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That also means from the last time I checked the member count (Yesterday), we\'ve had about another 200 new registrees.

And about £200 more expensive.

I think you are just self centered C7 Yeah I plan to add lots of detail. I am just roughing the shape out currently. it is quite a complex shape actually. It would be 100 time harder if i did the wings correctly but I will not be doing that As for the window i think you are right. I should make it smaller perhaps. But at the same time no so much. Capsule windows are small but planes need more viability. -looks up to 1.200 scale models of every boeing plane made on the shelves- they all have the same shape window and it is scaled to the size of the rest of the plane. so i will see how it looks smaller but if not I a content with the size of it

Back to KSP Home Home Help Search Profile My Messages [1] Members Logout Kerbal Space Program Forum » Other Forums » Off-Topic » Last person to post is winner « previous next » REPLY NOTIFY MARK UNREAD SEND THIS TOPIC PRINT Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] Author Topic: Last person to post is winner (Read 1831 times) Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 479 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #330 on: Today at 01:13:12 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 01:11:52 AM Why\'s that good? I\'m sure he\'s uncomfortable. Good because he obviously did that deliberately. Report to moderator Logged Luigibro606 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 899 Mmm, Mun cheese... Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #331 on: Today at 01:14:39 AM » Quote Prove it, Buster Report to moderator Logged Republic of Angleland! Luigico. Spacecraft Division! First ever Munar EVA. Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 479 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #332 on: Today at 01:19:14 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 01:14:39 AM Prove it, Buster 0.13.1 is not released. Proof is unnecessary for things that are obvious. Report to moderator Logged GroundHOG-2010 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 529 The Lost Gemini Astronaut. Period. Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #333 on: Today at 04:41:31 AM » Quote Quote from: Wernher Von Braun on Today at 01:19:14 AM 0.13.1 is not released. Proof is unnecessary for things that are obvious. Your not Wernher Von Braun. Report to moderator Logged Stay out of my way and we will get along fine. Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 479 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #334 on: Today at 04:59:39 AM » Quote Quote from: GroundHOG-2010 on Today at 04:41:31 AM Your not Wernher Von Braun. I was being sarcastic. Report to moderator Logged Flixxbeatz Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 884 Rapper. Producer. Gamer. Master Kerbalizer. Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #335 on: Today at 06:20:49 AM » QuoteModifyRemove Back to KSP Home Home Help Search Profile My Messages [1] Members View the memberlist Search For Members Logout Kerbal Space Program Forum » Other Forums » Off-Topic » Last person to post is winner « previous next » REPLY NOTIFY MARK UNREAD SEND THIS TOPIC PRINT Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] Author Topic: Last person to post is winner (Read 1778 times) Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 478 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #330 on: Today at 01:13:12 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 01:11:52 AM Why\'s that good? I\'m sure he\'s uncomfortable. Good because he obviously did that deliberately. Report to moderator Logged Luigibro606 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 895 Mmm, Mun cheese... Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #331 on: Today at 01:14:39 AM » Quote Prove it, Buster Report to moderator Logged Republic of Angleland! Luigico. Spacecraft Division! First ever Munar EVA. Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 478 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #332 on: Today at 01:19:14 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 01:14:39 AM Prove it, Buster 0.13.1 is not released. Proof is unnecessary for things that are obvious. Report to moderator Logged GroundHOG-2010 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 517 The Lost Gemini Astronaut. Period. Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #333 on: Today at 04:41:31 AM » Quote Quote from: Wernher Von Braun on Today at 01:19:14 AM 0.13.1 is not released. Proof is unnecessary for things that are obvious. Your not Wernher Von Braun. Report to moderator Logged Stay out of my way and we will get along fine. Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 478 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #334 on: Today at 04:59:39 AM » Quote Quote from: GroundHOG-2010 on Today at 04:41:31 AM Your not Wernher Von Braun. I was being sarcastic. Report to moderator Logged REPLY NOTIFY MARK UNREAD SEND THIS TOPIC PRINT Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] « previous next » Kerbal Space Program Forum » Other Forums » Off-Topic » Last person to post is winner Jump to: Quick Reply SMF 2.0 | SMF © 2011, Simple Machines XHTML RSS WAP2 Report to moderator 112.200.249.100 FLX Industries Spacecraft Fleet - FLX Industries Video Series - Kerbalized Rockets Flixxbeatz Productions Wernher Von Braun Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 479 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #336 on: Today at 06:26:26 AM » Quote Ok, I won - mod, lock this ASAP. Report to moderator Logged icefire Sr. Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 297 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #337 on: Today at 06:32:57 AM » Quote Report to moderator Logged ORBITAL MECHANICS ORBITAL ELEMENTS KEPLER\'S LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION No excuses! GroundHOG-2010 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 529 The Lost Gemini Astronaut. Period. YOUR NOT WERNHER VON BRAUN « Reply #338 on: Today at 07:28:23 AM » Quote Your not Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun. Report to moderator Logged Stay out of my way and we will get along fine. Luigibro606 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 899 Mmm, Mun cheese... Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #339 on: Today at 09:44:19 AM » Quote Mmm, Mun cheese... Report to moderator Logged Republic of Angleland! Luigico. Spacecraft Division! First ever Munar EVA. Rocketmaster Bottle Rocketeer Posts: 28 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #340 on: Today at 10:33:14 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 09:44:19 AM Mmm, Mun cheese... You seem to be mistaken. You are eating rock. Report to moderator Logged Looking at KSP since version 8.0.4, been playing since version 10.0, and finally bothered to make an account at 13.1! Luigibro606 Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 899 Mmm, Mun cheese... Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #341 on: Today at 11:30:15 AM » Quote But... tastes... like CHEESE Report to moderator Logged Republic of Angleland! Luigico. Spacecraft Division! First ever Munar EVA. Rocketmaster Bottle Rocketeer Posts: 28 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #342 on: Today at 11:46:21 AM » Quote Quote from: Luigibro606 on Today at 11:30:15 AM But... tastes... like CHEESE That\'s because... errr..... oh. You were eating some cheese shaped like the mun. Report to moderator Logged Looking at KSP since version 8.0.4, been playing since version 10.0, and finally bothered to make an account at 13.1! Keuropean Center for Space Technologies Spacecraft Engineer Posts: 124 Oooooops Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #343 on: Today at 12:49:44 PM » Quote i think I wouldn\'t be long the last Jan 09 2012 12:48 PM Report to moderator Logged Your Mom Master Rocket Scientist Posts: 558 Re: Last person to post is winner « Reply #344 on: Today at 03:32:23 PM » Quote no Report to moderator Logged Yes i\'m your mom but then who\'s your mom that isn\'t your mom if i\'m your mom?? REPLY NOTIFY MARK UNREAD SEND THIS TOPIC PRINT Pages: 1 ... 21 22 [23] « previous next » Kerbal Space Program Forum » Other Forums » Off-Topic » Last person to post is winner Jump to: Quick Reply SMF 2.0 | SMF © 2011, Simple Machines XHTML RSS WAP2

