The pinnacle of frustration

[Nooobody]

You left your home planet in hopes of finding new voyages. After a couple of frustrating days of handling your ship on the orbit and then transferring to the Mun, you finally find yourself at the orbit of Mun. Ready to slow down, you hit the brakes on the brink of sunrise. Looking like it could succeed, you lighten your tightened grip and swipe the sweat on your forehead. After the immediate touchdown, you feel the ship is oddly bouncing a bit on the surface, and then you feel like it's falling down. Frightened, you take your hands off of your eyes and look outside, and you see the surface...

In panic, you try to open the pod door, unluckily it being blocked by the Mun's ground. Desperately you try to operate the ship's RCS thrusters in the hopes of the ship getting up, but to no avail. Then you start the engine to see if it would help, and it only made things worse. You feel your ship getting speed and, afraid to die, you desperately try to operate all the switches you see. Then suddenly, you hear a loud explosion coming from the engine, and you see your whole trip flashing over your eyes...

RIP, Lenger Kerman.

[Zephram Kerman]

Ouch. We've all been there. Did you try activating the Time Displacement Repeater? (F9)

That's a cool looking ship though. Welcome to the KSP community!

[thes50]

You may be able to flick the craft up into the air by retracting the landing legs then flicking them out. Once you've extended the legs it might push you up into the air slightly, potentially giving you enough time to pull the craft into a standing position.

[Epic DaVinci]

did you land on a hillside by accident? i once did that but luckily i had enough fuel to hit max thrust and take off again before i totally lost control. Only to then realise i didn't have enough to slow down and land again, so my efforts were in vain and only served to prolong the impending death of my lil kerbal

[thes50]

did you land on a hillside by accident? i once did that but luckily i had enough fuel to hit max thrust and take off again before i totally lost control. Only to then realise i didn't have enough to slow down and land again, so my efforts were in vain and only served to prolong the impending death of my lil kerbal

You can land on a hillside, it's a bit more awkward and once you've touched down you need to use either RCS or the crafts Torque to hold it upright till it settles down.

[Guest]

Having been through similar experiences, that's why my landers have a wide footprint and low centre of gravity. We die and learn.

[ComradeGoat]

Unlucky, and yeah, been there too. I feel for you!

After a few such occurrences, I started using this as my standard lander design (seen here in its Duna config, with parachutes on radial girders). This is solid. You can slam it into the ground at several metres per second, it'll bounce and even if it tips, it pretty much always lands the right way up. Can take a serious amount of punishment and has done me proud from Mün to Dres and many places in between.

[Monkeystador]

I feel with you OP. Same happend to me with my second moon rocket ( the first one with enough fuel left to go home again ).

[foamyesque]

Man, at least you guys have lander legs. The Mun was added before they were.

Now that was frustrating.

[loppnessmonsta]

Moons? When i was a boy, all we had was control towers! And they were uphill from the VAB! BOTH WAYS!

[ComradeGoat]

Moons? When i was a boy, all we had was control towers! And they were uphill from the VAB! BOTH WAYS!

Luxury. We had a discarded cardboard box that we had to pretend was a rocket. We sat in it and made whooshing sounds, and if dad caught us, he'd thrash us with his belt.

[SunJumper]

Luxury. We had a discarded cardboard box that we had to pretend was a rocket. We sat in it and made whooshing sounds, and if dad caught us, he'd thrash us with his belt.

Luxury. We had to climb a tree and light the bottom on fire and pretend we were on a failing rocket.

[Tw1]

Luxury. We had to climb a tree and light the bottom on fire and pretend we were on a failing rocket.

Luxury.

We didn't have no tree, or cardboard box. We had to turn on the computer and run a program to pretend we were launching rockets.... Wait, what?

I too learnt the hard way, that tall landers just aren't the way to go. The Z3 was supposed to rescue the crew of Soprano Three. Supposed to.

Fortunately, the range of fuel tanks are balanced, so instead of stacking two big grey tanks, I used one and put four thinner tanks around it. This gave me the same delta V in a shorter, wider package.

