thorfinn

Fuel efficiency should not vary much, actually, if all engines are to represent normal chemical rockets. Real life rockets have a 2:1 'efficiency' ratio (Isp) between the best H2/O2 engines of the present and the V2...

Give me a ring when you\'ll build the Alanis Morissette or the Joan Jett

IDK, but I almost always flew rockets with three-tube core stages, and they always handled very smoothly provided that the 'tubes' are bound with struts near to the engines. Since the introduction of gimbals, I don\'t even use winglets or SAS, just a single ASAS in the upper stage (and RCS for coasting phases).

Well, in the real world the limits come from cost and complexity. In KSP everything is still free and nothing ever breaks, so if somebody wants to build a gigantic rocket, it\'s likely that only his CPU can stop him.... :

The thing that bugs me about standard parts is how they disfavour staging. Oftentimes, when you try to make a 'correct' rocket you are just causing yourself more trouble; problem is, Kerbin is so small that being able to do SSTO easily IS actually realistic... balancing for the campaign mode will not be an obvious proposition, at all. Hey, that\'s the Delta Clipper!

Your parachute is really great. Are you going to give it a dereefing animation sometime?

Mmmmmhhhh.... Homeworld fan, right?

Impossible. You will be flying at more than 100 kilometers per second when you reach perihelion. Good luck circularizing that (without fusion engines or a convenient, large planet).

That will put you in a large Kerbin orbit, though, and coming down from that will take lots of fuel. It\'s better to escape in the opposite direction from the Mun\'s travel (you want to go left, when seeing the orbit from outside). This way, you end up with a much smaller Kerbin-relative velocity.

Did you know that some loonies geniuses(1) once sent a commsat on a lunar free return to salvage a bad orbital insertion? http://carlkop.home.xs4all.nl/asiasat.html (1) 'Remarkable how often those two traits concide....'

214 KM/s at perigee. Hot DAMN. (What kind of delta vee does your rocket have? )

But from the Lunar point of view, that IS an escape trajectory

Great shot, Lorenzo. I did my second mission half an hour ago, and intended exactly to land near the terminator for better visibility and scenery... then I chickened out and aimed for the big mare just downrange. The ironic bit is that I ended up right on the lip of the mare, in a quite rugged area... but the terrain engine makes almost everything seem oh-so-smooth from 5 km up ^^ (Harv will have to work on that ^^) The even more strange thing is that my fifties-style lander didn\'t topple, for the second time in a row, and just settled down beautifully

'Unforeseen consequences' are our daily bread here at KSC.

Rdfox... are you the son of Homer Hickam?

OK guys, who wants to try for the closest possible approach in 0.12X1 ?

My Ghibli 343L, amazingly, took me to the far side on the first try. With the keyboard (!) I was piloting from a high angle, and seeing the engine plume light up the terrain when I was touching down was a great surprise Though, I need either better navigation systems to avoid inefficient maneuvers (my Moon capture was hardly efficient...) or a good weight reduction program for the upper stage, since I landed with just a bit less fuel than needed for Munar escape velocity. Well, I always have my Nova class if needed, the 444L, but I believe that I can get away with less

I really can\'t believe I managed to land intact on my first try. All my attempts at powered descent on Kerbin ended in utter failure... well, now I can say that 1/4 G REEEALLY makes it easier. The problem is, I landed on the dark side. I really would like to see if the fuel left is enough to get back, but from the far side I need to get into orbit first, then break that. And I must get into a retrograde orbit with respect to Kerbin... I\'ll admit it, I can\'t figure out which way to go from the surface to counter the Mun\'s orbital speed

How about this?

Depends on how close you want to go. Reaching a very elliptical Sun-bound orbit means almost stopping in space (relative to the Sun) and falling straight down from there Obviously, in real life you also have to worry about your ship melting when you are passing that close. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Probe_Plus for details...

It\'s possible to escape but you would have to go so fast it would probably crash the game. So I guess it\'s impossible. Don\'t be so tragic... you 'just' need 9300 m/s of delta v to cancel Kerbin\'s orbital velocity (plus a similar amount to go back, if you wish, and the balance for grav and aero losses.) Gravity slingshots will make one-way missions possible again when inner planets appear, and I\'m sure that inetrplanetary engines will be added someday that will allow two-way runs.

And build bridges. Right?

Clavius Base, come in...

--- copying from another thread --- Very nice model, Mary! Maybe even too large, this time What program did you use to make the models? I could try and scale them back about 50%... maybe I could make a range of sizes and post a .zip, so everyone could use what they prefer. Blender works with this format, maybe?

Well, time is little and we all have lots of things to read/watch/do, but I\'ll tell you why a KSP player should probably like Porco.... Miyazaki\'s father owned a small factory that built aircraft components (they made tailplanes for the A6M Zero, IIRC) and he grew up totally in love with flight. This shows up in many of his movies (Mononoke and Sen to Chihiro are the least influenced, actually) like Kiki\'s Delivery Service, Nausicaa (the fusion-powered hang glider ) and Laputa... but nowhere as much as in Kurenai no Buta. The 'flying pig' turns out to be an Italian WWI fighter pilot who quit the Air Force after Mussolini came to power And now lives as a privateer in Italian-ruled Dalmatia skirmishing with the Beagle Boys mostly harmless seaplane pirates