Yes, you\'re absolutely right (as well as those ones sayin\' \'don\'t drink\', \'work hard\' and \'be a good boy\' ). But consider that a) GPS constantly distracts driver\'s attention with these \'turn left NOW!\', and it gives a driver some sense that he knows where he\'s going... a false sense in some cases. So the situations when a driver (even a smart and accurate one!) finds himself standin\' before \'road closed\' sign, or in a clear filed with no signs of a road (with GPS still saying \'follow this interstate for next 200 km!\') are quite common. Especially in Russia where the maps lie most of the time Wha.... ROFLLMAO

It gets pretty unstable above 200 m/s

I love this mod. I\'ve made a very capable 2 stage to Mun 2m spacecraft with it and KW PLF mod. Five M-50s, 4 small 2m tanks, 3 large 2m tanks and 1 of my Centaur Command and Utility modules can easily do orbital exploration anywhere in Kerbin/Mun\'s SoI. I could launch a Centaur into an orbit synchronised with the Mun if I wanted to. I did a little bit of calculating on the FWR of the 2m tanks and found it was more efficient than that of the stock tanks - 1:300 as opposed to 1:200. I suppose there\'s a good reason for this, but it made me wonder if the pack was balanced considering just how easily I designed a Munar rocket (2nd design with the 0.8a version worked out fine with some Decoupler tweaking.) In fact, the decoupler story is interesting. I spent about an hour launching my Skypiercer 1C (then SP-x01) rocket and wondering why I lost control of the engines on the core stage at drop tank decoupling. To give you an idea of the context, the Stage I of SP-x01 was a small 2m tank with a large one below it and two M-50 engines on a 2m-2x1 plate. Radially attached on the decoupler struts were two identical setups except with one M-50. Fuel lines meant that the core stage drained the outer stages and was still full at drop tank burnout @~50km. However despite this seemingly huge success, I found myself pulling my hair out when the engines seemed to stop listening to my input when the drop tanks were gone. After I had gone to the barber\'s to get my hair sorted out, I noticed the drop tanks, which were considerably heavier than your conventional boostars (and a LOT more efficient), were bumping the large fuel tank on their way out. Eventually after much Kerbal testing (doing it again to see if it fails again) I checked the logs and found the large tank was being smashed off the rocket by the dropping stages and locking the engines on their current throttle: 100% in this launch profile. That glued the rocket together and gave me no control over it. I tried retro boosters on the drop tanks but they still listed into the rocket. Some time later I gave up grafting. I modded the Decoupler Strut to have ejectionForce = 1 and now SP-1C is my favourite launcher of all time. Although frustrating, the described episode was rather entertaining, a true Kerbal trial-and-error job at 50km. (Sorry for writing a lot as usual! I can\'t help being a writer. D:)

Yes, quite harmless. We\'d like 200 to monitor weather.

