Pecan

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/11322-Different-Conic-drawing-modes Possibly a bit old (2012 IIRC) but probably helpful.

Hehe - I wish I'd said that. It was an afterthought that seemed on-topic for this thread plus the IR one is a bit 'busy' with proper work, lol. Nevertheless, you are right.

Well yes, those are 'best case' figures AFAIK. They are taken from this deltaV map, as are all the others. While we're at it - "How hard is it to get to and orbit (from Kerbin)?" table: Mun 1,170 Minmus 1,430 Ike 1,550 Duna 1,700 Eve 2,880 Gilly 2,950 Dres 3,860 Tylo 3,860 Vall 3,890 Pol 4,040 Laythe 4,360 <- Kerbin orbit 4,500m/s "Halfway to anywhere" Eeloo 4,790 Jool 5,170 Bop 5,920 Moho 6,640 Kerbol 33,680 I use these tables to plan missions within projects, within programmes, within overall space-travel strategy so everything I design and fly fits into an overall structure that progresses 'logically'. Current one is 'exploring the system'; i) SCANSat mapping satellites around Kerbin, ii) manned orbital follow satellites, satellites move on to lunar (Mun & Minmus) mapping, iii) manned lunar landings, interplanetary mapping satellites, iv) launch <-> Kerbin station infrastructure, visit all Kerbin 'anomalies' found by the satellites, v) Kerbin station <-> tractor <-> Mun station <-> landers infrastructure to visit the anomalies there, vi) interplanetary manned. Next up: RT2 and Kethane-mining (possibly. Not excited about Kethane itself but looking for something that gives an excuse for bases)

The best place to ask about a specific mod is in that mod's thread

A version of IR compatible with 0.23.5 has just been released too, although it's not completely guaranteed. Downloaded it myself yesterday, having been waiting for a working version. Now realise I haven't the faintest idea how any of it works. Anyone know some good tutorials - preferably not videos?

Everything depends on what you want mods for. SCANSat & RT2 if you want to do unmanned missions. Kethane, KAS, IR for building 'more interesting' ships (mining, refuelling, animated respectively). FAR, DREC & TAC LS (or ECLSS) for realism. KW Rocketry & B9 if you want lots of parts - beware of memory issues, even if you don't actually use them, they are still loaded at start. Procedural Fairings, storage tubes and several other mods are great for making aesthetic vehicles. Then there's all the 'informational' mods, led by KER, MJ and/or VOID. KAC, Ship Manifest, docking port alignment (navyfish's or the navball version). PreciseNode, protractor, etc. etc. Or just 'immersive' - Chatterer, environmental enhancements, sound replacer, texture replacer/reducer, KerbPaint.

Don't have the patience to fiddle around for orbital rendezvous - almost always get MJ to do that bit for me. Prev/next orbit buttons on manoeuvre nodes make it a lot easier but it's still a pain unless there's an intercept fairly soon. Much more likely to do my own docking now since I got the excellent navball docking alignment indicator (minimalist variant of navyfish's). Also tend to restart saves with more goals in mind rather than stick with one. As a consequence there's some planets I've never even got a transfer window for, let alone visited. [Haven't tried to land on Eve yet, but that's for the obvious different reason]. And finally, I keep letting real life interfere and drag me away from KSP! Loads of overtime at the moment and it's usually 10pm by the time I even start the game :-(

If you need a use - mine is a lander for everywhere up to & including Duna and uses much less fuel than an equivalent with a heavy can, legs, etc.

