SandMan13

No need to be worried about inclination. Just time warp until Minmus is at it's ascending/descending node and then burn. And the lowest possible orbit you can get with that station would be ideal. If you are sending fuel up you want to use as little as possible. You could probably go ~10Km or lower.

Is there anyway to disable the mod without actually taking out the parts? There are things I want to do but I don't have sats in the right places so using probes is impossible and I don't have the time to put them all up. Any way to disable needing a connection on probes I guess is what I'm asking.

My new high Kerbin Orbit Station Emergency Evac Vehicle at the bottom. Ignore the ugly temporary comms array. Gonna get a proper one up there sometime.

This may be a dumb question but what do I do with the source folder in the download? In most other mods I've downloaded that's usually not there and the readmes say where things should go. I don't have a folder named source in my KSP directory like I do GameData or Ships etc. EDIT: Well this was a dumb question. Found my answer in like 5 seconds after posting. Oh well.

I believe if you are not being pressed into the surface you would just fly away. You are simply moving to fast. Perhaps you don't need a constant force besides the gravity of the planet pressing you down, but like you said if you hit the tiniest bump you are gone!

If you want to really master this planet then land on the equator! All you need is a force holding you down against the surface. Use girder segments as landing legs as they are very strong (stronger than landing legs I believe) and put an engine on top of your ship. Match velocities with the surface then deactivate your main engine and fire up that top engine. Put yourself down and never get out to EVA (or else be thrown into deep space). Don't listen to these other guys saying land on the poles. That's too easy and avoiding the real challenge.

Free return trajectory isn't really orbiting though, but yes retrograde flight paths have uses. If you are planning on landing though you are going to want, for the most efficient landing possible, an orbit parallel to the equator of the body and in the same direction of the rotation. If you aren't planning on landing then it's almost irrelevant, unless what is orbiting is going to be a refueling station and you have mining stations on the surface of said planet.

Smidge, we might have to give up. Also just a heads up to everyone in this thread, it's spelt KERBIN not KERBAN get it right!

Nitro what you are saying is only true if you take that inefficient decent. The proper way to land would be to match speeds with the surface and touch down. Once again let's consider the surface moving in the positive direction, prograde in the positive direction and retrograde in the negative (opposite of prograde). Surface speed of 10m/s and orbit of 15m/s, it would take a change of 5m/s to match the surface speed if you are going in the prograde direction. If you are going retrograde (negative) then you are moving -15m/s relative to the surface and must make a change of 25m/s (15 to get from -15 to 0, another 10 to go from 0 to 10) to match speed and land. Conclusion is that it does matter which way you orbit a body if you want to land on it. It is more efficient to orbit the same direction as the rotation of the body. Once again, basic physics.

Lets think about this a different way. Lets grab some graph paper and draw out what's happening. You have a vector going in the positive x direction at 10m/s. You have a vector 3m above that vector in positive y moving 15m/s in the positive x direction. You also have a vector 3 meters above the axis moving left in the negative x direction at 15 m/s. There are no accelerations acting on these vectors (they are straight lines, two of which are 3 "ticks" above the axis, one on the axis). How can we get both of these vectors to equal our "surface" vector? Simple math. Let's make the negative x direction negative (for simplicity's sake, and it will also represent retrograde as it is going the opposite direction of our "surface") and positive x positive (as well as prograde, going in the same direction as our surface). Our 10m/s vector is the "surface" and moving 10m/s positive direction. Our next vector (one we want to match speeds with our surface) is moving 15m/s in the positive direction. How do we get to 10m/s? We add -5m/s (10 - 15 = -5). That's our change in velocity (delta v). Let's do our other one now. We have 15m/s again but in the negative direction. So how do we go from -15 to +10? Math again. 10 - (-15) = 25. Our change in velocity needed to match the surface speed is 25m/s in the positive direction. 25 > absolute value of 5 so you will use more delta v (and more fuel as well) matching surface speed from a "negative" orbit. This is irrelevant though on planets with an atmosphere or very low surface speeds, as the atmosphere will change your velocity to the surface speed (it moves at the same speed as the surface) and low surface speeds won't matter too much (a surface moving at 1m/s won't make a big difference in your change in velocity). If you don't understand this you might want to take a physics class. This is basic vector addition.

