Pecan

1. What Sirrobert said 2. MJ only calculates the manoeuvre node for you, if you ask it to 3. Real planes and spacecraft have autopilots 4. People aren't having fun the wrong way

If you're using MJ, just use the "return from a moon" option ^^.

I'd never thought to look and am intrigued enough to check ... ... and, yes, rockets reach full (or whatever the throttle/thrust limiter is set to) thrust instantly.

Has anyone replying to this thread, especially to the OP, noticed that it's 18 months old?

It is best to ask in the mod's own forum thread about any issues you have with it. I haven't heard of that one so can't give you the link. ETA for below: Try here then - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/9923-0-90-Lazor-System-v35-(Dec-17)

Why EVA at all? To transfer Kerbals between accommodation (command-pods, hitch-hikers, etc.) on the same ship, bearing in mind that docked ships are treated as a single large one, just click the crew hatch where they are at the moment, select one to 'transfer' then click the part to which they should go.

60 minute burn to Duna! Hell, that would mean more than 41 minutes just for a Mun burn! Either you're seriously under-powered (heavy craft, single engine) or you're trying to burn all the way until you get there. @all: Even splitting that up over multiple orbits there's no way that can be practical, surely? Pictures, .craft file or at least the mass of your ship please, so we can give a better recommendation.

There's a manual? Where's this manual?

Yep, sympathies and shrugs. Getting it while in another SOI is a new record though, I think - congratulations, for what it's worth :-(

Ahh, right - with the intake-spam I'm relying on speed by the time I get to 30km and wings are pretty much irrelevant except for initial rotate and final landing. Since my planes are over-fed they are giving more thrust -> acceleration -> speed. No surprise that I follow the same ascent with VTVL jet 'tail sitters' that don't have any wings at all (which can't quite fit "more wing mass than you need", but the difference is in the spamming, so I know what you mean).

Or just double-cheat and tell us what the answer is - give yourself loads of money, upgrade the buildings then put the money back to zero. Apart from getting rid of the building-upgrade cost though I'm not sure how this is different to 'plain' career mode, since you'll still have to pay for each vehicle you launch.

(And your earlier post). Good luck with establishing that 50m orbit in the first place. Above the flats, that is. Starting from a 15km orbit. That's WHY there's a lot of horizontal speed to lose before landing ^^. @rcp27 - glad you've had fun :-)

Just as a side-note, the navball will switch from 'surface' to 'orbital' mode once the current periapsis is above 24km, which will probably be quite a bit after you've got an apoapsis at the required orbital altitude. It should be easy to achieve that with minimal intakes or, in my case, patience ^^.

No-one is suggesting a "full blown VTOL" except as an option that works. What we are suggesting is you use the rocket you already have (to get through space in the first place) just like any other rocket and do (almost) all the landing with it. There are three problems with a retro system such as you propose, i) it's extra mass you don't otherwise need, ii) even on a low-gravity body like Minmus there's a LOT of horizontal speed to lose to get down from orbit, iii) while your retros are slowing you down and your main rocket is facing backwards - you have nothing to kill your vertical descent!

Indeed. Although I DO intake-spam (up to 8 RAM intakes per jet) that's mostly because I'm too impatient to raise the periapsis that 'low', preferring to keep the jet ticking-over all the way up. Besides, intake-spam makes designs more forgiving on ascent for newbies, and I don't think it looks too bad: (provided you accept that that particular one is deliberately trying to avoid looking like everyone else's Mk2 spaceplanes)

No, you don't have to add legs or VTOL engines - you already have a rocket on the thing so use as you would to land any rocket but once you're almost down drop the nose to settle on the landing-gear.

Jet ascent falls into three phases in any aerodynamics model, although the speeds and altitudes will change. In stock: Get above the thick, draggy lower atmosphere: climb-out to 15km-20km at 45-degrees or so, caring more about rate of climb than horizontal speed. Make coffee. Build horizontal speed: pitch-down to provide more forward thrust but keep climbing. Between 20km-30km try to keep your horizontal speed around 1km/s plus 100m/s per 1km altitude above 20km (1,000m/s at 20km, 1,100m/s at 21km, etc). Adjust pitch/climb-rate to maintain something like this so you break 2km/s and get orbital speed around 30km-33km. Circularise: nurse the throttle to maintain as much horizontal speed as possible while drifting to Ap, building Pe while you do it. If you intake-spam like me you can burn the jet all the way to space and get a periapsis over 50km, leaving only about 30m/s for the rockets to circularise a 75km orbit. Different designs fly differently so use this only as a rough guide.

23 degrees seems like a lot of pitch to me, not that I claim to be good at (or particularly interested in) spaceplanes. What rate of climb are you getting at that pitch and what Pe do you get from the jet(s)? Using much shallower pitch (+/- 5 degrees) at that altitude - and intake-spamming 8 per jet - I usually have a Pe of 50-60km.

The extra memory needed for all the new things promised in 1.0 will probably make KSP unplayable for me, unless there's also a major memory-optimisation pass as well. If it does work (or when I save enough to buy a new machine) it'll be nice to have a reason for bases but it'll also make everything so much easier there'll be no reason for decent vehicles (pace OP).

If SAS is off and you rotate right, for instance, you'll keep rotating right until you counter with an equal-but-opposite input - it's space. If SAS is on it will attempt to stop your rotation as soon as you release the key.

Keep multiple installs of the game if you want to keep an old game going and still try new features. Dev-notes tell us what to expect, launch announcement says what we're getting and the change-log gives the details, so no-one can say they weren't warned (unless they just took no notice).

Back to the drawing board then (and Specialist290 will have to clear that out too). And the wiki. Not unexpected but *sob* farewell 48-7S, that I knew by number and for which I didn't need a name :-( Hmmm, off the top of my head; LV-1®, 48-7S, 909, T30, T45 (remembering to not use it), buffed Mk55 - Aerospike, Poodle, Skipper and Mainsail have names - KR-2L, Ion, LV-N and 'some other stuff I don't use much'. I really play KSP too much ^^.

NASA endorsement with the ARM parts. Not so much for the asteroids or parts themselves but because ... NASA!

SAS turned ON = will try to keep you facing the same way. Turn off to rotate.

How about <5t for a return Mun mission. The launcher is just a jet, intakes and fuel tank.