Help Me, I Suck! (Can not orbit to save my life)

[Talonsin]

I can get a ship into space but for the life of me I can not establish an orbit. It seems like once I get to space I have no control on the rocket and just end up spinning end over end. I can set the orbit and see the blue mark on the gyroball but I can not hold a steady position. I have an SAS installed, I have tried different thrusters and I have tried making very small adjustments but nothing helps me to fly straight. All my flights end up in spinning nightmares of doom. Its a good thing G-force is not an issue or my ground crew would be scraping kerbal guts out from inside the cockpits after each flight.

I have seen tutorials where they make it look easy to orbit but I can not fly straight and have no idea how you guys are doing it. What am I missing?

[arq]

Make sure your rocket is symmetric and that you have electricity for the SAS control (solar panels and maybe batteries). Those are the most important parts for maintaining control. Also, start with simple rockets. It tales surprisingly few parts to actually get to space (IIRC Scott Manley has done Duna missions with <10 parts). For instance, try putting a command pod, T800 fuel tank, LV-909 engine, stack decoupler, x32 fuel tank, x32 fuel tank, x32 fuel tank, and mainsail engine together in that order. Then, add 4 of the smallest (non-deployable) solar panels and a few batteries on the top half. I haven't run the numbers, but that setup should be more capable of getting to orbit. It may actually have too much power on the bottom half (resulting in Rapid Unplanned Disassembly), in which case try removing one of the x32 tanks and replacing the mainsail with a skipper. Make sure to enable SAS (the 't' key) to help keep it pointing where you want.

EDIT: Goodness the design I listed above was excessive... Actually it requires much much less than that to reach orbit.

Edited July 31, 2013 by arq

[Talonsin]

OMG! I'm such a dork. In several videos and all my reading I never discovered that you had to hit the "T" key to turn the SAS on. I was at the point where I was trying to put 5 of them on a ship and could not figure out why they didn't work. Now that I used the "T" key, I'm all good and have two satellites in orbit. Thanks!

[SRV Ron]

A Skipper engine on that design, similar to my Atlas, will provide more then enough power and should almost get the upper stage into orbit under a proper gravity turn. You should easily reach Mun or Minmus with that rocket. A thruster tank, put the solar panels on the tank, 4 thruster pack, and decoupler under the command probe and you could easily land on one of those moons using thrusters for the final descent.

[lammatt]

hm... since we dont have a pic of your rocket...

my bet is either

- your rocket is too unsymmetrical and hence the thrust is exerting a moment on the body (and the thrust vectoring cant compensate all of it)

- your rocket is acceptably unsymmetrical but your engine isnt allowing thrust vectoring and the SAS cant counter act the moment

[espm400]

Glad you made it to orbit. As Iammatt says though, if you're having trouble with a specific rocket design, etc. It's always better to post a pic (although not necessary) of the design when you're starting a new thread.

Either way, welcome to KSP, mate.