What I\'ve been doing retro burning until the low point of my orbit (no, I refuse to use the proper terms. That\'s not kerbal ;P) is around 39,000m in the middle of the ocean of Kafrica (the continent with the KSC on it). The idea is that I still have enough forward momentum to reach the KSC but low enough that I get caught by the air. However, this is not going as planned. I usually go to shallow and overshoot completely, or even shoot back into space with just my pod in which case I get caught by the air on the second loop. I tried to compensate by coming in steep, this just stripped off too much forward monentum. In one instance, I subjected my kerbals to 150g aero-braking from ~3000m/s! I tried using an old copy of the moach heat shield which acted as wing, but that made ascent an absolute balls out nightmare. The idea was that I could glide the thing falling brick style. Nope. Any thoughts?

I see what you\'re trying to do. Only advice I would give is try to reduce your weight up top, that big winged thing is a bit superfluous for a craft that is going to be spending it\'s time in orbit. I\'d also use an ASAS unit and a whole mess of RCS tanks and nozzles to keep her flying true. I\'m at work atm, and don\'t have KSP here, so please accept this MS paint of what i\'d do.

You might be on to something there. Binocular vision and all that.

Yeah screenies really would help. The only thing I can think of would be to reconfigure your spaceship a bit. If you used some of the C7 flight parts you\'d be able to achieve a hollywood spaceship look, with wing mounted egines and that sort of guff. Here is the C& spaceplane thread http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=2421.0 In regards to getting it into orbit to begin with, regardless of what format you use, I think the kerbal adage of MOAR BOOSTERS should work. A mixture of liquid fuel booster and SRB\'s should get the thing moving to the heavens no worries. You\'ll need a deltaV of around 3300m/s to lift your craft to an altitude where the the Ion engines can overcome gravity.

If you want to land, you\'ll need more weight up top. Then you\'ll need more fuel to account for the weight, then more fuel to account for the fuel, etc. Also, 'Lol everyone here and their oversized rockets.' isn\'t exactly constructive feedback. This is my finalised vehicle. Hairies V is ready for the mun. My plan of attack is to insert the vehicel into a 80,000m cirular orbit while I wait for my mun intercept window, then burn to my intercept velocity and, hopefully, insert myself into orbit around the mun. Once there I\'ll detach the lander plus RCS tanks and use whatever fuel they have left to skim off some speed. Then I drop the RCS tank and descend in Nova\'s lander. I\'m still iffy about the ascent, and de-orbiting stage, I don\'t think I have quite enough fuel. However with proper throttle control I think it might possible to use the one tank to get me off the mun and home again. Now, to make a Silisko-KSP MunVehicle and lander.

Was having a play around with my mun candidate today. De-orbiting from the mun is going to be crazy easy, not sure why I was worried about it now. If I have enough fuel for a decent burn in Nova\'s ascent engine I needn\'t worry. Definitely need to reconfigure my design now. Will cut fuel from the core stage, and make my orbital insertion stage a bit bigger. Keeping the SRB\'s though, moach makes good bloody SRB\'s.

Wow, when I joined this forum was a nice and happy bunch of chaps. Now it seems every thread I click on has been derailed by people arguing over irrelevant details, or just outright being insulting. How about we all take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and ask ourselves what\'s really important. Is it ponies on an ASAS unit, or is it alpha testing a game we all enjoy?

I\'m still teaching myself how to model, in between work and study. The plan, once I can get round to it (or once someone else does it, I really don\'t mind), Is to model the falcon 9 fuel tanks in 2m format, merlin engine, a 9 point engine adapter,a nozzle extender, and a decoupler clamp similar to novasiliskos. With those parts you should be able to produce the falcon 9 and falcon 9 heavy. I have no plans at this stage to model the dragon. Regardless I don\'t see much point in releasing it until fuel feeding is tweaked, which harvester plans to do at some stage.

What would get 5 psychotic kermits? An SSTO black powder SRB?

No one is going to say that, this thread is about sharing idea not about being a dick to others because they play the game differently. Right guys? /looks around menacingly.

Yeah, If I wasn\'t using modded parts I would need far more stages. KSP silisko edition is sweet, but would still require far more parts than I have currently. Also, I think I mentioned it in the first few posts but I\'m still iffy about getting back to kerbin. I\'m not sure if I have anywhere near enough DV on the lander to descend, ascend and then return home. If it turns out I don\'t, then I\'ll adding more mass to the to the lander stage that might equate to at least one more SRB, or another liquid stage. I\'d probably lean towards another liquid stage to keep the symmetry 8)

I\'m using Moaches long SRB with a few tweaks (mainly less heat production). It has a 90 second burn time which gives you MUCH more breathing room. I would like to reconfigure the thrust and burn time to be more like the Space Shuttle SRB, but I\'m not sure of the Earth to Kerbin ratios lol. I\'d like to have it performing a ~2 minute burn, but I\'d have to reduce the thrust to the point where the whole thing might not lift off the pad. Also I can\'t stress this enough, control your throttle! When you lift off it should be at a slow crawl, slowly accelerating upwards. I don\'t go to full throttle until 10 seconds before SRB burnout, at which point I\'m usually at 10000m or a bit lower. At that altitude the most fuel efficient 2m engine from the Challenger pack is more than enough to keep the thing moving. Lastly, I\'m very particular about wasted weight in my insertion / lander stage. And in fact I\'m sure there is weight to be saved in the configuration I currently have, but I have to wait until the mun is actually out before I find out for sure. I\'m 60% sure I have too much fuel for my insertion engine, but then again my insertion engine may not provide enough thrust in which case I\'d have to use a heavier, less efficient engine.

Just a few tweaks. Sorted my excessive delta V by adding some mass. I even put parachutes on the SRB\'s for shits and giggles.

Hey man great idea imo. Totally going to use this idea on vanilla rockets, was at a bit of a loss as to how to make hold downs for vanilla SSTO rockets. Cheers. Also, here are the sort of hold downs I use on modded parts. You can\'t make them with vanilla parts as there are no radial stack decouplers yet. Adjust your thrust, and... LIFT OFF!

I think that rocket could fly well with one ASAS rather than the one you have. ASAS is the shizzle my nizzle, I\'ve never needed more than one.

Also, from another thread.

Mun stats and discussion on missions: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=2346.0 Personally though, I\'m going to have a couple of goes at guesstimating it. If the frustration of that begins to out weigh the fun had, then I\'ll resort math.

Personally I use 3X radial stack decouplers, 3x Fuel tanks, and 3x 2m or 3m bulkheads as 'hold down clamps'. This allows me to fire my engine and adjust my thrust without the rocket leaving the pad. When I\'m ready to go I release the radial stacks and slowly accelerate upwards. However, if my rocket is using SRBs, I simply have those positioned lower than the core engine. I fire the engine first, and then the SRBs. Achieves the same result.

I really don\'t want this to turn into a vanilla versus modded parts thing. If vanilla parts get your engine revving that\'s sweet, If you like modded parts that\'s sweet also. People enjoy this game for different reasons, lets respect that. EDIT: speaking of modded parts, props to the first guy that gets to the Mun with the Saturn V pack.

Why does it need wings? Just saw this. Have way too much Delta V, I might edit the engines CFG to produce a fraction less thrust with the same weight and fuel consumption, that way I don\'t have to mess with my pretty rocket XD.