the difficulty is real

[Vectura]

I am in a slightly customised normal mode. Most of my buildings are level 2. I still can't build a rocket capable of getting to LKO with a small minmus lander attached. A level 1 pilot is completely unable to hold a straight course The rocket just spins and tips over.

[Nedal]

:<

are you using FAR or something? It seems like a lvl 1 pilot uses sas just like it used to behave. Theres just more options for holding directions when he levels up. I could be wrong. Add more reaction wheels? Add fins down below so your center of drag is way behind the center of mass?

Try to get a little creative so your rocket doesnt look and fly like a sledge hammer?

[Vectura]

I am indeed using FAR

[Whovian]

SAS with a fair amount of thrust vectoring should be more than enough to stay on course. If you're using FAR and the tipping's happening during your gravity turn, that's expected behavior; start your turn shortly after leaving the launchpad (70 m/s or so, though it depends on the rocket; try starting at different times) and do it gradually.

Otherwise, it sounds like a bug.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Indeed the problem's FAR; basically, NEVER tip more than 10 degrees or so (probably depends on the rocket) from your surface velocity vector in reasonably thick atmosphere. You're probably free to turn any which way you want when the navball switches from surface velocity to orbital.

[Vectura]

It isn't during the gravity turn, it just started tipping straight off the launch pad. It happens with all my ships.

[Nedal]

Ah. Ok so you want to make sure you dont deviate too far from the prograde vector, and dont over accelerate. try to maintain around 2g / 2twr, seems to be pretty good for me. turn early and slow. dont let your direction get outside of the prograde circle until you're about 25ish km in altitude.

Or if its really that aerodynamically unstable. just go straight up till about 30km, then turn and burn.

But some fins on the rear should help quite a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

its tough flying pancakes with FAR. Is that what you're trying to do? hehe.

fins in the rear, and strut it up extra. should help.

[Whovian]

Ah. That problem. I ran into it during Eve tests; basically, you need to turn your ship in order to keep the prograde marker as close to straight up as possible. Don't rely on your pilot to do this; their AI generally isn't enough to handle FAR. Instead, use the WASD keys and think of your "direction you're pointing" marker as "pulling" your velocity prograde marker towards it; try to keep it close to being straight up, but on the opposite side from your velocity prograde in order to keep your velocity prograde up. Once you get to 100 m/s or so, you should be pretty good.

[Vectura]

Thanks for the advice! The design that I normally use is sort of pancakey, it is a 1.25m core with 3 of the widest decouplers, a baac (bacc?) srb on each.

[StrandedonEarth]

Of course, a pic or.craft file would help. Perhaps you need a fairing (Procedural Fairings) over the lander, or some huge fins to counter the drag of the lander

[problemecium]

If you're near the beginning of Career, you probably have tall stacks of small tanks on your rocket. These drain from the top first, so after a minute or two your rocket's center of mass shifts rather far back and can make it become unstable and flip upside down. To avoid this, you can right-click the tanks neat the top of the rocket in the VAB and click the little green arrows to disable them, then re-enable them in flight when the rest start running out.

[Vectura]

Huge fins are probably the way to go. The lander is very aerodynamic by itself (or it appears to be)

.craft: SO many mods on that ship there is not much point uploading it

Screenshot:

[StrandedonEarth]

I haven't used FAR much myself so I don't know how much effect the landing gear will have on aerodynamics. If that core engine doesn't have TVC, make sure the fins have control surfaces

[zarakon]

Add struts between the boosters, they're probably flexing around

[Vectura]

Added some struts and a number of control fins, and it seems to have worked. Thanks guys!

[djnattyd]

Anything that isn't shielded by a fairing will have drag applied to it by FAR, this includes landing gear. Also, long & thin is the way to build with FAR, pancake craft don't work.

[Yemo]

Your boosters will profit from some nose cones.

[Vectura]

I didn't even think of nose cones lol

[Xavven]

Your angle of attack (difference between prograde and nose markers) is way too high, even for stock aerodynamics. Is that screenshot from after you already lost control? Because if it hasn't already departed controlled flight, it will. Be more gentle on the flight stick.

[CptRichardson]

Yeah, that's way too much even for stock, so low. Especially without wings. Very especially without wingie bits.

[DBT85]

I'm using FAR and even with an SRB stage 1 I start my turn before I'm at 3000m but also very gently. I do always ensure that my lift off TWR is about 1.4 too.

[Tellion]

What is recommended for FAR is using KJR (also by ferram) and looong, sleek rockets. If you pitch to around 85 degrees at the right time (experiment with different speeds between 10 and 100 m/s!) you just need to follow the surface prograde after that - gravity will slowly turn your rocket over and you should be at something like 45 degrees pitch at 10km altitude.

I have seen people executing this in a fashion where they did not need to touch their rocket again or have SAS enabled apart from staging until they had their desired apoapsis, not that I am capable of that myself

[Vectura]

That screenshot was from after it started tipping. At the bottom left you can see that full yaw was unable to stop it tipping. I will take a look at KJR too.