Name:Kerbokaur Scientific Name:Gigantiscia mutanti. Appearance: Facial Profile The Kerbokaur is a demonic evil being, the manifestation of terror. It has extruding bone ridges along its body, which are extremely prominent on its face. It has thick, almost impenetrable leathery skin, and a huge hunched spinal protrusion behind its head. It has a thick appendage that resembles a tail, and this appendage is spiked heavily. It has two fairly proportioned legs. Height:A fully grown Kerbokaur can reach up to 20 feet tall. Weight:More than 10 tonne! Locomotion:The Kerbokaur moves with a slow, lumbering gait that is consisted of the Kerbokaur leaning forward and stepping, counterbalanced by the tail appendage. It can also burrow at extreme speeds, up to 127 kilometers an hour. The Kerbokaur has, until recently, nothing to fear in attack terms, but when nuclear weapons were introduced for population control, the Kerbokaur had to adapt to be underground. Eating Habits:The Kerbokaur is carnivorous, and is very picky about it. The only thing it will eat is a sentient being. As such, it can be safely introduced into the wild without upsetting the balance too much, but should be kept at bay from civilized areas. It will eat like a large lizard does, ripping and tearing its meat. It does not have a place in the food web, as nothing can really eat it, and it will only eat one category of the web. Habitat:The Kerbokaur will live anywhere on the land surface of a planet, and anywhere underground as well, but it is seen more commonly near volcanoes, and is seen less commonly near water. The Kerbokaur is also afraid of sunlight, and as such, will only be active at night. Adaptation:The few adaptations to the Kerbokaur physiology to suit the environment, are the fact that they learned to burrow to escape radiation, and the fact that colouring of the Kerbokaur is relative to the environment. Life Cycle and Reproduction:The reproduction of a Kerbokaur is fairly simple. All Kerbokaur are a single gender, and they reproduce completely asexually. They produce an egg every 2 days, and can quickly infest an area. The life cycle of a Kerbokaur is equally simple. Once an egg is laid, it will hatch after 2 days, depending on incubation conditions. The young, known as spawn, will rapidly grow and reach adult stage within 2-3 weeks. An adult Kerbokaur can live naturally for exactly 200 years after it lays its first egg, before it develops an unvarying fatal hemorrhage in its combination brain/heart. Species Survival Status:Endangered, due to being nuked from orbit to control population issues. Classification:Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Reptilia, Order Squamata, Family Coelurosauria, Genus Gigantiscia, Species Mutanti.

I\'ve just performed a successful suborbital flight with vanguard. To perform a successful reentry, set your periapsis to 30,000m, and when you enter the atmosphere, orient yourself to the ground, and turn on SAS. Do NOT attempt to manuever at speeds above 200 m/s, it usually ends badly.

http://www./?iics2bobjpw3gx4 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/575558/Probodobodyne/Probodobodyne%20Construction%20Kit%200.4.zip

yes ground friction... :-[ I got another funny video taking advantage of low friction. instructions: bolt together 25 mini-SRBs with a command capsule on top The parachute must be duct taped strutted on, or the g-forces rip it off upon deployment launch hit T press space wait when speed is < 200 m/s, deploy chute hit a wasd key a couple of times to flip over hope you hit a good hill

Right. Launch west at the equator and you\'re paying 200 extra m/s. Kerbal? Maybe. Economical? No.

Well, there\'s not much more to it. Newtonian equations only care about velocity relative to the planet\'s center of mass, and the ground (and atmosphere) of a rotating planet are moving relative to the center, fastest at the equator, zero at the poles. That free velocity is a major reason launchpads are as equatorial as their owners can make them. On Kerbin, that\'s about 200 m/s at the equator; on Earth it\'s... 6E6*2pi/24*3600... 450 or so. 'Just remember that you\'re standing on a planet that\'s evolving, revolving at 900 miles an hour...' You\'ll notice a big jump eastward on your NavBall when it switches, or you switch it, from the surface to the orbital REFSMMAT and that horizontal velocity gets integrated. That\'s also the reason weather systems rotate one way in the northern hemisphere and the opposite in the southern. It\'s called 'Coriolis force', and it relates to changing your radius in a rotating system. You\'re actually very gradually adding angular momentum through a tiny 'sideways' force when you move anything toward the equator, and subtracting it as you move toward a pole. On very large scales that force can become significant or overwhelming.

