Kerbal Space Program

PA did it first.

lol, I'm sure its more realistic too. As in besides altf12 you can't more than nudge or influence its movement.

The asteroids probably work like large space stations. They have a lot of mass but you can rendezvous with them and push them around if you have enough oomph. But I'm really excited about what the modders can do with this. With Ketane, Extraplanetary Launchpads and Kerbal Attachment System you truly could have a VAB and SPH in orbit around a planet! That's no moon. F..., yeah!

I wonder if they make microgravity for asteroids. It would have to be a lot weaker than gravity on Gilly though. Just enough to not make you drift away - unless you sneeze.

I would love to see comets too. Maybe a stock ringed planet too, with it's own set of moons, way out beyond Eeloo and Jool.

Wow! I finally finished my Moho mission(s) This was definitely the hardest I've ever done. Tylo ascent was a piece of cake compared to Moho. Granted taking off Moho is the easy part. It's all the deceleration you have to do to capture an orbit when you come zipping by at over 5000 m/s! Eve ascent? I'm not ready for that yet!

I could not have done it without the help of KAS and I'm glad I didn't have to resort to Kethane drilling. But it will be there if I ever feel the need to go back. Not anytime soon though. Enjoy...

I have a question. So, I am doing career. I haven't studied in depth of planetary travel. It might should seem obvious for something who took AP Physics and is well versed in intellegent things like this. But here is my observation.

I did my first "science collections" right outside the gravitational influence of Kerbal. I got just outside the gravitational influence, the planet was still visible as a small distant golf ball.

So, I learned some things doing it:

When I attempted to scoot back into kerbal gravitational influence, I found the sun likes to tug you a bit harder so you can't just scoot back, you intersect orbits with it down the line. Is there a more "optimal" angle you should burn instead of "straight at kerbal" to reenter from nearby proximity, or is that all one can do?

Also, when you reenter from a fairly similar orbit from the planet (almost not moving in relative comparison to the planet's movement), you simply fall straight to the planet slowly but getting faster. As I aerobraked at 45k meters above kerbal, I ditched my spent stage of rocket behind me at 140k meters above. After I landed, I noticed... that spent stage of rocket made it half way to mars, no kidding. And it was ditched, completely, meaning gravity sent it there. Is a gravity assist really that strong? Is it something I can or should intentionally do to save fuel when getting to mars persay? (YES I MEAN DUNA don't technicallity me on this shtuff!)

Yes you can do gravity assist but it is very difficult to set up from what I've read on the forums.
Before I downloaded Kerbal Alarm Clock I made this printable version: KSP Planetary Transfer Quick Reference Chart in Gray Scale too. I still keep it taped to my bookshelf. Getting to Duna isn't that much harder than getting to Mun or Minmus. Delta v Map. I know that a PE around 12,500 m is a good target altitude for an aerobraking capture orbit around duna.

I had something similar happen to me with a satellite I had in an elliptical orbit around Jool. It had run out of fuel so I couldn't move it into a safer orbit. So I forgot about it and left to do some other stuff, figuring it would eventually crash into a moon. When I came back to the map view a while later I noticed there's this one orbit that went waaaay out, something like 3x the orbit of Eeloo. Into the Oort cloud if there was one. It was one of those WTF moments. My satellite probably had a close encounter with Tylo. Tylo is just a guess. It always seems to mess with my Jool encounters.

Burning straight at the target is a waste of fuel. Remember that not only does your burn actually affect the opposite side of your orbit but also that your target keeps moving.

Also few basic rules that should help you get to other bodies:
1.) Try to get a proper encounter. This will save fuel on departure and also arrival. I use this handy tool for reference http://ksp.olex.biz/ its not perfect as no orbit is perfect but still good enough .
2.) Adjust the encounter half way accross, than again later on so that you get desired PE and sort of 0° inclination (unless you want other orbit for some specific reason like a polar orbit for mapping). The final PE is always a rough estimate but this will still save you a LOT of fuel on finetuning the approach when you're already in target body's SOI.
3.) Always approach the target along its velocity vector, not against it. This will also save a LOT of fuel as you won't have to slow down as much.
4.) Always approach the target along its rotation, not against it. With planets your approach should be from the dark side, with moons on the side further from the planet.
5.) When approaching Jool watch for Tylo. It likes to knock you off ;-) .
6.) Get enhanced navball mod and learn to use the RAD+/-, NML+/- as that will save you a lot of fiddling with maneuver nodes.
7.) Learn to aerobreak/aerocapture. Search for the target body and what you want to do, just make sure you quicksave first.

