SanderB

In my calculations 96t of fuel from the booster stage is valued at √8,812.8, as 1t of LFO is √91.8. The value of the entire vehicle without booster fuel is √26,173 and with the fuel it is √34,986, the difference is √8,813 combined with the payload that's √12,263 expended. A spaceplane attempt for the √80,000 Category Type: Spaceplane (001 Spaceplane) Expended Funds: √2,921 <- √1,174 (LF) √172.3 (O) √1,575 (Payload) *Fuel used was calculated based on what was left at landing. LFO To orbit: 1400 Cost / LFO: √2.09

You can get up to 25x the ore/s with a lv 5 engineer. A lv 4 engineer gets 21x the ore/s compared to an unmanned mining outpost. The only reason not to have an engineer is if you're mining an asteroid because one drill is enough to power one ISRU.

One for the √35,000 Budget Type: RLV Expended Funds: √12,262 <- √8,812 (96t LFO) + √3,450 (Payload) Fuel to Orbit: 3200 Cost / Unit= √3.83

Does this count? Type: RLV Expended Funds: √14,902 - √6,590 (recovery) - √400 (launchpad stability enhancers) = √7,912 Fuel to Orbit: 800 Cost / Unit: √9.89 Recovery seems to have dramatically decreased the price per unit of LFO with this new and improved RLV Also, Another attempt: Type: RLV Expended Funds: √1,783 <- √918 (10t LFO) + √120 (1.5t Solid Fuel) + √745 (Payload) Fuel to Orbit: 300 Cost / Unit= √5.94 I believe this vessel is the best one. I didn't factor in the launch cost because the entire launch vehicle without payload was recovered. I'm not sure that I can get it much lower within √15,000

Heres another attempt that went significantly cheaper. Type: Expendable Launch Vehicle Launch cost: 8,230√ (400√ less due to recovery of launchpad Stability Enhancers) LF+OX: 794 Cost / LFO: 10.37√

Heres a little entry: I hope it fullfills all the rules: Type: Expendable Launch Vehicle Launch cost: 14,989√ LF+OX: 991 Cost / LFO: 15.13√

you can make circular stations by docking semi circles or parts of a hexagon or another geometric arrangement to each other with multiple docking parts I suppose that's kind of the same thing.

yes it is possible, though stock parts aren't extremely bendy to begin with and I'm not sure that there's a function a vessel docked to itself.

Most probe cores have a 2-3km range, you can pass by them within that range with another probe core to regain control of them while in range.

, it should be visible. It shows up to me as public.

I've done several surface rendezvous to within 1 inch (ie. docking one vessel on top of another) though this explanation is just about how to get within ~1km, with a target on a planet without an atmosphere that doesn't rotate too fast. 1) Get in a low circular orbit around the target planet, over the target as low as possible without intersecting with the surface. 2) Create an maneuver node over the target on the surface, and pull out the retrograde marker until all velocity is eliminated. 3) Set the target as the target from the map view. 4) Approach your maneuver node, face retrograde and set 100% throttle when the time to node is half that of the burn time. (If your surface TWR is <1.4, start your burn a little earlier.) 5) Destroy the node by clicking the red X to the right of the navball. 6) Keep burning retrograde, and gradually pitch up to keep your vertical velocity near 0m/s. The lower your TWR the more you have to pitch. 7) Push your retrograde marker onto the anti-target marker continually, and a little bit toward the horizon if you want to keep from crashing into the surface. The retrograde marker can be pushed with thrust on its far-side. Use quicksave and load to practice. It takes some practice to perfect this. Use the Velocity^2/Acceleration*2 formula to determine if you need to decrease thrust, it isn't necessary to pause and use this formula to get nearby, but it is very helpful in order not to use too much fuel. The video is a demonstration and a slightly less than perfect vertical surface docking.

This is a video of what I'm trying to do (successfully in this instance). Sometimes droptanks will hit the ground too fast whereas they never do if I switch to them until they land and thats why this attempt had landing legs. Stage recovery is fine but I prefer this method.

I've been attaching chutes and probe cores to drop tanks and dropping them early enough with enough time for them to land before disappearing beyond physics distance but every time I have to focus them in order for them not to crash. Is it possible to reliably land things in physics distance without focusing them?

you can aerobrake with any vessel, aerobrakes worthy of the name just allow you to radically increase how much drag your vessel experiences. If you time your return from the mun, you can return close to KSC without going to LKO first. Kerbin rotates in 6 hours, so if KSC is 90° degrees behind your periapsis your vessel needs to hit it in x number of days (can be any number of days) plus 1h and 30m because kerbin rotates 90° in that time frame, which means you'll be flying over KSC at that periapsis altitude. If your reduce peri to 12km and stick it right above where KSC should be according to the time frame of Kerbin's rotation then you'll be landing very close to it. You can increase or decrease the time it takes for you to reach kerbin without influencing your peri too much by burning directly toward or away from Kerbin.

You pitch your prograde by 10° for every 100m/s of surface velocity you have. So by 450m/s, 45° pitch. 600m/s at 30° at which point full throttle to 70km Ap is sufficient. It is very important to point prograde or near prograde after about 250m/s of velocity because there is about a 4-5x drag increase between 250m/s and 400m/s where the amount of drag stays fairly constant until about 600m/s, your gravity turn needs to be set up correctly before 300m/s surface velocity.

On kerbin you can get as low as ~3,000m/s dV to LKO with a very shallow ascent, very high TWR and very high mass rockets.

AN/DN can be adjusted by some off-prograde thrust from maneuvers made near the AN/DN and sometimes fully by losing merely 1-5% extra dV by going no more than 20° off prograde. Of course your maneuvers need to be near or on the nodes to be able to do this.

the overlay is not an accurate instrument, you need a surface sampler and scanner to see accurately. This is why you can see 0% on the overlay but 5% on a surface sampler.

Converting between units is like riding a bike or a language, if you learn it young it's easy otherwise it's something that will - for most - always require effort and feel cumbersome.

I've seen a station with 2 scientists get more science when another vessel docked to it with a 3rd scientist.

I've been using this RSS config, and the asteroids spawn at the stock distance from kerbol. Is that something that can be fixed?

you definitely need an ore tank

maybe you don't have an excavator, or an ore tank. the ISRU alone can not mine fresh ore or the miner doesn't have an ore tank to act as a buffer.

you can target sites from the map view, a purple target marker will help you find the correct survey spots.

It's not so hard to convert between the two, either.