What is wrong with this ship?

[matt3526]

Title says it all really. I piggybacked this rover to Mun orbit. The rockets are to de orbit and land the rover, I then get rid of them when I land. for some reason though, the rockets do nothing. I can't change the orbit by even a little bit. Also worth mentioning is that when on the launchpad, the rockets have a TWR of about 4, but it won't take off either.

http://i.imgur.com/mPS6Lh5.jpg' alt='mPS6Lh5.jpg'>

Edited November 28, 2014 by matt3526

[sal_vager]

Press Alt+F2 to open the debug window, see all that damage being done to the cupola? That's your engines frying your Kerbal

The thrust is hitting the craft and damaging it, and being blocked so you get nothing.

Angle the engines or mount them further out and try again.

[Taki117]

Your thrust is being blocked by the coupala. You need to widen your skycrane.

Also, you don't need both a stack separator and a decoupler, just to turn the decoupler so that the red arrow faces the coupala.

[AlexinTokyo]

The rocket exhaust is hitting the structures underneath and being cancelled out.

Try moving the engines further outboard, I'd recommend modular girders.

[cantab]

Simple: The rover is blocking the exhaust from the rockets! In KSP this results in no net thrust.

Your options include moving the rockets further apart so their exhaust plumes go past the rover, raising them further up so the plumes spread out before hitting the rover (about the height of an orange tank should do it), or angling the rockets so the plumes go diagonally past the rover.

[Th3F3aR]

This looks like a typical Kerbal Fry Rocket, it's Fry day!

Jokes aside, put the rockets in an angle or widen the skycrane, you are basically thrusting on your rover so you heat it up but dont get force to the ground as it is blocked by the rover.

[Pecan]

Having solved the immediate problem of the rocket-blast hitting the cupola you should find that it works a little ... too well. Those are big engines for a Mun lander; you may want to change them for 909s, 48-7Ss or even LV-1®s.

[7499275]

Also if I may point out, once you decouple that rover you will have no way of getting the rocket segment off the top of it because the rocket part seems to not have any probe core to it.

[sal_vager]

Just leave them on enough throttle to take off without the rover attached

[Starman4308]

Also if I may point out, once you decouple that rover you will have no way of getting the rocket segment off the top of it because the rocket part seems to not have any probe core to it.

Well there's always the "press Z, then spacebar really quickly" trick. It doesn't have to be guided to fly.

Might not be practical with the current skycrane (too much thrust, might get too much height), but the skycrane could stand to lose some thrust anyways (or, more precisely, lose some excess engine mass).

[cantab]

Or just drive out and the skycrane will simply tumble off. Or get the Kerbal out and give it a shove.

[Kryxal]

Don't forget that the cupola isn't exactly the lightest thing around, I wouldn't reduce thrust TOO much. Once you're down, you can probably just come to a hover or near-hover, trigger the decoupler, and watch that thing sail away (till it clears physics range, then it's coming right back down...)

[Pecan]

Don't forget that the cupola isn't exactly the lightest thing around...

It was made considerably lighter in 0.25

[Kerbart]

I'm not sure if it's mentioned before but the exhaust of the rockets is blocked by the cupola.

[Leszek]

It hasn't been mentioned yet (HOW?) but also you are going to have to turn the gimbals off on those rockets. Otherwise you will quickly lose control. That is because the COM is probably below them, or will be as you burn fuel. The controls will all be backwards.

[matt3526]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, moving the engines further out did the trick. To those wondering, I power up the engines and then separate them so that they fly off. Then I drive away. Also thanks Taki117 for the advice with the decoupler, that worked a treat