Fuel managment

[Lord Lofty]

Hi there everyone

So I am relatively new to Kerbal and i have really been enjoying it however...

I am finding it very difficult to get anywhere space wise without either mainsails and/or orange fuel tanks. To my understanding this is because of my incompetence in planning & designing vessels that are efficient with fuel but actually work . Due to this, I have only be able to travel to and land on the Mun , and even that was a challenge!

I really want to get better on designing rockets thus meaning that I can travel to other celestial bodies in the Kerbol universe, so I was wondering if perhaps any of you lovely people have any tips on how i can design rockets and manage fuel in said rockets. Or if anyone can further diagnose my issue that would be great.

Any help would be really really appreciated

thanks

[tsotha]

If you feel like you need mainsails and orange tanks to get anywhere it's likely either you're not staging your rockets or your payload is too heavy. Normally you would use at least three stages for a moon shot. More common is seven or eight, if you're just counting the stages as the UI presents them. If your goal is just to land on the Mun and go home the lander should be no more than about seven tons, depending on how much you're expecting it to do.

The best thing for you to do is get Kerbal Engineer and try to maximize your dv. Often adding more fuel in the wrong place makes your rocket less capable instead of more.

[Kryxal]

Also note that once you're up to altitude and speed your needed TWR goes down, and in orbit it goes WAY down. It may rise again on the landing craft, but by then, your mass is much lower.

[Vanamonde]

Pictures of the craft you've been building usually allow others to give specific pointers. How about some of those?

[Lord Lofty]

AHHHH! that makes sense

I will give some of those ideas a try a bit later today and i will get some craft pics up if i am still encountering problems

Thanks again

[Pecan]

Have a look at the thirty-odd designs in the tutorial in my signature.