My optimal trajectory is when Kerbin rises above the horizon, accelerate to ~840 m/s. When leaving Mun\'s SOI you will have trajectory that has low periapsis (lower than 200 km) or even intersects the surface (several m/s can mean such a difference from there). Then adjust periapsis by burning parallel to the surface to get the optimal reentry trajectory (I usually aim for 32 km to get low g-force reentry).

Lunar Arrow V3 16 Liquid Fuel Tanks @ $550 ea.: 8,800 (2,200 salvageable) 4 Liquid Fuel Engines @ 880 ea.: $3,520 (880 salvageable) 1 Parachute @ 422 ea.: 422 (422 salvageable) 1 Command Module @ 1,600 ea.: 1,600 (1600 salvageable) 1 ASAS Module @ 2,300 ea.: 2,300 (2,300 salvageable) 1 Decoupler @ 975 ea.: 975 1 Tri-Coupler @ 680 ea.: 680 Total Expense: 18,297 (7,402 salvageable) I can get this bad boy to the Mun with 2 tanks left even without a Hohmann transfer orbit. If I were being so efficient, I could probably drop a tank from the top rocket. The only thing keeping me from finishing this challenge thus far is that soft-landing with no lander legs and having the rocket survive in one piece is hard. I\'ve managed that feat exactly once. Technichly if you attach parachutes to the boosters their entirely re-useable. But If we want to get technical they would probally only get you a quater of what they cost back due to some of the cost being fuel. But since I dont think we are being THAT technichal as long as you use parachutes with them then they and the parachute would cost you nothing.

For a budget challenge, you should probably avoid boosters entirely. Though they do get you off the ground faster, they also cost a lot since you have to get rid of them somehow after the fact. Decouplers don\'t come cheap, especially not radial decouplers! My current model of budgetary efficiency lacks a single one: Lunar Arrow V3 16 Liquid Fuel Tanks @ $550 ea.: 8,800 (2,200 salvageable) 4 Liquid Fuel Engines @ 880 ea.: $3,520 (880 salvageable) 1 Parachute @ 422 ea.: 422 (422 salvageable) 1 Command Module @ 1,600 ea.: 1,600 (1600 salvageable) 1 ASAS Module @ 2,300 ea.: 2,300 (2,300 salvageable) 1 Decoupler @ 975 ea.: 975 1 Tri-Coupler @ 680 ea.: 680 Total Expense: 18,297 (7,402 salvageable) I can get this bad boy to the Mun with 2 tanks left even without a Hohmann transfer orbit. If I were being so efficient, I could probably drop a tank from the top rocket. The only thing keeping me from finishing this challenge thus far is that soft-landing with no lander legs and having the rocket survive in one piece is hard. I\'ve managed that feat exactly once.

Aptly named Spoot Force One for the sake of saving myself the headache of coming up with something more appropriate, this is the last thing I\'ve done with C7 parts in a while. SFO is a three-engine craft, overwhelmingly maneuverable with the four vertical stabilizers and canards, and has some degree of modular liberty. TiberDyne ASAS allows for flawless level flight (Control surfaces don\'t move at all unless you try making it move), so can point in a direction, activate SAS, and relax. Within the first thousand meters its speed at full throttle ranges between 200 - 230m/s, not exceptionally fast. However, this craft is recommended for higher-altitude flight where its speed can really shine. On the subject of modular capability, currently displayed SFO uses radial parachutes (Later shown) to make up for the lack of deployable landing gear, with this catastrophic damage can be nearly avoided entirely. Should the force of the parachute deployment however tear the wings in half, the cockpit stage can be jettisoned with its own radial parachute. In place of the parachutes and decoupler, SFO can instead be fitted with an RCS tank and thrusters to allow for maneuvering at extreme altitudes. This loadout unfortunately, renders SFO completely devoid of any safety measures. With some carelessness, SFO can be taken to the Mun as-is. This comes at the cost of ensuring there is no return back to Kerbin as it will have only enough fuel to make some form of orbit, or to crash it into the surface. Edit: Adding spoiler tags for ease of reading.

