What should a new player particulary do to Get a sucessful trip to the Mun?

[Lolkillalevi]

I'm new to ksp and forums, Having alot of fun! But i now wanna focus on landing and planting a flag on the mun or another planet. How do you think i should pull that off with no mods and particulary Easy? should i focus on getting a refuel docker and space station also sattelite probes? Or how should i go upon a mission to a planet? I am new player so anything easy would be great!

[Stankleberry]

First you need a spaceship. Put landing legs on there. Then when you are in space and you see the moon, start driving right towards it. Then when you get close, aim the backside of your ship, where the engines are, at the moon and fire them to make you slow down. Walla.

[Taki117]

Trial and error, also YouTube vids. Learn a little bit about Homan transfers and the Oberth effect. And try landing on Minimus first. (Takes more to get there, but the landing is more forgiving)

[Lolkillalevi]

Okay, So i don't need to burn anything like everyone says, I also started driving twoards it once and i speeded time because it was getting boring waiting to get there, But i would always pass it ?

[BostLabs]

If you haven't landed on a moon yet then I would suggest Minmus as a first landing attempt. Getting therein a bit mor difficult than the Mun due to the inclination though.

[vetrox]

Theres an in game tutorial

The stock kerbal x craft will get you to the mun and back

[Lolkillalevi]

Okay, I'll go for mission minmus. But what rocket should i take does the KERBAL-X Have enough fuel to get there or am i gonna need a refuel docking place?

[Alistone]

The easy way is to bring up the debug menu and turn on infinite fuel...

But there is no easy mode for space exploration. You gotta do some work; but luckily, the harder the challenge the greater the reward.

To start; learn to get to orbit. Do this repeatedly. Do it with large vessels.

Learn to land. Practice on the Mun/minmus. Get good at doing this.

Learn to dock. Practice so that you don't waste tons of RCS & fuel in the process.

Then just assemble a ship in orbit by docking. Get some atomic engines, lots of fuel, a lander (and if it is a planet your lander will need significant fuel to return to orbit). Use http://ksp.olex.biz/ to learn about interplanetary transfer timing.

Practice Aerobraking; make sure you save before you practice... it's a very "trial and error" sort of thing.

F5 before you make important maneuvers. F9 when you have a learning experience (crash).

Edited October 30, 2013 by Alistone

[Bobnova]

Definitely start with Minmus, despite being further away it takes a lot less delta-v to get there and land, due to the (much) lower gravity. It's also flatter, aim for one of the frozen seas if possible.

The only tricky part is the inclined orbit. Set up a maneuver node on the ascending or descending node (they show up when you set a planet as your target) and use the pink bits of the node to adjust the inclination.

Are you familiar with maneuver nodes?

Before you worry about landing, work on putting a ship together that can get there. If you're playing in career mode and are early in the tech tree, work on science.

If not, spend some time looking at the rockets other people have made. Fail a lot, and eventually it'll start making sense to you. This is a very trial and error game!

I haven't actually used the Kerbal-X so I can't answer that question, but getting to Minmus, landing and returning without refueling is easy once you get the hang of it. (It took me a lot of tries to do it the first time. Now it's a piece of cake)

The hardest part, really, is getting into Kerbin's orbit. Once you're there you're (over) halfway to landing on Minmus.

Are you familiar with the concept of delta-v? If not, spend some time contemplating it. I recommend installing the Kerbal Engineer mod, it's a fantastic learning piece that still forces you to pilot manually. Mechjeb will give you the same data, but IMO you're better off crashing a lot and learning how to fly than you are using Mechjeb to do the flying for you. Totally personal preference on that one though.

If you're having trouble coming up with a good rocket for a Minmus (or Mun) trip, I'd be happy to make you one. You'll learn more doing it yourself though.

As a final note, expect to crash and burn the first time (or fifteen) you try to land. Quicksaving will save you a lot of grief on that one.

[thiosk]

Ok theres a lot of stuff in this thread.

Theres a few things you need to do to get to the mun.

1. Orbit.

Can you get in the air? Can you successfully increase and decrease the periapsis and apoapsis? Do you know what these words mean? If the answer to all those is yes, can you do it with fuel left over and can you do it with a more-or-less equatorial orbit (as opposed to bizzarely inclined polar orbit?)

If yes, proceed to 2.

2. Landing back on Kerbin.

Can you do it and survive? Parachutes, probably...

If yes, proceed to 3.

3. Transfer

You want to speed up your orbit that you'll reach out as far as the target, but you want to time it such that you and the target are really close at the same time. Then, you slow way down and you get caught by the planet's gravity.

I would try doing orbit and return missions before actually trying to land on it. Do some science on the way.

From here on, I'd really suggest looking at the wiki. The mun mission i reccomend first, even before minmus. I was fine landing on the mun first, because I had no idea how transfers really worked, its an easier transfer. Getting HOME from minmus is way easier. You might get stranded on the mun, but if you can pull off a mun mission you are equipped with the fundamentals to get anywhere in the kerbol system.

Docking is harder.

I suggest using career mode for learning things. You'll get the fundamentals, and docking ports are not available. Theres plenty of parts in the first 3 unlocks to get to the mun and back safely.

