Tips and tricks you found out yourself

[Rodyle]

As shown in this thread: make backups. At least have a single one on your computer in case something gets corrupted. If you have important/really cool stuff: do it on at least one other medium not directly connected to your pc as well.

[problemecium]

A lot of rendezvous tutorials say that when you're [insert number between 2 and 20] km away you should kill all your relative velocity and then burn straight at the target. I say nay!

There's an art to this, and it's based on two small principles:

1. Don't kill all your velocity just so you can rebuild it in order to move. Burn in a direction between your retrograde (relative to target, remember) vector and straight towards it (the purple thingy). Continue until your prograde and "towards" markers line up. The closer you aim to the retrograde marker, the slower you'll be going compared to when you started, and the closer you aim to "straight", the faster. You can fiddle with this until you get a speed you like.

2. If you're more than about a kilometer away, especially if you're approaching slowly like I do, don't actually line up perfectly straight. Get close, and then note which way the prograde marker drifts over time (5x warp is good for this). Adjust your velocity accordingly so that you can expect your prograde and "towards" vectors to meet up when you're going to hit the target. If you did it right, you'll be able to look at the map and see a 0.0km intercept shortly ahead in your orbit.

Applying these two principles I've regularly managed to rendezvous with extremely little RCS usage, which is good when I have a Munar lander that's out of fuel and almost out of Monopropellant and I'm trying to get it back to the station to save the poor incompetent Kerbal.

[Cyst]

Not really a trick and maybe some (if not all) of you already know it. I am using air breathing engines to push the craft above the atmoshpere, only then I fire up the main engines thus saving a LOT of fuel.

[benzman]

1. Aerobraking can save LOTS of fuel, but be careful not to overdo it or you could end up landing on a planet that you don't want to.

2. When planning a rescue mission, make sure that both craft have the same sized docking ports.

[Camacan]

A couple of techy things I learned recently:

• 
  Keeping obsolete versions of plugins within the game folder can cause problems.
  

I thought the game only looked in GameData. Not so: I had some older plugins in a folder called "plugins" at the top level; they got used before the ones in GameData. Much head-scratching ensued.

• 
  Plugin load failures with System.TypeLoadException errors in KSP.log
  

If a plugin throws a System.TypeLoadException error in KSP.log, it might mean it was built targeting the wrong .NET framework version. Apparently KSP's Unity works on 2.0. The default for MonoDevelop is 4.0. The version is set in Project->$SOLUTION_NAME Options->General->Build.

[FanaticalFighter]

You can hide radial parachutes inside the bottom of a Mk 1 pod. Its kidna useful for Deadly Reentry, as radial parachutes tend to burn up on the side of a Mk 1 pod.

[Herbert McCheese-Wang]

Don't use more than one LV-N, use a Poodle instead, the ISP is the the same as two LV-N, but the thrust is far better!

[briansun1]

adding too many launch clamps can be as bad as haveing to little

[Deadpangod3]

The main rule of rocketry:

Thou should keep the pointy end of boom stick pointed towards space.

If the pointy end starts pointing towards the ground you are having a very bad day and you will not go to space today.

[TheScareCake!]

Hello everybody, I just wanted to create this thread so everybody could learn something new. Heres some from me:

If your lifter rocket is wobbly, try locking gimbal for srbs and first stage engine.

You dont have to go super fast when youre below 5000 metters as the air is very dense and you will burn extra fuel.

[Vanamonde]

Hello TheScareCake! There was already a thread quite similar to this one, so for the sake of keeping the forum tidy, yours was merged into it so that all these handy tips are in one, easy-to-shop location.

[problemecium]

Don't use more than one LV-N, use a Poodle instead, the ISP is the the same as two LV-N, but the thrust is far better!

I'm honestly curious, could you tell me how you got to that conclusion? Why would the ISP of multiple LV-Ns be different from that of one?

[DMagic]

Why would the ISP of multiple LV-Ns be different from that of one?

It doesn't change, ISP only varies by elevation in an atmosphere in KSP. The total dV you can get from an engine is based on the ISP and the mass of the vessel before and after using all of the fuel. So if you only look at the mass of the engine (the LV-N is very heavy) you might come to a conclusion like this, but your vessel is never just an engine, you have to take into account the total mass of the vessel.

It is true, though, that there is some level where using more than one LV-N (or using an LV-N at all) is less efficient than using some other, lighter engine. But this is only when the mass of the engine itself is a substantial portion of the total vessel mass, like if you tried to put an LV-N on small probe.

[Xavven]

I'm honestly curious, could you tell me how you got to that conclusion? Why would the ISP of multiple LV-Ns be different from that of one?

Hm, I think that statement is incorrect. The ISP of an engine doesn't change no matter how many you use. Maybe he was referring to delta-v? Even if that's what he meant, it would only be true for small payloads in which the extra weight of the additional engines would rob more delta-v than the higher ISP could make up for. Once you reach a certain threshold of total vehicle mass (I don't have my delta-v spreadsheet with me atm but maybe I'll reply again later today) multiple LV-Ns give you more delta-v than Poodles.

[Red Iron Crown]

It is true, though, that there is some level where using more than one LV-N (or using an LV-N at all) is less efficient than using some other, lighter engine. But this is only when the mass of the engine itself is a substantial portion of the total vessel mass, like if you tried to put an LV-N on small probe.

One LV-N is always more efficient than two LV-Ns and will always deliver more delta-V. Multiple LV-Ns are only good for increasing TWR to permit landings or less painfully long burns.

[Superfluous J]

If you double click your save in the "load game" screen, or your ship in the "load ship" screen, it will load. No need to click the thing you want to load and then click "load."

[TheScareCake!]

Hello TheScareCake! There was already a thread quite similar to this one, so for the sake of keeping the forum tidy, yours was merged into it so that all these handy tips are in one, easy-to-shop location.

Thank you and im sorry for it, im new to theese forums heheh...

Also, any tips about decoupling srbs? Everytime i decouple them, they smash the fuel tank they were on. Small decoupling engines makes it even worse..

[Xavven]

Hm, I think that statement is incorrect. The ISP of an engine doesn't change no matter how many you use. Maybe he was referring to delta-v? Even if that's what he meant, it would only be true for small payloads in which the extra weight of the additional engines would rob more delta-v than the higher ISP could make up for. Once you reach a certain threshold of total vehicle mass (I don't have my delta-v spreadsheet with me atm but maybe I'll reply again later today) multiple LV-Ns give you more delta-v than Poodles.

Alright, there's one big assumption here that I failed to mention, and that is that this is for the case of operating in a vacuum. I plugged some numbers into my delta-v calculation spreadsheet and I couldn't find a single case in which 1 poodle could give me more delta-v than 2 LV-Ns provided you're thrusting in a vacuum... even with a payload of 0.001 and an oscar-b tank.

Here's what the math looks like:

Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation:

dV = ISP * 9.82 * ln(m0/m1)

Payload of 0.001 with 2 LV-Ns and 1 Oscar-B fuel tank (mass ratio of 1.013):

dV = 800 * 9.82 * ln(4.5797/4.5197)

dV = 104

Payload of 0.001 with 1 Poodle and 1 Oscar-B fuel tank (mass ratio of 1.024):

dV = 390* 9.82 * ln(2.5797/.5197)

dV = 90

Note the Poodle-based craft has a better mass ratio, but it's not enough to make up for the poor ISP. Now, the delta-v at 1 atm, on the other hand, gives us 28 for the LV-N and 62 for the Poodle. That said, I can't remember the last time I used either of these engines for lifting a payload to orbit. I really only use Mainsails, Skippers, and LV-T45s for that.

[Camacan]

* Instability in a rocket-powered lander may be caused by fuel imbalance. A fuel imbalance can be caused by a missing fuel line. The editor occasionally drops/cuts fuel lines, typically when the line is close to being occluded.

