Thanks, Mouse. The truth is, this thread tended to make me think that there was me, smashing rockets into the [del]earth[/del]Kerbin, and then there was Everyone Else, sending missions to everywhere, building majestic space stations, actually getting into fucking orbit, and so on. If I’m actually fairly normal, then it starts to look like a viable proposition again. 
Picked the game up yesterday… So much fun! I loaded one of the pre-made rockets and took it for a test drive, and was able to reach orbit. Then I started a new save and started experimenting. My first design, the Orbiter, worked pretty well. I got the Orbiter Mk 1 into space on the first shot, the Orbiter Mk 2 halfway around the world but not into orbit, and the Orbiter Mk 3 into full-on circular orbit (though it’s weird, one end is lower than the other but the whole thing is circular). My rockets are apparently much bigger than average, if the people putting out 10 ton rockets are the norm; the Mk 3 weighs 100 tons and carries a front end weighing 6 tons.
So I started trying to go for Mun. The first Mk 3 I launched went into orbit with barely any fuel left, so I built bigger and bigger rockets (the Luna Mk 7 was a real monster: 3 of the largest fuel tanks, each leading to 4 rockets; each fuel tank is attached to 4 medium fuel tanks, each with its own rocket, and 4 solid-fuel rockets. But when the Luna Mk 9 could barely make it into orbit, I realized I was doing something wrong. I loaded up the Orbiter Mk 3, changed a few features, and shot the Mk X into space. The Orbiter series, for those who are curios, is a simple design: There’s a huge tank, leading to 4 rockets. Attached are 4 medium tanks, each with their own rockets. Also attached are 4 solid fuel rockets (basically, it’s 1 third of the Luna Mk 9). The command console sits on a smaller fuel tank attached to a nuclear engine. All 12 bottom rockets go off at once, firing the rocket into the air. The solid fuel rockets fall off first, followed by the 4 fuel tanks and smaller rockets. This happens at around 10,000 meters, by which point the rocket is travelling at ludicrous speeds. I then start to turn, which the now slimmer rocket is able to do. I complete my gravity turn and reach an aposis of about 150,000 meters using the rest of the huge fuel tank, which I then jettison. The nuclear rocket is able to stabilize a circular orbit of between 500,000 and 600,000 meters with a tiny sliver of its fuel.
I now have an Orbiter Mk X at 600,000 meters with a nearly full fuel tank. I think I can get it to Mun and back (and back is important, since the Orbiter series is manned). My goal is to get a stable Mun orbit, leave my rocket there for a while, then bring it back; we’ll see if that’s possible.
Once a Mun Orbit is complete, I’ll see about using the Orbiter chassis to deliver a Mun Probe. It probably can’t carry a lander (or at least, not a lander capable of leaving Mun) so I need to work on that.
I just want to give full props to the Mech Jeb team. New compatible version is already available. Although there may be an issue with auto docking. Just need upgraded fairings and all will be good.
You got a link Ike?
I just created a rocket for you to try in the demo: design and staging. Note that that’s two separate sets of three boosters, and only one set has the engines and fins. Make sure the fuel pipes are pumping fuel towards the engines and not away.
I have confirmed that this rocket reaches orbit with plenty of fuel to spare, and doesn’t require throttling or anything like that.
Flight instructions:
- Set throttle to full, press “t” to activate the automatic steering, hit space bar to start the engines.
- Right-click on the engineless fuel tank, and hit space bar when it’s empty to jettison it.
- Around 12,000 meters, press “t” to turn off the automatic steering, tilt right to about 70 degrees from the horizontal, and hit “t” again.
- When the boosters are empty, hit space bar jettison those too.
- At 40,000 meters, press “x” to turn off the engine. Press “m” to go to the map mode, click on the apoapsis and create a maneuver node.
- Drag the prograde burn icon until you have a visible periapsis and make sure it’s above 70,000 meters.
- Switch back to staging mode. Turn off the automatic steering again and turn to about 10 degrees from the horizontal.
- Thirty seconds before the maneuver node, go to full throttle.
- When your main rocket runs out of fuel, hit space bar twice to jettison it and start your next engine.
- Switch to the map mode again, and when your periapsis is above 70,000 meters, hit “x” to cut the engine.
Here you go. You want the one that ends in -72.
It is harder to get things into orbit. My previous build isn’t getting quite as much up.
Woot! Thanks 
I upgraded to version .21 or at least Steam did, I didn’t have a choice.
