Cant seem to find the fuel\weight balance

[capi3101]

10k's a bit high to start braking for landing. Your Munar TWR with 15 tonnes and a Poodle engine is right at 9 on full throttle, so you can afford to wait a bit (say somewhere around 6k until you get good at it). Your suicide burn altitude should be somewhere up around 560.....let's say 600 m AGL just to be safe from an initial falling speed of 50 m/s. Learn to go IVA and use your radar altimeter to get an estimate of where the surface is - not only is that good for estimating the altitude of the surface using your main altimeter, its also good for letting you know how low you can get before you need to burn.

6,578 AGL is your suicide altitude with a falling speed of 200 m/s, just for reference. So try not to get falling that fast. Burn retrograde until you go vertical, then you can afford to kill it for a while. If you get above 50 m/s going down, burn a bit; you don't need to keep the burn going the entire time until you get closer to the surface.

As for large payloads - make sure you launch with SAS on; shut it off when you want to steer, and make sure you've got a few LV-T45s in your engine mix (and later Skippers/Mainsails). You could use Mk-55s for the same effect - basically, you want a gimballing engine, and the -45 is your best bet in the early going. If that doesn't work, try a reaction wheel or two. Make sure your winglets are down near the bottom of your rocket and that they are controllable surfaces (AV-R8s are controllable, AV-T1s are not). Once up out of atmosphere, you could use RCS for steering if you're still having major problems.

[Moonfrog]

Inside the cockpit of the command module there is a radar altimeter it will tell u the exact distanc eu are from the ground when you are within 3000metres. Its often overlooked because u have to go into the cockpit to see it. If u deduct the radar from the altitude u normally see u can get a good guess of when you hit the ground.

As for landing. I try to find u a link of what is thought to be the best method of landing. Consider that landing on a non atmosphere body is like taking of from it. does consume quite a bit of fuel. I find that link.

heres the link. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39812-Landing-and-Takeoff-Delta-V-vs-TWR-and-specific-impulse its the video 2nd down in the post below it. where hes landing an appollo replica lander.

[OptiSTR]

Inside the cockpit of the command module there is a radar altimeter it will tell u the exact distanc eu are from the ground when you are within 3000metres. Its often overlooked because u have to go into the cockpit to see it. If u deduct the radar from the altitude u normally see u can get a good guess of when you hit the ground.

As for landing. I try to find u a link of what is thought to be the best method of landing. Consider that landing on a non atmosphere body is like taking of from it. does consume quite a bit of fuel. I find that link.

heres the link. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39812-Landing-and-Takeoff-Delta-V-vs-TWR-and-specific-impulse its the video 2nd down in the post below it. where hes landing an appollo replica lander.

Yeah look at how much fuel he used, its insane! how will he fly back?

[Odo]

I dont have a large engine powerful enough to lift this, at about 12K I start loosing speed really fast, and end up falling back to Kerbin

P.S

what is kerbal-x ?

Kerbal-X is a rocket made by Squad.

[capi3101]

Yeah look at how much fuel he used, its insane! how will he fly back?

Quite easily actually; at the end, Mechjeb says he's got 833 m/s of delta-V still available. You can return from the Mün easily on as little as 620. I've done it before with a direct ascent lander on 70 units of fuel, and that included a re-orbit of Mün before I headed back.

Just for grins...the lander you had earlier is fifteen tonnes full. Eight of it is fuel, so with a Poodle the whole thing's got roughly 2,405 m/s of delta-V give or take.

That's a bit short of where you want to be for a full Mün landing and return after launch (2,560 give or take), but it's doable with careful piloting.

You get 620 m/s of delta-V at seven tonnes of deadmass and a 390 Isp with 1.41 tonnes of fuel. 200 fuel units per tonne at a 9/11 ratio between fuel and oxidizer - that comes out to 283 units total.

So your "bingo" fuel with your lander oughta be 127 liquid fuel units. Say 130 to be conservative - if your fuel reserve gets that low, hit space or Jeb's going to become a permanent resident.