Good Morning everyone. New member looking for friends, Hints and tips.

[Mr Trendall]

Hello fellow Kerbanauts,

My name is, James Trendall

New space adventure looking to say hello make new friends and maybe bug some kind people for some advice hints and tips.

Already got my orbiting skills some what practiced more of an egg shaped orbit but it does me nicely admiring the view just sent my first kerbal to the mun made it there and umm..... Well he is currently floating around between Duna and Mun right now.

Second attempt coming soon once i add a little bit more fuel.

If anyone fancys stopping by and wants to play KSP together hit me up on skype "James_Trendall" Or send me details for TS3 etc.... Would be great to grab some tips and be educated a bit more on the game.

Hope everyone is great hopefully speak soon to some of you.

[Vanamonde]

Welcome to the game and forum! In addition to other ways of seeking guidance, be sure to visit the tutorials section of the forum: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/54-Tutorials To help find your way around it, nice Mr. Specialist290 has made a guide organized by type and subject: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/28352-The-Drawing-Board-A-library-of-tutorials-and-other-useful-information

[Sirine]

Hi, Mr. Trendall. Welcome aboard. Hope to see ya around!

[Xacktar]

Welcome to the forums!

[Sirrobert]

Already got my orbiting skills some what practiced more of an egg shaped orbit but it does me nicely admiring the view just sent my first kerbal to the mun made it there and umm..... Well he is currently floating around between Duna and Mun right now.

I see you discovered gravity assist

If you want to try landing somewhere, I'd suggest you start with Minmus. The reduced gravity makes it much easier, and the total fuel to return is actually less than you need for the Mun because of that.

[Mr Trendall]

I see you discovered gravity assist

If you want to try landing somewhere, I'd suggest you start with Minmus. The reduced gravity makes it much easier, and the total fuel to return is actually less than you need for the Mun because of that.

Thank you Sirrobert i will have a look in to that. For some reason im starting to struggle with getting a decent orbit around kerbin now. oneside 250k the other 105k.... I cant seem to round my orbit anymore unsure what im doing wrong. Trial and error i guess. But i will defo look in to building a rocket to fling my kerbalnauts deeper in to space.

[Sirrobert]

Thank you Sirrobert i will have a look in to that. For some reason im starting to struggle with getting a decent orbit around kerbin now. oneside 250k the other 105k.... I cant seem to round my orbit anymore unsure what im doing wrong. Trial and error i guess. But i will defo look in to building a rocket to fling my kerbalnauts deeper in to space.

This is what I recomend anyone who has any form of trouble

If that takes to long, it sounds like you don't use the map view. Once you have a comfortable trajectory upwards, you can switch to map view to look at your apoaps (highest point). Once that reaches the hight you want, you can stop the engine until you float up to it. Than point your rocket prograde and start burning again.

[DisarmingBaton5]

Thank you Sirrobert i will have a look in to that. For some reason im starting to struggle with getting a decent orbit around kerbin now. oneside 250k the other 105k.... I cant seem to round my orbit anymore unsure what im doing wrong. Trial and error i guess. But i will defo look in to building a rocket to fling my kerbalnauts deeper in to space.

Be patient with that. It took me almost a year to learn to do things with any degree of efficiency and precision. You'll get it eventually!

[Mr Trendall]

This is what I recomend anyone who has any form of trouble

If that takes to long, it sounds like you don't use the map view. Once you have a comfortable trajectory upwards, you can switch to map view to look at your apoaps (highest point). Once that reaches the hight you want, you can stop the engine until you float up to it. Than point your rocket prograde and start burning again.

Could you explain "Prograde" for me please? is that the burn on the 90* angle the way im heading or "Backwards"? I normally hit around 10/12km then start my turn to around 35/45* enter map view wait untill my Apoapsis is around 80/100km then i turn my rocket to 90* while doing this i keep burning the whole time. Could that be the reason why as im still trying to climb instead of just coasting to my Apoaps before extending my orbit around the planet providing me with my perapoapsis? (I have no idea how to spell that sorry)

[Vanamonde]

"Prograde" can be a confusing term because it is relative to the thing that is being talked about. It means something like, "in the direction it is already going." The most common usage is when a spaceship is already flying, when "prograde" can mean straight ahead. Pointing the nose of the ship at the prograde marker (the direction you are already going) and firing the engine will make you get where you're going faster. In this instance, Sirrobert is talking about pointing the nose straight ahead (with regard to the ship's direction of travel) and burning the engine to raise part of the orbit.

