Kerbal Space Program

finally landed it, no movments till sub 200m/s seems to keep it stable, then only open up rear air intakes.

bit of rcs on final touch down, for a bit more response.

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i have only just got into this game and have found it nothing less than epic. I cant think of anything about this game that is bad.

i have 3 satellites in orbit and one epic journey to the mun and back where i planted a flag and returned safely although it was jeb flying so that was assured.
 
I've built a really nice little SSTO. It technically is cheating, as I've placed intakes on top of each other - but personally it looks better than just bodging them on all over the place on tiny struts and I consider that just as much of an exploit if they're clearly intersecting anyway.
Might try it with less intakes though, it gets into orbit with atleast half of it's fuel at the moment so might be doable without :)
 
Landed on the mun but had little fuel left, tried RCS to help and ended up slamming into the side of a hill. Next mission is to get to the mun with a Rescue vessel and redesign things a bit.
 
I'm setting up for an Eeloo manned-landing at the moment. I'm staging various refuelling stations along the way. Next up is delivering one to orbit Eeloo itself. This is *hard*.
 
I started learning to aerobrake yesterday. It saves an unbelievable amount of delta V! Anyone know something that can calculate the apoasis of your ship after braking? Trial and error takes ages.
 
I started learning to aerobrake yesterday. It saves an unbelievable amount of delta V! Anyone know something that can calculate the apoasis of your ship after braking? Trial and error takes ages.

It truly is a handy method of braking. :D
But too the best of my knowledge there is no prediction system with Aerobraking. It's either, just enough or too much/little braking.
Beside's thats what engines + parachutes are for... :p
 
It truly is a handy method of braking. :D
But too the best of my knowledge there is no prediction system with Aerobraking. It's either, just enough or too much/little braking.
Beside's thats what engines + parachutes are for... :p

Since KSP's aerodynamic model is utterly poop it is surprisingly easy to make calculators for aerobraking. I havent used this calculator yet, but it might be helpful for you: http://alterbaron.github.io/ksp_aerocalc/
 
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Jeb orbiting Minimus on jetpack power. Rockets are for chumps! :p

I can't help but think interplanetary stuff is a bit of a grind though. Maybe I just need to improve my designs.
 
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Jeb orbiting Minimus on jetpack power. Rockets are for chumps! :p

I can't help but think interplanetary stuff is a bit of a grind though. Maybe I just need to improve my designs.

Interplanetary is remarkably easy actually. There's a truism in real life space travel that goes "once you've achieved Earth orbit, you're pretty much halfway to anywhere". That applies in Kerbal as well. Personally, for interplanetary flight, I like to make two launches; one to get my lander module up there, and the other to get a set of nuclear engines up there connected to a metric fudge-ton of fuel.

Like this:


Asparagus staging is your friend. You get truly eye-wateringly massive payloads into orbit with a good asparagus set-up, so learn how to do that if you haven't already.
 
Interplanetary is remarkably easy actually.

To be honest I think I just need to read up a bit more about the most energy-efficient ways to transfer, at the moment I just launch whenever the urge takes me and I usually forget to check which direction I should orbit Kerbin before transferring.

I'm kinda surprised you got that ship to Jool with a single orange tank though, didn't think it would have had enough dV. Once I assemble a new fuel dump in orbit I'll probably start trying harder, but at the moment I'm probably finding it so tedious because my attempts are so half-assed! :p
 
To be honest I think I just need to read up a bit more about the most energy-efficient ways to transfer, at the moment I just launch whenever the urge takes me and I usually forget to check which direction I should orbit Kerbin before transferring.

I'm kinda surprised you got that ship to Jool with a single orange tank though, didn't think it would have had enough dV. Once I assemble a new fuel dump in orbit I'll probably start trying harder, but at the moment I'm probably finding it so tedious because my attempts are so half-assed! :p

Actually, it was an orange tank plus eight tall slim tanks on radial decouplers around the sides. When you look at the numbers, eight of those tall thin tanks is equal to one orange tank. So really it was the equivalent of two orange tanks. Plus that little quarter size tank at the bottom. 2.25 orange tanks. It is doable on one orange tank though - I've done it, but it requires some pretty damn perfect aerobraking and departure times to get the ideal hohmann transfer orbit.
 
To be honest I think I just need to read up a bit more about the most energy-efficient ways to transfer, at the moment I just launch whenever the urge takes me and I usually forget to check which direction I should orbit Kerbin before transferring.

Naah, you just need to make bigger rockets :p. Up until very recently I've just been getting into the sun's orbit with a gravity assist from the Mun and taking it from there because I genuinely didn't realise that going straight from Kerbin orbit was so much more fuel efficient. Massive waste of fuel I know but I've fumbled my way across most of the planets and their moons like this so there's no reason why you cant too :)
 
I can't believe I've been playing this since July 2011 and from page 1... It really doesn't feel that long!
 
Currently building my duna base. Its fun as each launch is taking me about an hour from kerban to getting it setup and landed on duna. So far have my hab module, power and a single kerban to keep things working.

Sending a kethane mining section next. Linking everything together with KAS :D
 
Now i've caught up on the whole thread, its time to actually post in it, my god this is hard when you first start out! :D Bought it midweek, tried out some random designs, some good, some bad, most seem to barely make it into orbit, which is worrying for me! As for the above Laythe video, thats like witchcraft to me right now, haven't docked a thing, closest I have gotten to a landing it getting near to Minimus (Was told its the best place to start out!) and ended up out of fuel on the burn to Minimus, leaving myself about 300,000KM out and no way of getting back, thats 3 sad Kerbals right there!

I've followed a few of the basic tutorials, and I think I'm getting it bit by bit, but people seem to make taking off and getting a nice smooth 100K Orbit around Kerban to look as easy as standig up, most of my orbits there seem to be 100k one side, 460k the other, its rewarding when you manage to do anything, but my god it is hard!!

What even goes into those Nuclear tugs? Haven't seen any engines around that look like that on the back! :o

Lots to learn!!
 
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