The Z4 then rescued the crew of the Z3. And pretty much every other Kerbal who's been stuck on the Mun since. Until the one man "Little Zed" came around.

Here it is:

A welcome sight for stranded kerbals.

That's the capsule from the Soprano, which tended to land like that.

Compare the much longer lander of the Z3, shown with transfer stage.

Yes, this was before I learnt about F1...

The Z4 then inspired the W, which made it to Duna! And will come home eventually...

So keep going OP! You'll get far eventually!

Edited April 26, 2013 by Tw1

[rosenkranz]

Heh, for me, frustration was realizing that the burn out of LKO to Jool was going to be 36min and LKO is only a 30min orbit. That and that it just wont be possible to coordinate a score of ships. By the time i get them all to a higher orbit an refueled, the departure window will be too far gone.

Must have higher TWR.

[Lachned]

So your next challange needs to be to get a rover up there that is able to flip the rocket around. Get poor Lenger out of there and back to earth!

[edit] oh i see he's already dead....poor guy...

[RoboRay]

Heh, for me, frustration was realizing that the burn out of LKO to Jool was going to be 36min and LKO is only a 30min orbit. That and that it just wont be possible to coordinate a score of ships. By the time i get them all to a higher orbit an refueled, the departure window will be too far gone.

Must have higher TWR.

You don't need a higher TWR. Do perigee kicks.

On multiple orbits, every time you pass through the ejection angle for your transfer, burn prograde for two or three minutes on each side of the angle, raising your Ap in the direction of the transfer injection. Just before you build up enough speed to enter a hyperbolic trajectory (when your Ap is near Minmus' orbit), set up a maneuver node to complete the rest of the transfer as one longer burn.

Edited April 26, 2013 by RoboRay

[rosenkranz]

I've tried that before, however what I found out was by about the third kick (at least with Moho) the orbit period was so long that the departure windows was closed. On the forth burn I didn't have enough dV left to make necessary course corrections.

I think what I should have done was pushed the ships out to minmus first, refueled them their and then did the transfer burn.

What I also think I need to do is be a little less ambitious. 20 ships was too many for one mission. This was a major multi-mission to Jool and i think i bit off more than i could chew. Breaking it up into separate missions would be better. I'm just not sure how often Jool windows come open. This was my first. I suppose kerbal alarm clock will tell me now when the next one is.

[Tw1]

The most I've attempted to periapse kick at the same time was two. That didn't go too well, but it may have been lack of experience. With just the one to manage, the technique works well for me.

I used protractor, watching how much the phase angle changed each orbit, so I knew when it was time to just floor it and get all the way to escape velocity.

Edited April 26, 2013 by Tw1

[RoboRay]

It took me 8 kicks to get my ion probe to Moho.

You do have to plan ahead and start your transfer early, though, especially heading inward. Jool's transfer window is much wider.

Refueling on the fringes of Kerbin's influence is an option I'm about to start exploring myself. I just put a fuel depot out there, past Minmus.

15,000l of liquid fuel and 18,000l of oxidizer should last a little while.

Edited April 26, 2013 by RoboRay

[ComradeGoat]

The most I've attempted to periapse kick at the same time was two. That didn't go too well, but it may have been lack of experience. With just the one to manage, the technique works well for me.

I used protractor, watching how much the phase angle changed each orbit, so I knew when it was time to just floor it and get all the way to escape velocity.

I've just done it for the first time ever. 5 Kicks to Jool over about 1.5 degrees of launch window change. Vessel is currently en-route and has an intercept that hits Jool dead on (after plane correction and a small burn to adjust aphelion). It was really very efficient, and all I needed to do to preserve my course over the launch window was leave the heading mostly alone.

Because it got late in the launch window, I'm coming into Jool just after aphelion, but the aerocapture will take care of that, I expect.

I suppose what you could do is get an orbit with apogee out by Minmus and Perigee at about 70km already pointing in the right direction ready for the launch window to open and then give it that final kick as you pass perigee.

Protractor and Flight Engineer Redux really do seem to make orbital transfers so much easier.

[Nooobody]

Today I tried it again with a different design for the fuel tanks.