EtherDragon

Hi Maxmaps, I would prefer that you focus on delivering a polished iteration of the current scope. I prefer to see a well executed aero-overhaul with in-game tools to help build better space-planes. A well thought out resource gathering system to round out KSP's career mode "end-game" is much higher priority than new features. These priorities are strongly tied into balancing career mode, so this is a must before other new features are added: Career mode needs to have a leaner start - right now there are too many buildings at firs, and it's overwhelming to new players. The clear and singular focus should be taking on contracts, and building and launching rockets to complete them. All other aspects of the KSC are in support of this central goal and should be introduced later, as appropriate. Here are some specific suggestions: There should only be one completed building to start with: Mission Control - the VAB and Launch Pad would be shown as "under construction" with a tooltip or something that states, "Visit Mission Control, these buildings will be ready by the time you get your first contract." Walk the user down the strait path of get contract, build rocket, launch rocket, blow up - try again - eventually win by learning Rocket Science! R&D - Under construction at beginning of the game, and cannot be used. Unlocks after the first contract is completed that returns Science or after the first successful recovery of a ship (since recovery of a rocket that survived launch gives 5 science). Automatically adds ability to do Crew Reports and EVAs while landed on Kerbin. "We didn't expect you to be so scientific! Good thing they just completed construction of Research and Development. Head over there and see if you can put your Science to use!" Astronaut Complex - Under construction (cannot be used) It should only become available after the first crew member dies, or after reaching a sub-orbital trajectory. On death, "Oh my! We're going to need to hire more Astronauts, good thing the Astronaut Complex just finished construction!" or "You've reached space, and we've just opened a new facility. Go check out the Astronaut Complex." Tracking Station - Under construction (cannot be used) and becomes available after the player achieves a stable orbit. "Now that we've reached orbit, we have a new facility to track our rockets and solar system. Check out the recently finished Tracking Station." Space Plane Hangar and Runway - Under construction (cannot be used) becoming available after the player unlocks their first Tech Tree Node that contains Space Plane parts such as an atmospheric engine and wheels. Administration Facility - Under construction (cannot be used) until the player unlocks with with their first building upgrade. After all the other buildings are unlocked they get a message, "The Administration Facility is almost complete, but they need an additional so-and-so Funds to finish construction. When you're ready, Upgrade the Admin Building by rick-clicking on it..." If you follow something like what I've laid out above - all the core concepts of managing and using the KSC are introduced over several flights - reinforcing and supporting the central core of the game (contracts, building and launching rockets). Point is: Balancing career mode progression so that the player is introduced to each concept one at a time, is the highest over-all priority for me. In order to do so, you need the new Aero model and resources present. Lastly - specifically for career mode balance, Strategies in the Admin Building need to be easier to initiate - costs of many of them are so high, even at a low commitment, I never use them. THEN, in 1.1 I would like to see something like a "win condition" in Career Mode, with some side stories fleshed out: What is the story behind the Mistery Goo? (Maybe each new Career Mode play through has it coming from a different place in the solar system...) Resources - locating, collecting, and returning a certain quantity of a rare resource. That kind of thing...

In episode 24, we make Duna orbit with a successful Aerocapture:

You can decline any contract you haven't accepted and another one will immediately replace it. Usually, a mission of the same prestige / difficulty will be generated in it's place. Since Mun and Minmas are probably going to be in the same difficulty class (1, 2, or 3 stars) you can decline a Minmas contract and have a chance that a Mun one will replace it.

There comes a time in each career to reach for another planet. In episode 23 we've built up enough capability to set our sights for Duna: This episode comes with quite a long build, too:

For your tech tree - get that last 45 Science node, it will reduce your part count when making Mun / Minmas capable rockets (which only matters if you are playing Career Mode and haven't yet upgraded the VAB). With all the tier 3 nodes unlocked (I consider the first freebie to be tier-0) you have all the parts required land on and return Science from the surface of the Mun and Minmas. Now, here's the funny thing - landing on Minmas is actually way easier than the Mun. It takes a little more juice to get there, but a lot less to land and return. Also, it has these huge flat lakes of ice that are level and super easy to land on without falling over. Lastly, if you do happen to fall over, the cockpit SAS is usually strong enough to stand you back up. Your first science ventures to Mun and Minmas don't need to be surface landings, though. One great way to get a ton of science is to do a whole bunch of EVAs while in low orbit around each one. Do an EVA above every large crater, mountain, flat area, discoloration, whatever seems interesting. Each EVA that is over a different biome will get you more science to bring back to Kerbin. Repeat this for Minmas, too. This is very similar to what Apollo Eight did when it surveyed possible landing spots by orbiting the Moon, getting reports, and taking pictures. In KSP the EVA is how you do this, and surveying a lot of different sites around Mun is worth a lot of science when you get back. And again, when you orbit Minmas, do the same thing. Establishing an orbit around Mun and Minmas, and returning safely to Kerbin is well within the scope of what Tier-3 tech can do (again, counting the first free node as Tier-0) and is the essential skill to propel you higher up the tech tree. Once you can reliably orbit and return from Mun / Minmas with Science! in-hand, you'll find those more expensive nodes falling to your Science! onslaught in no time, what-so-ever! Good luck!