Edited October 30, 2013 by thiosk

[Lolkillalevi]

Definitely start with Minmus, despite being further away it takes a lot less delta-v to get there and land, due to the (much) lower gravity. It's also flatter, aim for one of the frozen seas if possible.

The only tricky part is the inclined orbit. Set up a maneuver node on the ascending or descending node (they show up when you set a planet as your target) and use the pink bits of the node to adjust the inclination.

Are you familiar with maneuver nodes?

Before you worry about landing, work on putting a ship together that can get there. If you're playing in career mode and are early in the tech tree, work on science.

If not, spend some time looking at the rockets other people have made. Fail a lot, and eventually it'll start making sense to you. This is a very trial and error game!

I haven't actually used the Kerbal-X so I can't answer that question, but getting to Minmus, landing and returning without refueling is easy once you get the hang of it. (It took me a lot of tries to do it the first time. Now it's a piece of cake)

The hardest part, really, is getting into Kerbin's orbit. Once you're there you're (over) halfway to landing on Minmus.

Are you familiar with the concept of delta-v? If not, spend some time contemplating it. I recommend installing the Kerbal Engineer mod, it's a fantastic learning piece that still forces you to pilot manually. Mechjeb will give you the same data, but IMO you're better off crashing a lot and learning how to fly than you are using Mechjeb to do the flying for you. Totally personal preference on that one though.

If you're having trouble coming up with a good rocket for a Minmus (or Mun) trip, I'd be happy to make you one. You'll learn more doing it yourself though.

As a final note, expect to crash and burn the first time (or fifteen) you try to land. Quicksaving will save you a lot of grief on that one.

I did the training parts But the hardest part with the menuever nodes, is i keep forgetting prograde and retrograde from the first to the seccond (Greener is 1st pinker is 2nd) And i also keep accidentally failing, Making my rocket zoom away from the mun instead of at it. I really don't know what i'm doing wrong. It may be my rocket, But it would be cool if you can make one that can get to minmus! Because i'm not having any luck getting there. I really have no expirience either, I don't really know what i wan't but lets say i want help getting to atleast some planet. so yeah it would be great if you can make me a rocket that can do that, And the craft files how do i use them or put the in the game?

[Taki117]

Honestly, your fist goal shouldnt be getting anywhere. it should be "Can I build a flyable rocket?". Once you master this the next step is "Can I get into orbit?" If you can get into orbit you are halfway to anywhere. Step 3 is "how efficiently can I get into orbit?" This is where things like gravity turns and specific impulse come into play (as well as asparagus staging). Then comes "Can I add a maneuver node to plan my Homan transfer?" This is where the Oberth effect comes into play. After that it's "can I slow down and orbit my target?" More Oberth. If you can reliably answer these questions then you are ready to try and land.

[Vanamonde]

Kerbin's moons are easy enough to reach that you don't need anything as fancy as refueling stops along the way. As for details, here is a written walkthrough of getting to the moons, and an example rocket you can download to try it with: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25029-A-moon-rocket-and-moon-trip-walkthrough-for-newbies-(21-1) By the way, it can be done with a much smaller ship than that; I made that one intentionally bigger than it needs to be so that there's some margin for error.

[Unit327]

Get the Kerbal X and build yourself a tiny detachable lander on top. Get into a decent circular orbit around the equator, heading east, then just burn prograde when you see the mun come over the horizon. Watch the map view while doing the burn; when you get an intercept with the mun, kill the engines. Fast forward till the mun encounter, burn retrograde at periapsis until you are in an orbit rather than escape trajectory. After that lower your orbit to a circular one at 10-15km. Quicksave, then burn retrograde and crash into the moon. If you don't like crashing, quickload, get out your landing gear and use the rockets to slow down when you are around 2km up from the surface. Don't forget landing gear, and make sure to build a low, flat lander rather than a tall skinny one which will be more likely to tip over. Try to land on the sunlit side so you can see the surface, and put some lights on the bottom; they help in judging the distance to the surface.

Good luck!

[Sirrobert]

Watch this:

Also explains how to build your own rocket for it, much better than just grabbing the stock one.

[brienne]

Quick advice

Need to know how to:

-Circularizing orbit around Kerbin

-Using Nodes to reach Mun

-Circularing around Mun

-Landing

Too long to explain (but not hard to understand!). Youtube is you re friend. Look for tutorials.

[SRV Ron]

A career mode ship that made the orbital mission;

The maneuver mode to get a Mun capture with a safety feature, a return to aerobraking landing in case the insertion burn failed to take place. (IE, your battery goes dead.)

Jeb in low Mun orbit. Note resources left. The key to that mission, don't transmit any report back and turn off SAS when not under powered flight.

The return maneuver to a direct aerobraking landing. This is far more efficient then trying to go into low orbit then landing.

Coming in to land and complete the mission.

Later up the tech tree, a lander design to reach Mun or Minmus;

And, a successful landing on Minmus.

Start out slow. Learn how to set up maneuver modes once in orbit. Conserve resources and recover for mav science value. When you get solar panels, go with probes and transmit back reports on a regular basis until the return from such reports are no longer of any value.