technion

ISP aside, this is almost never a good idea for a lander - it's too heavy. If your lander is that huge, use multiple engines. The largest landers out there (Eve ascent vehicles) would never work with skippers.

I hyperedit Kerbin to have Eve's atmosphere. Always do this in a save game other than your main one though.

This was the major problem I had when I started this game - the whole "what does this part do?". My best recommendation is to try career mode, the limited choices initially will ensure you learn each part.

Hey guys, I have a rocket that is in a "just captured" orbit at Jool. That is, highly elliptical. I've found that, for just 120dv, I can make a manoeuvre node that provides an intercept with Tylo, which happens to be the first stop. However, that intercept involves an orbit that goes out nearly double the length of Tylo's orbit and comes screaming back at a weird angle, guaranteeing a very high cost capture. Alternatively, I can burn fuel lowering my ap to something closer to Tylo's, and then plan a much less expensive capture. The question is, which is these will be more efficient? I realise the default answer would be "aerobrake at Jool" but I'm playing with DRE, and through trial I've found this thing explodes if I try to shave off more than 100m/s each lap. In other words, that would be a very slow and painful aerobrake.

With one LV-N on each of them? How the heck did you ever get the patience to fly that anywhere?

I took this on a Jool 5 tour.

I find KRE doesn't provide all this information quite as well as people suggest. It's a great mod when you're designing, but once you dock a tug and a payload, it seems to have no clue what the transfer stage deltav will be. Don't get me wrong - seeing the altitude above surface is an absolute requirement imo and it's great at that.

It's my understanding that mountain got nerfed, and the highest peak isn't quite so high any more. That should also address tavert's point.

I found TAC added a very interesting element to short missions like Kerbin's moons and Duna. By the time you wanted to haul five Kerbals to Jool however, half the rocket's mass is food. And you find yourself saying "launch windows be damned" and spending tonnes of dv trying to get back as fast as you can before you run out of it. I'm playing with DRE and FAR. The general reviews that DRE isn't too significant depends where you're going. MOST missions, I haven't found it to be a huge impact. However: * Spending 2km/s+ of dv trying to get captured at Jool because you can't aerobrake the whole way means hauling a lot more out there * Trying to land anything on Eve capable of returning is all forms of difficult

Can you help me understand the design of that rocket? I can see tonnes and tonnes of batteries, but no solar panels ?

Pack nonsensical amounts of dv and just go for it

I *was* primarily using nuclear engines with the "obvious" fact that the ISP is better. But sometimes it just isn't. My moho unit, which had five orange tanks (one center, 2 asparagus stages) to deal with its transport needs (because moho is a ... something) was of course fitted with LV-N's. Then the ejection manoeuvre was calculated at.... something over half an hour. It's not just about the time you spend idling waiting for it. It's about the fact you would start that burn when you're on the wrong side of Kerbin and spend half of it firing in the wrong direction. I ended up fitting 2 x T30's on each tank on the first asparagus stage, which then emptied themselves near the end of the burn and I dropped them. The remainders all ran LV-N's and didn't mind the slow burn to get captured when they could, so much more accurately, get themselves on an intercept.

Whilst I'm sure it can be done, it'll be a much more pleasant trip if you unlock the nuclear engine. From LKO, one FL-T800 tank with an LV-N can manage a Duna flyby, which of course will unlock a bit more to build a lander.

I wonder if there's a problem with Alexmoon and Dres in the current KSP version. I just made the same trip on my new career mode, and Kerbin was literally 180 degrees away from where I intersected its orbit. That was no small change to correct, and I used PreciseNode to get that ejection perfect.

You can take off and do that in orbit - often much easier.

I like the layout there - I think I'll be reevaluating my landers.

I'm finding that's the golden rule of science in general. You can choose to invest in rockets like this to clean up minmus. Or you could head to Duna, do nothing special but land and gather science from the surface, and gather a similar amount of science. It's about how you prefer to play.

When you've got so little fuel, is the nuclear engine really the most efficient? I just built a demo with KRE and a lander can, no other parts. If I place an FL-T100 and an LV-N, it's good for 1,220dv. Swapping that for a 47-8S, it's good for 1,631dv. With an FL-T400, the LV-N is good for 3,848 whereas the 47-8S gets 3,749. It's an improvement at that point, but is it worth dragging all the extra dead weight the whole way to a low Tylo orbit? I've been trying to work this out myself on my Tylo lander.

Look what I dragged to Eeloo. See what's wrong with this picture? Nope, not even the forgotten landing gears. I hauled this thing the whole way to Eeloo and found the fuel lines were wrong. It fought me the whole way down, but I managed to get there. I moved fuel around and blew two of the tanks before take off - things were manageable from there.

Early efforts at docking should involve ports at the front/rear of a rocket. Sideways ports like you have are way harder to hit, and you have reasonable chances of running into bugs where ksp points the pink indicator badly as you get close.

Where is the torque in that coming from? I built a similar thing and it couldn't turn. By the time you add on 0.2T worth of SAS unit, the thing is four times the size and looks silly.

When I did this a while ago... I packed two of the small radial "life support" hexcans on the lander. That was plenty sufficient for the lander to land, get into orbit, and rendezvous with the main ship. The main ship, once you have a carbon extractor and water purifier, used two of the small oxygen and two small water tanks. Really what this trip is about is food, I packed two standard tanks. Mind you, I only bought one Kerbal on this mission.

As someone who's playing with - if this was a spaceplane competition I'd probably call it a cheat. Otherwise, it's anything but. As soon as you start talking about the large, complex rockets used in this competition, FAR makes things immensely more complicated. I had a perfectly working rocket this morning. All I added was a sr. docking port on top, and a nosecone on top of that. Now the drag is uneven, and I've spent nearly the whole morning trying to work out how to bring it into orbit. Asymmetric rockets, where you simply add a counterweight on one side to even things out, are now immensely difficulty, because you also need to get the drag even. This whole challenge is a lot more difficult with FAR imo.

Thanks for the advice guys. Looks like this'll be the next thing on the horizon.

Hey guys, Before I seriously embark on this - is it even possible? I've done several Eve ascents before and I'm familiar with what's required. I've now been playing for Deadly Reentry for a bit and I'm familiar with landing a small probe on Eve. However, the two goals seem counteractive, anything big enough to make the ascent, is going to going to take something like 100T of shielding to bring down, which is going to make the aerobrake less and less gentle, which is going to be a circular problem to solve. I've contemplated an idea of building a massive shield out of several 3.5M shields, but it will take all day and I don't want to start unless I know it'll work.