This is the very essence of my existence! Well said. lol! So, 0.90 is so very close to a complete fully self-contained game, it's like playing a game. I've been pounding away at career mode for my channel and having an absolute blast - so very much looking forward to 1.0. ... Where I wipe my save and Do It All Over Again! Heh, I've been starting from scratch ever since the very first Career Mode (now Science! Mode) was added to KSP.

Any chance you could send is a picture of your current tech tree? That could help a lot. It sounds like you are high enough to build a reliable Mun / Minmas capable ship that is also able to return to a safe landing on Kerbin. As far as your stranded crew member goes, I would send an updated Minmas capable craft and repeat his mission so you can use that science. Then worry about rescuing him later. Solar orbit isn't 100s of hours away, but it does take a couple successful Minmas missions (usually) to retrieve enough science to be able to reliably go Solar orbit and back.

It's time to put the first part of a permanent orbital station into orbit around Kerbin: And here's the build:

Also, you'll have to relearn everything when 1.0 comes out again. So be ready to completely unlearn the optimal stuff of today.

Wobble is often magnified by having too many different sources of control authority as well. What I mean by that is a rocket with a reaction wheel, a cockpit, and gimballed engines has three sources of control and torque - The cockpit, the reaction wheel, and the rocket motors. If you add in asparagus stages with lots of rocket motors that also have gimbals on them you end up with situations where you have too many things trying to control your rocket. If you use asparagus, it's usually a good idea to disable any gimbals on your radial boosters.

And here's the finale of our return to Minmas:

Wow, we've hit episode 20! So, it's back to Minmas for a bunch of surveys: Also, the Build:

KSP has a surprisingly large following, and I fully expect that following to explode (hah!) when the game officially releases 1.0

Wobbling on the runway is usually indicative of the Center of Lift (CoL) being too far behind the Center of Mass (CoM). As the ship gains speed, the wings try to lift off, placing a lot of pressure on the front wheels - lifting off of the back wheels, and this is unbalanced. Does it wobble less if you apply full pressure on pitch-up? Also, because of your wing placement, your CoL is likely above your CoM. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, in fact, it can be quite useful for a stable build, but you want to make sure that your CoL is directly above your CoM. Can you post any side-views of this build in the Hangar with CoL and CoM turned on? EDIT: Also - 1.0 will include different kinds of wheels for various Splane sizes, can't wait!

Should be no problem. All you need to do is get to orbit and Munar escape. Make sure that your Munar ejection burn is arranged such that it ends up sending you retrograde w.r.t. Kerbin. Set your Kerbin Periapsis at 30km, reenter and recover - for Science! I have returned with similar craft with similar equipment many times.

MrHost, The info you are looking for can be determined from working backwards with the Delta-V provided by the other users. Estimate 4,500m/s Delta-V required to reach orbit (75km x 75km). We know from Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation that Dv = Isp*9.8*Ln(M0/M1). M0 = full mass, M1 = empty mass. For the Isp, you can estimate the average if it changes. This is true for any single stage. You can add stages together for the total mission (say you have asparagus staging, or something) by calculating this for each stage, and adding the total together: Total Dv = Dv1 + Dv2 + ... + DvN Then, you can then work that backwards to solve for the Full / Empty masses required for each stage. For instance, if you know that you need 4,500 Delta-V from a single-stage, and that stage needs to deliver 2,000kg into orbit: 4,500 = 350*9.8*Ln(M0/2000kg) - solve for M0: 1.312 = Ln(M0/2000kg) I cheat and use a table I already have and find that the mass ratio is between 3.5:1 and 4:1, so I use the average of 3.75 (ln(3.74 = ~1.322)) - which means that I need 7500kg of fuel at 350 newton seconds (Isp) to get that payload into orbit in a single stage. Or I could use the identity of e to get the actual result: e^1.312 = M0/2000kg 3.714 = M0/2000kg 7427 = M0

