[QUESTION] How do I get more money now?

[Deoxys_101]

I'm going to try to keep this short. Basically I was taking advantage of taking tourists into orbit of Kerbin and then back for easy money. However, after finally landing on the Mün with a Kerbal, and then making it back home safely, all of the tourist missions for just doing an orbit of Kerbin are gone and will not come back. Now they have all been replaced with ones where the tourists want to either fly by the Mün, land on it, or both, and still return home safely! The problem with this is that the only ship I have that can reach the Mün and back with Kerbals (only two though) costs about 900,000, compared to the ship I was using just for the Kerbin orbit, which was about 250,000 but could hold 14 tourists and would easily pay for itself plus provide a lot of extra money. However, if I were to use the Mün ship I have, since it can only support two Kerbals, it would not pay for itself and I would only lose money. Also, at the time of writing this, I don't even have enough money for it. 

Obviously I'm doing something wrong, and that's why I'm here. In order to save this save game of mine, which I have put a lot of work into and do not wish to redo, I need a way to make money with a ship that can fly by the Mün, land on it, leave and return home safely, and pay for itself while providing a decent profit. Basically I need a design as it's obvious that my design is overkill and simply won't work. 

Here is everything I have to work with:

• Funds: 314,490
• Reputation: 53%
• Science: 489.6
• Fully upgraded VAB, R&D Facility, Launch Pad, Runway, Tracking Station, and Mission Control.
• One mobile probe (on wheels, with basic science abilities) on the Mün.

Research Progress:

I currently do not have any space stations.

Now I've recently started to slowly discover that Mün ships don't have to cost a fortune. However, I did not come here to be made fun of. I really need some help, and would greatly appreciate it.

[bewing]

Would you like a picture of a ship, a craft file, or just some words to point you toward making a much cheaper Mun ship? It's a little unfortunate that you bypassed nuke engines to get those crazy expensive giant liquid fuel ones -- the nuke engines give you the cheapest Mun ships of all.

Also: how many tourists do you want to do flybys with, and how many want to land? Landing takes quite a bit more dV, so it's best to separate the two types of tourists.

Also: do you have any space tugs orbiting the Mun that could do refueling? Do you have a drill and ISR unit landed on the Mun that could refuel a ship that landed nearby?

Edited May 25, 2016 by bewing

[Deoxys_101]

28 minutes ago, bewing said:

Would you like a picture of a ship, a craft file, or just some words to point you toward making a much cheaper Mun ship? It's a little unfortunate that you bypassed nuke engines to get those crazy expensive giant liquid fuel ones -- the nuke engines give you the cheapest Mun ships of all.

Also: how many tourists do you want to do flybys with, and how many want to land? Landing takes quite a bit more dV, so it's best to separate the two types of tourists.

All three of those would work, so either one is fine (or more than one). Also I have enough science to get nuclear engines. I just kept my science the way it was to provide a cushion in that regard for this issue. As four the tourists, separating them would be better but I'm afraid it will eventually only have tourists who want to land. If I can stick with just flybys then I think I can recover from this but if not then this could be an even worse problem than what I originally thought. And as for the amount of tourists, it doesn't matter. I just have to make a profit of at least 50,000 to 100,000. I'm willing to go lower than that but I'd rather not as then it'd take forever to get anywhere in terms of money.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Deoxys_101

[PnDB]

My cheap (about 30k funds) Mun/Minmus tourist/scientist/engineer orbit/landing ships use a single Mk1 command pod and an OKTO probe core as the main part of the payload.  You should be able to build a cheap orbiter/lander using something similar, given your tech tree.  I'm guessing your early orbit/suborbit flights had only one tourist aboard... start that way again for Mun/Minmus, and you'll soon be taking a dozen tourists along for the ride.

Here's what's on my single-passenger ship from 1.0.5... it should still work reasonably well in 1.1.2.  I took my science gathering, biome hopper ship and ripped out all the science... more refinement could be done to make this lighter and cheaper.

