Mun taxi?

[isherwood]

Hi all,

Been playing KSP for a while now and got the basics (landing/docking/orbits etc.) covered, but still not so great at building ships efficiently.

I have a station orbiting Mun, which has plenty of fuel on board to offload to other ships if required.

I want to start building a kind of base on Mun, and be able to transport fuel/kerbals back and for to the station.

I've managed to get ships to Mun and back, but haven't been able to build a fuel-efficient (with mono fuel too for docking) ship to travel from the Mun station to the Mun surface and back. I've had one dock, refuel, then land, but seem to always run out of fuel trying to make it back to the Mun station.

HAs anyone got either a very simple craft file, or a video tutorial of a ship I could possibly use?

The simpler the better, as will make it easier for me to adjust as necessary.

Thanks a lot,

Ish

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

You don't need much to ferry between the mun and its orbit; this will transport 10 kerbals there with more thrust than you can shake a stick at:

You can double its mass with other things you want and still have a great thrust-to-weight ratio.

Edited May 8, 2013 by ThePsuedoMonkey

[astropapi1]

Do you want it to take new modules to the surface of the Mun, or just to ferry Kerbals?

[isherwood]

You don't need much to ferry between the mun and its orbit; this will transport 10 kerbals there with more thrust than you can shake a stick at:

You can double its mass with other things you want and still have a great thrust-to-weight ratio.

Very nice! will try reproduce that, but not sure how successful I'll be

How would you launch it? Just add a few huge orange tanks underneath?

[RoboRay]

If you copy that design, I suggest moving the landing legs up much higher. The craft will be more stable and much less likely to tip over with the center of mass closer to the ground. I'd leave the engine nozzles and base of the lower compartment just a bit above the deployed footpads, so you can just grab onto the built-in ladder and climb up to the hatches.

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

Good ideas, Ray! I guess I'm just a stickler for the extendable ladders

-snip-

How would you launch it? Just add a few huge orange tanks underneath?

I think I'll leave that as an exercise for you but I will try and point you in the right direction. That info panel is from this addon, which shows you your rockets TWR and its delta-V (for each stage, and as a total). Use that with this delta-V map to determine what your rocket needs for a given stage.

Of course, you could also just slap a bunch of Rockomax tanks and engines on it until it gets where you want it too! Keep in mind that any extra mass you add to that ferry will also need some fuel with it to keep your delta-V around where it is now (keep the mass of the fuel tanks around 25% of the ships total mass).

[isherwood]

Good ideas, Ray! I guess I'm just a stickler for the extendable ladders

I think I'll leave that as an exercise for you but I will try and point you in the right direction. That info panel is from this addon, which shows you your rockets TWR and its delta-V (for each stage, and as a total). Use that with this delta-V map to determine what your rocket needs for a given stage.

Of course, you could also just slap a bunch of Rockomax tanks and engines on it until it gets where you want it too! Keep in mind that any extra mass you add to that ferry will also need some fuel with it to keep your delta-V around where it is now (keep the mass of the fuel tanks around 25% of the ships total mass).

I will give it a try, but now I'm thinking it may even be too much. I'll probably only be transporting 1 or 2 kerbals. I also may need something with easy handling as I'm pretty new to landing successfully - seem to get close then spiral out of control!!

I've managed to land a rover on Mun but hope to land a ship near it as practic, then have it return to mun base and maybe even home