My first Duna ship. Help please!

[SmashBrown]

Okay so the lifter for thing was frakkin huge, i'm sure i went completely overkill with it, i think it cost me nearly 1mil to build the whole thing.

But here's some pictures of it from Duna. I lost the original save for it... (i am fairly certain i saved over my old career when drunk....grrrr)

Anyway you probably get idea of how big the thing was from the pictures of the lander and transfer orbiter thingie (yes that is the technical term)

Constructive advice please! I never made it back as i buggered up docking with the main unit again then never got round to trying again until i realized i had saved over the darned game.

[Rune]

Ok, first piece of advice: Duna is not that far away! I mean, it takes a long time to get there, but if you do the transfer at the right time (and there are tools for that), the whole transfer thingy is something like 2-2.5km/s to get there, into orbit without aerobraking, and back again to a kerbin intercept. You don't need nukes for that! For those kinds of delta-v, a chemical transfer stage with about the same weight as the payload is enough. Extra efficiency if it just refuels the upper stage of the lander so that gets back by itself.

As to the lander, it needs about 500m/ + chutes to land, and about 1.5-2km/s to get back to orbit. With ample reserves, call that 2.5km/s and you probably don't even need the chutes to land (only a bit of help from the atmosphere). But getting something like 3.5km/s is not that difficult (even with crappy 320s isp, you only need about 2/3rds of you ship's weight to be fuel to get that delta-v), and then you could probably get back to kerbin directly in that stage... that way you can make do with a much smaller, ~1.5km/s Kebin departure stage, and you don't have to do any dockings to get the mission done. Hell, the whole thing can be done single stage form kerbin's orbit if you use nukes, and if you are a good engineer and pilot, even without them. Though I warn you, it is always good to put emergency docking ports and probes in everything just in case you need to get emergency supplies to fix something you did... the almost-empty transfer stage is a good way to keep emergency fuel sitting in Duna orbit.

For more delta-v maps, which are really the thing to use to plan your missions, check here, and for a handy delta-v calculator, I recommend the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod.

Rune. There, have some science to help to you!

[SmashBrown]

I have so much to learn.

[Mesklin]

And another two advices: do not place RCS on lander, you can easily place it on transfer stage and use this rocket for docking (you need also install probe, of course). RCS on lander almost all time is dead weight.

Also for Dune for lander as yours is enough one small chute on the top of cabin, open it as high as possibly and use engines for final landing (right click on chute and set maximum height and minimal pressure for opening). Dune has very high mountains, >5 km, on this altitude Dune's atmosphere has very low density and chutes does not work well and you should use engines for landing in any case.

For showed lander you can cut in this manner almost of half payload weight, less lender payload -> less lander weight -> less transfer stage -> less rocket at all.

[SmashBrown]

And another two advices: do not place RCS on lander, you can easily place it on transfer stage and use this rocket for docking (you need also install probe, of course). RCS on lander almost all time is dead weight.

Also for Dune for lander as yours is enough one small chute on the top of cabin, open it as high as possibly and use engines for final landing (right click on chute and set maximum height and minimal pressure for opening). Dune has very high mountains, >5 km, on this altitude Dune's atmosphere has very low density and chutes does not work well and you should use engines for landing in any case.

For showed lander you can cut in this manner almost of half payload weight, less lender payload -> less lander weight -> less transfer stage -> less rocket at all.

Ok thanks. Can't wait for 0.90 to start a new career!