MarvinKitFox

No, it was your piloting skill. The first part quoted indubitably proves you are piloting in the least efficient way you could find. The second part shows that your design choices come from the same manual.

There is a simple way to know when you are in a true geostationary orbit (as opposed to a mere geosynchronous orbit,) If your ground speed is zero and stays zero, you are there. This rather requires you to be directly above the equator, and at an altitude of 3468km. Correction, 2868km above surface. . . However, from your concern about communications line-of-sight, I believe that what you are looking for is not a geostationary orbit, but a geosynchronous one. The only requirement for this is that you orbit in the right direction, and have an orbital period of *exactly* one day kerbal time. Your ground track may wobble around in interesting ellipses or even figure-eights, but if your period matches Kerbin's rotation, you will not drift off to the east or west.

nonononoNONONO! Ant is not for heavy lifting, nor for atmospheric work. Think of it as the lighter/cheaper alternative to ion engines, without the worry of power systems. Ant engine is for very lightweight probe, in space only.

yes. An escape trajectory is quite possible. It will only take infinity+1 seconds to actually achieve that escape. What make a trajectory an "escape" trajectory is when it possesses sufficient velocity to fall out to infinity and still have some velocity left over.

Nah. Your original premise was "is career mode too easy or too grindy" I think we have proven it to be BOTH. Very easy to do, easy to exploit, but long hours of work to do so. Basically, anyone with two braincells to rub together can get enough cash and XP to max out, while staying within the contract system, at any difficulty setting.

The only thing nosecones would do, is reduce the drag on the REAR of the stack. I would (and do) gladly take the drag hit during ascent, as the only loss is a bit of fuel, if it allows a more stabile rocket. Besides, in order to get that "rover" up, i have to keep the atmospheric speed WAY down. Mere fueltank-top drag is *piffle* compared to the drag induced by skyscraper-sized wheels mounted on tens of meters of scaffolding. As for cost.. no concern at all. Sure that whole launch cost a pretty penny. But the contracts rewards pay out: 1.9mil (base on gilly) 2.3 mil(ore from gilly to Eve) 1.7 mil(tourists)

That's about like asking which brand of bulldozer to use in a cycle race. Nuke is good, but only for big ships, and bigger delta-v' requirements.

It is perfectly normal to be accelerating while in atmosphere

There is no real limit to what you can put on top of a rocket. When launching this "rover", i don't bother that that aerodramatics-stuff at all. Just balance the thing, and slowly power your way to victory.

Atmosphere does impede solar power Temperature also does. . Your probe is sitting on EVE, quite close to the ocean so about as deep as it can be. You are sitting at the bottom of a very hot bowl of soup, and trying to operate your lowest tech solar panel through it!

Congrats on your great endeavour! Will you make it? 250-1 odd are "no", at least with your first design. Do yourself a favor, set up a sandbox with hyperedit, and test,test,Test your designs on eve before you actually *fly* there in a real mission. Eve is a very evil place to rocketeers. Landing gear: Personally i like the design of Long structural angled down, with short structural 90degrees to it, curved in. This, with a strut, will take almost any landing shock. Heavy, though. Something like this, seen here in a much simpler KSC explorer form. http://i.imgur.com/BF61Cit.png

"Self-refuelling interplanetary ship - possible?" no. or yes but very very hard. "Self-refuelling inter-moon ship - possible?" easy. Doing an all-in-one ship that is science and ISRU and interplanetary propulsion is not too hard. . . As long as you play around with low-gravity planets. By definition, you ship needs to be Single Stage to Orbit AND same single stage to interplanetary transfer AND same single stage to Orbital insertion at target AND same single stage to landing on a new ore body at target. But it must also carry the very inert mass of ISRU unit, drill, Ore tank and power systems. This makes for a pretty hefty payload, attached to a pretty ambitious delta-v requirement. Big delta-v * big payload == BIIIIG ship. I have a self-fuelling dunebuggy* that can easily hop between Mun, Minmus, Gilly, and any of the lesser Jool moons. Ike can be handled without too much sweat. Duna though, is a one-way pit. As is Kerbin, Laythe, Tylo, Moho, Eve(of course). I think Eeloo is in reach, but it may require some fancy footwork near Jool. P.S. Not tried yet, but I think using a passing asteroid as refueller will be quite doable! Sure its a pain to rendesvous & mine, but then you are in deep space away from any gravity well other than Kerbol. From there you could *go* anywhere, just maybe not return. * when I say dunebuggy, i mean that horrid contraption I had to build for the "gilly with science with 11 kerbals with 13000 ore capacity, on wheels" contract. This baby has 4 orange tanks just for the fuel!

Good luck doing a SSTO from EVE

I do not really know... Here is a typical failed launch for me... How many would that be?

KSP craft... never more than about 2 hours, and that is for a "science Lab base on Gilly, 11 kerbals, must have 12000 ore on board, must be on wheels" Ksp project? Last time i spent *real* time on a project was for the Octo Migration Project... Total time well under 800 hours. Even as simple a thing as "how far can you get in 3 launches only" takes two or three dozen hours. Heck, even just "on mission 1, gather eva reports from all KSC and nearby biomes" can take 3 hours.

Don't even need to be in orbit. Jumping 2m from the surface will get you "low space" readings. Hyperbolic flyby at 20km/s will also give "low space" as long as your instantaneous altitude is <60000

Only one thing to say, really. Try not to drown in the data! KER tells you *everything*, at the same time. It is tempting to want to see these, but restrict yourself to only the needed data. In flight, often only the heads-up display at the top is ample. Ok, ninja'd by some very wise words from noxghandi.

