csanders

Remove the struts, and attach the large wheel to a girder segment. If it bends, it won't break EDIT: FYI, here's my refill tanker. It uses the "robot arms" mod pack for the refueling "hoses." Fueling up an SSTO:

Considering what this game does, and the size of the team, it's remarkably bug free.

Great find! I'll be using it.

Portable mining rig

testing my new sig

Another mod is mechjeb. NOT for the docking autopilot, but for SMART A.S.S. You can use it to have each craft target each other (make sure you select "control from here" on the docking ports, and target the other ships docking ports). This way both ships will always be in correct alignment. Once you have mastered docking doing that, have it target - NML on one craft, and + NML on the other. Slightly more difficult.

New to these forums, how do change this thread to 'answered'?

I think the SOI problem would be mitigated if KSP automatically went to a lower timewarp when one happens. I think they should already. At least on my machine, the game lags when it does an SOI transfer, and that lag caused my first Kerbal death. RIP Jeb hitting the Mun at 10000X. Anyway, some people may say that the bigger systems won't matter because timewarp solves the problem. Yes and no. Timewarp will make it take about the same amount of player time, but it increases how much timewarp management one has to do to play. It's more button pushing and staring at numbers with very little added "fun."

They might, but I don't think it would add much. By the time you get the skill to do those launches, you should be replicating it with various landing crafts on other bodies as they rendezvous with other ships. This is where I think the game is well balanced with handling orbital mechanics - you don't have to do off-plane launches until you have the skill to put yourself in a situation where you need to do them. For the most part. But I imagine if they add other launch facilities, they won't put them right at the equator. FYI: I've been playing Orbiter for nearly 7 years, so I'm familiar with a sim that does our scale solar system, and launching from Kennedy. Also n-body perpetuations, non-spherical gravity, and gravitational torque (Orbiter's timewarp does not kill rotation... or the cut the feed to engines, god help the soul that hits RCS rotation under 1000X timewarp). I actually made an equator base in Orbiter to get the advantages we have in KSP.

I thought that would be implied when I named it "Mark II"

Thanks for the help, but I found the problem. Here's what the ship physically looked like, from top to bottom lander shuttle (root) booster For some reason (I think the kraken attacked my brain), I had the staging looking like: shuttle (root) lander booster I can only guess that I thought since the shuttle was root, it should be on top of the staging diagram. I switched the staging to match the general ship layout, and everything is working fine.

Don't consider the LV-N to be the best "in a vacuum," consider it to be the best "in orbit." It usually is. Even then, with a small fuel tank, a lighter lower efficient engine can have higher Dv.

Download the kethane mod, and there are plenty of reasons to go back.

Was lucky to see an eclipse during my first Duna landing Now I'm more into mining.

Funny. A lot of my first ships, which I was sure would fail, had the word "death" somewhere in the title. Now, most of my names are descriptive. When the prototype of my next design is fully functional, it will be GALA (Go Anywhere Land Anywhere). With the hopes of a GALAR series (the R is for Return). Even it's prototype name is descriptive. Though sometimes I name ships if the resemble something. E.g. my phalanx lander, because the parachutes look like a wall of shields

I love what the KSP team has done with this game. The size of the solar system, planets. The closest moon is at 0 inclination. KSC (Kerbal Space Center) is at the equator. This does a lot for getting people playing, because it's not overly difficult. You don't have to worry about the launch site being at a higher latitude than any moon's inclination (which happens with KSC (Kennedy Space Center) some times of the year). You can get to places without spending a lot of time getting there. For instance, it takes about 6 earth years to reach Saturn with a Hohmann transfer. Without timewarp, one could choose to go to the Mun in a night. One needs about 3X Dv to orbit Earth, making launches 3 times longer.

So I have two ships on one launcher, but when I decouple them in orbit, the top stage loses its staging information. Since this is a 7 stage asparagus ship, it's kind of annoying. I can restage it in orbit, but that's prone to user error, which I'm really good at. FYI, the lower ship's control pod is the "root" of the vessel. Is there a good way to avoid this (i.e. making the top ship the root - a pain to restage, but a one time cost).

Actually, less struts may help. Depending on where they're placed. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50704-If-it-bends-it-won-t-break-Large-rover-wheel-placement

FYI, that ship has 6 outer asparagus stages, with 1 onion stage (the engines without the doubled up fuel tanks). The onion stage gave higher TWR, the asparagus gave efficiency. The two red dots on the "after launch" picture are SAS modules - I used to have ONE on the second to last stage, didn't work. The thing is almost all aerospike engines, thus unstable, so it does need them to take off from a non-level service. Moving the SAS to the first aspargus stage that decoupled was key. Looking at that design, I could probably get more by making the last decoupler smaller as well.

This is what it took to get me off of Eve. And yes, it's Dv is around 12000m/s. If you look at all the parachute packs, that's so I could land without burning hardly any fuel - and they all decouple on launch, along with the landing legs. after launch: Mamma I'm coming home

Yo dog, I heard you like rovers.

Landing and returning from Eve.

I've been there too. "This is so close! Let's add an SRB. Kaboom. Ok, struts. Kaboom. Struts. Didn't kaboom, but still not quite there. Let's add a white tank to the Orange. Kaboom. Struts. Not there. SRB. Kaboom. Struts. Not there. Orange tank. Kaboom. struts. Kaboom. Struts. Kaboom. Extra SAS. Kaboom. Less SAS..." You know the drill.

Kethane mod for the drill, robotic arms pack (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/robotic-arms-pack/) for the arm.

Low gravity testing is complete, and it still works very well. A little downward and forward thrust does wonders in low grav environments Yeeeee Haaaa Mission Control: "Bob, telemetry is getting some strange readings. You aren't by chance going well over twice maximum speed are you?" Abort! Abort! Abort! Mission Control: "Bob, you know how we joked that we only sent you to change tires? We weren't joking." KBM industries is in full effect