Lagrange Points?

[K^2]

Do you possibly mean you only stay there indefinitely on paper? As in a mathematically equation says it's possible, but it doesn't actually work in the real world?

Strange, I vaguely recall saying that in the first place.

It does actually work in real life. If you have a star with a single planet and no moons, a ship reasonably close to L_4/5 will actually stay there indefinitely.

In a system with more than two bodies, fixed Lagrangian points do not exist at all. Not even as mathematical equations.

[Fyrem]

just for reference, here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point

As stated in this thread already, none of the L points work at all in KSP, since KSP only calculates one body's gravity for a ship (the SoI you are in).

However, you can 'fake' L4 and L5 in KSP if you want to. For L4

* Lead the body (lets say Mun) by 1/5 to of its orbit - you don't need to be exact.

* get your ships orbit to the same Semi-major axis of Mun (12,000,000 m), (be as close as you can)

* make your orbital speed equal to Mun's Orbital Velocity (542.5 m/s ) (be as close as you can)

* if you have Kerbal Engenerr, or Mechjeb, you can get a very precise speed by fine tuning your Orbital period to exactly 138,984 s (1d 14h 36m 24.4s)

for L5, 'follow' the mun by about 1/5 of its orbit.

this will not 'lock' you in position, but you will drift only a little every game year.. an occasional retune with ion engins (or even rcs) can clean up any error that happens over time.

[Kmuster]

Sixty Symbols on Youtube has a good video about it.

[K^2]

Fyrem, just to be clear, the "fake" L₃-L₅ of KSP are completely unstable. The real L₄ and L₅ are stable and the L₃ is only radially unstable. So while you can probably place a satellite close enough to where these poitns would be in KSP, given enough time, they will drift off. With real Lagrangian points, there is some stability you can utilize.

[magnemoe]

Fyrem, just to be clear, the "fake" L₃-L₅ of KSP are completely unstable. The real L₄ and L₅ are stable and the L₃ is only radially unstable. So while you can probably place a satellite close enough to where these poitns would be in KSP, given enough time, they will drift off. With real Lagrangian points, there is some stability you can utilize.

True, you has to keep position the same way you have to keep position if you fly two satellites in formation. However if you drift off you would have to spend more and more trust getting back on the top.

Fun fact an asteroid is actually in orbit between Earths L4 and L5 points. Its a bit inside earth orbit so it catches up, however then it reach L4 the change in gravity lift it up so it goes slower and it fall behind earth orbit until it reach L5 and go inward and repeats.

[PakledHostage]

Fun fact an asteroid is actually in orbit between Earths L4 and L5 points. Its a bit inside earth orbit so it catches up, however then it reach L4 the change in gravity lift it up so it goes slower and it fall behind earth orbit until it reach L5 and go inward and repeats.

Another fun fact is that Apollo 12's third stage, which had up until then been in a heliocentric orbit, was re-captured by the Earth in 2002 after passing through the L1 Lagrange point. Ref: Newly Discovered Object Could be a Leftover Apollo Rocket Stage, September 2002