LethalDose

It's the weekend. I wouldn't expect any responses before Tuesday Devnotes.

I'm not really sure what this post has to do with the fairing separation, but according to the squadcast summary here they've explicitly stated (9th poin in the summary) they don't want to use procedural parts.

The bolded point is at least one place where you're losing a lot of dV. If at all possible, you want to combine your escape and transfer burns, otherwise you're losing huge amounts of velocity to gravity drag during your escape. This is also an application of Oberth Effect, but I think the former explanation may be easier for you to understand.

First off: Again, I vote for this being fixed because I don't want to have to fly around a whole cloud of my own debris after fairing separation. No, this is just what gets people and that we're allowed to talk about (There are plenty of things that are on the "Do not suggest list") or what gets us and has been recently announced. Just because people are discussing/criticizing/complaining about this decision definitely does NOT mean there are not other issues with the game.

That could explain why the Hohmann transfer took so much more dV to perform.

to be fair, this pretty much is the what is requested in the original post: - - - Updated - - - A slow deployment would actually be worse for the reason I mentioned above (thrusting through a debris cloud) than a fast deployment.

Some people wait till the vessel is orbital to ditch the fairings. The disadvantage is that you're carrying more mass to orbit (not a lot, but still some), and the advantage is that you have more control over how the fairings come off because after you're in orbit, you don't need to keep thrusting. Dropping these fairings suborbital is going pose some issues because at this point the vessel is not done thrusting into orbit. When you blow these confetti fairings, you're generating a whole cloud of crap you may have to thrust through. The increased number of discarded fairing parts makes it more likely you will strike one of the fairing parts when you do initiate your orbital injection. With a clamshell fairing, you can start a spin and the fairings will fly away in a very predictable way. These confetti fairings are going to decouple in a much less predictable way, making thrusting away later much less comfortable.

Moho can be a real nightmare to reach and return from due it's inclination, orbital speed, and eccentricity. Hohmann transfers to Moho just make me sad; They're a very bad idea, and just shouldn't me used. When you compared all the launches, did you do them all at the same time, or did perform them sequentially? PS and it's HOHmann, not HOFFmann. It's a minor thing, but it drove me up the wall the whole time I was reading the OP.

No, what you've described isn't possible. If you're going in the wrong direction, the inclination will be off by 180 degrees if your AN/DN are on the correct axis.

Honestly, I'm somewhat indifferent about the 'potato chip' fairing separation. I'd prefer that shells have only longitudinal splits a la procedural fairings, but firmly I'm in the "Just happy they're finally stock" camp. That being said, I totally respect anyone who doesn't feel that way and provides valid support for their opinion (which the OP has done, repeatedly). And while "just mod it in" is a valid solution, the argument doesn't belong here since we're clearly talking about the stock implementation. I agree that it's appropriate and positive to give this feedback, especially given that Squad released the teaser. The problem is that, IMO, Squad has a track record of being very resistant to feedback that anything less than adulation. And while the point has been made that things can be changed, again IMO, Squad has shown themselves been been very resistant to such changes, typically only adopting the change after modders had done the lion's share of the work coding the changes already. I think it's unfortunate that Squad has necessitated threads like this due to their handling of previous critiques, but that's just the world we post in.

While I understand that you aren't trying to simulate any particular Lagrangian point, it may be helpful to try to roughly simulate L4 or L5, which are 60 degrees before or behind Kerbin's orbit. This will provide a very wide margin for error in the positioning of the satellite so libration (back and forth oscillation of a body when viewed from an other point) doesn't cause the satellite to encounter Kerbin's SoI. Libration occurs when a synchronous orbit has a non zero eccentricity (horizontal libration) or non-zero inclination (vertical inclination). When simulating a Lagrange point, you are essentially placing the satellite in an orbit that has the same orbital period as the sibling body (In this case, Kerbin, as the the sun is the parent). Your target orbit should have AP + PE = 2 * Kerbin's orbital radius, which will give cause your satellite's orbit's semi-major axis to match the length of Kerbin's semi-major axis, and hence, have similar orbital periods (this is a simplification of the math, but it should work). NOTE: The orbital radius given in the wiki is not the orbital radius displayed in the map view. The wiki includes the radius of the parent body (again, the sun, in this case) in the radius, while the map display in the game does not. Just be consistent between the two and you'll be fine. If the AP doesn't equal the PE (hence e != 0), the satellite will appear to librate back and forth in reference to Kerbin, but if it's far enough away, the movement should lead to encounters with Kerbin's SoI. Proactive Addendum: Yes, I know this may not be the exact definition of "librate" but it works well enough in this situation. - - - Updated - - - As I noted in the previous post, make sure you're aware that the wiki reports orbital altitude from the parent's center while the map view reports orbital altitude from the parent's surface at sea level. This is consistent across the wiki entries (typically the first footnote). Basically, just make sure you know what numbers you're using. Since you listed Kerbin's orbital altitude as it appears in the wiki and labeled it "orbital altitude above Kerbol", I fear you may have fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. Update: Using the orbital radius provided by the wiki as the footnote indicates it should be used, Kerbin's orbital velocity is calculated to be 9284.5 m/s using eq 4.6 here. This value is consistent with wiki entry.