Re-entry stage:
  Mk16 parachute
  OKTO probe core
  Mk1 command pod with no monopropellant
  2x drogue chutes
  1.25m heat shield with 40 units of ablator

Transfer, orbit, land, launch, orbit, return stage:
  TR-18A decoupler
  Service bay with X200 battery and small inline reaction wheel
  1.25m to 2.5m rockomax adapter with 4x OX STAT XL panels (don't need this much solar at all)
  Rockomax X200-16 tank with 4x LT-1 landing struts attached
  Poodle engine

Lift stage:
  Rockomax decoupler
  X200-32 tank
  Skipper engine
  4x AV R8 winglets

Boosters:
  2x TT-38K radial decouplers, each with a BACC Thumper attached

Gives 1.6 TWR at launch, and about 6650 vacuum dV.
Costs about 30k funds
34 parts
About 68 tons total

edit: Interesting... seems like the "insert code" option color-codes bits of my text.  Ignore the colors.

Edited May 25, 2016 by PnDB
Noticed pretty colors.

[mk1980]

900,000 founds for a mun landing sounds very expensive. maybe it would be a good idea to check some of the premade rockets in a new sandbox game (no worries- you can start multiple campaigns in parallel - the new sandbox game won't kill you current career save). 

the "KerbalX" stock rocket is a nice rocket for training mun landings. it's actually a bit overengineered, but that doesn't matter. it has a capsule with 3 seats and i think it would cost something like 60,000 funds (of course in sandbox there are no funds, but the price is displayed anyway). load that rocket and try to get it to the mun. if you fail, you lose nothing. after a few tries you'll probably get it right. you can also check the in game trainign missions if you haven't done them yet. maybe you can learn a thing or two how to build and fly cheaper rockets that get the job done on a reasonable budget.

 

[Gorzideudeus]

Yep, 900k is way too much. What you are describing is easily doable under 100k; just try to downsize and compress what you can. Once you land on the moon, it doesn't take that much to get back. Terrier engines are my goto choice when operating in the kerbin system. And honestly, if funds are what you're going for, tourist missions just aren't worth it once you reach the point that you're at (In my opinion). I suggest taking on bigger contracts if you want bigger rewards.

[Snark]

900K is vastly over-expensive for a Mun shot.  A land-and-return mission to Moho doesn't even cost half of that.

The real answer is "design your ship so that it's over 20 times cheaper", then the math will work out better for you.

My guess is that you've got some basic principle askew in the way you're designing your ships-- the thing to do is to refine your approach to design, then the career will suddenly turn into a spouting fountain of cash.  Best way to do that may be to post a picture of your ship-- then folks can critique it and give constructive suggestions for how to get more bang for your buck.

There are a lot of ways to design a cheap, effective Mun lander.  @PnDB gives a nice example above.

[Deoxys_101]

@PnDB I fully understand and respect you if you do not wish to share a picture or a craft file of one of your ships that would help me (like the one in the code) but if you did I'd really appreciate it. I'll try to put something together using the code (may do it tomorrow though due to KSP frustrating me and making me want to call lit a night on it) though.

@mk1980 I just checked it out and it's pretty neat; I was also able to move it to my career game by copying/moving the file but that maybe considered cheating. Also I was not aware there were such in depth tutorials (I knew there were tutorials but I didn't know they were like that). So I'll probably check those out too.

If anyone has anymore designs, ideas, etc., that will help me then please keep posting! I know I can't offer anything in return but I'd be very thankful! I just don't want this thread to die now that two people have provided good answers because there is always the chance that they will not fix the problem (not on their end though; on mine because I'm still trying to learn this game and thus I make a lot of mistakes, both big and small).

[bewing]

OK, here is a craft file: http://www.virtualrealitytoursllc.com/pix/nuke7.craft

The ship costs a grand total of 33k kash, and can easily haul 7 tourists on a Mun flyby with 340 fuel remaining for Kerbin deorbit (which is a lot). Launch it straight up, full throttle, when KSC is 45 degrees ahead of the Mun in its orbit. It reenters and lands like a spaceplane. It can easily reenter from an Ap of 300km -- set the Pe to 59km about 200km west of KSC. Reenter with the nose at 90 degrees until you are at 58km altitude, then keep the nose at 30 degrees. Make sure the radiator is activated. This ship will probably make you about 700k kash per trip.

It also has enough fuel to land those 7 tourists on the Mun and get back to Munar orbit, but then it will need to be refueled to make it back to KSC. 

