Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TheBronzePickle]

I don't really get how you could 'accidentally' decouple, although I never keep a finger on a key until I need it so I might just be an oddity.

[Girlinhat]

I don't really get how you could 'accidentally' decouple, although I never keep a finger on a key until I need it so I might just be an oddity.

I respect your trigger discipline.

[TheBronzePickle]

Thanks.

Also, what's the minimum fuel can I'd need to land on the Mun and then get back to Kerbin? I'm not sure I'm a proficient engineer to make a lander stage separately, much less a good enough pilot to try and get back to the transfer stage.

[Girlinhat]

First: Get something that reports Dv stats - Mechjeb and Engineer work.
When beginning a landing and takeoff, to bring back to Kerbin and making a parachute landing from a crash course (not attempting a kerbin orbit), you generally want to bring about 2,000 or so.  The amount of fuel you need depends entirely on your vessel's weight and engine type.

[Greiger]

If it helps anything I managed to land on the mun and return to kerbin without having to reconnect to a booster, with the short medium size engine and a single long medium size fuel tank. 

Fraid I don't know the part names, but hopefully the vague description helps.  But that should be all you need to deorbit, land, and return to kerbin from mun orbit.

[TheBronzePickle]

I'm trying to stay completely vanilla, because I'm badass lazy. Honestly, I know nothing about rocket science, so I'd just be getting numbers that mean nothing to me anyway.

On top of that I'm playing Career mode.

[GlyphGryph]

I don't really get how you could 'accidentally' decouple, although I never keep a finger on a key until I need it so I might just be an oddity.

Because the same key does different things in different situations, and sometimes you may think you're in one situation but you're actually in the other (like in my case). My finger was on the key because I wanted to use it, it just didn't do what I wanted it to do!

Also, I had no idea Alt-L locked stages. That is amazing! Thanks for the tip.

[Girlinhat]

Really, something to measure your Dv is pretty vital.  It SHOULD be vanilla more than ANYTHING.  It's probably more important than maneuver nodes, actually - especially considering that nodes display the Dv required, without telling you how much you have.  And these mods are purely informational, just like the altitude display or the map.

A basic lander than can return, would be a capsule, science jr, 3 of the shortest 1m tanks, 909, and landing gear.  Easy way to land is to just face retrograde, then bring your velocity close no zero about 5km, and then do so again at 500m, and ease it down.  Use the IVA view, the radar altimeter in the lower right shows a more accurate view than the display in the upper view.

[Canisaur]

I'm trying to stay completely vanilla, because I'm badass lazy. Honestly, I know nothing about rocket science, so I'd just be getting numbers that mean nothing to me anyway.

On top of that I'm playing Career mode.

The whole point in getting your rocket's delta-v from Engineer (or mechjeb) is so that you don't have to do any math.  The numbers from maneuver nodes are in units of delta-v, so you can simply look at your maneuver nodes and see if you have enough delta-v left in your rocket to perform the maneuvers.  Otherwise, you just have your fuel meters, which is a horrible indicator since it depends entirely on vessel mass and engine efficiency.

Ninja'd.  What Girlinhat said.

[Krevsin]

I've been looking into TAC's life support mod, but the spaceport link is off. Can anybody help?

[Greiger]

Could always kinda guesstimate.  It takes roughly 4500 m/sec delta v to get in orbit around kerbin.  Just think of those big monster rockets you need to get into orbit and compare 4500 to how much delta v the node says you need.  Then imagine yer lifter rocket stripped down by that ratio.  That's how much rocket you need.

^{_{Yes I know upper stage engines are more efficient than the big berthas, and that 4500 delta-v to get into kerbin orbit is for an ideal launch.}}

It's incredibly unscientific, but that's what makes it dwarven, and so far I haven't run out of fuel for what I planned to do yet, and only once had entirely too much fuel for a mission.

[Descan]

My go-to design-fix is "Am I running out of fuel? ADD MORE FUEL."

"Am I below 2G? ADD MORE ENGINES."

And "Am I wasting power? ADD SOLID FUEL BOOSTERS."

Hasn't failed me yet!

[PTTG??]

"Is it exploding prematurely? ADD MORE STRUTS."

"Is it working perfectly? ADD MORE PAYLOAD."

[Girlinhat]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Mono124]

So what all mods do y'all recommend/use? Currently I am using engineer, but I was wondering if I should get FAR or anything like that. It took me a couple days but I got through career mode, but if I changed the game mechanics up a bit with mods I'd probably go through career again.