Help getting to other planets?

[halla555]

I recently got back into this game, and I have been trying to get to other planets, and while I have been able to do this, it is extremely sloppily and inefficient. I can get a probe in Jool orbit, but not neatly, I usually end up having a highly eccentric somewhat polar orbit without enough fuel to go to its moons or try to atleast circularize my orbit, and I can get to Duna or Eve and land on it or put something in orbit around it, but almost never at a perfect equatorial orbit, and its almost always a really poor orbit. How do I more neatly and efficiently get to other planets?

[FullMetalMachinist]

19 minutes ago, halla555 said:

How do I more neatly and efficiently get to other planets?

For efficiency, here are two good planners:

https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

http://ksp.olex.biz

There's also mods that do it in-game. Transfer Window Planner and MechJeb come to mind. 

These will also help with the 'neat' bit. Another thing you can do is once you get an encounter with another planet, place a maneuver node about halfway there, or at the solar ascending/decending node, whichever is more convenient. Then focus the map view on the target planet and you'll see your trajectory through it's SoI when you get there. Now adjust the correction node as needed to get it however 'neat' you need. 

[halla555]

28 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

For efficiency, here are two good planners:

https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

http://ksp.olex.biz

There's also mods that do it in-game. Transfer Window Planner and MechJeb come to mind. 

These will also help with the 'neat' bit. Another thing you can do is once you get an encounter with another planet, place a maneuver node about halfway there, or at the solar ascending/decending node, whichever is more convenient. Then focus the map view on the target planet and you'll see your trajectory through it's SoI when you get there. Now adjust the correction node as needed to get it however 'neat' you need. 

Yea, MechJeb helps a whole lot, but IRCC i dont think its been updated for current version of the game. Idk tho.

Edited November 3, 2016 by halla555

[DD_bwest]

The more you practice, the more little tricks you find that will help you.  FMM above mentioned 2 big ones.  knowing when to go, and the angle to eject at can save you a ton.  The second is very important.   Placing a node past the half way mark on the way to your target, and then focusing on the target will let you see what your a intercept will look like.  adjust your camera so the node is in the background, and adjust it ever so slightly.   If your finding it too finicky because the speed changes are so small,  move your node closer to the intercept point.  The closer it is, the more "expensive" the burn gets,   but when you sometimes deal with amounts as small as 1 or 2 dV it can be easier to wait since the little sliders can be hard to work with.

If you get to your target and you dont have the best inclination, one idea is to just burn enough to capture, and then fix your inclination as close to your AP as you can

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, halla555 said:

Yea, MechJeb helps a whole lot, but IRCC i dont think its been updated for current version of the game. Idk tho.

There's a dev build, and it works just fine with the current version.

[Plusck]

It sounds like you're not making a mid-course correction.
Speaking for myself, I don't think I've ever gone interplanetary without a mid-course correction. My encounters would all suck if I didn't do that.

@FullMetalMachinist describes it well, above. Can't really improve on that answer, except that I don't think it is the "other" thing to do - it is always necessary (and sufficient) for me!

 

[Streetwind]

While we're at it linking you to transfer planning tools, here's a writeup on how to properly make use of the output of such a tool.

[Sharpy]

While the mods

11 hours ago, DD_bwest said:

  Placing a node past the half way mark on the way to your target, and then focusing on the target will let you see what your a intercept will look like.  adjust your camera so the node is in the background, and adjust it ever so slightly.   If your finding it too finicky because the speed changes are so small,  move your node closer to the intercept point.  The closer it is, the more "expensive" the burn gets,   but when you sometimes deal with amounts as small as 1 or 2 dV it can be easier to wait since the little sliders can be hard to work with.

The least expensive burn for inclination correction is 90 degrees from the encounter - if you look at the zoomed out map, and the Sun is in the center and the encounter point is at the top of the map view, the node should be on the right-most side of the orbit. Combine it with radial burn to get your periapsis close to Jool surface to maximize Oberth effect benefits for the capture burn.

Generally, if you depart at the optimal point of time, the inclination change at Kerbin will be excessively expensive. In LKO get any encounter, may be arbitrarily poor, then make it a good one 90 degrees from the target.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Also, in the case of Jool, it's "pretty easy" to get help circularizing from one or more moons. You plan your nodes way ahead of the encounter of course, and then fiddle with adding them after the fist moon encounter, and then see what happens if you do A or B... It requires patience and probably (been a while since played stock, I use PreciseNode which does all that) increase the number of samples drawn for your conics.

Not saying it's easy, but if you're looking for efficiency (and you have the room to do a victory dance when you get it right ),  then moon assist is also an option.

Edited November 4, 2016 by Rosco P. Coltrane