Friends! I return from an expedition deep into the heart of the KSP aerodynamic model armed with nothing but spreadsheets and a vague guess about how it all works. I think I\'ve finally got something flyable. Re-entry is downright fun in this thing - it has just enough of a lift-to-drag ratio to give you some really nice maneuverability and cruising range. I balanced the center of lift and center of drag such that the lifting body stalls out at about 200 m/s - this is a good thing! Once you\'ve decelerated to about this speed you\'re at maybe 3000 meters altitude, so you can fire up the engines, mash the pitch controls and do the pitch-over, then settle in for a nice propulsive landing. I\'m going to do a few more flights tomorrow to really dial in these values, then go into texturing. Also I\'m going to whip up a nice aerodynamic decoupler that goes from the 1.5m square base back to a 1m rocket stack.

I always launch east for everything (except polar airplane sightseeing) but whether i hit the mun\'s leading edge or trailing edge is quite random for me. I wait until munrise for the TMI but its not that precise. But the Intrepid II is good enough to do either one. I completed kerbin orbit, TMI, munar parking orbit, and the deorbit burn all with the soteria booster. Unfortunately me being dumb caused the fully fueled lander to hit the surface at 200 m/s

eh, I guess it is. But you made me discover my math error, so the big 3m tank is 18000, which at 200:1 is 90 mass units. Whee. Fixing my math and testing. I already had to bump up the collision tolerance on every single part due to the weight of the earlier 12k numbers... sigh.

Like I said, the problem is knowing where; I already have a boost tank + engine which gets me as far as I want plus an extra 150-200 m/s start. But those aren\'t useful in passing condition #2 unless I know where those need to take me to. Snaps from the last, experimental run (Warning, quite a few images): I\'m quite entertained by the speeds in those two. Last definitely over KSC. Probably still over KSC Mission stats said this was extremely close to burnout. Might still be over KSC, but no way of confirming, unless someone wants to make a VTOL, try get the exact same location, and verify. Not fast enough for a run anyway, needs more design tweaks. In for landing Close ... Bam. Off go the wings. (In the distance, just visible.) Yeeaaaaah. I did try snap earlier stages, but I mis-set mode on my joystick and failed to take. EDIT: scratch comment about forum refusing post. Very abruptly the problem has resolved itself, despite persisting previously for more than 18 hours.

That is looking nice! There are basically three things that regulate heat in the config: Heat generated per second Maximum heat before explosion How fast heat dissipates into surrounding parts (tanks or other engines, or anything else nearby) So if you had zero dissipation, so that all heat is retained (and are receiving none from other nearby engines) Then you\'d set it up so that your maximum heat is (amount of heat per second) multiplied by (how many seconds your engines burns on its fuel tank) Obviously, that isn\'t a realistic situation, so you would have to account for heat distribution - a tank can soak up a lot of heat - but if you have a big cluster of engines like the Merlins they\'ll be sharing each others heat. So if one engine has 3 next to it, and it dissapates 100 heat per second, it would be split between them. Likewise, if 3 engines around it are generating heat, it has to deal with incoming heat from each of those (say 33 heat per second each) plus whatever it doesn\'t dissipate. So if it generates 400/s and dissipates 200/s, and then has 100/s incoming, then you actually \'gain\' 300 heat per second, and would need a heat tolerance of 18,000 to last a minute without exploding. Of course, the numbers are for full throttle, and it scales down with the throttle in the same way thrust and fuel use do (dissipation doesn\'t, so throttling down lets it bleed off heat) Since your merlin cluster is just a model, and is a single part rather than a 9-way coupler, its a little simpler, and you just simulate the amount of heat such a thing would generate.

Is ~200,000m 'low enough' for the terrain to still be displaying? I normally orbit just above 600,000m so that may be why I\'ve never seen this, but in the beginning, I was orbiting in the 100\'s and never crashed either. With the exception of 12x2 - 12x5 I\'ve never had an issue... Maybe because I run the game on Linux, WINE is protecting me a little from crashes. What is considered 'LKO'? I may have used the term too loosely, and I was at time warp 100, not 1,000, typo there... I do get real choppy orbiting the Mun below 1,000m but never stayed long enough to see a crash... None of it changes the fact I love the game AND the TARDIS, AND your mod packs Nova, thanks for those BTW.