When I started the game I tried to go into a saved game and it brought up the dialog box asking if I wanted to convert my saved games. I had it go ahead and I started a previous saved game.
At the Space Center I went to the tracking station and checked on my flights in progress. They all looked to be there, including a lander sitting on the surface of the Mun. I switched control to the lander and found that the flat surface I had landed on before is now the inner slope of a crater.
As soon as I switched the the lander, I watched it tip over and break apart, sliding down the slope. Once the lander was finished breaking up, I hit escape and tried to return to the space center. Clicking the button didn’t accomplish anything. I went to map view and looked for my other active craft. Clicking on other spacecraft I couldn’t even get a ‘set as target’ let alone a ‘switch to’. I couldn’t even exit the game, I had to kill the task.
Long story short, I lost everything. I can load previously built rockets but the staging info is all in one line without stage breaks, I can’t select parts and it won’t let me launch or even exit.
It’s not that big a deal, I didn’t have anything spectacular and I can rebuild everything else, probably better but it’s a little annoying.
I just wanted to warn people that your saved games might not convert.
Bah! Got a perfect moon-meeting burn, was gonna fly past it… and I warped too fast. Went right by it. Dunnu if I’ll be able to meet it again in time to orbit…
I did it! Orbiter Mk X is now in stable orbit around the Mun!
I’ve made some significant progress towards my goal of building a reusable space plane with my most recent experiment. Pictured are two vehicles:
A docking test bed which can raise the front landing gear to lower the front rover wheels onto the ground. This is how I was able to drive it off the runway without engines, and what I intend to add to my future space plane.
A cargo hauler with vertical and horizontal docking ports. The vertical mount will be used to connect to a trailer carrying the various forms of fuel a space plane might require, and the horizontal mount is at the right height to dock with a side-mounted refuelling port on a plane.
Using these advances I will be able to land a space plane, taxi it off the runway, drive the hauler over and refuel it, taxi back onto the runway and take off again.
After orbiting the Mun, Bill Kerman guided his Orbiter Mk X back home. He landed safely with almost a quarter tank left, even though I made quite a few mistakes. The Orbiter Mk X might not be obsolete just yet!
Is anyone else noticing that the air is a little thicker?
Ok, I think you’re going to need to explain a little bit more about whats going on at the bottom of the rocket here. We’ve got six of the smaller fuel tanks in two banks of three around a central bigger fuel tank. Three of those small tanks have engines and fins. Fuel lines connect the three engined tanks to the central tank; fuel lines also connect each non-engined tank to the engined tank. Have I got that right?
Does the central tank have an engine as well? Also, it looks like the upper tank has the small engine on it, right? Also, why did you have the guidance module connected to the capsule with an explosive decoupler?
FTR, I just tried this and what happened was that I had a very, very long burn that more or less put me into orbital altitudes itself. I then jettisoned the engineless tanks and discovered… that I had nothing to run the engines on! Oops. I jettisoned the engined tanks, and then the empty central tank with its handy engine as well, turned on the small engine, decided I wanted to land sometime instead of sending yet another Kerbal off to the far reaches of the solar system (Yes, I have managed escape velocity, heh), discovered that a) I couldn’t decouple the upper stage and b) fsr, I couldn’t turn the damn engine off either. Abort mission. :smack:
Have you seen this? SSTO interplanetary craft.
Yes, that’s correct.
The rocket has five engines: three large engines in the boosters, one large engine in the middle and one small rocket in the top stage. The decoupler up the top is so that you can disconnect the capsule for reentry so the parachute doesn’t have to carry the extra weight.
It sounds like you put the fuel lines on the wrong way around. They have arrows pointing the direction the fuel goes.
I think you had already decoupled that stage. The engine wasn’t connected to the module so that’s why you couldn’t turn it off, it was just pushing it along.
Hmm. I shall try this again tomorrow. With a printout of the instructions so that I can read 'em without having to tab back and forth.
If anyone in this thread hasn’t watched Macey Dean’s “KSS Spirit of Kerbin” series, prepare to have your mind blown. I honestly had never thought of attempting anything like what Macey created! He’s engineered some truly amazing ships, entirely with stock parts, and written an absorbing story.
It does drag at times, but, heck, it’s YouTube so skipping forward is no big deal.
I’m having some serious problems with symmetry. Some radial attachments simply will not line up properly, they use the wrong axis and thus are all places on one side of a fuel tank or some other weird shit.
I have the same problem sometimes. One thing that often helps is to move the base part onto the central axis of the rocket, add the radial attachment, then move it back.