Steellwaters Joining the forums.

[Steellwaters]

Hello. I bought this game back in april after seeing a youtube video of it. I have loved space exploration since I was a kid and have been having a blast. I am an electrical engineer and used to be a navy nuke....so I love math. Up to now I have been just trial and error in sandbox mode and have only ever got one rocket into orbit without enough fuel to do anything but de-orbit.

My methodology has been to build a rocket that looks like it might make it and tweak until i get there.

But now that i recently discovered career mode I have shied away from zany contraptions to mathematically working out the design.

I have been trying to figure out how to design a craft out of a given set of parts based on the numbers...I don't want to be given a craft....the fun to me is coming up with it(even though others may already have the answer) and it seems like most tutorials have example designs to derive future designs from.

SO. If I know the DV I need to achieve my goal I have a starting point. I can calculate my TWR. I can calculate the DV the craft is capable of.

Is design simply a TWR high enough and a capable DV? At the beginning of the career I have no staging option so my first attempt was a surprisingly stable pencil shaped craft with a TWR of 1.15 and a DV of 4800 I think it would have made orbit if I had cut the engines once the peak was out of the atmosphere and waited until I got out of the atmosphere to try to burn to expand my orbit....

anyway...any guidance? am I on the right track or am I missing something? I feel like I am missing something.

Thanks for any guidance and thanks to the Dev's for a great game.

[Tw1]

I think you've got the right idea, 4800m/s should be enough to achieve orbit around Kerbin. And for a simple rocket, yep. Just TWR, and delta V. You'll need electricity of coarse, and bigger things need reaction wheels to turn about in space with any speed.

Tip: use the map view to tell when your rocket has a trajectory that will clear the atmosphere. Then, when you're near the top of that curve, it's a very good time to start burning to orbit...

Welcome to the kerbal forums!

[Sirrobert]

At the start of the career, do your science with sub orbital flights, eventually you'll unlock the parts that allow easy orbitting.

Anyway I'd suggest a mod to calculate those numbers for you. Makes your life alot easier. There's Kerbal Engineer Redux, which is just that, and Mechjeb, with is that plus a whole lot of other things

[Xacktar]

Doing better than me. I just throw more thrusters on it until it works. XD

[Steellwaters]

Thanks guys. I didn't get on last night to reply. Good information. Tonight I figure it how electricity works in game. By sub orbital do you just mean the rockets that don't make it to orbit? Or planes...? I have never built a plane.

[Fr8monkey]

Kerbal Engineer Redux

This. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-kerbal-engineer-redux-v0-5/

Edited November 14, 2013 by Fr8monkey