What\'s the perfect rocket? Hell, I dunno. My rockets ain\'t perfect. But there are a few things that are simple truisms. Things that are simply correct. And while try and error can be fun for a while, sooner or later you want to get a rocket that\'s simply 'good'. Since I now have moonworthy rockets, I guess I did something right. Everyone\'s invited to add to this, of course, I do not have the monopoly on rocket design. Physics Before we get into the details, a few physics facts. Namely, center of gravity, point of action and how they matter. Center of gravity, point of action and how they demand symmetry in your rocket The center of gravity is the point in your rocket where it would be in total balance. It\'s the point where, if the rocket was resting on that point, you could give it a nudge and it would freely follow that nudge without gravity having a say, because left and right, up and down, front and back, they\'re all equally heavy and perfectly balanced on this single point. That is always one single point in space, and unless you have a very oddly shaped rocket, that point is somewhere inside your rocket. Sadly, this point is usually not the point of action, i.e. the point where your engines create thrust. If it was, that would be sweet, since we could push the rocket wherever and however we want (ignoring air resistance, of course). So the next best thing we can do is to put that point of action 'behind' the center of gravity and point its action vector towards the center of gravity. Or, simpler put, put the engine behind the mass and thrust in the other direction. What sounds obvious at first has some implications. First, your point of action, actually the vector sum of your thrust vectors, for you nitpickers, HAS to be lined up with your center of gravity. In other words, your rocket has to be symmetrical to be stable. You can try that for yourself. Get a broom. Put the endpoint of the handle on your hand, with the brush up, and you will notice that you can balance it. You will also notice two things: First, it\'s easy to balance it as long as you work hard on it, and it can very easily tilt to one side, and if it does it falls FAST. And second, it\'s surprisingly more easy to balance the broom with the brush up towards the ceiling rather than having it resing on your hand. If you would now put a lot of pressure on that handle, you could thrust that broom upwards without it falling to the side (trust me, it would work). That\'s basically how our rocket works. Now attach something to the side of the broom and see how this works out for you. If you try to balance the broom the same way, it will fall to the side where you tacked something onto it. Unless you hold it at an angle to the side... looks stupid if it were a rocket, doesn\'t it? If you would thrust that broom upwards, it would not only fall to that one side, it would actually start to spin around the x-axis and do 'loops'... or crash, which is more likely since gravity is playing in this game as well. So the first thing to keep in mind is to keep your rocket symmetrical, at least to the point where the center of gravity is always above the combined point of action (if you have more than one engine, you have more than one point of action, which can be summed up to a total point of action and an action vector). In physical terms, that point of action has to be lined up with the center of gravity, with its vector aligned with the hypothetical axis that exists between the cog and the poa. In simpler terms, the point where your rocket would be in balance has to be behind the point where the combined force of the engines pushes, and the engines have to push towards that center of gravity, i.e. their thrust exhaust has to point away from it. That also means that 'inwards' thrust stabilizes the rocket, as long as the thrust is equal from all sides. It forces the rocket to stay in its current direction, but it also means that you are wasting fuel since you have engines thrusting 'against' each other. Think of it as the toe-in of your cars steering wheels. Mass vs. weight As long as you\'re on Kerbin, they\'re interchangeable. Your mass is directly related to your weight. It\'s a bit different in space. Weight is the result of mass being accelerated, either by gravity or by movement. And while you\'re weightless in space (well, your outwards acceleration from your speed matches the inwards acceleration from gravity), you\'re not without mass. To cut the theoretical crap short, the more mass you have, the more energy you have to expend to change its speed and direction. The heavier your rocket is, the more fuel you have to spend to make it faster (or slower!), provided you do not have gravity to work for you. Usually, in this game as well as when you\'re overweight, gravity works against you. This also means, that a mass gets 'heavier' if you accelerate it faster. It doesn\'t increase its mass (unless you\'re approaching light speed, let\'s ignore that for now), but the stress weight puts on the mass increases. That\'s called g-forces. On Kerbin, you experience 1g. Which is equal to an acceleration equal to Kerbin\'s gravity at surface level. How does this affect your rocket? Well, it affects it twofold. First, the more mass you have, the more fuel you have to spend to get that mass up into orbit. Hence 'bigger' isn\'t always 'better'. We\'ll get to that in detail later. The other factor is that the faster you accelerate your rocket, the more stress you put on its parts. Some parts are able to sustain that stress. Some are not. It is, in general, easier to build a slowly climbing rocket than one that jumps into orbit at 9g or more, not only because our passengers don\'t really like having a truck sitting on their chest (which isn\'t as much an issue so far), mostly the problem now is that the acceleration you put into the rocket stresses the parts that keep it together past their breaking limit. Which means you have to add struts, which add to the mass, which cost you fuel. Thrust-weight ratio Basically, it\'s the result of dividing your thrust (in Newtons) by your weight (in kilograms times acceleration, i.e. kg*m/s², so... well, also in Newtons). Thrust is what gets you up, weight is what keeps you down. And if thrust>weight, i.e. if your thrust-weight ratio is more than 1, you go up. If thrust<weight, you can put your engines into overdrive and you won\'t move an inch. For the record, the Saturn V first stage rocket engine had a TWR of 94.1. In other words, it could have lifted itself over 94 times. Beat that! What does that mean for our space vehicle? Basically, it means that whatever we put as rockets behind our craft, it has to overcome the total weight of the craft. Which also means that, if you have multiple stages, the upper stages are just dead weight at start. Yes, yes, there are rockets in there and they might have a lot of punch, but they do not add to the thrust at start. Thrust is always only the thrust you ACTUALLY apply, not the thrust your rocket can eventually do in total. Note that every rocket engine has a TWR of more than one. By definition. Engines below a TWR of 1 need some kind of aerodynamics on the craft to get it off the ground. The question is, though, whether the dead weight sitting on top of it STILL keeps that equation above 1. The F1\'s 94.1 TWR doesn\'t mean that the Apollo craft got shot into orbit at 100g. It means that there was a friggin\' HUGE rocket sitting on top of that engine and hence it could barely get the whole behemoth up into an orbit! My guess is that Kerbin has a gravity of about 10m/s² (much like earth), meaning that a rocket engine rated at 200 max thrust (like the non-gimballed stock engine) can lift 20 units of mass (or 8 stock liquid fuel tanks). Given that a rocket of 1 stock command center, 7 fuel tanks and 1 engine (totalling a mass of 20.5, 7*2.5+2+1) can\'t get off the ground but with 6 fuel tanks it can, I\'d say that should be about right. So when building your rocket, always add up the weight of the parts you assembled, multiply by 10, then divide by the thrust of the engines, but ONLY the engines that actually thrust. The more you get out of that, the faster your rocket will climb. Considering that engines seem to overheat more readily if they\'re operated at the TWR limit, try to get to a TWR of at least 1.7 in your first stage. My Mun rocket has a first stage TWR of 2.2, which is plenty but not overdoing it to the point where the g-forces become unmanageable. Also, keep in mind that you will use up fuel as you climb. Your fuel tanks will get emptier with every second your engine fires, making them lighter, meaning, less weight has to be lifted. Plus, gravity decreases with distance squared, which also makes the pull of Kerbin less and less with every inch you climb. Not as much as one would wish, though. Staging, and when to do it Staging usually means tossing dead weight. You jettison spent rocket parts to make your craft lighter. Less mass means less energy required to move the rest of the mass. The obvious choice would now be to stage as much as possible, to carry around as little dead weight as possible. This is not the best strategy, though. Staging also means that you have to carry around the weight for the staging equipment and, in case of a liquid fuel set, another liquid engine. A spent stock booster weighs 0.36. The equipment to jettison it weighs 0.4. A spent liquid tank weighs 0.3. The additional engine and the staging equipment to toss it weighs 2.8. A compromise has to be found. There is no hard limit to tell when to stage and when not to, what matters is how long you\'d have to haul around the dead weight (if it\'s just a few seconds between the booster\'s end of life and until the other engine of this stage burns out, just keep the booster attached, it\'s not worth the extra weight for another set of staging couplers. If it\'s for the rest of the flight, tossing it pays off easily), whether the spent stage prevents you from firing the next (a lower stage burned up covering an upper stage has to be jettisoned, of course) and what the stage is used for (an upper stage is usually in use longer than a stage to reach orbit that is burning at max power constantly, i.e. a fuel tank in upper stages lasts much, much longer). I find the sweet spot for liquid tanks to be around 4-5 for lower stages and about 2 for upper stages. As much thrust as possible to the bottom Also easy to see, the more thrust you apply right from the start, the less dead weight you carry around. It\'s usually quite pointless to have a lot of thrust further up if you cannot get off the launch pad. On the other hand, as mentioned above, the more thrust you put behind your crate, the more g-force it has to endure and the more you stress your parts. Not to mention the air resistance which is of course worst lower in the atmosphere. draaaaaaag While we\'re at it, drag. I hope I got that one right, it\'s kinda hard to tell how that part really works. Basically, every part you add has air resistance. Doesn\'t matter once you\'re in orbit (and hence satellites rarely look streamlined), but it\'s a big issue until you hit that magical 70,000 meters. I still have very limited data on how drag really works and what affects what, so far all I can say is that it\'s there and that you should probably take it into account, i.e. creating insanely wide rockets to cram in a lot of boosters to fire at the same time might be a drag. Literally. Especially if you try to