Ok, just had a quick play with T30s. Docking port/decoupler and RCU under 50t payload, as before. X200 tank, quad adapter and 4xT30s give final-stage TWR of 1.35 - 1.54. This is low but it's a small tank and will only be used for circularising the orbit once in space. TWR is less important at that point so it's "ok". 3 asparagus stages (symmetry 2, in other words), based on TT-70 radial decouplers (the wide ones - the quad adapters can make it tricky to use the narrow ones). Each booster stack has X200 and orange tube tanks, quad adapter and 4xT30s, same as the core but with a lot more fuel. TWR from first stage to last is then 1.67-2.14, 1.65-2.36, 1.59-3.08 (a bit high right at the end there!) and 1.35-1.54. Total vacuum deltaV (with 50t payload) is 5,070m/s. It's 366.4t, so only 13.65% payload ratio but since it's the first thing I put together it'll do as a place from which to start. The idea of the RCU is that once the orbit has been circularised you can decouple the payload, switch to the remaining, last, stage of the launch vehicle, turn it around and use the residual fuel to de-orbit it so that it falls back to Kerbin and is destroyed - like all the previous stages - and no debris is left in orbit.

Why two decouplers in the middle? As Bearsh says, lose the LES - it's heavy and pretty pointless. Just stick a radial parachute on the cockpit if you want an ejection system. Building a simple spaceplane is actually a lot easier than flying it! Use a 180-unit fuel tank for your jet, tweaked to remove all the oxidiser, that way it's lighter than the fuselage part. Attach more 180-unit tanks either side of that for your rockets - 48-7Ss behind each one. You need ram-intakes for high flight and performance so put one of those on each of the rocket-fuel tanks. Fly it high and fast. Climb as fast as you like to c10km then start to flatten out - you do not want to go too much above 15km too quickly because ... in thinning atmosphere the jet will be starved of oxygen and the plane will start to 'wander' and become a bit uncontrollable. If you don't do anything the jet will 'flameout' and you'll fall out of the sky. What you do is a) reduce the throttle slightly until the jet keeps working and accelerating the plane, when the throttle is so low the jet is no longer able to accelerate you - turn it off, turn the rockets on and point up to go to space! (Cut throttle when you have a 75 - 80km apoapsis and then circularise as you would with a rocket). Successful flight to orbit - particularly balancing how quickly you climb at what altitude to get the most from the jet - is something of an art that you'll just have to practice. That jet + 2x48-7Ss with 180-unit tanks will work though. Keep everything else to a minimum to keep it light until you've got the hang of it.

With Module Manager installed can create a .cfg file with the following to add MJ functionality to all pods without having to use a part at all. NB: MJ works even better if you get rid of the side-tab by installing another mod - toolbar, by some guy called blizzy. Anyone heard of him? @PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand],!MODULE[MechJebCore]]:Final { MODULE { name = MechJebCore } MODULE } [Your work is always great blizzy, thanks for all of it :-) ]

@Adampeay - have you installed all the dependencies, as explained in the OP? "NOTE: Dependencies now exist with CLS, Module manager, and Toolbar ... Toolbar is included with the release, but the others are not."

In the OP and illustrations it is clear there are two side-tanks feeding into the centre. Are you happier if this is called 'onion' staging? How does asparagus make for messy symmetry? What is 'messy' symmetry anyway? What gains do you consider significant? Have you tested and checked this or are you with Manley just on principal? Can we have your design figures for comparison? @OP: Yes, I've found core + two boosters to be about the most useful and flexible design for many uses too. The most common alternative is serial (stack) staging - you may like to check mhoram's recent tutorial: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75669-Staging-Methods-Overview There are simpler - and certainly lower-mass/smaller - ways to build your ships but if they work for you they're not 'flawed' to any great extent.

