Would someone know if it’s possible to choose one’s launching time aside from repeatedly reloading? For what I want to do, launching around sunrise would be best because it would mean* that my ship would be pointing toward Kerbin’s prograde. If I point toward Kerbin’s retrograde, I’m losing velocity for nothing. If I point anywhere else, I’m either heading away from Kerbol or toward it.
*If I understand correctly, if I have this wrong please tell me.
Appropriate username/post combo.
Of course, experimenting on your own freely and learning by trial and error can be extremely entertaining, but it is worthwhile at some point so consult the previous work of others. Among the many tutorials out there, those that I personally have found the most useful are by Scott Manley.
Give 'em a go.
In other news, here’s some of my screenshots of:
My largest launch vehicle and heavy lander, ready for a night launch. This vehicle will deliver three Kerbals to anywhere in the Kerbol system, and, if done correctly, with enough fuel to return to Kerbin.
I’ll add one more: here’sJebediah, after, uh, “landing” on the Kerbin South Pole.
Damn. I seem to be going backwards. I can’t even get anything into orbit atm.
eta: I am very jealous of Knorf…
I really like Michael’s turborocket boosters. I put two on a basic two stage rocket, and it’s currently in orbit with a full tank of rocket fuel.
Well, quite a compliment then.
On a note related to something I said earlier: If you want to visit planets closer to Kerbol than Kerbin, head straight toward the sky during the day. If you want to visit planets further to Kerbol than Kerbin, head straight toward the sky during the night. Doing that will leave you on an orbit around Kerbol that’s closer to where you want to go. Think of it this way: Kerbin has a far side and a near side too, they just happen to be revolving.
I landed a probe on Minimus. I still need to lower the rover onto the surface using a complicated sky crane system, but it’s symphony in the park night. The unloading was accomplished on the Mun by losing one of the landing struts and having the whole thing tip over while I frantically separated the stages.
Well, I managed to get a satellite to not crash on Kermin.
Regrettably, it did not so much assume a stable orbit as it shot away from Kermin never to return. It is assuming its own orbit around the sun.
I refuse to do anything but trial and error. I cannot even begin to imagine how you’d get someone safely on the Mun. How do you even AIM for it?
Get into orbit around Kerbin. Wait until you just about see the Mun from your ship orbit around Kerbin, start thrusting. You will see the other end of your orbit gain altitude. If you want to save fuel, do it in a few passes.
Once your orbit is around 11M (be careful, it grows quickly the farther it is) your orbit will change color and you’ll get pointers on the nearest approach. Make last adjustments and fast forward.
Once you’re close enough to the Mun to be attracted by its gravity, your projected trajectory will radically change. You will then need to thrust retrograde to get below escape velocity until your trajectory curves enough to become an orbit around the Mun.
Sounds impossibly complicated but, like orbiting, once you get the hang of it, it’ll seem simple.
To others: Does landing gently at the right angle without a parachute ever become simple? I’ve done it a few times but it’s really chancy for me still.
Since I was just experimenting, the payload of this only consists in a command module and two thermo generators. Nevertheless, since the major difficulty lies in not reaching Kerbin escape velocity, I think it has potential to deliver sizable payload into space.
From the map screen you can click on it and select as target.
FYI, I just saw something that said it is easier to visit Minmus than Mun. I can’t vouch for that tho.
What I can do is put something into orbit that at least do a fly-by of either. In practice I’m having a hard time getting into a flat equatorial orbit on a regular basis. Right now from the map screen Kerbin looks like a messed up Nitrogen atom. I am not sure but I think if my ability to get to orbit improves I should have enough fuel to orbit either of the moons.
Landing and then returning is still a long, long way away.
Minmus has a smaller sphere of gravitational influence, and requires a larger delta-v (Δv) to get there, so is a bit harder in that sense. However, its much lower gravity, and larger and more obvious “flat” regions, make getting the actual lander down in one piece much easier. Also, it takes very little thrust to get back into Minmus orbit (not that Mün is a particularly steep gravity well, either, but it does require a bit more delta-v).
In terms of targeting either, and getting back to Kerbin, I highly suggest making use of maneuver nodes, which you can create by clicking on the orbit in the map view. Do look at Scott Manley’s tutorials, or the “official” KSP tutorials, to get a sense of how the nodes work. They give you a resulting trajectory and orbit for a burn in any given direction, and will show you if you will enter a moon or planet’s sphere of influence. You’ll also see next to the nav ball a curved bar showing you how much delta-v you’ll need to execute the maneuver, and the approximate time in seconds at full burn. Once you’ve made a node, you simply aim at the blue crosshairs on the nav ball at the proper moment and burn, baby, burn.
You don’t need to worry about launching at sunset or sunrise or whatever. It’s perfectly fine to launch whenever you feel like it and use a Hohmann transfer orbit. The maneuver nodes exist to help figure that out, if you don’t feel up to the math.
I have actually watched a couple of Scott’s videos. He seems to have no trouble doing the gravity turn and that is a PITA for me.
I am very excited now. I have my first fly-by of Mun set to happen and in the process of setting it up I found out how to do a slingshot move to really expand the orbit. The fly-by is close enough that it is going to effect my orbit, just not slinging me. I am reluctant to try it because I am still worried about bringing all my pilots back alive if I can.
ETA: Will pilots starve if they are out long enough? Will they always survive if you have the fuel and nothing goes wrong?
double post
This gets into stable orbit with still half of the 90 unit liquid fuel tank it starts out with:
They can’t starve or run out of oxygen. As long as they don’t hit anything too hard, they’ll survive.
Well, if it ever becomes important to have an ultra-efficient orbital launch vehicle, and the game developers don’t update the model for atmospheric drag, you’ll be set.
Although you might find that a well-executed gravity turn will do even more for you than using air-breathing engines, which exploit the overly simplistic drag model in the game.
I read that it’s a coming change. It’ll be fun to see how well this design does and how it has to be modified to give the same result. In any case, above 20K, the ship is s pretty aerodynamic; it’s just the command module and what’s underneath it going at about 1KM/s.
Please explain.
Never mind, looked it up.