 

[Deoxys_101]

I think another problem may actually be that I don't know how to get to the Mun easily. My current method probably wastes a lot more fuel then most other methods. Basically I do it by flying to the same "height" as the Mun is at and then proceeding to fly against the horizon to create a big orbit. However, I set the orbit to the opposite direction that the Mun is moving so that I will essentially run into and get a Mun encounter. I've tried waiting for the Mun to line up closer with KSC but only once did I manage to get it perfectly where I had a Mun encounter without having to fly against the horizon. However, this is something that varies from ship to ship. For leaving the Mun though, I fly up to about 100,000m in height and then use a maneuver to get out of the Mun and into a big orbit around Kerbin. Then I use another maneuver to actually get back to Kerbin.

Here is the monster ship I mentioned earlier. I won't hold it against you if you laugh because I realize I over killed a Mun ship probably more than anyone else has in KSP. Just try not to make me feel bad, alright?  At least I'm aware of my mistakes now and am working to fix them and am actually seeking help.

Top half:

Bottom half:

Ship file: http://www.filedropper.com/lunarandback4 (If this doesn't work let me know and I'll find somewhere else to upload it.)

Also there's a four in the title because the last three were either unmanned versions or versions that didn't work. Also the top (lander part) has drills and ore storage, as well as an ore converter thing, because I couldn't figure out how to have enough fuel for both landing (since parachutes don't work on the Mun obviously) and for a return home. So instead I designed it to be able to refuel itself on the Mun by drilling for ore. It would take forever but eventually it'd be fully refilled.

Also I am reading every response to this thread and am taking advice, tutorials, ship files, etc., from them. I simply may not post an actual response to all of them though.

 

 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Deoxys_101 said:

Top half:

Bottom half:

 

You are butting against something we call the Tyranny of the Rocket Equation in which to get something somewhere you need to lift it. And to lift it you need fuel and boosters. And then you have to lift that fuel, with more fuel and more boosters. Soon you're doubling the size of your rocket and getting about 10 seconds of thrust that barely even makes a difference.

First, you need to strip down your upper stage. 4 drills? Try 2, but just for symmetry. Use the small ones. Also you seem to have 4 or 5 Vectors there as well. Those should be Terriers and you should probably only have 2. Not sure what that that RCS tank is for, but I personally would lose it. But I hate RCS fuel

If you just do that, I'd not be surprised if you could eliminate EVERY SINGLE white tank and Mammoth engine in the lower stage, and still get to Mun. I'd have to try it, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Second, you need to fly efficiently. You should be doing a gravity turn and then burning up to Mun's orbit from LKO at the correct time. Maneuver nodes are your friend. It sounds a bit like you're not using them at all? You can make one, and drag it around your orbit until the orbit line prediction tells you you'll meet Mun. Then just follow that node. Same goes for getting into Mun orbit and even landing.

Third, I'd never laugh at a new player. You should see the monstrosities I made 3 years ago. I shudder at the thought.

Edited May 26, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Deoxys_101 said:

Here is the monster ship I mentioned earlier. I won't hold it against you if you laugh because I realize I over killed a Mun ship probably more than anyone else has in KSP. Just try not to make me feel bad, alright?

Nah, it's okay, we've all been there.  I will confess to a chuckle or two, but a friendly one intended to be with you rather than at you.

Yes, that's massively ludicrously overbuilt.  It has numerous problems, which we could go into one by one, but honestly it's probably not worth your time to do so-- just scrap it and start all over.

From your description, it sounds like really there are two problems here:

1. You have serious issues with your navigation:  your route to the Mun is very wasteful, so you've set yourself up for failure by requiring far more dV than you actually need.
2. You have issues with your ship design, so that you're very wasteful to accomplish a given amount of dV.

For the record, here is how you navigate to the Mun:

1. Launch a ship to circular LKO.  (I'm assuming you know how to do this efficiently with a small, light craft.  If that's not the case, holler and we can go into that.)  Something fairly low, like 80-90 km is good.
2. Switch to map mode and rotate it so the camera is looking straight down at Kerbin's north pole.  Rotate it so that the Mun is at about the 2 o'clock position.
3. Drop a maneuver node at the 6 o'clock position.
4. Drag the prograde handle of the maneuver node until you get a Mun encounter with a really low munar Pe, say 15 km or so.  Hint:  This will end up being 850 m/s, pretty close.  If you don't get anything close to that, there's something wrong and you should post a what-am-I-doing-wrong screenshot here.
5. Do the burn at the appropriate time.
6. When you reach that low munar Pe of 15 km or so, burn retrograde to capture to circular orbit.  It'll be something like 250 m/s, if I recall correctly.

