Getting started... sort of

[Aidian]

So I'm new...ish... I was hanging out with a friend who has the game but never played it and figured I'd try it out. Next thing I know I've purchased the game and more or less dumped every free second of my life into it. 

 

I've been playing for about two months now and feel I've got a fairly solid grasp on the mechanics of the game. I'm a decent pilot and most of my designs function the second or third attempt. I've gotten quite a few mods and cherry picked the ones that ireally like that don't completely wreck my pc (CHAKA is one of my favorites but my game randomly crashes every ten minutes or so with it installed, no idea why). 

What I really need is help with the rocket science. My simple ships fly flawlessly and preform everything they're meant to, but I'm obviously not going to land on Eeloo with what I've had so far. Even still I can get them to the Mun but can never make it all the way back. 

Whatever free time hasn't been devoted to ksp has been watching Scott Manley videos or studying delta v in relation to kerbal and I still can't seem to grasp it. 

[Frybert]

Welcome to the forums!

[Starhawk]

Hello Aidian and welcome to the forum!

You are clearly well on your way up the learning curve.  There is a treasure trove of information and helpful people here.

Take a look around and  make yourself comfortable.

Happy landings!

[Dman979]

Hi @Aidian, and welcome aboard!
You might want to check out the Gameplay help subforum. Also, it only takes 878 m/s of ∆V to get to a free-return trajectory, like Apollo used. Use that information how you would like.

[Aidian]

Thanks! I've been skulking about the forums for a very long time, and it's been very helpful so far, but I can't find anywhere to teach me how to make the delta v calculations without using mechjeb or doing it trial and error 

[Starhawk]

1 hour ago, Aidian said:

Thanks! I've been skulking about the forums for a very long time, and it's been very helpful so far, but I can't find anywhere to teach me how to make the delta v calculations without using mechjeb or doing it trial and error 

It's a simple formula.   Divide the full ship mass by the empty ship mass.  Take the natural logarithm of that.  Multiply the result by 9.81 and multiply again by the ISP value.  That gives your delta-v.

Here's a link to a Rocket Scientist's Cheat Sheet in the Wiki.

Happy landings!

[Navy2k]

I use Kerbal Engineer Redux and a delta-v Map like this one.

So i know how much delta-v i need to land or for the transfer etc. and i can design my ships around it.

Greetings

Ben

[Aidian]

@Navy2k @Starhawk thanks a ton for that, for some reason none of that information seems to have ever shown up in my searching (except engineer redux).

Now I've run into another problem. I use mechjeb mostly for auto warp and helping me to plan some of the bigger maneuvers that I'm still struggling with, but I also have kerbal joint reinforcement and they don't seem to be completely compatible. 

For example, ascent guidance will fire my rockets like a bullet even when ive told it to limit to terminal velocity. I limit my Q to between 20 and 25k and that seems to help, but then mechjeb will do my gravity turn so fast the ship flips and game over. For the record I have manually launched the same rockets and gotten them into orbit with little to no issue. So I wonder if I should just dump mechjeb or is there a workaround out there that I haven't found? 

[Starhawk]

Well, I've never used KJR.  I do know that MechJeb's ascent guidance can be quite touchy.  I haven't used MJ in a while, but I thought that limiting Q caused it to throttle back rather than adjust the trajectory.

Anyway, there is a thread for MechJeb (and for every mod AFAIK).  If the issue is persistent, you may be able to find some help there.

Happy landings!

[JT531]

Just FYI, a 1140 kg fuel tank (The grey ones) and three liquid fuel "thud" engines can land you on the Mun from orbit and get back to kerbin with plenty of fuel to spare.

Otherwise, though, keep trying!

[septemberWaves]

@Aidian Mechjeb is a wonderful tool for beginners, but it comes with the unfortunate issue that before Mechjeb can help you learn to play the game, you first must learn to use Mechjeb.

On ascent, limit your angle of attack (5 degrees is good for most rockets, less if it's got a heavy payload or large fairing or is awkwardly shaped). Also, keep your SLT (sea level thrust-to-weight) above 1, but not too far above 1. The autopilot has a feature to limit the throttle of liquid thrusters, or you can limit the thrust of both liquid and solid rockets when you're in the VAB. Air resistance is the most difficult part of getting to orbit (well, after you figure out a way to create a controlled directional explosion that's sustainable for several minutes and can be turned on and off at will, but in this game that's a given really), and the best way of making sure air resistance doesn't cause problems is to have as low a thrust as you possibly can when in an atmosphere whilst still allowing your rocket to accelerate. Personally I find it better to limit the thrust on the engines themselves rather than relying on MechJeb to do it, mainly because it leaves fewer buttons to press when you're in flight and possibly trying to get some good screenshots of the launch.

Mechjeb is also by far the most valuable tool for learning to dock. There's a lot less micromanagement for docking than for ascent; all you need is the rendezvous autopilot to get close to your target, and then the docking autopilot to attach the two craft together. After some time of watching what Mechjeb does, you learn pretty well how to do it in stock.

Landing though, is a bit hit-or-miss with MechJeb. Literally. Most of the time it works perfectly, but if you want to avoid blowing up from atmospheric heating, or you're in too high of an orbit around a non-atmospheric world, the landing autopilot has issues (although I've yet to test it out in the latest version of Mechjeb). My advice here is either ensure that you quicksave before any landing attempts, and you should probably learn to land manually (and don't trust the spaceplane guidance either when you eventually start making spaceplanes).

Finally, I've always found that the best way to get to most places in the Kerbol system is to overengineer. Need 3000 delta-v to get somewhere? Bring 3750. Need to land something colossal on the Mun but have no idea how many engines to use? Add as many engines as you can fit pointing vaguely downwards. As you get better at the game you wont need it, but early in your space career it's good to have a lot of redundancy in case of mistakes.