Help with inter-planetary travel.

[hobobo9]

Even though I have been playing for quite a few months now I have never had the skill needed to design a well thought out inter-planetary ship. I would love to know key things such as, should I use asparagus staging on launch, should i dock with a tug vehicle? mechjeb? thanks in advance!

[rockbloodystar]

Any tip that mentions MechJeb will start an argument.

That decision is up to you, it certainly makes things easier in two (different ways).

Option 0: Don't use MechJeb and pilot it all yourself, including plotting maneuvers and timing burns etc...

Option 1: Use MechJeb as an on board computer. Its autowarp function will avoid you whizzing past maneuver nodes as you missed the timer. It also has loads of data to show you, the rendezvous planner tells you the precise inclination error, how far away you are etc.

Option 1a: Use MechJeb as a planning tool. Its maneuver planner is a simply way of getting it to create the perfect node in the perfect place to get that intercept. You can still do the burn manually.

Option 2: Use all of MechJeb's tools. It can plot and pilot. This essentially removes the piloting aspects from the game so that the user can concentrate on Mission Planning and Craft Design.

The other questions all depend on where you want to go and what you want to do when you get there.

If you have not sent an unmanned mission to orbit Ike, Duna or Eve yet then these may be the right mission to start with. If you want to put a man on Tylo then it is a completely different mission profile. A good indicator of how hard something is to do is to look at the science multiplier here.

You can do a lot of missions without docking parts in orbit, by just building a monster craft. Most missions feel more realistic with some kind of modular procedure - consider Apollo.

So what mission do you fancy?

[SRV Ron]

Start with simple rockets. If in Career Mode, unlock the Stayputnik, Oxstat solar panel and a Too Hot thermometer. Then build a low cost one way probe to land on Mun and Minmus. Then head for interplanetary for Duna and Eve. Later play with probes that can return to Kerbal before conducting manned missions.

Example designs for landers.

Career moon lander

Enough fuel is left for return if I had a parachute on board.

Career Duna, or Eve lander

You can, of course, play with designs in Sandbox before accepting the challenge of the exploration contracts in career.

[RexKramer]

Exactly what SRV Ron said. Start small, with a probe. You'll become more confident after you send a probe out to Duna or Eve. Most likely, you'll have a lot more fuel left when you arrive than you expected.

Duna is easy to reach, it's orbit is nearly the same inclination as Kerbin. Eve has the advantage of having a thick atmosphere, so aerobraking works well when you arrive.

My suggestion for your first trip to Duna or Eve with a Kerbal on board: Put a docking port on the return ship, just in case. Most likely, you won't need it.

[Malaugrym]

For interplanetary objectives, I would construct a spaceship in orbit. You can design craft that can get there in one launch but it takes a bit of work(even more difficult if you want to go to the outer planets). Try launching a crew module followed by a drive module. A third launch may be necessary to fuel the drive module. As for mechjeb, I use it to set simple things, like circularize nodes(because lazy). I do my flying myself for hilarious failure screenshots.

[Geschosskopf]

Even though I have been playing for quite a few months now I have never had the skill needed to design a well thought out inter-planetary ship. I would love to know key things such as, should I use asparagus staging on launch, should i dock with a tug vehicle? mechjeb? thanks in advance!

1. Asparagus:

Totally depends on the size of the payload vs your so-far-unlocked rocket parts vs whether you're using FAR or NEAR vs whether you consider it an exploit of the game system. It's perfectly possible to never use asparagus. Up to you.

2. Docking with a Tug:

Pretty much like the above. Launching the mission payload and its transfer stage as 1 piece requires a bigger lifter than doing them separately, but doing them separately requires 2 launches, a rendezvou, a docking, and having figured out beforehand if the tug has sufficient delta-V to push the payload (and acceptable TWR to make it not painfully slow on the transfer burn).

3. MJ?

Definitely, at least the delta-V display to make sure your rocket (and its various parts and components) all have sufficient delta-V and TWR for their intended jobs. Then at you can do the flying yourself or let MJ do some of it. If it turns out I have transfer burns longer than a couple of minutes, I let MJ do them while I got get another beer . Also, I tend to launch many interplanetary ships in the same transfer window, doing invasions instead of just 1-ship surveys. When you've got a dozen or so 5+ minute transfer burns, you'll kill yourself if you don't have MJ .

[TheFloppyFish]

This site will save you loads of time and frustration when it comes to interplanetary travel http://ksp.olex.biz

[GamerMitch]

I have a great craft that can go to any body other than Kerbin, and doesn't require any docking. Problem is, it's only one-way(unless you went to gilly) but you'd get great science off of eve orbit, too. So, you'll have to make a tradeoff(unless you want to do all this in sandbox) Here is the link to the thread with the ship. Scroll down a bit for the newer one:Click here for awesomeness!

[juanml82]

MJ's maneuver planner can sometimes be manually beaten for interplanetary transfers. You can use Kerbal Alarm Clock to check when the transfer windows are coming and play with the nodes yourself. Duna and Eve aren't hard to reach, since you don't really have to worry about inclination (say, unlike Dres). And you'll begin to learn to do it. That's not to say not to use MJ - I use it a lot. But it's good to know how to do it yourself, specially for the easier transfers. If you want to keep your first attempts simpler and you aren't confident with orbital rendezvous, you can go to Eve or Duna on your upper stage. Use aerospikes, the Poodle or the KR-2L, all of which have great ISP for chemical rockets without the longer burn times of the 909.

If you're planning your injection burns with weeks in advance, it's also a good idea to check the manouver nodes a day or two before it's time to burn, just in case adjustments have to be made. Once you leave Kerbin's SOI, you should check your ship's course. You will need to make small correction burns along the way - even if your maneuver node was perfectly set up, minor differences when burning (as well as the longer burn times required) mean a lot of difference at your destination. You should try to keep your periapsis inside the planet's atmosphere and avoid inclination changes when you get captured. You're still going to need to fine tune your Pe once you enter your destination SOI. And MJ's landing guidance has a very cool aerobrake calculator which will let you know at which altitude you need your Pe. At that point, you may need to make your corrections with monopropellant, since the adjustments can be below 1-2 m/s