That's it.  Going from low circular Kerbin orbit to low circular Mun orbit should only take you around 1100 m/s or thereabouts of dV.  No more than that.

Once you're in low Mun orbit, then you just need to land efficiently, which is a separate set of tasks, but I'd first suggest practicing just getting to orbit there.

As for designing your ship:  Keep it small, keep it light.  Follow the principle that each stage should be 2-3 times as massive as the last one.  A topmost stage of command pod, plus 2-ton fuel tank, plus a single Terrier engine, is a great one; it's tiny, light, and has a couple thousand m/s of dV.

[James Kerman]

The game is all about learning.  Many players use mods like Kerbal engineer redux for more information in the VAB.  KER gives you the delta V and thrust to weight of each stage (for any body in the Kerbol system) in your rocket and makes it much easier to build cost effective and efficient designs.

[PnDB]

3 hours ago, Deoxys_101 said:

@PnDB I fully understand and respect you if you do not wish to share a picture or a craft file of one of your ships that would help me (like the one in the code) but if you did I'd really appreciate it. I'll try to put something together using the code (may do it tomorrow though due to KSP frustrating me and making me want to call lit a night on it) though.

Hope this helps a bit... very simple and straightforward for getting into orbit, transferring to either of Kerbin's moons, landing, and returning.  DOH!  Just noticed I didn't re-add the drogue chutes!  Put two of them on the Mk1 pod or the OKTO!

And definitely listen to folks like @Snark and @5thHorseman.  Their assistance has put many an inexperienced player into space.

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by PnDB

[Deoxys_101]

Hm... Okay may you guys are right; I think I need to take a step back. This is a game I want to learn though and eventually master (one of my goals for this summer vacation is to ATTEMPT to master the game, or at least get as good at is as possible (in career mode but I might do more testing in creative).

My original goal was to do it only through self teaching but at this point obviously I've trashed that and am now actively seeking help and tutorials. Having just moved to a new place though, my social life is.... Kind of nonexistant right now, so I want to use my summer on KSP  before I start college/university full time. However, I didn't want to redo the current save I have due to how far I am on research (which took a very long time obviously and a lot of hard work). However, my summer just started so it's not like I'm lacking in time. I will be willing to into a new career mode save if I an completely screwed over but obviously only a last ditch option.

Anyway, here is a run down of what I can and cannot do in KSP:

Can:

• Get into LKO (however I'm terrible at making a perfect orbit; it's usually lopsided slightly).
• Get into HKO but with the same issue stated above in LKO.
• Land on the Mun using a lander (as in I can control the thrusters correctly so that I don't break the landing legs when I land).
• Leave the Mun and return home safely if the lander can support it.
• Perform basic maneuvers (as in I fiddle around with the controls/buttons until something lines up right).
• Execute basic maneuvers (assuming the ship I'm using can do it). 
• Escape Kerbin and orbit the sun (but I can't really do anything else after that).
• Make and fly basic planes, although the ones I make are usually very hard to control.
• Return from LKO and/or HKO back to Kerbin safely (assuming the ship I'm using can do it).

Cannot:

• Rescue people from orbit. I can get very close but I always end up flying past them or vise versa.
• Make a space station. I can put a basic station up but due to the same issue of not being able to rescue people, I cannot ever manage to attach anything on to it due never being able to get close enough. I'm capable of lining up the orbits almost exactly the same but even then it's still not enough.
• Go to the Mun, land, leave, and return home safely in an efficient manner (as in 100,000 cost or below).
• Do a Mun flyby with my own ship and then return back to Kerbin safely.
• Go to other planets.
• Reach Kerbin's second moon.
• Position satellites in very specific orbits (I can put them in orbit but I cannot do those missions that have very specific requirements).
• Do anything advanced (sorry that's vague but basically anything a relative newbie cannot do).

Now I don't want to change the topic of this thread too much though so I won't go on any further with that. However, if you know any good tutorials, then please post them (excluding Scott Manley as I already know about his tutorials and have watched some of them). But back to the main focus of the threat.

@bewing I tried your ship and was able to do the Mun flyby with only going straight up, so obviously I got that part right (I think). However, I always burn up upon reentry into Kerbin's atmosphere. I tried to follow the instructions that you provided for reentry but I always lose control and burn up at around 60km to 40km.