fly such a rocket at high speeds. Funny enough, though, those wings seem to work in orbit as well. Don\'t ask me why. Where do you need the most power? That\'s a simple one again: From ground to orbit. You will NEVER in your flight have to spend as much energy as in that part of your flight. Getting from orbit to the Mun, landing on the Mun, getting back off the moon, flying back to Kerbin and landing there? Easily done with about 1/6th of the fuel spent to get into orbit. I am NOT kidding or exaggerating here. Remember that Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo to the moon? Remember how friggin\' huge that thing was? And what a tiny little bit of it actually went to the moon, with the rest being tossed somewhere along the way? And how that little service module that got them basically from orbit to moon also got them back? It\'s the same here. You will spend a good 80% of fuel and dump about as much of your rocket before you reach the Mun. Long or wide? Preferably neither. Making your rocket longer is about as bad as making it wider. For various reasons. Wide rockets tend to be bottom-heavy (because, usually, they are wide at the bottom, to maximize thrust at liftoff), making them harder to control because they sway easily, and they are prone to out of control rolling if the thrusters on the outer edges are not PERFECTLY aligned (which they are, well, never), due to leverage. Also, I\'d expect them to be very susceptible to drag, meaning a lot of power is lost due to air resistance. Wide rockets usually need quite a bit of SAS to keep from spinning out of control. And they are prone to 'flipping', i.e. uncontrollably going upside down because they are easy to tilt and bank. Think of the broom example at the beginning. Long rockets are very hard to tilt and bank, making them hard to steer and very sluggish. They also usually suffer from top-heaviness, especially after a good deal of their lower stage fuel is spent, which can result in rockets that are very hard to control and to keep from going 'keel-up', i.e. nose-down without a lot of RCS thrust. Long rockets usually need quite a few wings to keep them manageable and responsive. And even then they are very slow to react and need foresightful piloting. They usually keep their direction pretty well as long as they are balanced and there\'s a lot of thrust applied, but once you bank and tilt them, they can very easily oversteer, especially in horizontal flight with a center of mass that\'s very close to the top (as it is usually just before your ascent stage is burned up, with a lot of empty and near empty fuel tanks hanging on your tail). Still, I prefer long over wide rockets. So, with all that, what IS now the best design? Hell, if I only knew... But from these tidbits we can puzzle together a few cornerstones that give us a good idea what a GOOD design would be, and what would be a BAD one. It\'s a GOOD idea to put every engine that CAN actually thrust at launch to work right at launch. Else it\'s dead weight we first have to haul upwards. If that gives you too much thrust and your rocket starts to fall apart due to excessive G forces, slap on another can of gas for that liquid fuel rocket, or take off some boosters (yeah, right...). It MAY be a good idea to not run that liquid engine at full power if you get so fast that your friction is killing most of the power you put behind it. Actually, I usually take off with full throttle, only to ease off a little as I climb to keep the speed from going overboard and being burned in friction. But if you have a big rocket, it CAN be a very good idea to make the first stage(s) only of solid boosters, they\'re very light for their push and even with a coupler on them they have a better TWR than liquid engines. Their main drawback, the inability to control their thrust output, doesn\'t matter for the first 20,000 Meters since you actually just want to get the hell up there. Do not expect too much from that, a full complement of two solid-only stages underneath every single engine of my actual first stage only got me about half a fuel tank. Yes, half a stock fuel tank is all you get for slapping two rows of solid stages under your rocket. The diminishing returns are stunning! With bigger rockets, you\'ll run into the need to add SAS to keep them manageable. Only one ASAS module gives you any benefits, so put only one of them into your rocket. The key difference between SAS and ASAS is, as the description says, that ASAS is more like an autopilot, SAS is more like a gyroscope. In other words, ASAS only works as well as YOU could, or, in other terms, if the rocket is uncontrollable, ASAS cannot control it either. If you have wings (and, IMO, you should have some at least as long as you\'re hauling a big ass rocket about), you might even be able to forgo the normal SAS modules. My Mun rocket only has one ASAS module and no SAS modules. Your rocket should get thinner as it progresses upwards. From afar, it should look like a very steep pyramide. At least IMO. Top-heavy rockets are usually very hard to control, since their center of gravity is far from the point of action. The further away, the bigger the lever, the more wings and other control tidbits you need to keep it upright. You need most of your fuel on your way up. Once you\'re in orbit, even the trans-lunar shot is peanuts compared to the expense to get into an orbit. It\'s quite ok to create an unwieldy, but powerful lower stage and create a very manageable and precisely controlable stage for upper orbit that has rather little fuel compared to it. Try different designs here, it\'s all right to have zero control (aside of 'keep it upright by ASAS') over the rocket for the first 20,000 or even 40,000 Meters of its trip.