Another stab at building and using a space plane for some atmospheric readings around Kerbin: And this episode comes with a build:

Literal Translation: Ά= Delta, meaning "a change to" V = Velocity, usually measured in Meters per Second So, ÃŽâ€V translates to "a change to meters per second." ÃŽâ€V is used in a few places in rocket science. First, ÃŽâ€V is used to denote the change in velocity required to perform a specific maneuver, such as circularizing an orbit. During ascent, the rocket performs a circularization burn at the Apopsis to add enough velocity to circularize the orbit. Doing so is a change in velocity, thus referred to as ÃŽâ€V. Second, ÃŽâ€V is often short-hand for a rocket's Total ÃŽâ€V, which is the sum total that the rocket could change it's velocity in a single continuous burn assuming no outside factors. Since a mission is a series of maneuvers, each with their required ÃŽâ€V, one of two main factors that determines the kinds of missions a rocket can complete is its total ÃŽâ€V budget.

Wrapping up this Minmas Mission, in epsiode 18, and bringing home all of this Science!

So, the RAPIER is not more efficient (by itself). But SSTOs using the RAPIER are more efficient because they can get rid of considerable dry mass by using them in place of multiple engines of varying types.

Yea, I was talking internal KSP terms. But you make a good points since all of this current optimal stuff will change in 1.0 with an updated aerodynamic model. I expect to see launch profiles much more like real life after 1.0 as being the most efficient.

One thing to try is to use the tweakables of your boosters and reduce their thrust by a bit for better control. Another thing to try is rather than radially mounting radial boosters, mount the boosters as linear stages.

This is true to an extent. But there is a balance between the two extremes - the peak efficiency of which is dependent on the craft design.

Some great info in this thread, so I will steal everyone's excellent answers and summarize back to your questions: The amount of energy lost counteracting gravity in this manner is much larger than the amount of energy lost to atmospheric drag. You will notice that most gravity turns start at roughly the 10-15km mark. At this point the atmosphere is starting to get pretty thin, so the actual drag on your rocket become quite low. Your rocket efficiency grows exponentially toward it's vacuum Isp, because the atmospheric density falls off logarithmically. Even at 20km your Isp is pretty good. The main point is, the faster you can get to a point where your rocket is pointing Orbital Prograde, the more efficient your burn will generally be. But you are correct, this needs to be done at sufficient altitude that the gains from this are not lost to atmospheric drag. For instance, pitching over at 5km and going full orbital prograde is a recipe for disaster. Conversely, going strait up to 70km, and pitching over there isn't very efficient either because you spend so much propellant counteracting gravity. Once you are on the orbital prograde marker, you are no longer spending fuel just to overcome gravity, and that's a big deal - as G translates to 9.8m/s of Delta-V lost for every second used to fight gravity.

If you want to get down to the mathematical nitty gritty, Kerbal Space Program really comes down to five not overly complex equations and some derivations from them. I don't know them all off the top of my head, but they are easy to find. These first three are relevant because Newton discovered they not only pertain to planets and moons, but all objects orbiting a central mass: 1. Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion - All planets move in an Elipse with the Sun at one of the Foci. One critical equation that comes out of this is the formula for the Semi-Major Axis: Sma=(Pe+Ap)/2 2. Kepler's Second Law - Orbiting planets sweep out equal areas in equal time. A couple equations can be derived from this law that tell you exactly how much you need to change your velocity to change one elipse into another. 3. Kepler's Third Law - The Square of the Period is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis: R=P^2/Sma^3, where R is a constant. This one can be easily derived into a simple equation to determine optimal transfer angles for interplanetary travel. 4. Thrust to Weight Ratio (TWR): Which is simply Rtw=T/W and 5. Tsiolkovsky's Rocket Equation (this one I have MEMORIZED) which describes how much total change in velocity (referred to as Delta-V) a rocket has based on it's mass, fuel, and engine efficiency: Dv=Isp*G*Ln(M0/M1), where M0 is initial (full) mass, and M1 is final (empty) mass. Oh and G refers to the force of gravity at sea-level, which is ~9.8m/s^2. I'm like you, I would rather run a quick equation through a calculator and come up with the answer than run an add-on. Especially when it's really not that hard. It is Rocket Science, but it's not difficult.