Beginners Guide to Spacecraft Building

[Phil deCube]

Here is a tutorial for beginners on how to build spacecraft by using the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod and the Delta-V map.    
    
It's not a tutorial on how to build efficient, elegant, spacecraft. I'll leave that to the Super Kerbonauts.

[Kerbal101]

Lets add these two important principles:

1. Asparagus design, which allows maximum range (example of aspo satellite, nerv version), and

2. Reusable rocket design (inventor: Warzouz), which allows minimum launch cost (most important construction principle)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Kerbal101 said:

Lets add these two important principles:

1. Asparagus design, which allows maximum range (example of aspo satellite, nerv version), and

2. Reusable rocket design (inventor: Warzouz), which allows minimum launch cost (most important construction principle)

Asparagus in 1.0 makes rockets reliably flip over.

[Kerbal101]

2 hours ago, spink00 said:

Asparagus in 1.0 makes rockets reliably flip over.

Even KerbalX uses asparagus and its included in 1.0.5.
Flip over is sign of incorrect center of mass - it should be in the middle and all way below.
A way to slide center of mass down is to attach control surfaces (fins), so that air drag causes center of mass to sink with increased speed.

Goes without saying that any rocket should possess at least 1.45 TWR, otherwise it will burn through fuel to combat gravity and fail to reach enough acceleration to collect enough drag force at its fins when entering upper layers of atmosphere (15k-30k).

 

Edit: Also, check this.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Kerbal101

[wumpus]

Asparagus is nowhere near as important as it used to be,  and is typically included as "important" due to previous editions (note: it is absolutely critical in the demo.  Don't try to get to the Mun without it).  I'd recommend using bigger engines and unpowered drop tanks before going to asparagus.

Unless you are using Mechjeb to land (or can reliably hit the launch pad on your own), spaceplanes are the (near) zero-cost method of launching.  Note that if you are already using mods stage recovery makes recovery painless while flight manager allows you to manually recover by doing a SVN-like checkpoint and and flying "both paths" of the rocket at different times (a must for space-x style recovery).

It is also quite possible to build non-SSTO completely reusable rockets [without mods].  They are more tricky to fly (expect to either lose a few or reload, but I haven't learned to reliably land a spaceplane anyway) but should have a lower initial cost than an SSTO.  The trick is to leave enough fuel in the "spent" stage to boost high enough to not get deleted (to orbit for [nearly] full recovery) and then get your upper stage into orbit before the lower stage is deleted.  Typically you have to switch between rockets (and don't be surprised if it won't let you use the "[]" keys during ascent) to get both up and away.  Expect to have a fairly steep angle of attack followed by a higher circularization burn than would be typically efficient (so you can get back to your initial stage).

Finally, recovery of rockets can get pretty boring, so if that ever happens I suggest immediately stopping and playing another way.  You don't want to burn out on recovering rockets when there is so much of KSP to explore (I stopped for months due to spending way to much time recovering).

PS: for any reasonably tall rocket, I'd recommend recovery in Kerbin's oceans (preferably near KSC) while landing "sideways".  Just put the parachutes in pairs along the fuel tanks (with plenty near the heavy engines) and watch it land.  Otherwise you have to land on absolutely flat areas (like the launch pad or plains around KSC) or somehow convince SAS to keep the rocket straight while you stab the "recover rocket" button.  Once the rocket falls over, it explodes and you recover only a few pieces.

Edited March 8, 2016 by wumpus

[Warzouz]

On 29/2/2016 at 1:46 PM, Kerbal101 said:

Lets add these two important principles:

1. Asparagus design, which allows maximum range (example of aspo satellite, nerv version), and

2. Reusable rocket design (inventor: Warzouz), which allows minimum launch cost (most important construction principle)

1. Asparagus aren't as useful as before 1.0. They give a little bonus, but not much than before. I think it's easier to just design rocket as like those you see IRL (with the addition of fins).

2. It's nice of you but I'm not the "inventor" of recoverable SSTO rockets (even I use this design a lot).

[Kerbal101]

On 4/1/2016 at 5:21 PM, Warzouz said:

2. It's nice of you but I'm not the "inventor" of recoverable SSTO rockets (even I use this design a lot).

Hm, I actually also invented this construction - but it was not really efficient, then I saw your thread, which was clearly timed earlier and the awesome rockets, which were way more efficient than mine.

The "SSTO-R" is already referenced in one real-life publication about efficiency of space travel, the rest of the links point to your post, so... I will stay resilient in correcting the authorship mistake.