How to find the mass of your ship

[Millie]

OK, perhaps a noobish question, but I am a noob. Bought the game three days ago and have been glued to it since. Which probably isn't productive, but there we go.

Right. I know that I need to balance my mass with my thrust to get my ship into space and do cool things with it. So far I've been able to successfully put a small craft into orbit and got a lander on the Mun. However, I didn't have enough fuel to get back. My design was based on the video tutorial by pebblegarden, with the difference being I used a 3-man pod rather than a 1-man pod. The difference in mass was clearly the issue, given that my fuel usage was relatively similar to the tutorial but I didn't have enough thrust to achieve escape velocity from the Mun. Which is most unfortunate for Jebadiah Kerbin's mother...

So, the actual question after the ramble: is there a way to check the total mass of your vehicle? Or is this something I have to estimate from the parts I've bolted on? I've got a rough idea of how much thrust/fuel I need to move a something, but I'm not yet experienced enough to optimise this for my payload. Of course, every time I add a fuel tank, I add mass, which required more thrust, which requires an engine, which requires more fuel, etc. I'm sure through trial and error I can calculate these ratios, but it would be much easier if I could tell quickly my total mass.

Any help on this would be appreciated. Even if the answer is simply "go and work it out for yourself"!

Edited August 9, 2013 by Millie

[MrKicker]

Mechjeb. If you have it, there should be a window on the right of the screen with the craft info. Including mass, and deltaV.

[legion1202]

there are a few mods that allow you to check all that. MechJeb is the one I use.

[purpletarget]

Personally I use a spreadsheet, but that's because I design the numbers first, and then build the vehicle.

However, another thing you can do is place the s/c on the launchpad and go to the map view. The newish information button on the craft will give you the mass. No mods, no fuss.

[Krylos]

Before you launch, go to the orbital map by pressing m.

In the upper right part of the screen you should see a button with an i and one with a little kerbal.

Push the one with the i to get information (one of which is weight) about the currently selected object.

This information can be about a spacecraft or also a planet or moon. (Useful to look up for example the atmosphere height without leaving the game.)

[Millie]

@purpletarget - Thanks! That's basically what I was after. I'll start installing mods only when I've got a handle on the vanilla game.

Thanks for the other replies too, though. At least I know where I can get that info if I really need it.