@PnDB Wow that's a really small and cheap ship that can do a lot. You see with my thinking I was always like "well if [ship I built] can get get 100km high, then I should be able to get higher by adding more rockets so that when these new rockets run out, it will be like launching the original ship from 50km high." I would often get so carried away in this thinking that I would forget about weight in terms of that smaller ships are faster and go further in a lot situations.

@Snark Does this work at any rotation of Kerbin (in regards to where KSC is compared to the Mun)? I understand you said you do the rotating part after getting into orbit but I just want to be sure. Also, will this still work even if the orbit is slightly lopsided? Like how 'perfect' does it have to be?

@James Kerman I might check that out but at the same time I want to avoid using any mods in career mode. Obviously I could use it in creative mode but it might be a hassle having to constantly uninstall and reinstall it for when I switch between modes.

@5thHorseman Well that explains a lot. Also, I'll see about trying your suggestions once I get better at getting to the Mun.

Anyway, I really wasn't expecting this much help and I'm very grateful.  So far this thread as been more useful to me then a lot of the tutorials I can find, The ones on the wiki tend to suck in my opinion too because a lot of the time it just tells you to build a rocket that can reach the Mun but that's literally all it says for that step; it never tells you how to build it, etc. I maybe just looking in the wrong place but that's mostly what I've seen so far outside of this forum and outside of Youtube.

However, I have to go for the night now. I will be back on tomorrow though, so I'll catch up on any new posts in the morning.

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Deoxys_101

[bewing]

26 minutes ago, Deoxys_101 said:

I tried your ship and was able to do the Mun flyby with only going straight up, so obviously I got that part right (I think). However, I always burn up upon reentry into Kerbin's atmosphere. I tried to follow the instructions that you provided for reentry but I always lose control and burn up at around 60km to 40km.

If you got the flyby part done, then you did very well. Yes, I kept the instructions very short and left a lot of things out. In your list of can/cannot -- you did not mention aerobraking. But you say you can leave Mun and return ....

Part of the point is that there are many ways to reenter, and all of them work to some extent ... but there are details. After you do a Mun flyby, hopefully you are in an orbit around Kerbin with a Pe > 0. If not, you have to raise your Pe to maybe 61km or so by burning prograde at the Ap. After that, you get to choose either to aerobrake, or to burn your fuel to get back into an LKO. One way or another, you need to reduce your Ap to something reasonable before your final reentry. You may need 6 aerobraking passes, and it may take several Kerbin days. Or you can just wait until your Pe and then blast retrograde with your engine until your Ap is down to 100km. Then you probably want to raise your Pe for a few orbits until KSC is underneath it, then lower it again to 59km for final reentry. If you saved a bunch of fuel, you can burn it during reentry to prevent all possibility of heatsploding -- just burn retrograde until your surface speed is 1400m/s or less. There are details of timing to allow you to land on the runway for a 100% refund on your ship. To slow down during reentry, hold down a key -- A or D work nicely. Alternately, make your ship "rock" back and forth -- when the nose is going left, hold down A, when it's going right, hold down D (this works really really well). Holding down S at the same time to keep your nose up works pretty good. The more keys you are holding down, the better, because it all adds a lot of drag, and that is what you need on reentry.

 

Oh, and about snark's method -- no your orbit does not need to be anything special (not particularly circular or anything) in order to place a maneuver node and get to the Mun. And yes, it allows you to launch into LKO at any old time and then gives an opportunity go to Mun once every orbit.

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by bewing

[Superfluous J]

For your problems with rendezvous (and when you get that down, docking) I have made 3 videos on YouTube that break it down into 3 steps:

Rendezvous (getting it so at some point, your ships will pass close to each other)

Spoiler

 

Approach (Getting your two ships side by side and stopped relative to each other)

Spoiler

 

Docking (When a ship loves a space station...)

Spoiler

 

 

[Loren Pechtel]

5 hours ago, Deoxys_101 said:

I think another problem may actually be that I don't know how to get to the Mun easily. My current method probably wastes a lot more fuel then most other methods. Basically I do it by flying to the same "height" as the Mun is at and then proceeding to fly against the horizon to create a big orbit. However, I set the orbit to the opposite direction that the Mun is moving so that I will essentially run into and get a Mun encounter. I've tried waiting for the Mun to line up closer with KSC but only once did I manage to get it perfectly where I had a Mun encounter without having to fly against the horizon. However, this is something that varies from ship to ship. For leaving the Mun though, I fly up to about 100,000m in height and then use a maneuver to get out of the Mun and into a big orbit around Kerbin. Then I use another maneuver to actually get back to Kerbin.

