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Anyone still travel to Mun ye olde fashioned way?


katateochi

Do you navigate to Mun by eye?  

  1. 1. Do you navigate to Mun by eye?

    • Yes, I navigate by eye
      75
    • No, I use the M-nodes
      60


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Now we have the manoeuvre node system I was wondering if anyone (especially if you pre-date the Mnode system) still navigates to Mun in the old fashioned way, by eye? I use the Mnodes for interplanetary travel and rendezvous now, but I rarely use it for going to Mun. I just wait till Mun rises on the horizon and burn to raise my Ap to about 8Mm, then switch to map mode and do the last 2Mm from there.

Does anyone else still do that (or similar) or do you now use the Mnode system for better accuracy?

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I still do the whole 'burn at moonrise' since I learned to fly ships way before even patched conics was added. I do find, however, that maneuver nodes are useful for landing on planets with no atmosphere.

You place a maneuver node where the orbit hits the ground, then just tweak retrograde until the resultant velocity is 0.

Perfect landing :P

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Just for fun, I occasionally use the super-old-fashioned method, back when I didn't know the maneuver nodes existed...

Just point a little past the moon and throttle up, if you miss, you miss :)

(This was back in my 0.13 demo days, so hurtling towards Kerbin after an apoapsis of roughly 12m wasn't a big deal)

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I tend to use maneuver nodes. Not because it's easier, but because it's more convenient. I use the Alarm Clock mod, so I set up the node, set the alarm, and wander off for a while to do something else. When I get back, the game is paused and waiting for me to do my burn.

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I generally use the maneuver nodes because I'm a terrible pilot and I like the precision, but if somebody could get me the pre-release version where the just added the Mun (which is about where I took a large break from KSP) I would love to try it.

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no need for maneuver nodes, Mun's SOI is so big that you can just eyeball it. glad to see that's what most people do.

just set conic patch mode to zero, focus mapview on the Mun and watch your periapsis.

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I learned to fly to Mun several versions before the maneuver system was introduced, but I use the nodes for convenience. As soon as I achieve orbit I set up the burn, point my nose at the marker, and fast-forward to the burn time, already lined up and not having to guess about the timing. Just drop out of warp and hit the gas pedal.

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I don't get why people say using nodes is more efficient: I always spend ~860 m/s for a Mun transfer, I don't know how you can get more efficient than that.

There was a challenge, which unfortunately was eaten by the Kraken, that resulted in the development of a few innovative ways of reaching the Mun efficiently. The objective of the challenge was to reach the Mun's surface from a 100 km orbit about Kerbin using the least Delta-V.

Stochasty pioneered the use of a Munar gravitational assist to minimise delta-V required to reach the Mun's surface (yes, you read that right). Other contributors refined the method to improve on Stochasty's result by using multiple Munar gravitational assists. The manoeuvre node system made planning those gravitational assist manoeuvres practical.

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There was a challenge, which unfortunately was eaten by the Kraken, that resulted in the development of a few innovative ways of reaching the Mun efficiently. The objective of the challenge was to reach the Mun's surface from a 100 km orbit about Kerbin using the least Delta-V.

Stochasty pioneered the use of a Munar gravitational assist to minimise delta-V required to reach the Mun's surface (yes, you read that right). Other contributors refined the method to improve on Stochasty's result by using multiple Munar gravitational assists. The manoeuvre node system made planning those gravitational assist manoeuvres practical.

I'm not sure I'm following you here, do you mean using negative gravitational assists to minimize the delta-v required to brake into orbit around the Mun?

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