technion

That's awfully inefficient in the accurate atmosphere model.

So those batteries and panels count now? damn.. that's going to hurt my designs.

OK guys, not that I'm anywhere near it in this new save, but what are people planning for Tylo following the 47-8S nerf? This place was terrible to land as it is. I'm picturing the cascading effect of the changes to this engine, leading to a bigger final stage, to an even bigger lander, and so on. Has anyone got a screenshot of something that managed this?

You realise if you start playing with FAR and need a better controlled ascent.. just how hard it is steering with SRB's as your main thrust. They are fine in addition to a rocket, but replacing one pair of those with tanks and T-45 engines would be a significantly better option. Not to mention, you probably have far more thrust than you need already, and substituting that for a rocket with extra dv would make this a much better flying rocket.

The contracts increase in payout exponentially. You're not supposed to start out trying to pay for large upgrades. You are supposed to be forced to explore the Kerbin system with minimal rockets and options. By the time you find yourself with contracts for Duna, hang tight until you can get 3-4. My first launch out there hauled a small satellite for a "put a satellite in orbit" mission, completed a "explore Duna" mission, and also a temperature scan mission. That paid a fortune and things got pretty easy afterwards.

This has me floored. Is there any reason you couldn't just fit such a gauge?

How much would a science bonus ever really mean? All this "reset the experiment" talk is only relevant to two experiments. You can land on the Mun and do temperature, gravitron, seismic, surface and EVA experiments and simply collect all the data and fly it back to Kerbin. You can always do a crew report and transmit for 100% science. I'm really noticing this because I wanted to focus on doing contracts and getting $$, so I never bothered with the weight of these two experiments, or tried to land anywhere other than needed for a contract. Instead of trying to farm science of from Mun and Minmus like usual, I just went about doing things and by the time I had my sights set on Duna, only the final tier of the tech tree remained. Between Duna and Ike, it still got cleared out. So what benefit would there really be in any form of science bonus?

Yes insanitic, that mirrors my experience. I haven't seen significant heating on Duna capture unless I go down to around 6km, at which point, you start to worry if you're going to hit a mountain.

People here are guessing, but nothing will beat what we could say if you could post a screenshot. If you can shot us your map after you've made a burn to put you on course with the mun I think we'll have a good idea.

I'm currently doing a contract that involves a seismic sample at four points on Duna. It doesn't have to be done with a rover, but it seemed like the most fun way to do it, and probably the only legit reason I've ever had to actually make a rover. So these contracts do get generated.

ISP is a HUGE difference, and it's precisely why you generally use them in these scenarios. The fuel consumption rate doesn't mean a lot because it doesn't factor in the thrust you get for that consumption (like the ISP does).

Are you going in the right direction? I can't tell from that image but, if you look at those dots, they should be going away from you, not towards you. You could also just look at the AN/DN. They should be 0, not 180.

I'm happy to do that but I'm interested in how it could be felt a jet could easily take off, fly 5km to a target that doesn't appear visually or give off a "distance" warning, then suddenly land on top of it. Jets take a long time to slow down and land, I try to line it up from 10km away when I'm returning to KSP's airstrip. At a cruising speed of 130m/s, the "You are entering zone xxx" comes up about three seconds before you leave it. On the ease of building spaceplanes that can land on a dime I wouldn't agree with that.

I've been flying a jet around Kerbin to complete a survey and it's far, far more difficult than completing surveys on the Mun and even Duna. I could easily have a small lander with 47-8S's and reusable parachutes hop from one area to another until all required landings were hit, but hopping from one part of Kerbin to another, in its atmosphere, it just not feasible, particularly when you play with FAR and can't just turn around mid-flight. It's one thing to get target direction markers, but without a distance showing up in your view like when you actually target something they are terrible to hit. Which basically means either long rover drives, or trying to land a jet. Which is fun, but it's also somewhat end-game level difficulty.

Are there thoughts on how you would power that? I've spent a lot of time on battery power for my RPi and I get less than a day out of this setup. Switching power supply, downsteps to 5V. Way over built to provide smoothest most reliable power. UPS with battery. The battery on its own wouldn't fit in a cubesat.

Having just watched this movie - I was more interested in how you managed to keep the whole thing "the most secret organisation in the world" when you launched a rocket that creates a ball of smoke and then flies over a large area as part of a launch.

Where is he transferring to? You can get to Eeloo for less than that. If you can get a better transfer and bring it down to a respectable 1500 or so, you'll find the burn time more acceptable.

Can you post a picture? That may tell us more than the writing

Stevenlawyer, that's an absolutely amazing video. I truly don't understand how you ever managed to get that lift to function as well as you did, and get the rocket to hang together in the way it did. I'd be keen to see the rest of it, with just Eve down, a large portion of fuel is already gone. I'll never understand what people do with Moho and its absurd requirements on these grand tours. That said, I think it deserves its own thread, rather being a note on several others.

Bahahah.. no! Interestingly, putting two ions on that lander, if you looked just at KRE, would convince you it was capable of a Vall landing. What that doesn't show you is that, even with the panels shown, it didn't have enough to run at full power for extended periods, and a second ion would need to be coupled with enough extra panels that you'll lose that ability to land on Vall.

This sucker made it from Tylo orbit, to Bop (landed), to Pol (landed), and to rendezvous with the mothership in a Vall orbit. Packing this makes a Jool 5 tour significantly lighter than it otherwise would be.

The problem with feedback is, you often only get it when people have something bad to say (particularly on the Internet). There's a section that says [this post is unfinished], but if you pulled that out no one would notice and it would look fine. What mods did you use, it doesn't look completely stock.

I highly recommend a lightweight lander. My current standard involves an FL-T200 under a lander can, with three more radially attached, with decouplers and fuel lines and those tiny 47-8S engines. A parachute on each of these is enough to manage the landing, and there's more than enough dv to deorbit, reorbit and rendezvous. A command module with a nuke and one grey tank is plenty to get home.

I seriously don't understand how people do these without Precisenode. I mean, Duna is one thing. But hitting Eeloo, you can find + or - one dv takes you from a good intercept to nowhere near it.

I've just completed this. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/101042-Yet-another-Jool-5-tour?p=1558630