Medic!

Jebediah just had a heart attack upon seeing this trajectory!

 

Once you're in Kerbin orbit place a maneuver node, pull the prograde up until it reaches the Mun's orbit, then grab the orbit and side it around until you get an intercept.  Burn that, it's a bit under 900 m/s.  You'll need a bit over 300 m/s to get into a fairly low orbit about the Mun.  I don't recall what it takes to land.

Note that from a financial standpoint you're better off not landing on the Mun until you have to.  Minmus first, a much lighter rocket will do the job.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, Deoxys_101 said:

Anyway, here is a run down of what I can and cannot do in KSP:

Excellent list!    Really helps to get a handle on where you are.

 

So here's a laundry list of the skills/techniques I'd suggest that you should develop, if you don't have them already:

 

Skill 1:  Get to orbit efficiently, i.e. with a well-executed gravity turn.

Spoiler

You mentioned that you can get to orbit.  However, how you fly your rocket can make a big difference in how much fuel you expend to get there.  You might be doing it really inefficiently without realizing it, in which case you could be handicapping yourself before the mission even really gets started.  Pretty much every mission in KSP is always going to involve going to LKO first, so it's a really important skill to develop.

I won't go into detail here, because I don't know how you're doing-- maybe you're already fine.  Here are a couple of tests to check whether you're on track:

• When your rocket reaches 12 km altitude, how fast is it going and what angle is it at?  It ought to be tilted at around 45 degrees, and going somewhere in the 300-400 m/s range.  There are a range of OK numbers depending on your ship design... but it should look at least approximately like that.  If your numbers are extremely different from those, we should talk.
• Here's a self-test:  Build a simple rocket as described below.  Take it to an approximately circular orbit of around 80-90 km altitude.  It should easily reach orbit, with plenty of fuel left in the last stage's tank.  If you can't get it to orbit, or if fuel is nearly empty when you do, then we should talk.
  • Top stage:  Mk1 command pod with parachute, 2-ton fuel tank, Terrier engine.
  • Decoupler.
  • Middle stage:  4-ton fuel tank, Swivel engine.
  • Decoupler.
  • Bottom stage:  Thumper SRB, with four Basic Fins on the bottom.

 

Skill 2:  Launch into a nearly perfect circular orbit.

Spoiler

You don't actually need to do this.  As bewing points out, there's nothing super-special about perfectly circular, and you can do stuff without it.

However, I'd recommend developing the skill so you can do it as easily as breathing, for a couple of reasons.

First, it will make your life simpler.  You mentioned that you have trouble building space stations, for example, or rescuing kerbals.  In other words, you're finding it a challenge to achieve orbital rendezvous.  Well, things in perfectly circular orbits are easier targets than things in elliptical orbits.  Planning an ejection from a circular orbit is also somewhat simpler.  So if you can hit a circle, you're slightly simplifying your life.

Second:  it's just good practice.  It's a handy thing to aim for just for the challenge of it.  It will give you good practice at doing fiddly things with maneuver nodes to precisely hit a desired condition, which is a good general skill to have.

Here's the quick-n-easy guide to launching into a nearly perfect circular orbit:

1. Do a launch as per usual, up to the point where your engines cut off and you're just coasting up towards Ap.
2. Drop a maneuver node right exactly on your Ap marker.  (You have no Pe marker yet, since you're on a suborbital trajectory and your Pe is actually buried deep inside the planet.)
3. Drag the maneuver node's prograde handle until you see the Pe marker appear on the opposite side of the planet.
4. Keep dragging, and watch the Pe altitude.  It will climb.  Slow down the drag when Pe starts getting close to Ap.
5. When the Pe altitude starts getting really close to the Ap altitude, the Pe and Ap markers will start to "rotate" around the orbit.
6. Stop dragging when they've rotated about 90 degrees (i.e. the Pe and Ap markers are about 90 degrees ahead/behind of the maneuver node's position at your current Ap).
7. If the post-maneuver Ap is 90 degrees ahead of your current Ap position, tug the radial-inward handle slightly.  On the other hand, if the post-maneuver Ap is 90 degrees behind your current Ap position, tug the radial-outward handle slightly.
8. Do the radial in-or-out nudge just enough to cause the post-maneuver Ap and Pe to rotate back so that one of them is right there on the current Ap marker again, or reasonably close.

