Tentative observations on the gentle art of not exploding in early career mode

[eataTREE]

It's a whole new world! And that new world has a whole new atmosphere. As this seems to be causing a certain amount of anguish and frustration, I thought I'd share my observations on what seems to work in the new post-1.0 era of rocketry. (Note: I am no expert! Feel free to improve upon/correct if you're able.)

1. Exploding going up

This means your TWR is too high. The Souposphere was made out of low-friction silicon gel; not so the real atmosphere, which will turn you into a firework if you try to go too fast too fast. The Space Shuttle had a launchpad TWR of about 1.5 and this seems to be the safe limit in KSP now.

2. Not going to space/my rocket tips over

It seems like a little more control authority is required now. If you are used to just using SAS, try sticking on some fins.

As compared to the Souposphere, you want your gravity turn to begin sooner but be much gentler. If you use MJ, try setting it for 50% climb at 1km.

3. Exploding coming down

Ah yes, this is the hard part. It comes down to this: if you are tumbling out of control, blowing up, or tumbling out of control then blowing up, it is because you are going too fast. You want to attempt re-entry at no more than 2.2 km/s or so. "But eataTREE!" I hear you say. "I have been to the Mun and am going more like 3km/s, and if you think I carry a spare kilometer per second of delta-V coming back from the Mun you are dreaming! What should I do?" Excellent question. The answer is to aerobrake. Set your periapsis for about 33,000 meters (lower if you're brave, higher if you're chicken), set yourself heat-shield first (you DO have a heat shield, right?), and streak like a fireball through the sky. This will wash off about 250m/s of orbital velocity, so you'll have to do it again a few times, but via this method you can get down to a nice safe re-entry speed while expending minimal delta-V. (As of 2.5.0, MJ's aerobraking predictions were wildly inaccurate, so I'm afraid they can't be relied upon to calibrate this process.)

It also helps to be capable of some braking thrust, in case you notice that you are heading straight for a mountainside and need to get down to safe parachuting speeds sooner rather than later.

4. Other observations

In general rockets don't like to go in any direction other than where they're pointed. Also, they want to fall over. This means your gravity turn is hard to start and then hard to stop once it starts. In the atmospheric regime you don't want to try anything too crazy, either in acceleration or steering.

Drag chutes and aerobrakes are great once you get them, and make the whole non-explodey re-entry process much easier.

Hope some of this was helpful. Happy flying!

[SelectHalfling0]

I would like to point out that fins only need to be on the lower atmospheric stages (because above 30,000 meters rockets become much more stable). After that fins become dead weight.

[Curveball Anders]

There's a sad trombone honking out:

"observe, analyse, adapt and move on"

If you fail, you're playing the wrong game.

(we who stay will of course giggle and say that you're too stoopid to be one of us )