G'day there!

[Wingnutcros]

Helloooooo

Just bought KSP*Finally*

Havent played since ages ago, back before there was orbits, just launchin your ship straight up*i made it to 2000K, K not M*

Come back, and heres all theese things about orbits, moonlandings, a 2nd moon, planes just to name a few.

I've been trying to make ships that make it to the mun, no luck, im using only vanilla atm, wouldnt mind to find a few good mods*not OP*

My rockets run out of power before they get to the mun*and more rockets = more power needed to make orbit so less fuel in each rocket cause of the fuel used to get there is more cause of the ships weight*

Any hints for a newbie on getting to the mun, and good mods?

[togfox]

If you're using standard sized liquid fuel engines then use four tanks of fuel with them (not the half size) but no more. You'll get a positive T/W ratio that way. You can combine as many as you like. Make sure they all fire at the start so you don't have dead weight. Add some SRB's at the start - that will help you get a bit higher on less fuel. MechJeb is pretty much a "must have" mod. Great for beginners. I tend to stay away from the 'new' stock stuff - the large pod, tanks, decouplers and engines ... give them a shot but I don't use them as they are large and unwieldy.

Welcome to the forum.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Wingnutcros]

Thanks for the welcome Cap'n

Tog, can u explain that in a more beginner freindly way, and tbh i'd rather avoid Mechjeb atm*seen it used, seems a bit cheety to me* T/W ratio? SRB?

[Wingnutcros]

Well, ive managed to get to the mun, was trying to land on it with my spaceplane*and i MIGHT of exploited the fuel bug to get here?* when i accerated a bit 2 much, and i went from 3000 from the surface, out into Kerbans orbit! i thought hey no biggie i could get back to the mun with planning right?

Welllllllll

No.. i Stuffed up massively, you see it not only flinged me away from the mun, i swung around kerban and went full pelt out into deep space...

BUGGER

Also i have a new design Ship that for some reason, the moment it hits 25k in the air, it starts flipping and spinning and doesnt regain control till im bout to smash into the ground.

Any clue?

ALSOOOOO

why there no Big rocket tips?? theres nosecones for the smaller rockets. why not big ones?

ALSOO 2

Is nova punch remix taken down? every download i try to find of it apparantly cant find it? wahts gone on?

and FInally

How do install mods properly*just to make sure the "easy as hell" look really is that easy and not a facade*

Thank you!

Bon chance!

[sal_vager]

Hi Wingnutcros, welcome to the community

Adding stock parts is an ongoing process, and 0.17 is on its way with new parts, though I don't know what yet.

The Novapunch pack is now maintained by Tiberion.

Put parts in the parts folder, .dll's in the plugins folder, and source code anywhere, it doesn't matter.

Hope this helps

[Wingnutcros]

Howdy again guys, im back, with a few questions, got .17 now*WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

First problem i put too you all.

When taking off, alot of my spaceplanes *I have a bad facination with spaceplanes*, just as they lift, instead of lifting up, i get them to lift up, and then they start flipping MADLY!. HUH???

2nd, when leaving the atmosphere with some of my planes, the further up i get to leaving the atmosphere, the plane starts to slowely go upwards. the further i go, and more power i apply, the faster it ges to the pointthat i cant put enough power in to make a safe orbit. HUH???

3rd, Apon reentry sometimes my planes go MAD, going into a mad spin that no matter what i do i cannot correct(With power or without) before slamming at terminal velocity into the ground.. HUH????

Also as i stated before, cant get enough power to get o the moon, well now im having troubles getting up into an orbit*cause of all my balance problems perhaps*

ALSO

How do i get the center of weight in a plane shaped roughly like a triangle with 2 pointy bits at the front to get its weight balance centered?

ALSO

How do i upload a craft file for you guys to take a poke at and give me pointers?

Cause i have a design ive tried and tested, it WORKS, but doesnt do the job i hoped.

being a weight disposal system for helping to get to orbit using less fuel

[sal_vager]

Well lets see if I can help here....

(1) It's best to have the center of gravity (CG) in front of the center of lift (CL) for stability, watch out for the CG moving rearwards as fuel is used though.

(2) Planes will get faster in the upper atmosphere as there is less air resistance, but the aircraft engines will choke without enough oxygen, you need to switch you rocket engines.

(3) See One Your CG is now too far rearward as the front tanks are empty, you can disable a front tank to keep some weight at the front of the craft.

You can use other parts to add weight to a craft, it's better to adjust the lifting surfaces though as that does not add extra weight, also you can upload craft using mediafire or pastebin, imgur is best for the pics.

Hope this helps

[Wayfare]

Hi Wingnut,

Spaceplanes are not my thing, but if it's getting to the Mun you want, I suggest you do it on a rocket. Take it one step at a time: focus on getting a pod into a stable orbit around Kerbin first (about 100km will do) and bringing him back. Then try to get one to burn out farther, catching a Mun intercept, then coming back. Then, try to get an orbit around the Mun and come back. Don't try to land until you've got those steps down pat. Finally, go for a full-on "land on the Mun and be back in time for pretzels" mission.

I would advise against using MechJeb at this point, because it makes going to the Mun and back about as exciting as shopping for groceries. Use MechJeb once you've done the Mun manually a few times. Preferably, do Minmus manually as well. It really helped me get an understanding of what goes on when you're trying to get from one body to another. The aides come in later, when you're trying more complicated stuff.

If you find yourself stuck at any of the above steps, I wholeheartedly recommend

. He's got excellent tutorials up for just about anything you'd ever want to do in stock KSP. Plus he's got one where his dad says "We'll worry about landing when we've taken off", which I'm sure is one of the finest quotes this game has ever produced

One tip I might already give away: bigger is not always better. I ran though seven versions of my "Artemis" heavy lifter design trying to get to the Mun, all of which were stupidly overpowered to the point where they'd either collapse under their own weight on the launchpad, or drive the ascent stage right through the payload they were trying to deliver (including more than a few unfortunate Kerbal crews).

Good luck!

[Wingnutcros]

I think i saw ur artemis lifter thingy when surfing the forums, sexy looking ship!, btw, how do i upload a craft file? so u guys can check out my design and mebbe give me some Advice on how to upgrade it perhaps..?

[Vespasianus]

To upload a craft file, just click the "go advanced" button beside the "reply" button.

Cheers!

[Wayfare]

I think i saw ur artemis lifter thingy when surfing the forums, sexy looking ship!

I've never uploaded my Artemis designs (some things are best left unseen), but I doubt I'm the first one to use that name

Anyway, problems in Mun rockets must occur in one of several discrete stages. And when they do, it's usually because of a problem in an earlier stage. For example: your lander stage doesn't have enough fuel to return, because your injection stage burned out before reaching an intercept, because your orbital stage didn't manage to circularize completely, because your launch stage was too weak.

The answer: solve it from the bottom up. But guess what's the key to a better bottom stage? A lighter top stage. Any weight you add on the top will need a bigger injection stage, which will need an even bigger orbital stage, which will need an even bigger launch stage... So solving your rocket from the bottom up really means solving it from the top down.

I'd be more than happy to take a look at your rocket if you upload it.

[Wingnutcros]

Ok then, here is my design*This isnt the END result.. just where im going with the design idea.*

Ok heres a lil description on it

Its a Ejectable Fuel Plane, The Fuel tanks used for making orbit can be ejected the moment they are used up,

the SaS is pretty much useless, so you will have to fly her manually

Feel free to switch engines, but i suggest leaving the outside ones as Aerospikes, or perhaps some other High power engine.

no RCS, never managed to get it ti work on this design..

Shes Rear heavy, so keep that in mind..

Oh and it takes the Whole runway to lift, go full pelt, wait till the end, nearing the end Hold to lift up, she may drop a wee and OCCASIONALLY lose the Main engine. But as thats not used till the end, its not a big loss.

Outside engines are ejected first, the moment u eject them, the Inner engines fire.

Same with them, only the Final central engine fires, which *hopefully* should build the orbit.

I've been tinkering with this style design for a few weeks, before i leave it behind i want to atleast finish it, perhaps have one land*IDC bout returning* on the mun.

