Hello

[255]

Hi there I used to play Orbiter, I guess I'm not the only one here.

Trying KSP to have yet more fun.

I mostrly enjoy the map view with all the orbit/trajectory planning and viewing, and moving the Kerbal astronauts, making them jump and so on. It's so fun how they crash into the terrain and get up again.

Really great game you have here. When the career mode will be done I'm sure this will become even better.

This game gave me some serious entertainment, I landed on the moon breaking a gear, then I tried again and a Kerbal astrounaut got his head stuck in the lander lol I laughed so hard and I couldn't get him free so I tried to move the lander engaging thrust but as you may guess I crashed it lol.

I'm using this but I don't have enough fuel to go back to Mun's orbit and dock. And I thought I was good at understanding orbital mechanics after having played Orbiter! Well I'll try again but I'm open to suggestions.

Happy orbiting! (gotta love this emoticons)

[255]

Oh ok it looks like I found the solution myself:

I thought I had to lower the Mun orbit with the lander and then go back and dock, instead that rocket is not Apollo-style, I had to use all the fuel from the previous stage.

I'll try again now.

Edited April 24, 2013 by 255

[UNSC]

Glad you're enjoying yourself. You could always send a rescue lander if you want to try to recover the mission

[sal_vager]

Welcome to the community 255

The lead developer, Felipe Falanghe (a.k.a. HarvesteR) is also a big fan of Orbiter and it is thanks to his love of space that we have KSP

Have fun with your Mun missions, and fly safe!

[255]

You could always send a rescue lander if you want to try to recover the mission

It will just create more lost astronauts. I'm better trying again until I make at least one succesful attempt.

and fly safe!

Which does mean not stucking your head between fuel tanks.

[Vanamonde]

It always gives me a big happy to see people using my rockets! And yes, it's not Apollo-style because that's much more complex than a mission needs to be for the distances involved with Kerbin's moons, and the rendezvous and dock it would require are too difficult for most newbies anyway. So burn the middle stage all the way until just before landing, eject it from a safe height (a few hundred meters), and then the lander should have plenty of fuel to touch down and bring the crew back. Good luck!

[255]

Thanks.

Yes that did it, I didn't have enough fuel to go back to Kerbin, though, but it's just me not finding a good return trajectory.

I'll keep trying!

[Vanamonde]

but it's just me not finding a good return trajectory.

Get into a prograde orbit. Zoom out on mapview until you can see the line of Mun's orbit emerging from its surface, because that is a handy landmark. About 30 degrees of the orbit before you reach that line, point prograde and burn until your path exits Mun's SOI. It should look like this: Once out of Mun's SOI, burn retrograde to bring your periapsis within Kerbin's atmosphere, so that aerobraking will de-orbit the ship. Then eject the lander and watch the capsule come home.

[255]

First time I've set the ApA too high (~30 is not enough it seems) so I bounced off the atmosphere, but at the second passage I landed; problem is that I activated the parachute too late and I crashed hard into the ocean. Died

Second time I did it right but I got a structural failure on the parachute and so I crashed into the desert. LOL. BTW are this fails random or are they calculated somehow?

That was very unexpected lol.

Third time I did it.

Although I'm in the middle of the ocean, they would have a hard time rescuing me lol.

Also, what are you supposed to do now? Just end the flight? I noticed the MET keeps increasing.

BTW how could I land into a specific position of the surface? I've tried setting some debris on the launchpad as the target, but it kept choosing an orbiting debris instead of the one I wanted.

Currently I'm just landing anywhere and it's not so smart.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Vanamonde]

How did the parachute fail? It isn't random, so if there's a flaw in my design, I want to fix it! There's nothing wrong with bouncing off the atmosphere in the process of coming back, though. If I recall correctly, Apollo did that on purpose. Landing at a specific spot on a world with an atmosphere is actually quite hard, because even a slight change in your approach angle or speed will cause you to pass through the air on a very different arc, and will change the landing spot by miles. Aim for a spot quite far beyond where you want to land because the air will slow you down quite a bit and you'll fall shorter than that. But how far to aim ahead of the target? That has to be an educated guess. After splashing down, yes, end flight to retire that ship and put the crew back in the rotation roster. Or, if it's landed someplace interesting, you could leave it there, "return to space center" instead, and start another flight while the first one continues.

[255]

How did the parachute fail? It isn't random, so if there's a flaw in my design, I want to fix it!

Oh I thought it was some kind of random failure managed by KSP to give more suspance to the game.

Well it happened only one time, it said "structural failure between <something> and the parachute". The parachute detached itself so the pod crashed. Maybe I opened it too early?

But how far to aim ahead of the target? That has to be an educated guess.

In Orbiter you have an addon MFD called Aerobrake MFD which helps you estimate your landing point taking into account the atmosphere properties.

I guess the only way to land on a specific spot in KSP is if someone made a similar addon for it. Just guessing will never make you do it right.

Having KSP letting you set a landed object as the target will be enough though, but it doesn't work.

[Vanamonde]

If you open the chute when speed hasn't reduced enough but air thickness is ramping up, the sudden shock can rip it loose. Fortunately, the capsule will shed most of orbital speed all by itself, just from air resistance, and the chute is only really necessary to cushion the final contact with the ground. Open the chute any time after slowing to 300m/s but before 350m from the ground, and it should still open in time and slow you to a survivable touchdown speed. Of course, it's kind of risky to play chicken with the ground like that, and at least 500m above the ground is advisable.