But also, as Kerbin rotates, the surface moves to the east, and so a ship sitting on the pad before launch is already moving to the east. Therefore, you will hear people talking about "launching prograde" and heading to the east as you take off, adding to the speed Kerbin's rotation is already giving you. But planets move around the sun, too, and as you're leaving a planet to go somewhere else, prograde will mean burning the engine in the direction the planet is already moving in order to go faster and "higher" away from the sun, or you can burn retrograde (opposite the direction of the planet's motion) to go slower and therefore "lower" toward the sun. There are other ways the word "prograde" can be used, too.

I hope this has clarified the matter and not made it worse.

[Mr Trendall]

"Prograde" can be a confusing term because it is relative to the thing that is being talked about. It means something like, "in the direction it is already going." The most common usage is when a spaceship is already flying, when "prograde" can mean straight ahead. Pointing the nose of the ship at the prograde marker (the direction you are already going) and firing the engine will make you get where you're going faster. In this instance, Sirrobert is talking about pointing the nose straight ahead (with regard to the ship's direction of travel) and burning the engine to raise part of the orbit.

But also, as Kerbin rotates, the surface moves to the east, and so a ship sitting on the pad before launch is already moving to the east. Therefore, you will hear people talking about "launching prograde" and heading to the east as you take off, adding to the speed Kerbin's rotation is already giving you. But planets move around the sun, too, and as you're leaving a planet to go somewhere else, prograde will mean burning the engine in the direction the planet is already moving in order to go faster and "higher" away from the sun, or you can burn retrograde (opposite the direction of the planet's motion) to go slower and therefore "lower" toward the sun. There are other ways the word "prograde" can be used, too.

I hope this has clarified the matter and not made it worse.

That has cleared it up for me greatly thank you. I have a LONG way to go before i start venturing out beyond Mun after trying to build a rocket that can keep me a full fuel tank spare once i hit Mun i will try and do a "swing around" using the Muns gravity to launch me back to Kerbin once i have that studied i might try and do the same on Minmus (Next planet along)

Thanks once again everyone for helping me and explaining this to me. No doubt i will be back with my first successful venture out of Kerbin space

[Bilfr3d]

One other thing for good fuel consumption is to always make burns (or when you can) at the slowest part of your orbit, ie. the Apoapsis, as this will use considerably less Delta-V as you will need to expend less fuel to get where you want to be as the gravity is essentially less.

[Starwhip]

Heyo! Welcome to the forums! Any other questions you need clarified?

[fastaviationdata]

Welcome James! Feel free to ask and meet new friends. Enjoy!

[Sirrobert]

Could you explain "Prograde" for me please? is that the burn on the 90* angle the way im heading or "Backwards"? I normally hit around 10/12km then start my turn to around 35/45* enter map view wait untill my Apoapsis is around 80/100km then i turn my rocket to 90* while doing this i keep burning the whole time. Could that be the reason why as im still trying to climb instead of just coasting to my Apoaps before extending my orbit around the planet providing me with my perapoapsis? (I have no idea how to spell that sorry)

Yes, that's the reason. Once you reach your desigred apoapls, shut down the engine. Than place a manouver node ontop of the apoaps itself and drag the Prograde vector until you see a dotted line emerge from the planet. That dotted line has a periaps marker. Once that is where you want it, stop dragging (you'll need to go back and forth dragging/checking a few times. But you have plenty of time while you coast).

Nope open the navball (in Mapview, there is an arrow middle down side of the screen that opens it. Or just go back to flight view). On the right side of the navball is new info. Node in T- (time) is when you arive at the node. Burn time is the time you need to burn to get the predicted orbit (deltaV is the amount of speed you need to add. Once that reaches 0, you are done. Or near 0)

This page should explain the icons: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Navball

PS: I'd suggest checking Scott Manley's videos if you ever get stuck. They are very informative

[ultimatevirus]

Welcome! I hope you're enjoying the forums. Ask as many questions as you like (when I started in ksp youtube was a big help)

[AgaPoppa]

This description of the maneuver node was very helpful to me, just now; as I had been doing this (poorly) by guesstimating, kinda... (I really should rtfm!) This is gonna make getting 'round wayyy easier

Anyway: Thanks for posing the fellow new rocket scientist question, Mr Trendall, and for the succinct assistance, Sirrobert