You need to get the balance, center of drag, thrust and lift *exactly* right, ..... not at all easy or You can do it the NASA way. Highly dirigible shuttle engines being re-pointed 16 times per second... not an option in KSP or Do it the "hard" way, and restore symmetry to your vehicle. Mount a *second* identical shuttle to the other side. Forces will balance perfectly now, and you only have the normal rocket instabilities to worry about. ... and the fact that you are lifting twice the mass. ;-)

This I can confirm. Unless it has a pod on it, it doesn't really exist. For example, in a recent challenge, i had a ship that deliberately hard-landed, breaking off intact spent "Flea" srb with attached Goo canister. I thought to lose the mass, and still recover the goo? Nope. Go to KSC, or tracking, and the non-pod bits are *poof*. They did exist while kept under eye, but went as soona s point of view left the immediate area. The **exact** same vehicle, in the same circumstance but landed on grasslands not KSC grounds, left the expected parts as persistent debris, accessible from the tracking station et al.

Getting a flag-planter to all planets and moons, is not so hard. Getting them back is the problem. For Tylo, you need something similar to a normal Kerbin launcher. For eve, you need something built like Chuck Norris on Steroids. To do both, and all the other easier bits??? I think your rocket might out-mass Kerbin itself. Good grief, even the subset challenge of "Launch a single rocket from Kerbin, land on Eve and return to Kerbin" is right on the cutting edge between MagnificentlyHeroic and Abso-Im-Posso-Lutely.

This is exactly the same "problem" that I just ran into. I am on flight 3, doing Mun and Minmus all-biomes-from-orbit temp and crew report and eva reports and material science and goo. (Thought I was smart, sent a scientist up. He pilots like ((expletive deleted)) but he can recycle science. While I am there, I do a few temp and observe contracts. these pay very good money, and about 6 science each. Orbit one whole cycle at 10800m, get all high reports. Lower orbit to 8500, get all low reports. Repeat,rinse, recycle. . . . I am currently on my 17'th set of 3-or-4 observation contract, at over 2Million cash and 130science just from the observe missions.(primary mission will return in excess of 2000 from all those material science and goo reports) As long as you *never* land on Mun, enter another SOI, or (i think) create a sub-orbital flight on Mun, these contracts just keep on coming. With enough patience, I could make my fourth mission a send-a-permanent-science-base-to-Eeloo jobbie. I'm including my early adventures to Mun in the Imgur folder above,...

HUGS! KISSES! WHOOPEE!!! <scampers off to go get it!>

On map view, you can click on the target icon and make it your target. Then it will show a symbol on your navball indicating exact direction. (but not distance) It is quite doable (mechanically) using just the basic jet engine, but it is also quite impossible(humanly). You are looking at a 3-4 hour flight to get there! Remember these points: *An observation "above" a certain height can be *any* height above, including orbit. *it is much easier to get to the other side of the planet, by flying above the atmosphere. This means turbojet or rapier plane, or if those are unavailable, a simple (sub?)orbital rocket. *It is not that hard to build a rocket that can land, repack chutes, and bunny-hop again to another location nearby. Personally, I leave one Kerbal in a pod in Polar orbit around Kerbin, with one of each instrument available on the pod. **all** of the observation "above", and "science from space" missions get done by this same guy, free of charge.

4 "science from space" missions. 3 done in space, one by returning Things to remember... 1) the t45 rocket engine generates power. 2) you only need to transmit *one* packet, to get recognition of science mission! so.. empty batteries, do crew observe. start transmit, thrust until one packet is transmitted, shut down engine. I got three transmits that way, and raised my Apo to 251km, allowing high science.

Ok, this will be easy. Or not. Short-Short summary.. Mission1: Local hopper. Get eva reports for all ksp biomes, grassland, tundra, shore. Fly to 5000m. Sci: 50.2 Funds: 50000 Mission2: Polar Orbit Observer. Polar orbit. High orbit. Crew reports, eva reports all kerbin biomes. No science instruments, thanx, too heavy! do 5 * surface observe contracts. do 3 * science-in-orbit contracts. land on south pole. Sci income: 65 funds: 120k. upgraded mission control, training. Mission3: Mun polar, Minmus Polar+landing, return. Upgrade the launchpad to allow heavier ships. Build the best 30-part ship I can. Includes enough delta-v to go to Mun low orbit, then to Minmus low orbit, then fly back for recovery. Maybe, *maybe* enough delta-v for minmus landing. The ship has a margin of only 120m/s, and **BOB** is going to be piloting! Yes, I am loading a scientist, so I can Do endless cycles of science on the Goo Cannister and the Material Science bay. . Launch, fine. Go to Mun, mostly fine. Mun capture, not so fine. Without the use of a decent tracking system, the interface LIES to me and predicts an orbit, but when I get to the Apogee i "fall off" Mun's SOI. No problem, I get recaptured less than 2 years later. Enter 11800m circular polar orbit. Get all wanted sciend, from all biomes. Also get 3 contracts for observations and Temperature sensing. Do all the "above xxx m" reports. drop orbit to 8500m (using mere vapors of fuel), do all the "below xxx m" reports. Go to mission control, pick up another 3 similar contracts. and repeat and repeat. and repeat! Ok, I have now exceeded 2 000 000 funds, and 130 science just from recycling mun orbital contracts! This is where I quit, sorry. Given enough patience, I could gather infinite science, and about 13000*infinite funds doing this. Album , first two and a half missions: