Quick question from newbie

[Warpedone]

Hello, I've been tinkering with KSP for a while and finally bought the full version. I now have an operational space station and outposts on Mun, Minmus, Duma and Eve. And lots of dead Kerbals obviously. However, the one thing I've not been able to get to work yet are the nuclear engines - I really want them for interplanetary travel due to the high impulse but the wretched things always seem to explode on stage separation when I use them. Can anyone explain what I'm doing wrong?

[3_bit]

First off, welcome! Nuclear engines in real life don't use oxidizer, but the ones in game do as of now. if you're clustering multiple together, that is most likely causing the explosion-the fairings that go on them tend to collide with others if they're close together. I might suggest if this doesn't help you to add a picture (I use Imgur) so I might be able to help. Note that those large gray structural parts can't have fuel go through them. I also suggest you put a normal oxidizer/liquidfuel tank right above the engine and see if anything comes out the other end. If it doesn't, you probably have a bad install and should redownload KSP. Note that if it does come to this, you can always copy your save folder over and keep what you've accomplished.

Best of luck and once again, welcome!

3_bit

[Warpedone]

thanks - I'll try spacing them out as I normally put 3 or 4 together in a mid stage stack

[Captain Sierra]

You can rotate them in such a way that the fairings will blast free. I don't have a picture of this at the moment but the best description is that they should be offset on a 45* angle with that orange thing aiming to the side. not straight out, not straight in, off to the side by 45* and they should be mounted then to the cluster adapters in symmetry.

[Warpedone]

well, I tried mounting the nuclear engines out on struts (pointing straight) and they work a dream - as a result Jool Research Orbital Station is now in place and I still had over 25% of my delivery stage fuel left after using Duma for a slingshot approach. Will do some screen grabs of my creations and share them soon.

[Warpedone]

After the advice above and some serious lurking I'm well on my way to visiting the whole Kerbol system now, just Eeloo untouched at present. Some of my efforts are...

Edited October 25, 2013 by Warpedone