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[Anvilfolk]

Yeap, failed miserably at meeting the rocket. Poor kerbonaut is now a splot on the ground. Getting closer though!

Yeah, it seems that's all I can get off the ground... part of the problem is me wanting to have a main rocket that drops a smaller landing pod that comes back to the main rocket which then proceeds back to earth.

I wonder if one extra stack of fuel on all my engines would help.

[Fishbreath]

Your main rocket is terrifically inefficient. There's such a thing as too much thrust/acceleration in the lower atmosphere, because of drag losses—you're almost certainly hitting into that with that many Mainsail engines going at once.

My standard lifter rocket is:

Payload

1xRockomax 32 tank, a tricoupler, and three LV-45 rockets

3xRockomax 64 tanks radially coupled, with tricouplers and three LV-30 rockets each

12xRockomax SRBs, four per R64 assembly, radially coupled.

It'll get a payload of about thirty tons into orbit, which is usually the payload and about half a tank left in the Rockomax 32 stage.

[sluissa]

I remember reading that provided you kept speed under about 1500 m/s in atmosphere, drag has a minimal effect.

This keeps being brought up, and it's just not true.

[andrea]

it depends on craft's drag rating I guess.
1500 m/s in lower atmosphere seems extraordinaryly high.
and I can say that I had some positive results from not going full throttle on some designs ( which had way too many engines)

edit: this thread just appeared in KSP forum, about thrust at lower altitude

[nogoodnames]

I've started trying to build planes again, after all my previous attempts ended in disaster. Things are going pretty well, I've actually managed to build a few decent planes, like this neat little solar-powered plane:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think I'll try sending a probe mission to Eve with a couple robotic versions of them to do aerial reconnaissance.

It was damn annoying getting enough solar panels on it though, why can't I just place them flat along the top of the wings, like I logically should be able to?

I've also discovered that certain parts of the space centre have some immaterial object called "DestructionC..." floating above them. Despite being invisible, this object somehow blocks all light from reaching solar panels under it. Very annoying for solar planes.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

May I present, (drum roll), Mun Base Beta!

Spoiler: Tada! (click to show/hide)

[Aqizzar]

That seems like an awful lot of rocket for one guy.  Maybe I'm just a minimalist or something.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

I'm also not a very good rocket designer. That design does work well (though it needs some tweaking) for it's purpose though. Also, on an unrelated note, that happened to land only 23.7 kilometers from Mun Base Alpha, which is a completely different three man lander.

[Shooer]

Next time I start up KSP I'm going to try and make a large sideways landing base.  Make my future bases on other plants just a wee bit bigger and permanent looking.  Could also make it easier to bring a rover along with the base.

[Fishbreath]

edit: this thread just appeared in KSP forum, about thrust at lower altitude

There are lots of calculations available on this board, they were done about half a year ago if i recall. What works for me are the following guidelines:

-Whatever you do, get up to 100m/s as soon as possible
-Aim for 200 m/s between 2000 and 5000m
-At least 300m/s at 10,000m
-Gun it as fast as possible at any altitude over 13,000-15,000m

The gradients in Kerbin's atmosphere are very steep, if you've got a very overpowered rocket (ie. one that will reach 200+m/s before reaching 1500m altitude) you'll be able to get some substantial gains by throttling down, otherwise, it really doesn't matter a lot.

Key bit of 'theory' underpinning this is that you want to divide your losses as equally as possible between 'gravity drag' (time spent cancelling out gravity with your rocket, ie. time spent going 'straight up') and air drag (pushing against thick air, ie going fast at low altitudes).

[Pyre]

I've started trying to build planes again, after all my previous attempts ended in disaster. Things are going pretty well, I've actually managed to build a few decent planes, like this neat little solar-powered plane:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I think I'll try sending a probe mission to Eve with a couple robotic versions of them to do aerial reconnaissance.

It was damn annoying getting enough solar panels on it though, why can't I just place them flat along the top of the wings, like I logically should be able to?