This! Bug fixes and balance I don't even see how this is a choice...

Soooo, question. Why is this impractical: The only trick is that you need to time your exit burn from Minmus so that your Kerbin Pe is in the right location for your exit burn. This strategy can save you ~ 750 m/s dV for escape burns. Not all that necessary for Trans-Duna or Trans-Eve injections, but for destinations more distant it can be useful. Also, lower orbits for refueling stations may be more useful. 80 km is pretty high.

Intercept it as far away from Kerbin as possible, preferably in interplanetary space. Out there, alter it's kerbin intercept's PE to be as low as possible, potentially even atmospheric. Burn like h*** when you get near your periapsis After the rock is captured, you have time to do whatever you need to do with it.

Not sure what the source of the pics are, but to fit 5 strap-on boosters around a core, you would need to place them every 72 degrees radially. 5-point radial symmetry isn't supported in stock KSP, but there's a mod that should allow it. Addendum: The mod is Editor Extensions by MachXXV

By my reckoning, this mission/contract isn't that bad. I did some quick and dirty math I'll walk you through below. A solar/kerbolar Ap of ~66 Gm (Million km) is very close to Jool's orbit. A transfer from LKO to Jool takes about 2000 m/s of dV This transfer will give you an apoapsis velocity of about 2430 m/s, that needs to be canceled. You need to further accelerate about 1550 m/s to achieve a retrograde orbit with a 4.9 Gm. So, from LKO, getting the orbit's shape takes about 6 km/s of dV. The inclination is a bit trickier, since the parameters seem to indicate that the axis of inclination is not aligned with the semimajor axis, so add an extra 1 km/s of dV and that should be more than sufficient. Again, this is quick and dirty math, but 7 km/s from LKO an engineering challenge that is far from insurmountable, especially if you have ion drives.

They can be useful for shorten the length of small probes or extend range without increasing length. This can be helpful fitting probes under small fairings or cargo bays. Also it looks good.

Has it been a while since we've had one of these threads? I can't remember. Your play-style doesn't use a part or set of parts, so those parts are useless. You ask other people to explain how they use them, and you argue with them about it instead of accepting their answers... Yeah, thanks for playing. To answer the question, MP RCS is great for small vessels that need to dock or make minor mid-course corrections. I use them for the latter on interplanetary missions to make small, but extremely effective, course corrections during transfers without needing to change vessel attitude. Vernors would be too powerful to do this effectively and would screw with the total dV, but basically everyone else has said this already.

From Scott Manley's banner: "It was going well until it exploded"

Why does no ever bring up pitch authority when discussing lawn darting? OP, do you have susbstantial pitch control surfaces on your tail/empanage? If you don't have a sufficient lever arm to torque the nose up, that combined with the high AoA wings will probably lead to a ver stable nose down flight profile. EDIT: EddieW did. Good.

I think it's exactly rewarding now as it was when all the game had was sandbox mode. For me, that's not very rewarding. For others, it's very rewarding. It just depends on what you like /shrug

You're probably not gonna like my advice, but I think the two points below are among the best you'll get in this situation. #1 Don't use a tug. Tugs are intended to be reusable, and you're sending this to the surface. Why does the stage that got you there need to be reusable? You'll be better off with a disposable transfer stage. I like a KR-2L for those. #2 Make the thing smaller. 35 tons is a LOT of payload to move to Moho. If you're having trouble with this part of the design (and the x'fer to Moho is the hard part), start with a smaller mission, get some practice, and then revisit this. Hope that helps.

First off, yes, air-breathing boosters can work. Secondly, like with everything else in this game, it's all about your design. IMO, Basic jet engines kinda suck for anything other than subsonic low-altitude (<12 km) flight. If you're using the basic jet instead of turbo's, you're going to have to limit yourself to smaller payloads or use a bunch of engines. This is how every lift off works: TWR > 1 Also remember that jets need time to 'spool up' to full thrust. You need to let your engines run for a bit before they're going to lift anything; they're not like LF/Ox engines that go to full power in practically no time. If you want to provide pics we can try to help you.

I completely agree with points 1 & 2 leading to the "So in short" summary provided here; The RAPIERs pack a great punch, and are why simpler than multi-engine configurations that are pretty darn temperamental. And anyone who tries to tell you extra thrust doesn't do you any good is full of jetwash. Increasing TWR (to a point) has been demonstrated to reduce dV requirements, both in theory and in practice. And the point where the diminishing returns from increased TWR becomes an issue is typically way above where most SSTO spaceplanes' TWR hangout. I'm personally not a fan of SSTO spaceplanes with nukes, though. It's trying to do to much with a single vessel. IMO, spaceplanes excel at ferrying resources, kerbals, and small payloads between the surface and low orbit of Kerbin (and too a lesser degree Laythe). Beyond that mission profile, you're better off using specialized orbital vessels.

Well, since they're improving the aero model and tracking coverage, there may be a chance for them to revisit air intake logic in terms of overlapping intakes. But this is Squad we're talking about, so who knows what they'll do.