Good luck, thank you

[Wayfare]

I really don't know a thing about spaceplanes

I liked the way the outer stages slid out from between the wing. The second set got stuck though and caused some hairy moments before they dropped as well. It also seems to want to roll to the right a lot. I think you can take out the Advanced SAS modules on those inner stages because they really don't add anything (only one ASAS can function at any time). But I'm sure someone who knows about wings and stuff can help you better!

Let me know if you have trouble getting to the Mun on a rocket...

[Wingnutcros]

Thank you, hairy moments with inner rockets??? I will dump the SAS modules, I will redesign, Do you have any ideas on how to safely eject the Inner rockets???

Will retest. many times!

Roll to the right??

That happened to me once.. but i thought that was a 1 time problem... Damn Any idea? non strutted wing? do struts have weight? Perhaps how the rockets are strutted down?

Thank you, very much, I will continue on this design,

I'm t hinking on using this design as a BASE for a new idea ive been toying with. Ejectable fuel Tanks*not engine modules

I hope more download my original and test for me

EDIT: now i see the roll to the right, Dunno why its doing that, thats new...

Still, plane is reasonably flyable in my eyes.. Will work on fixing it.

First prototype of fuel ejection plane. Failure. too many fuel tanks or wrong aerodynamics, redesigning

Edited October 4, 2012 by Wingnutcros

[Wayfare]

I think the inner boosters should drop out just fine if your climb is steep enough, the problem was probably in my piloting

Roll problems usually come from asymmetry. Struts do have a bit of mass but as long as that's evenly distributed it shouldn't be a problem. Your center of mass looked fine in the SPH. And as long as you can manually compensate for the roll it should fly OK.

[Wingnutcros]

Fair enough, thank you! , the idea for theese came from me testing over and over how to eject the excess engines and weight from earlier rockets, i tried ontop of the wings, under them, on the centerline roof, Nothing worked. so i thought, Why not put them in place of the Wings, and Voila this design was born, i dunno if its been done 1000s of times before, or is perhaps rare, i dunno, but i likes it.

NOW, more questions! *aint i fun?*

ive built a few rockets before, but the SAS doesnt seem to be able to hold them straight and true, most of the time ends up slowely tipping over, I saw some vids where people used RCS and SAS so the RCS would automaticaly help the SAS stabalise, but mine dont do that? i have to manually use the RCS,*even then it doesnt help*

How do i keep my rockets going straight and true?

well, back to work on the Spaceship, toying with a few more ideas atm

[Wayfare]

There's two types of SAS: regular SAS and Advanced SAS.

Regular SAS modules are powered systems. They exert force to keep your ship straight. And that's all they do.

Advanced SAS modules have no power of their own, but can make full use of a ship's control systems, like RCS, winglets, and thrust-vectoring engines. It's like a control computer and only one can be active at any time.

Rockets tend to tip over when they're top-heavy. As lower-stage fuel is depleted the bottom part of your rocket becomes lighter, which makes this worse. The answer is to either put less mass on the top, or build a shorter rocket!

[Wingnutcros]

*pulls out notepad*

Make Rocket assheavy... using fuel makes ass lighter....want a big booty.. Right!

so are regular SAS's Cumalative? can i place sayyy..... 10 of them and it would hopefully work better?

thinking of making "Tubes" to make the rocket ejection system for my spaceplane a lil less haphazard, might even be able to get them to act as emergency ejection so the rocket will fly out when i eject em early for some reason..

Ok back to work!

Thank you!

[Wingnutcros]

im currently dancing with joy!

you see ive been starting to toy with rockets, and when i install nova punch.. DAMN THATS ALOT OF STUFF 0_0

Was a bit over whelmed, but i kept working at it, and finally i had a rocket setup, bout 4-5 stages, Lauched her, made orbit with 2 stages to spare, burned for the moon, made orbit of the moon with an extra stage to spare..

Decided stuff it, ejected to final stage *No parachute, no gear, only rcs and engine*, I came down, and DAMN that thing was twitchy..

I LANDED!

it isnt leaving the surface, and i lost half the rocket..

But..

I LANDED MY FIRST KERMAN ON THE MUN!!!

Bob kerman you should be so proud!, now go and change your spacesuit! and while your at it, pitch up a tent, you'll be here awhile.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Wingnutcros
misspell