Alright for some reason this thing isn't working anymore. I got an edited tech tree so the Kethane mod parts would be in it and now none of the pods have Kerbal Engineer. It worked fine before I did this now I can't even take out what I did and get it to work. So any advice on what I should try? I've re downloaded and have both files.

I also just tried that way out. It works fine and all but breaks Kerbal Engineer Redux. So that way is kind of a no-go.

That's actually not what I wanted. There is no explanation on how to set up my own kethane tech tree from those posts. I can use someone else's but not make my own. Which is wanted if you read my post.

Is there any way to get this integrated into the tech tree right now? I know you guys said it was being worked on but I'd like to be able to put all the parts in one or two nodes so I can start up some kethane factories in my career mode.

Unfortunately that's wrong, as not all planets in the Kerbol system move at the same rate through their orbits. Just estimating the orbits with the link provided in the 2nd post is your best bet. ~45 degrees for Duna, ~90 for Jool. It varies drastically from planet to planet. Also any planet with an orbit lower than the current bodies orbit you are at (ex, Eve is lower than Kerbin.) needs to be behind you when you burn. Anything higher will need to be in front of you.

Landed this thing on Duna today

Do what Kerbonautical said. Right click on the engines you don't want to fire up and disable them.

Might want to try areospikes as your rocket. Also this takes time. If you try to get to orbit in less than 10mins you probably won't. Gotta get really high as fast as possible, then just build speed and maintain altitude. Gain altitude without losing speed and until at your intake threshold (if it goes lower than say .13 you get flameouts) which is different depending on engines running. Then burn with your rockets and if you've built up enough speed and have enough fuel you should make orbit. Good luck. SSTOs are hard to master.

I just landed something the size of a large bus on Duna. This has to be my proudest moment so far.

Simplest way to do this would be to point due North and at the horizon on your navball. Make sure the "wings" on your heading marker are parallel to the horizon. Now switch ships and line up the same way. Your roll will be perfectly in line. Obviously you might need to turn and what not but just keep that heading in mind when docking so you get the desired result.

Don't worry about getting your perigee low enough to areobrake while still orbiting Kerbin. Just get the encounter and adjust in deep space. A few m/s delta V will do wonders there. Also normal and the other thing (blue one) will be used to adjust. Prograde and retro won't do too much but can still be used to assist. Try to get rid of you perigee so you are on a crash course with the planet when you enter it's SOI. Once in, adjust to 12-14km for Duna areobrake. Lots of factors in areobraking so there is no set height to get an orbit. Don't forget to pull the low side of your orbit out of atmosphere once done. Also I'd recommend getting as big an orbit as possible (45km x 200km) or something like that so you can land on Ike if you so choose. You don't want to waste all that delta V areobraking just so you can burn to get your orbit out to Ike again.

If you want to land on Mun first circularize your orbit (20km or less is good) then burn retro till you are grazing the surface on the opposite side of the burn. Then click on the orbit velocity meter so it switches to surface, point retro grade then adjust so it is horizontal in the retro direction. Wait till you are under 15km and burn away all lateral velocity. Start increasing angle of burn so the retro mark is normal to the surface. Burn away rest of vertical velocity to >9m/s and land. To take off and return to Kerbin burn straight up for a few seconds then point to the 270 marker as burning prograde in this direction will collapse your orbit with Kerbin.

You don't get the same amount of science. I forgot how it changes but you'd go from 20 to 7.9 or something like that. Keeps decreasing at that rate.

I think a budget system of "You can only spend so much until you do x" would be best. For example you are allowed to use 10,000 Kerbal Bucks or something to start. You can't go over that, but even if you mess up 100 times you will still have money to build your rockets. You increase this cap as you accomplish things. I feel this would be the best system. It restricts you but makes it so you can't end up dooming yourself for failing too many times.

Alright simple challenge. Build a rocket and within 4 minutes after launch have used all fuel and be on course to hit another celestial body. I've hit the Mun as shown here. Hitting Minmus should be possible, but other planets might be a tough one. I know for sure you can hit Mun with ease. My rocket. Originally was supposed to make orbit with only SRBs, found out quickly how much more it can do. Majestic. All right perfect crash course So who thinks they can do this? Minmus is my next goal, and maybe Duna next.