Hello! This KSP "Newbie's" Difficulties Are Likely ... Nonstandard

[Srpadget]

Hello everyone!

New to KSP as well as the forums. Been playing a couple weeks now, in "Career" mode. My most ambitious (successful) missions to date have been a Minmus landing and sample return and a first foray into "deep space" with a crewed mission leaving Kerbin's SOI and returning. (I also have left a trail of flaming wreckage across the Mun in a failed effort at landing a probe. But it was the result of a not-quite-perfect LANDING, not a failed de-orbit: the probe skittered sideways, tipped over, and made several low-velocity bounces before blowing up in a series of explosions, and I think I know how to correct the issue... so as the PR departments of NASA and SpaceX say, "We failed to achieve all of our objectives, but the overall mission was highly successful and we learned a great deal from it".)

Anyway. Background. I'm an aerospace engineer by profession, and my resume includes stints working on both the Space Shuttle and ISS programs. So I'm pretty well 'up' on the theory and practice of orbit mechanics (even if some of it is stuff I haven't used professionally since I learned it in college, I do remember it).

As a result, I'm pretty good at vehicle design for a given mission. And I was totally unfazed at launching "Deep Space One" with no advance mission planning because I knew full well that I could manage 'on the fly' a Mun gravity-assist that just *barely* managed a Kerbin-escape, small burn back into Kerbin's SOI, midcourse correction to another Mun-flyby to kill some of the excess velocity while targeting directly into an aerocapture back at Kerbin.

I am driven STARKERS, however, by the gawdawful challenges of attaching radial-mount boosters to decouplers: using a 2D interface to solve a 3D placement problem, AARGH.

So I have precious few questions and difficulties with the orbit mechanics (though I eagerly await the addition of advance mission planning when Mission Control comes online), but I have a host of them revolving around the game itself: its user interface quirks and the peculiarities of ship construction mostly.

For instance, I'd like to land on Minmus someplace other than the various Flats. But the higher-elevation areas are, well, *higher elevation*. And the altimeter in the base interface is altitude relative to the datum, not relative to the local terrain. So how do I figure out where the surface REALLY is, in time to kill my remaining descent velocity and "land" rather than "crash"? I WANT an instrument that gives me altitude AGL, and the parachutes use that data when deploying on Kerbin...but I don't know how to get access to the data. (That's going to be a bigger deal when I start concentrating on Mun; a long, slow, low-speed powered descent that kills velocity at a high altitude and then cautiously creeps down to an uncertain surface? Doesn't really cost that much fuel on Minmus; it's a less attractive option for Mun and its higher gravity, however.)

Another quandary: I have just researched my way to the base rover parts, and am all eager to master Mun landings so I can send a rover there. Which leads me to wonder... the game does not appear to have anything in the line of cargo bays or vehicle ramps... so how do I GET a rover to the Mun, off the spacecraft that transported it, and onto the surface (reliably right-side-up!) where it's useful?? If I put it at the top of the stack, above a lander, I don't see how to get it down to the surface; I suppose I could put it UNDER the lander, with a decoupler ABOVE it and landing rockets mounted radially...but that seems needlessly contrived.

This is doubtless a case of "thinking inside the box"; I know how it was done for Apollo, and the various Mars missions, but those don't seem to be options here. Is there some obvious, straightforward way (which I am just not seeing) of mounting a rover on a lander, transporting it to a destination, and deploying it?

And that's WAY too many words for a "Hello" post, so I'll shut up now.

[Taki117]

Hello and welcome. I'm gonna try and tackle your questions, but seeing as you are an aerospace engineer (And I am not) this might be difficult.

For instance, I'd like to land on Minmus someplace other than the various Flats. But the higher-elevation areas are, well, *higher elevation*. And the altimeter in the base interface is altitude relative to the datum, not relative to the local terrain. So how do I figure out where the surface REALLY is, in time to kill my remaining descent velocity and "land" rather than "crash"? I WANT an instrument that gives me altitude AGL, and the parachutes use that data when deploying on Kerbin...but I don't know how to get access to the data. (That's going to be a bigger deal when I start concentrating on Mun; a long, slow, low-speed powered descent that kills velocity at a high altitude and then cautiously creeps down to an uncertain surface? Doesn't really cost that much fuel on Minmus; it's a less attractive option for Mun and its higher gravity, however.)

If you hit the 'C' key (Or hover over the pic in the corner and hit 'IVA') there is a radar altimeter inside the cabin that is only useful up to 3000m above the surface of whatever you are landing on. an external way to do this is to attach lights to the bottom of your lander.

Another quandary: I have just researched my way to the base rover parts, and am all eager to master Mun landings so I can send a rover there. Which leads me to wonder... the game does not appear to have anything in the line of cargo bays or vehicle ramps... so how do I GET a rover to the Mun, off the spacecraft that transported it, and onto the surface (reliably right-side-up!) where it's useful?? If I put it at the top of the stack, above a lander, I don't see how to get it down to the surface; I suppose I could put it UNDER the lander, with a decoupler ABOVE it and landing rockets mounted radially...but that seems needlessly contrived.

For this one I turn to

to get you pointed in the right direction there.

Also welcome to the Forums. Might I suggest instead of writing a wall of text you instead break your questions into smaller bits and post them in the Question And Answer forum. Also, for Cargo Bays and other things Check out This mod but there are many more out there.

[Captain Sierra]

For your first problem, there is a plugin which changes the altimeter to display the altitude relative to the lowest part on your craft and the actual surface. There is also a radar altimeter inside (stock, not mod feature) the command pods (go inside with C or IVA button on kerbal facecam) that displays this info stock when under 3000 meters from ground. Unfortunately, I cannot find a link to give you. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, can you please give this gentleman a link?

For your second problem, there is really not a whole lot of options. You could look at Infernal Robotics to allow your rover to fold up. You could also look at this mod but I don't know how useful that would be. My best advice would be just browse kerbal.curseforge.com and the Add-on releases subforum and see if you find something. There's literally mods for everything out there.

[Srpadget]

Heh. Realized I had already solved the "radar altimeter" problem without realizing it. I deorbit using some of the remaining fuel from the TLI/orbit-entry stage (yay, overcapable spacecraft!) then a few km above the (expected) ground I stage and start using the lander fuel.

And as long as the dropped fuel tank has not yet exploded beneath me, I'm golden. After that, I'd best be trimming for touchdown. :-D

A bit imprecise, but it gets the job done.