Tutorial Help.

[rowns]

Hi all,

Right now im playing the demo, i did do the 3 first tutorials, >building rocket >how to controll your rocket and Orbit101. Now im busy with the last tutorial(to the mun) but i dont understand what to do because i dont know what some words mean. Could somebody help me with it?

Greetings Rowns.

Edited May 24, 2013 by rowns

[Richy teh space man]

Which words don't you understand?

[rowns]

This: Aim yourself prograde and fire your engines until your apoapsis intercepts the mun orbit right around 45 degrees ahead of it. If your tractory is correct , the orbit line will shift colors, representing a change in wich objects gravity is holding onto when you reach that point.

[Richy teh space man]

Prograde is the direction your ship is travelling in (yellow circle). Retrograde is the opposite direction (green circle with cross in it).

If your in an orbit already increasing your prograde speed will increase the height of the orbit on the other side of the planet/body.

The highest part of your orbit is known as the apoapsis, and the lowest is known as the periapsis.

Press M to toggle map. Your ship selected will just have one circular orbit in one colour. When you enter the influence of another planet/moons gravity then you'll see a new line in a different colour appear where the crossover occurs.

Does this help?

[rowns]

I think so i will try it, Thank you very much for your fast answer.

[rowns]

Hi,

Great news it did work thank you very much, sad enought the landing on the mun is in the next tutorial and because i only have the demo i cant do it, so i cant land on the mun, or i need to try it without the tutorial and make a kind of crash landing i think.

Thank you very much for the fast answer again.

[Richy teh space man]

Most of my first moon landings were high speed crashes, but practice makes perfect.

Glad to help

[georgTF]

To aim prograde means to maneuver your craft so that it points directly at the prograde marker on your navball. It's the yellow circle without the x in it. This marker indicates what direction you're flying towards so if you fire up the engines while pointing in this direction, you will increase velocity in that direction. The opposite of this is aiming towards the retrograde (literally means "backwards facing, or backwards motion") marker, which is the crossed out icon on the navball. This orients the craft to point directly away from it's direction of travel. Engaging engines in this case reduces your velocity in the direction you are travelling in.

When you orbit a planet it's gravity pulls your ship and so you do not move in a straight line. Instead you move in a circle, and as you orbit the planet your prograde and retrograde markers will move on the navball. If you point towards the prograde marker and fire up the engine you will elongate the circle and if you burn long enough you will have enough velocity to fight against gravitational pull, and will begin to move in a straight line. Hoewever, this would require enourmous amounts of fuel and since you are allways trying to fly towards a planet or moon that is also not moving in a straight line but instead a circular orbit, trying to fly directly towards something is a waste of fuel and time.

That is why instead of trying to fly directly towards something, you try to change your orbit to match the orbit of your target. By burning your engines while pointing towards the prograde marker on the navball, you change the shape of your orbit. The idea is to have your orbit intersect the orbit of your target. If your target is near once your craft reaches the intersection, the gravity of this planet/moon can influence the craft making it possible for you to again change the shape of your orbit, with the goal of orbiting the target.

Apoapsis is the higest point of an orbit, while the lowest point is called Periapsis. Once you understand how burning the engine while pointing towards the prograde or retrograde marker on your navball affects the shape of your orbit, you will realise what raising apoapsis means. It is a way to change your orbit so that it intersects the orbit of another body, in this case the Mun. If the Mun is near your craft once it reaches apoapsis (the highest point of the orbit), it's gravity will change your orbit. At this point you should maneuvre your craft to point towards the retrograde marker and use the engine to change your orbit. Burning prograde raises apoapsis, but burning retrograde lowers it. You can lower it so much that it becomes the new lowest point of your orbit, hopefully this time circleing around the Mun.

The ideal time to change either apoapsis or periapsis is when your craft is at one or the other. To raise your highest point, wait until you reach periapsis and burn prograde. To lower it burn retrograde instead.

Definetly practise periapsis and apoapsis burns, they're the bread and butter of all orbital maneuvres. Once you feel comfortable doing them, they will feel like riding a bike. All natural and easy to do without even thinking about it too much. Good luck.

[rowns]

To aim prograde means to maneuver your craft so that it points directly at the prograde marker on your navball. It's the yellow circle without the x in it. This marker indicates what direction you're flying towards so if you fire up the engines while pointing in this direction, you will increase velocity in that direction. The opposite of this is aiming towards the retrograde (literally means "backwards facing, or backwards motion") marker, which is the crossed out icon on the navball. This orients the craft to point directly away from it's direction of travel. Engaging engines in this case reduces your velocity in the direction you are travelling in.

When you orbit a planet it's gravity pulls your ship and so you do not move in a straight line. Instead you move in a circle, and as you orbit the planet your prograde and retrograde markers will move on the navball. If you point towards the prograde marker and fire up the engine you will elongate the circle and if you burn long enough you will have enough velocity to fight against gravitational pull, and will begin to move in a straight line. Hoewever, this would require enourmous amounts of fuel and since you are allways trying to fly towards a planet or moon that is also not moving in a straight line but instead a circular orbit, trying to fly directly towards something is a waste of fuel and time.

That is why instead of trying to fly directly towards something, you try to change your orbit to match the orbit of your target. By burning your engines while pointing towards the prograde marker on the navball, you change the shape of your orbit. The idea is to have your orbit intersect the orbit of your target. If your target is near once your craft reaches the intersection, the gravity of this planet/moon can influence the craft making it possible for you to again change the shape of your orbit, with the goal of orbiting the target.