I've also discovered that certain parts of the space centre have some immaterial object called "DestructionC..." floating above them. Despite being invisible, this object somehow blocks all light from reaching solar panels under it. Very annoying for solar planes.

Turn off the snap to angle mode(default "C") and it should place the panels flush with the wings. You could also try rotating them with QWEASD.

[Aqizzar]

Took a couple tries again, but I managed to expand my station once more.

Spoiler: Project Name: Probulator (click to show/hide)

Yeah that's an air intake, I think it looks cool.  And your eyes do not deceive you, it is docked in backwards.  That was pretty much just as tricky to control as I thought it would be, especially after the Near Disaster.

I was making one last orbital control burn with my booster stage when I accidentally decoupled.  The backwardsness wound up saving me because I reversed thrust against it until the booster's fuel exhausted, spinning in place and throwing the left over booster (mostly) away from the station's orbit without losing much position on it.  The booster is still up there with an uncomfortable intercept on the station, but I'm not sure it's really a problem.  Yet.

The tips from the Orbiter wiki were pretty useful for establishing an approach orbit, namely that you want it to be really close to the target's altitude or you'll misjudge the final approach.  My tip for aspiring dockers: Use whatever method necessary to get within sight of your target.  Making sure you have the craft targeted, don't rocket towards the approach reticule.  Rocket like this:

> Purple Directional Marker <
(equidistant space)
> Yellow Intercept Marker <
(equidistant space)
> Actual Direction of Thrust <

This will "push" the intercept towards the target, which you want to be lined up.  When slowing down, do the opposite with the away vectors by swapping the Purple and Yellow markers to "drag" the intercept on target.  And for the love of God, make sure you don't approach the station at more than 10m/s until you're within about 200 meters, then slow the Hell down even more.

Actually I think I just said that backwards.  Like, you need to drag when accelerating and push when decelerating.  Maybe?  I dunno, do your own experiments, it's just rocket science.

Anyway, my Probulator segment is studded with junior docking ports, for tugs, lighters, probes, and etc.  With that in place, my station now has three remaining fullsize ports (I should probably add on another splitter module), three small Rockomax tanks of fuel capacity, seating for seven, and more power and RCS fuel than I'll probably ever need.

My next planned mission is a manned two-part shuttlecraft as a testbed for my tug/lighter design, and as a way to get Ronrim and Commander Bill back home.  They've been there for more than a week now.  Note that the "shuttlecraft" will not be a space plane, as I cannot build a proper plane to save my life, let alone land a plane to save anyone else's.  It'll just be a big "reusable" pod.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

The same craft I posted before is now (barely) interplanetary. Needs more parachutes and/or a better final engine.

Spoiler: Eve crash landing (click to show/hide)

That is also my first kerbal on another planet.

[Lightning4]

You know what's fun? Salvaging missions that go wrong.

Attempted my first manned Mun landing of 0.18. Also my first use of the 3-crew pod in a lander.

Spoiler: Missing something? (click to show/hide)

click for big

A bit of a staging mishap resulted in one of my three transition stage engines... well... exploding.
Thankfully the NERVAs have low enough thrust that the rocket was still stable enough to fly.

It was slow, but I eventually got there safe and sound.

Spoiler: Mun object within (click to show/hide)

click for big

The return trip was safe and uneventful. Nearly landed on KSP, was only a few kilometers off.


Though I guess it was pretty mild a disaster.
Once in .17, my lander tipped on Minmus. In my attempts to right it, I broke nearly every engine off. It eventually rested in an inclined position, pointing just above the horizon. I used it as an expensive launch platform to get out of there. Left quite a mess that on Minmus that day.

[ank]

you are using just one nuclear rocket.
to achieve similar thrust to a standard lander rocket, I suggest having 2 engines, on the sides.
also, for long burns, physical warp is your friend (ALT + whatever your keyboard key for time warp is. goes up to 4x)

WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY EARLIER!!!!!?