Pecan

The wiki may well tell you some more new things: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings Edit: Doh! Didn't see the link in the above post.

Rocket SSTOs are easy but not, of course, planes at all - requires more fuel per launch and is harder to land accurately. 'Shuttle' style orbiter/landers are about the hardest to build because of the unbalanced launch profile - not worth it for the ability to land where you want. Pure apaceplanes are not too bad, once you get the ascent sorted, but they do need more design and flight effort than rockets on ascent. The various 1.0.x versions changed things drastically from 0.90 and a fair amount amongst themselves so to an extent we're all still beginners with the air-breathing engines and spaceplanes. That said, the broad outlines of flight to orbit are clear: Phase 1: launch to 10km - start air-breathing and climb at the best rate the vehicle allows, just to get some useful altitude. Phase 2: 10km to 20km - climb less and concentrate on building horizontal velocity, such that you reach around 1km/s - 1.5km/s or more. Phase 3: Pitch-up to climb to the maximum altitude your air-breathing engines will allow while maintaining the highest horizontal velocity you can. Phase 4: Switch to rockets when the air-breathers die and go for orbit.

Staging. What you're saying is that all that work is just because you have way too much thrust available, which in turn means you're wasting a lot more than you gain by carrying engines you aren't using. (And you hid the rest of your post with colour, so I won't take that up - as you say, we ought to get back on topic ^^) Something funny with forum-update when you edited your post there. Anyway, nothing we need discuss here. On topic - if fairings help then use them, if they don't then - like everything else - leave them off and save part-count, mass, funds and fuel.

^ This. Plus, the tutorials weren't updated so the craft in that one has the 'bad' parachute settings and will kill you. Unusually Starhawk is wrong - the parachute simply opens too late to do anything. As the others have said, you can correct those by right-clicking the parachute before your re-entry (you'll probably be a bit busy and forget, so do it sooner rather than later!).

Welcome to the forums, I am privileged your first post was a response to me :-) Since the atmosphere on Kerbin extends to 70km, an Ap (Apoapsis, highest point of orbit) at 50km is too low to be 'overshooting' by quite a bit. Most importantly, you still need to build horizontal speed as quickly as possible. Certainly, by the time you've got a 50km Ap you've probably got all the 'up' you need, so you pitch-down towards the horizon, or even below it, so your Pe (Periapsis, lowest point of orbit) starts to raise as well. This way you can control exactly how quickly, or slowly, your Ap rises, with the maximum fuel-benefit for circularising Pe. It's all about the gravity turn, and why "go straight up to space, then turn right" isn't a good way to orbit.

1 drill, balanced configuration = put the drill under the centre stack. This implies you have side-stacks, which implies multiple, low-thrust engines. 2 - 4 909s on radially-attached side stacks give a lander a wide base and pretty good lifting power for Mun or similar. If you're keeping it as small as possible though and have a single stack, which is liable to fall over on landing, make a virtue of necessity - *make* it fall over, onto side-mounted landing legs (if necessary - probably not on Minmus). Your sideways-mounted nose-drill will now be pointing down, ready to mine :-)

Is it ok if we quote that back at you in a couple of years, just when you've forgotten all about it and are feeling safe? Hehe. *Sigh* I was seriously considering buying the Met Office's old Cray when they sold it off in the 90s. It would never have fit on my yacht though - and the power lead would have been a problem. Now 'phones have more power than that does.

If it's meant to be for 'shuttle' designs the best thing about it would be a large gimbal range, for balancing thrust with and without boosters and main fuel tank.

Why even then?

Orbiting is about going around and around. Going up and down is not about going around and around. The ideal way to launch is by using a Hohmann transfer with your, initial, Pe at ground level (duh!) and making your Ap the desired orbital altitude as soon as possible - which means going sideways immediately. Unfortunately, of course, that doesn't quite work on a vacuum body, even if there aren't any mountains in the way. On a body with atmosphere it definitely doesn't work because of higher drag at low altitudes; but the principle is the same - concentrate on getting horizontal speed as early as possible. As the story says - any vertical velocity is lost to gravity, any horizontal velocity you get to keep.