Apoapsis is the higest point of an orbit, while the lowest point is called Periapsis. Once you understand how burning the engine while pointing towards the prograde or retrograde marker on your navball affects the shape of your orbit, you will realise what raising apoapsis means. It is a way to change your orbit so that it intersects the orbit of another body, in this case the Mun. If the Mun is near your craft once it reaches apoapsis (the highest point of the orbit), it's gravity will change your orbit. At this point you should maneuvre your craft to point towards the retrograde marker and use the engine to change your orbit. Burning prograde raises apoapsis, but burning retrograde lowers it. You can lower it so much that it becomes the new lowest point of your orbit, hopefully this time circleing around the Mun.

The ideal time to change either apoapsis or periapsis is when your craft is at one or the other. To raise your highest point, wait until you reach periapsis and burn prograde. To lower it burn retrograde instead.

Definetly practise periapsis and apoapsis burns, they're the bread and butter of all orbital maneuvres. Once you feel comfortable doing them, they will feel like riding a bike. All natural and easy to do without even thinking about it too much. Good luck.

Thank you, i really appreciate your help both of you.

[NeoMorph]

Check the tutorials in my sig... Not my work but very useful.

[capi3101]

Hi,

Great news it did work thank you very much, sad enought the landing on the mun is in the next tutorial and because i only have the demo i cant do it, so i cant land on the mun, or i need to try it without the tutorial and make a kind of crash landing i think.

Actually, the landing on the Mun tutorial isn't in the full game either...and the demo is three versions old at this point.

I have done a landing with the ship from the Mun 1 tutorial, but it's tricky and made all the more difficult by a) lack of ability to go IVA in that mission - the radar altimeter is very helpful! - and no lander legs on the ship for some reason.

You are going to need to practice; that can't be helped. Here's a quick and dirty procedure, though.

1) Hit F5 to quicksave. You are going to screw it up the first few times; that can't be helped (took me eight tries before I finally got it right). After Jeb dies in a big fiery ball or is stranded, hold down F9 and try again.

2) Use your nav markers to pick a good landing spot. Ideally you want someplace flat. The center of a crater works well in general.

3) Make the de-orbit burn when you come up on the marker like any other maneuver.

4) If you can, switch to IVA (C-key) and find the radar altimeter. It's the gauge that looks like this:

Except yours will be in meters, not feet. You can't do this in the Mun 1 tutorial, unfortunately; do like the Apollo guys did and pick a landing spot just after sunrise or just before sunset so you can spot shadows on the surface.

5) Switch over to the staging view (C-key to leave IVA). Accelerate time until your altitude is 8000 above base level.

6) Aim your ship retrograde (the marker that looks like the Mercedes logo, not the one that kinda resembles an airplane). Lower your gear (G-key)

7) Make sure your speedometer is set for "Surface". If it still says "Orbit", click on it until "Surface comes up.

8) Begin a full burn and watch your speed. When it gets to 100 m/s, reduce to 2/3 thrust. When it goes below 50 m/s, reduce to 1/3 thrust. Follow the retrograde marker as it edges towards the vertical.

8A) While you're doing this, you want to switch back and forth to IVA to check the radar altimeter. Start this at 5000m and check it every 500 meters or so until the needle starts moving. At that point, you should have an idea of where the deck is and aim to be below 12 m/s when you get to the estimated altitude.

9) When you get below 10 m/s, kill your burn. Ideally, the retrograde marker will indicate you're vertical at that point (smack in the center of the blue side of the eight ball - like you are when you go to launch from Kerbin). You'll start picking up speed again. Give it some low thrust - one or two notches at most. You're just trying to control your descent speed at this point.

-Caveat: If you get to this point and the altimeter needle still isn't twitching, don't bother; stay at IVA until it starts to move before you worry about your speed.

10). When you get within 500 meters of the deck, make sure your speed is not above 10 m/s. Ideally you want it around 5 or so but you can still land safely at 10.

11). As soon as you hit the deck, kill your burn. You might bounce; that's fine as long as you don't tip over. A squat lander with a wide base helps minimize this; tall landers can use RCS to upright themselves if necessary.

12). You're there. Engage any ladders if necessary, have Jeb hop out (hover over his picture and click "EVA"), walk him around, have him say a few words about "small steps for Neil, but a long one for me", and whatever else you feel like doing. You've only got the demo, so you can't go about planting flags unfortunately.

A key thing is to make sure you don't burn up too much fuel in the descent. Watch your resources while you're doing this. If your fuel level gets below 90, you want to consider aborting; below 80, you need to hit space, below 70 and you might as well land since Jeb's not making it back in any event...

This is a novice way of doing it; folks will tell you a "suicide burn" is more efficient and they're right. Problem is when you're doing it vanilla and its your first rodeo, you more often than not get to experience firsthand the effects of lithobraking. Just practice, practice, practice and you'll get it right eventually. Once you've made your first successful landing, then you can try fancier maneuvers.

[rowns]

Hi all,

I thank you all very much, i was just going to write a new Thread about how it was going, and stuff like that.i will post a link to it later this day.

Greetings a very happy me.

[rowns]

Here is it: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/31291-How-it-looks-right-now?p=385505#post385505