DrMonte

One good thing - the near the sun, the better solar panels work. (If you'll use ion engines)

/me hate MAC

I was pointing out that if you are not satisfied with low TWR in space LV-N is not for you. It's good for me, just grab a coffee or a lunch in half hour burn. I don't use MechJeb, 'T' works fine in Kerbol orbit.

In this case LV-N might be not the best choice at all. 48-7S or Aerospike might be more efficient. All usual space flight formulas assume that TWR in space is irrelevant, those ISP leads.

I was thinking about such design - You should have tried pulling up the legs of the lander for the moment making it sit on the rover. Separating vehicles in the air is dangerous. Don't get apart more than 2km (2.25 to be more precise). Actually I didn't have much trouble landing with ~1t rover on a side without counter-mass (don't have pictures now) but that's not a good design. For the next mission I found the way to put it under the lander (my solution was "Rockomax 48-7S" engines). What I wanted to say is that center of mass is not so much trouble as you might think if you use correct tools to resist it.

When interplanetary travel time is accounted by days I don't think it does really matter if you will burn 5 minutes or 30.

I think adding one SAS module would help to balance the rocket without further modifications. Although you should try moving your rover into the center of mass as much as possible.

I didn't try multidocking myself but saw a lot of videos. It definitely prevents wobbling which in case is the main problem. As you can easily push the ship without docking at all. Should run some tests on the ground.

Usually destruction is done when separation is done before fuel runs out. Even empty fuel tanks "touching" your rocket shouldn't damage it (most of the time ). Make it stronger, make it unbreakable and listen to good posted suggestions: - keep rocket nose to your movement vector "o" when separating; - keep outer stages lower; - keep outer stages far from inner; I'm not an additional boosters fan. For super heavy mounting like multiple orange tanks I use "Hydraulic Detachment Manifold" on "Modular Girder Segment" and it works fine.

I'm quite annoyed - all live translations starts at midnight and ends in early morning

Oh, that's a craft.

That could be a good idea for tweakables - adding/removing generator in cost of weight+trust. We'll see what we'll get in 0.23

You should post a picture.

My minimal rover for full science. "Here we parked it!" Traveled more than 100km over the mountains to plant flags high. Nothing unnecessary here: all science equipment, panels just enough to power the wheels and restore batteries after data transfer, batteries to cover full science data transfer or some travel in the dark. Oh, those two guys are not so required here but they make rover to look better. Next stop - Eve (or Laythe, I didn't test if it floats).

What is tracking that?

Philosophical question - Who is Kraken? Some physics behavior might look weird but work correctly. Especially when mods with unlimited joints strengths are installed. Is this Kraken or not? I was working on some physics modeling engine and there is such weird things happening with a little mistyping in some spring thickness constant that you wouldn't even believe Oh and I had a Kraken when all Kerbin disappeared during the launch.

I experienced this few times and it always solved by changing rocked orientation in space. (not in 0.22 yet) For example turning 90deg always helped to get in into the capsule. This should have something to do with Kerbal limitation to turn directly up or down (as with camera angle).

As someone said you should align speed, not the orbit. Anyway corrections will be required time to time regardless the perfect your orbit is.

I have spent few weeks in the hangar. Building planes to run around Kerbin, VTOL also, didn't went for space shuttles yet. So have a bit experience to get of the ground and in to it. - The main thing is to keep lifting vector a bit in front of the mass and you will be able to get of the ground. - It will be easier to build a plane with winglets on the nose (but not so nice). - Rotate wings. The real planes does not have simple direct wings. Tilting them up will prevent the plane from sliding on rotation. Tilting wings front up will increase its lifting drastically. - And the other main thing to not forget - the fuel runs out and mass center changes.

Also add kerbodogs, kerbomonkeys and kerbomouses as unpilotted uncontrollable pod This might make sense as the first man sent probe also was computer controlled. As in the game it's quite easy to make first steps of science just by digging around the KSC.

By reading some Fastest Jet Chalenge forum I found that in parts cfg there is a top constant for an each engine, where its trust becomes 0. For example Turbo Jets has 0 trust at 2400m/s. 1800m/s might be your engines limit.

Muns escape dV is quite low, so building separate lander is not always efficient. Especially if you are bad at rendezvous and docking. I'm not sure it it's efficient at all in KSP? :+/

Usually an engine makes airplane to spin, not an air intake. One of engines leaks resources earlier than the other and it's off and you are in trouble.

I think seven Main sail engines is not enough to lift the rocket. That's why it is stuck. So no bug, just redesign.

From my "Kerbal science lessons": I've accidentally learned why NASA does not use Air braking. We know that it is really dangerous even in KSP. When travelling to Jool I've accidentally "grabbed" Laythe in my path and this safely throwed me in to the Jool orbit without any additional dV or dangerous Airbraking.