For designing launch vehicles work backwards from the payload. Temstar posted an excellent example a while ago of his 'zenith' series of launchers which ... I have now totally failed to find again. My more trial-and-error 'easy' approach goes like this: 1) Start with you payload or equivalent mass. Add docking port or separator beneath it and a remote guidance unit beneath that (planning to control and de-orbit the last stage of the launch vehicle so no debris is left in space). This is the 'total' payload you now have to lift. 2) Stick a fuel tank and engine on the thing - note the TWR. a) Move up through 1, 2, 3 and 4 engines (I really recommend T30s if you don't have aerospikes) to see what TWR you can get. If you can get TWR over 1.8 then add more fuel (= more deltaV = getting further) c) If you can't get at least TWR 1.2 then reduce fuel. 3) Check the total deltaV. a) If over 4,500m/s you will go to space today. Get out there and try it. Otherwise add an asparagus stage and repeat from 2. For 20t (can't find a 15t one at the moment) my 'standard' launcher is 126.792t - core plus two asparagus stages (each stage being a tank either side for symmetry, of course), X-200 fuel tanks, 4 aerospikes under core, 2 under each of the (4) stage-tanks. It's ony just over 16% payload ratio but a simple build, optimised I tend to aim for 18%. Having said that I've recently switched to just using ARM parts for reduced part-count (lag) and really simple builds. I almost never launch more than about 40t (orange tube and accessories) myself, preferring to build in orbit (with docking). Apart from just getting the TWR and deltaV I still find it difficult to balance and fly bigger loads during the ascent. I will try putting together T30- and ARM- based 50t launchers for you this evening.

Now you have VOID make good use of its TWR and deltaV stats. Your whole launch design is too big but inefficient. 1) You need approx 4,500m/s to reach LKO 2) Launch TWR should be around 1.5 - 1.7 3) You do not want to exceeed terminal velocity during the ascent 4) Your payload is 15 tonnes and even a basic rocket design should give a 10% payload ratio; ~150t total at launch. Asparagus should enable you to reach 15% - 19%; 88t. Your design is at least twice as heavy as it should be. 5) Mainsails and skippers are awful engines - try clusters (bi-, tri-, quad- adapters or use octagonal struts) of aerospikes or T30s for launching 6) When I started KSP I used 1.5m parts with no problem and completely failed at 2.5m too. Trust that you will 'get it' sooner than you think - but first work on building small.

I think you mean 'oval' - oblongs are square-ish!

Landing/Ascent requirements (both): 'A' indicates atmosphere Gilly 30 (60) Pol 130 (260) Minmus 180 (360) Bop 220 (440) Ike 390 (780) Dres 430 (860) Mun 580 (1,160) Eeloo 620 (1,240) Vall 860 (1,720) Moho 870 (1,740) Duna 1,300 (2,600) A Tylo 2,270 (4,540) Laythe 3,200 (6,400) A Eve 12,000 (24,000) A If you're considering Bop though I assume you haven't looked at any of those deltaV maps yet? There's a 2,440m/s requirement just to change planes from Jool before you can think of landing!

It can be a pain making test loads of a specific mass - stupid_chris has done it for us: NRAP adjustable test weight. Stick that on your rocket and ask KER or MJ what the figures are. I predict VOID will agree with KER/MJ within a predictable margin. I further predict they'll all be wrong in practice, partly because of the reasons Streetwind gives and partly because you'll never be able to execute manoeuvres perfectly and instantly, the way they are calculated.

Version numbers are not decimal numbers. Replace the '.' with any other separator (or decoupler) of your choice, eg; we are at 0-23-5. It all means major-minor-variant so after 0.99.7 (or whatever) the next minor update would be 0.100.0. Developers typically use major version '0' for pre-release, '1' for the first "we think it's complete" release and '2' upwards for new sales ^^. Pre-release anything goes, or fails to go. After release backwards-compatibility would be expected (but might not be possible) within a major version but not necessarily across them - so 1.5 would be expected to be compatible with 1.0 - while releasing a new major version is announcing "game-changing" differences. All of this depends on the development team and how they keep track of different versions though. If they want to use a completely different system or change halfway through they can.

According to the deltaV maps (google one, they're terrific!) Val needs 860m/s for landing/ascent - so 1,720m/s for both.

Since you ask:

As I've just posted in another tutorial thread - videos are pretty useless to those of us who don't have unlimited broadband. Please write about the most important details. Also - how are you defining "shuttle"? Is it a reusable space-plane or specifically a copy of that United States thingy?

Tutorials are always good. A request for those of us that don't have unlimited broadband or can't watch 45-minute videos for other reasons; any chance of writing about the salient points?

PS: Hints on how to show imgur albums better would be welcome

[@ OP: Don't make me revive my 'what if KSP ran in EGA' thread ^^]