How Do You Guys Do It?

[Regiampiero]

I'm restarting my career mode since 1.2, and its been very difficult to get things going without KER or MechJeb. How are you guys calculating your dV for your launches at the moment? I've been trying to get a few satellited in orbit (while trying to be fuel efficient), but I'm always coming up just short of a stable gso. Also I've had to do them one by one as currently there's no way for me to find out what my period (lol) is. How are you guys dealing with it (Mod wise)? Also feel free to post early tech tree sat pics.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Regiampiero

[Starhawk]

34 minutes ago, Regiampiero said:

currently there's no way for me to find out what my period (lol) is

Take the time difference between apo and peri and double it.  That's your orbital period.

34 minutes ago, Regiampiero said:

How are you guys calculating your dV

To find your dV, take the mass of the stage full of fuel divided by the mass of the stage empty of fuel.  Then take the natural log of that (any decent calculator has this function built in).  Multiply that by 9.81 9.80665 and then multiply that by the ISP of the stage.  That gives the delta-v for that stage.

Happy landings!

(edited in response to quibbling)

Edited October 14, 2016 by Starhawk

[bewing]

Don't bother with fuel efficiency. A failed launch is 100% inefficient. Stock KSP is about doing things by the seat of your pants, so just bring along a bit more than you need.

[Dman979]

6 minutes ago, Starhawk said:

To find your dV, take the mass of the stage full of fuel divided by the mass of the stage empty of fuel.  Then take the natural log of that (any decent calculator has this function built in).  Multiply that by the 9.81 and then multiply that by the ISP of the stage.  That gives the delta-v for that stage.

Good answer, I just have one small quibble with it. The equation uses  9.80665 m/s², not 9.81 m/s². The difference could be significant when planning a longterm mission, but it's not as crucial when just getting to orbit.

[Regiampiero]

26 minutes ago, Starhawk said:

Take the time difference between apo and peri and double it.  That's your orbital period.

To find your dV, take the mass of the stage full of fuel divided by the mass of the stage empty of fuel.  Then take the natural log of that (any decent calculator has this function built in).  Multiply that by 9.81 9.80665 and then multiply that by the ISP of the stage.  That gives the delta-v for that stage.

Happy landings!

(edited in response to quibbling)

Tanks for the response, but I was wondering if there was a new mod everyone is using. I know the calculations for delta-V, but I really want avoid making the game feel like work. As anyone heard when the updates for MechJeb or KER are supposed to come out? 

[Superfluous J]

I've been winging it, and reverting to the VAB a lot. But after using KER for years I've found I have a pretty good instinct about dV.

[Plusck]

I have resorted to guessing, plus my trusty spreadsheet once I reach orbit to see whether my plans are feasible. Unfortunately, in addition to other errors, the spreadsheet uses the value of 9.81, so my long-term missions will be out by more than 0.03%

[DD_bwest]

after a while you get a sense of how much dV you should have for the rough weight and the amount of fuel.  when i dont have MJ, i tend to just over build

[Starhawk]

There's a dev version of KER available, but it hasn't been updated with all the new fuel flow logic so it may be inaccurate if your craft uses the new fuel flow features.

Check the KER Thread in Add-On Releases if you're interested.  There's a post from the mod author in the last few pages with instructions on how to set it up.

Happy landings!

[BadLeo]

Yes, there's such a thing as dV instinct. But, as fail safe measure, be generous with fuel. Stock KSP has no such thing as overkill rocket.

BUT: if KER is unusable, at least for me, giving weird CTD while trying to load saves with it, MechJeb has a fully functional - aside of potential bugs - dev version that can be grabbed on its GitHub page.

[Kevin Kyle]

I use the optimal rocket calculator and large grains of salt coupled with some instinct as to what I might need and then add a little more for safety. It usually gets me there. No guarantees and YMMV. Im pretty sure that the calculator has not been updated so more grains of salt needed. Also, playing around with it and gaining some experience with it will get you a long ways. I often manipulate what parts I check as having and other options to get what I need. I just look through what it suggest to me and pick the one I like the best sometimes changing out tanks and engines for what I think is more practical to my situation. Good luck!

 

https://garycourt.github.io/korc/

Edited October 14, 2016 by Kevin Kyle

[Vanamonde]

At default difficulty settings, the career is actually pretty generous with reward money. Efficiency isn't a very pressing concern, so I just eyeball it to get close, and then test and modify until the craft does the job I want. 

[GoSlash27]

 

Like this, same as always

-Slashy

[Allocthonous]

Taking along too much fuel just means you can play around a bit. Your space station booster unit has twice as much fuel as you needed? Try and land it back on kerbin using no parachutes. Leave it up there and suck the excess fuel out of it using grapple nodes like some sort of bizarre interplanetary vampire. See if you can get it all the way to Duna with the excess dv. Being super precise is fun, but overbuilding things can be fun too.