You're now pretty darn close to a circular orbit.  There are additional steps to refine it further if you like, but this ought to be close enough.

 

Skill 3:  Place a maneuver node to go from LKO to the Mun.

Spoiler

This is the technique I previously described.

A slightly simpler way to describe it:

1. Get into LKO.  Ideally it would be circular, but it doesn't have to be perfect.
2. Drop a maneuver node on the orbit and drag the prograde maneuver handle until the Ap is raised up to approximately the radius of the Mun's orbit, or slightly lower.
3. Now grab the maneuver node itself and slide it around the orbit until you have a Mun encounter.
   • If the parking orbit you started in with step 1 is a bit "lumpy" and not close to perfectly circular, you may need to readjust the prograde/retrograde handles as you slide the node around, because your Ap will grow and shrink when you do that.
   • This is one example of how you make life a bit simpler for yourself if you launch into a circular orbit. 

 

There are further skills beyond those, such as how to land efficiently on the Mun, how to take off efficiently from the Mun, how to head back to Kerbin-- but these are good to start with, I think.

[Tarheel1999]

I learned a lot from watching Scott Manley and HOCGaming on YouTube.  Scott has a lot of great intro videos. I would look at his playlists for one of his career sets. The only thing to keep in mind for the older videos from Scott and Harv is that the aerodynamics were overhauled in version .9-1 and so launch and reentry are different. The orbital mechanics are still the same though. 

[Sereneti]

i think watchin "too [planet] for the cheap" give a good idea whats possible...

 

[DaMachinator]

You could always try getting Minmus tourism unlocked, that's cheaper and easier than Mun tourism.

[Snark]

55 minutes ago, DaMachinator said:

You could always try getting Minmus tourism unlocked, that's cheaper and easier than Mun tourism.

Agreed that for someone who knows how to navigate, Minmus is cheaper, and "easier" in the sense of requiring less dV.

However, the OP clearly is still learning the ins and outs of orbital navigation-- he specifically called out that he can't get to Minmus with his current skillset, and is finding just navigating to the Mun to be a difficult challenge.  Getting to Minmus is really a non-starter unless you understand enough to be able to navigate Munwards with no problem.  There's a reason why Squad made the Mun contracts pop up before the Minmus ones.

If I'm a KSP player, and I still have enough areas-to-learn that I'm spending 900,000 funds for getting to the Mun, then going to Minmus instead isn't really going to help much.  Eventually, absolutely yes!   But first things first:  get solid on the basics of navigation and ship design.

Fortunately, it sounds like the OP is ready, willing, and able to learn ... so I expect he'll be getting back on track pretty soon.

[Gojira1000]

This is an old squeaky vid I did in 1.05, in very early career - but I think the contents may be of some help. You've a lot more open tech than I had in the video - so make a nicer rocket than the El-Cheapo I ran here, but the mechanics will largely be the same.

 

 

[DaMachinator]

35 minutes ago, Snark said:

Agreed that for someone who knows how to navigate, Minmus is cheaper, and "easier" in the sense of requiring less dV.

However, the OP clearly is still learning the ins and outs of orbital navigation-- he specifically called out that he can't get to Minmus with his current skillset, and is finding just navigating to the Mun to be a difficult challenge.  Getting to Minmus is really a non-starter unless you understand enough to be able to navigate Munwards with no problem.  There's a reason why Squad made the Mun contracts pop up before the Minmus ones.

If I'm a KSP player, and I still have enough areas-to-learn that I'm spending 900,000 funds for getting to the Mun, then going to Minmus instead isn't really going to help much.  Eventually, absolutely yes!   But first things first:  get solid on the basics of navigation and ship design.

Fortunately, it sounds like the OP is ready, willing, and able to learn ... so I expect he'll be getting back on track pretty soon.

Maybe it's because I built up experience using Sandbox and Science mode, and being that kind of player use mods like KER to try and find the most efficient rocket configuration, but I've never had any problem getting to minmus as long as I could acquire enough funds to upgrade the Tracking Station and the Mission Control center to Level 2 for patched conics and maneuver nodes. I suspect i could do it without either, though i would waste a lot of fuel and probably miss.