Kerbal Space Program

I'll check it out, i can seem to always find a nice easy mun encounter, but minimus seems to elude me in terms of finding an easy encounter, any ideas at all?

Currently have a lander with a half full orange tank on its backside orbiting kerbin while I had dinner etc... Will g check it out and see where I can crash it shortly :)

I'm scared for when I start to try docking.

Also, I can set Mun etc.. As a target, but how do you actually navigate towards your target? Or am I thinking too simply? :D
 
Minmus has an inclined orbit so you will have to adjust the inclination of your own orbit to match when you are trying to meet Minmus. To do that set Minmus as a target, then put a maneuver node on either the ascending node or the descending node and adjust the purple symbols of the maneuver node to get the nodes as close to 0 degrees as you can.

Also, Minmus has a smaller sphere of influence than the mun, so you have to get much closer to it to get an encounter.

one final tip, it is far more efficient to have lots of smaller fuel tanks that you can dispose of during flight, rather than one big fuel tank. Have a look at the first bits of this for more info: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Asparagus_staging
 
Here we go AGAIN Mun, coming ready or not!!

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Getting closer!!

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Slight surface skim, but Bill, and even some of his ship touched down!

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Heres a bit!

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Here's some more!

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After a quick escape attempt, there was no way near enough Delta V in those 3 little engines on the capsule, decided to re-land and save Bill

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I say save...he's now stranded, but thats my 1st official, if not fully perfect landing done :D

All I need to do is work on the engines on the way down, kept pushing myself back up and yo=yoing, which then meant drifting side to side...
 
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To control drift, have plenty of RCS and use I J K L to push you in the counter direction. You can also use H and N to control your vertical velocity on RCS.

Very inefficient for the weight though :)
 
I don't find you need RCS at all for landing. If you have the gimbal set to Surface rather than orbit just keep casually burning at an angle just beyond the retrograde (so the marker is between you and completely vertical from the planet) as you come into orbit until the marker for it is straight down - at this point you have no horizontal velocity. Drop your speed to around 5m/s (or slower if a big delicate lander) and it's quite easy to land.
 
I think it'll be easier tonight, I'll load up some RCS just incase but I think I almost had it right last night, I'd like to have thought that with how I did I would blitz a Minimus landing with form like that, curious on trying another planet, too, as parachutes can come in handy I'm sure although maybe that is a bit fat fetched for now!

I am struggling, for some reason to save the chips i make though, the save button is greyed out and I have a lot of mods in that are probably not helping! I might go an wipe the folder tonight and reinstall from Steam, anyone got a list of worthwhile mods? I'll go with B9 pack & Kethane for sure, and I'd like some pretty lights :D haha

Any thoughts?
 
PinkFloyd said:
I don't find you need RCS at all for landing...
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I think it depends on a number of things: how big your lander is, how many gimballed rockets you have, local gravity. If you have a slightly unwieldy lander having RCS really helps you keep you descent vertical, especially at low speed near and/or at lower gravity moons.

It also really helps on Tylo, where the lander has to be rocket-sized just to get back into orbit, but thats a little more advanced ;)
 
Didn't realise Tylo was that massive! Will need to give landing there a shot some time.
Refining my point then, I'd say if you have a big enough lander, I'd use RCS to allow your ship to pivot better, but still use the method I suggested for getting rid of horizontal velocity rather than just using ijkl for the RCS strafe.
 
Finally! A perfect Mun landing, all went fine aside from trying to jettison the penultimate engine & fuel tanks a bit close to Mun and they stuck back on for 10 seconds of panic!

Either way, Jeb touched down safely, on the dark side of the moon, with no lights, rush made the craft and completely forgot to illuminate it! :D I thought I was still airborne, jiggling away at the RCS then realised I had touched down!

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The start of something beautiful, AND, maybe enough power left to get back, maybe...although no parachute was a slight oversight on my part AGAIN :D

Only thing annoying me though, I completely uninstalled KSP, wiped the folder, reinstalled, installed a few basic mods and once again I cannot save ship designs :(
 
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Congrats on your first safe mun landing :)

What mods do you have? its possible (but unlikely) that something is conflicting with something else and causing a bug somewhere. If it helps, these are the mods i have installed and i dont have a problem saving:

- B9 aerospace (using low res textures)
- Deadly Reentry
- Ion engine sounds
- Kethane
- KW Rocketry
- Magic smoke industries
- Mechjeb
- Novapunch
- Procedural wings
- Procedural fairings
- Protractor
- Radial experiment storage container
- VetTech

*edit*
When you are trying to save, do you have any parts just floating around in the rocket editor not connected to anything? I don't think that should be a problem but its worth a look
 
Thanks for the list :) It turns out although the save button was a greyish colour, my ships are actually saving, double score :)

I currently have:

Ion Hybrid Electric Pack
Kethane
KW Rocketry
MechJeb2

I'll be adding some more (any tips? I also wanted to get more variable outer lights for ships) :)
 
The only mods I use are Krags Planet Factory and the Clouds and City Lights mod. Just cosmetic improvements to the planets, and a few extra destinations to fly to; all parts are stock.

And no mechjeb. I find it takes some of the fun out of the game.
 
Seanoog said:
Did you keep your craft design's, or did they get formatted too?
- Makes mental note; Must re-format HDD's + re-install Windows once 0.23 is released.
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A bit late, don't think I replied. I wiped the lot.
Think when 0.23 is out will do something similar to Scott Manley interplanetary system. Trying to be realistic and add Feram, deadly reheat, fairings, tech relay etc.
 
SlyReaper said:
The only mods I use are Krags Planet Factory and the Clouds and City Lights mod. Just cosmetic improvements to the planets, and a few extra destinations to fly to; all parts are stock.

And no mechjeb. I find it takes some of the fun out of the game.
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I only use Mechjeb for pretty stats to look at not the autopilots ;)
 
Is there a cut-down version of mechjeb anywhere? One that just shows the vehicle stats and launch windows for the other planets? If I install the full mechjeb, I'd be too tempted to use it for launches and docking.
 
I'm surprised many of the features of mechjeb haven't been rolled into the stock release, particularly the delta v stats - hell, if all they nicked from mechjeb was the delta stats I'd uninstall mechjeb immediately.
 
macmodder said:
I'm surprised many of the features of mechjeb haven't been rolled into the stock release, particularly the delta v stats - hell, if all they nicked from mechjeb was the delta stats I'd uninstall mechjeb immediately.
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I'd also love, if they could do it. But legally Squad cant..
The best they could do, is buy the wrights off the original authors of the most popular Mods or hire the authors temporarily, while there respective mods are implemented into KSP main program.
Now back to playing KSP. :)
 
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