So I would suggest you check the fuel lines before final launch, especially on interplanetary missions. Even small changes from a tested design may trigger this problem.

* With aircraft, consider the "wing count". Ideally this number should be even.

I'm less certain about this one, but anyway:

* An aircraft with landing gear set evenly around the centre of mass handles rough landings relatively well. But such an arrangement can't rotate on to allow takeoff in the first place. One hamfisted but effective solution is to fit a pair of tiny thrusters to the nose and use them very briefly while at takeoff speed.

[Albert VDS]

This might might be a well know feature, but I'll post it anyway.

When moving icons from one stage to the other, hold CTRL and click on all the icons you want to move.

Now release CTRL and drag the selected to a different stage.

[Pecan]

Don't use more than one LV-N, use a Poodle instead, the ISP is the the same as two LV-N, but the thrust is far better!

et al...

Travert's worked all this out so we don't have to in his mass-optimal engine charts. Apart from part-count considerations there's never a time when poodle is the right choice IIRC. TL;DR - 48-7Ss (light loads), aerospikes (medium/heavy launch) and LV-Ns (space) are almost always the engines to choose - if efficiency is your only concern.

[Pecan]

One thing that isn't mentioned enough ...

Aircraft (atmospheric/SSTO): Learn to use the trim controls, mod+WASD (mod=Alt under Windows). These set your pitch/roll/yaw 'defaults' so you can 'more-or-less' fly hands-free and without SAS, with just the odd tweak to trim every now and again (eg; as fuel drains).

In practice:

1) get your plane pointing roughly where you want it.

2) if it tends to nose-down when you release the keys/joystick press mod+S (ie; trim up) - probably no more than three or four times

if it tends to nose-up (eg; as fuel drains and the centre of mass moves back) press mod+W.

etc...

3) as it wanders off-course, just mod+(whatever) to correct the drift

[xcorps]

1. Aerobraking can save LOTS of fuel, but be careful not to overdo it or you could end up landing on a planet that you don't want to.

2. When planning a rescue mission, make sure that both craft have the same sized docking ports.

I learned this from another user. Then I learned that making 8 of them on each main engine stack gives you 64. Then I learned that framerate drops so low that the game runs backwards.

[problemecium]

New one: the joint between a structural plate and an orange tank is stronger than the joint between an orange tank and another orange tank - on both ends! So sandwiching a plate between stacked tanks helps them not spontaneously decouple and ruin the ship.

Also, what was cursorily mentioned earlier about small probes I have verified to be true - LV-Ns are awesome, but if your probe is the size of a Kerbal, the LV-N is so heavy it actually can sap a bit of the delta-V. For tiny probes I've found the Rockomax 48-7s (small orange stack-mounted one) is the best, barring ion engines of course.

Also also: As many already know, orbits change when you come out of timewarp. I've studied what happens, and it's mainly that the eccentricity changes. Generally it increases (makes your orbit more elliptical) when you're moving down (from Ap to Pe) and decreases towards circular when moving up. The effect is most obvious and exploitable when your orbit is nearly circular, and can be useful for keeping very low-orbiting ships from dipping into the atmosphere (or the ground).

Also also also (can't believe I forgot this before): If your ship is huge and can barely avoid crushing its own engines on the launch pad, water may actually be better for landing than land. As long as you enter it slowly enough (depending on what's on the bottom of the ship - testing helps), the water will prevent the first module that hits the ground from having to hold up the whole ship for that first few frames, and the ship won't tip over and smash itself (unless it's really really tall). It also appears that in 0.23 the water is slightly forgiving of entry velocities and you can, for example, land an engine at slightly over 7 m/s without splattering it.

Edited March 9, 2014 by parameciumkid

[Mitchz95]

You don't really need maneuver nodes for inclination changes. Just point "up"/"down" relative to your orbit, and during the burn keep the nose of your ship directly between the prograde and retrograde markers. This is especially useful because it can, if done right, change your inclination without changing your apoapsis/periapsis at all.