Howdy Fellow Mission Controllers!

[MrTaxman]

A very fine 'Howdy!' to all you significantly more successful KSP users (and to those, who I hope you exist, much worse at this than me ).

So I've been playing now for a while, and I find that I can't seem to get into orbit with enough fuel to then proceed to do much of anything. I keep my m/s to ~175, @10k I execute my first turn to about 45 degrees, when my apo is ~100k I make my second turn and burn until I have a nicely circularized orbit.

After all of this I usually end up with about 10-20% fuel remaining in my last stage, usually with a weaker engine (to get a good fuel/thrust ratio), and an imperfect orbit to boot.

Any bright ideas from more experienced heads?

Thanks

[CCKinnison]

Make the second turn earlier... The moment your Apogee/Apoapsis exceeds the atmosphere, cut your burn, plot a maneuver for the apoapsis that will circularize, and burn when needed for that maneuver. ...That's not a perfect plan, and you could start your first gravity turn a BIT earlier (not much), but try that and see where it gets you. ...Also, you can increase your speed a bit, to 200 or even 250m/s while in the thickest atmosphere. get through it (and out of the gravity well) faster.

If still not into orbit, try a youtube tutorial, they go over it in more detail.

[Vanamonde]

Keep in mind that reaching Kerbin orbit is the single largest component of most trips, after which, surprisingly small additional increments of speed with yield surprisingly large increases in distance covered. Take your ship. It expended 80% of its fuel reaching a 100km, so now point prograde and burn, and see how far the remaining 20% takes you. You'll see that getting to orbit with 20% of your original fuel really isn't bad. But if you want to go farther, there are several things you can do. 1) Add fuel. This is the worst method, since it also increases mass and therefore reduces efficiency. It may take you farther, or it may actually reduce your range. 2) Reduce the mass of that ship so that the same fuel takes you farther. This is a much better choice, as it can ONLY increase efficiency and range. However, you eventually reach a limit beyond which you'd have to sacrifice mission-critical parts. So the next best thing is to 3) keep the rocket you've got and build another stage underneath it, so that your original rocket BEGINS its flight at an altitude of a few thousand meters and a speed of a couple hundred m/s. Repeat and combine steps 2 and 3 until your payload can get to the place you want it to go.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[MrTaxman]

Make the second turn earlier... The moment your Apogee/Apoapsis exceeds the atmosphere, cut your burn, plot a maneuver for the apoapsis that will circularize, and burn when needed for that maneuver. ...That's not a perfect plan, and you could start your first gravity turn a BIT earlier (not much), but try that and see where it gets you. ...Also, you can increase your speed a bit, to 200 or even 250m/s while in the thickest atmosphere. get through it (and out of the gravity well) faster.

If still not into orbit, try a youtube tutorial, they go over it in more detail.

Thanks for the tips. The edge of the atmosphere is 70k, right? I'll try some launches that way and see how it turns out.

Keep in mind that reaching Kerbin orbit is the single largest component of most trips, after which, surprisingly small additional increments of speed with yield surprisingly large increases in distance covered. Take your ship. It expended 80% of its fuel reaching a 100km, so now point prograde and burn, and see how far the remaining 20% takes you. You'll see that getting to orbit with 20% of your original fuel really isn't bad. But if you want to go farther, there are several things you can do. 1) Add fuel. This is the worst method, since it also increases mass and therefore reduces efficiency. It may take you farther, or it may actually reduce your range. 2) Reduce the mass of that ship so that the same fuel takes you farther. This is a much better choice, as it can ONLY increase efficiency and range. However, you eventually reach a limit beyond which you'd have to sacrifice mission-critical parts. So the next best thing is to 3) keep the rocket you've got and build another stage underneath it, so that your original rocket BEGINS its flight at an altitude of a few thousand meters and a speed of a couple hundred m/s. Repeat and combine steps 2 and 3 until your payload can get to the place you want it to go.

I've tried staging, but I usually end up (I go a bit crazy) with a rocket that can only go under 100m/s for the first long while, which makes it *very* hard to control. I'll try stripping down my rockets to see if that'll make me go further. Thanks for the hints!

@Capt'n Skunky - Thanks for the warm welcome!