[it's 70km, just in case no-one's mentioned that yet ^^] If you can't pitch-over enough to establish an 80km, let alone a 70km, orbit you've got too much engine power and you're climbing too fast. (Or, of course, you have too many stabilising fins and have made a rocket that just won't turn).

Kerbal Flight Simulator keeps getting better.

So exactly the same as the last 4 releases; 90% spaceplanes, 9% functionality, 1% rocketry and space 10% functionality? [Edit: corrected accidental inclusion of rocketry above]

Yes, the drag is the same. The 'correct' orientation is with the hinged end forwards but that usually doesn't make any sense anyway for my SSTO rockets, which launch nose-first and land engine-first. In that case, I use them as control surfaces on the way up, which means placing them the right way around. On the way down, they're just 'deployed' so fully active, although technically the wrong way around, they work fine.

And now you are better :-) Many congratulations, before your post becomes lost in amongst the rest.

While most of the interest of KSP for me is in space, I think we have to applaud Squad here, for all the additions they've made to 'plane construction. Lots of people have pushed for more and better atmospheric flight over the years and Squad has responded. If the demand hadn't been there they would have concentrated on space. For aircraft there's a pretty clear selection of Mks 1, 2 and 3. We have had OMS engines and all the other extras for rockets as well so I do see the 'plane parts as extras rather than replacements. Don't forget you can delete parts you never use if they cause you any problems.

Here -> http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130790-How-can-I-orbit-kerbin-and-the-moon-in-Demo?p=2125733&viewfull=1#post2125733 is a demo version rocket capable of landing on either moon and returning. For longer, more general, 'start small' designs and missions you might like to look at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79658-Exploring-The-System-A-design-tutorial-campaign-0-90-Final although the ships there are outdated and, in any case, not compatible with the demo version. As the others have said, the basic idea is not to try too much too soon, and generally try to see how far you can go with the absolute minimum parts, size and mass (not that there's much choice in demo!) The usual thing people do is keep adding more (everything) to their rockets in an attempt to 'just' reach orbit, when what you really want to be doing is looking at getting rid of bits that aren't really helping. Set yourself simple goals at first and advance in small steps - get to space (straight up and down again), start working on a gravity turn (and find out why!), reach orbit (it's quite a milestone, which is why 'just' is in inverted commas above), fly-by Mun, orbit Mun, orbit and land on Minmus (the other moon, it's easier although it's further), land on and return from Mun (once you've got this far the hardest part is finding somewhere flat enough to land without tipping over), try rendezcousing and docking with two ships.

Rendezvous and close to within 100m using main engines. After that you don't want more than 0.1 - 0.2 m/s relative velocity anyway. It just takes time - but if you're insisting on 400/500t monsters, you've got to live with it.

Looks like you posted a link to a video. I shall wait for the transcript.

I would be looking forward to 64-bit, if I didn't have a 32-bit machine. I would be upgrading my machine, if I had the money.

Oh your stuff's fine. No, sticking with the KPE thread (I have been away and missed it all) I just wanted to know if there was anything official in other media or whether it was just another 'video is the only medium' thing.

It's all lovely on the flat, once you've spent weeks getting it all together. Then you land somewhere that isn't a simple plane, and the docking ports won't even point at each other enough to dock. KAS, other mods, or forget it.

So ... anything in other media? (ever?)

My favourite project is writing tutorials. So I usually have several installs with designs being created and tested for different aspects of the game. Unfortunately Squad only supports or promotes videos. And meanwhile I will be trying to make designs for people's specific requirements or that illustrate their particular concern. So every now and again I just stop and mess around. It's a game. Do what seems fun, there isn't anything we need to do except enjoy it.

And the main thing is - if you want to mess about in space and find out how it all works ... avoid career mode. Sandbox to learn, unless you're overwhelmed by the choice, in which case Science mode.