In the end you'll realize that you almost don't need boosters . By following the above you should get this kitten to Laythe and still have fuel left:



Blueprints are here (without MechJeb attached as I used it just to get deltaV stats): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81512422/MonsterLab.craft

Regarding the gravity assists. Scott Manley has a really nice video where he got the stock Kerbal X all the way to Jool!



But you have to be insanely good to get something like that one. Not to mention it requires a lot of careful planning. I'd rather leave that to real engineers like Scott :-D .

EDIT: Corrected the funny PA to PE for Perigee

EDIT 2: Added point about aerobreak/aerocapture and schematics for Laythe rover.

I just found it interesting to stumble upon that kind of gravity assist. A dead rocket tossed half way to duna from a hundred thousand over kerbal.

I haven't done interplanetary in career, just infinite fuel mode for scenarios. Its like I stumbled upon how I should approach then in career when before itvlooked impossible or like id have to build in orbit a rocket.

Citation needed: "When you make it to orbit you're half-way to anywhere."

I don't remember who said it but its true. The hardest part is actually getting from the ground.

Take a lander mission to Duna for example (I'm pretty sure that someone out there will make it with even even less deltaV):
1.) ~ 4000m/s to get to 100km orbit
2.) ~ 1100m/s to get to Duna at optimal encounter window
3.) ~ 100m/s for corrections to get an aerocapture
4.) some fuel if parachutes themselves aren't enough for soft landing

So in this case getting to orbit was almost 80% of the fuel. I strongly recommend Scott Manley's videos on KSP. I learned practically everything from him. This isn't really a game for trial and error aproach .

One way to be able to better see where your trajectory is to edit the Settings.cfg file in your KSP folder.
Look for CONIC_PATCH_DRAW_MODE = 3 (3 is the default mode) and change it to 0.


Next time you're in map view it will draw the maneuver node's trajectory where the planet is. Not where the planet is going to be. Tab to your destination planet to see your trajectory and adjust as required.

Adjustments are still very sensitive. What I try is get dead on or as close as possible. Just before entering the planets SOI I'll use RCS to fine tune my trajectory instead of thrusters.

NEVER EVER Time Warp more than 3x when crossing transition nodes! It will screw with your trajectories big time!

that's wierd, I'll try both.

also, just when you cross over gravities? Its kinda necesary to speed up a few hundred.

Right! By gravities. SOI transition points or whatever they are called. 2x or 3x is fine. It's just when you're timewarping faster than that, that physics gets out of wack. Plus I always aim for the night side bearing 90° east unless I'm going into a polar orbit. Then I aim for the either pole.

On airless planets or moons, aim for a PE as close to the ground as possible. That is without cratering into the side of a mountain (lithobreaking ). 8,000~10,000 m altitude is usually safe. The planet's gravitational pull, along with your rockets, will help slow your ship down faster that it would have farther out. Plus it looks cool skimming over the surface at 1,000's of m/s.

Any planet that has an atmosphere, aerobraking is the way to go. Pretty much fuel free into orbit. Duna, with it's thin atmosphere, I've used 12,500 m +- as a target. Then use the engines to pull the PE up, out of the atmosphere (100 km for example) for the next pass. Then bring the AP down to match.

Jool IIRC was a PE of 120,000. The atmospheric drag will take you lower. Take heed matey ye will awake the Space Kraken from the fathomless depths if you dare go lower! Arrrgh ye have been warned!

Thanks for that tip. It makes adjusting the approach much easier for me. Especially the inclination as before I often though that I have nearly 0° inclination and then it turned out its far from that .

And yes, in general its a bad idea to timewarp (unless physics timewarp) between SOIs because the physics engine just skips parts of the simulation and thus producing completely different results on SOI change.

Pffft. My orbits are better:



To me it looks like a second-hand gyroscope.

would be more impressed if in one rocket launch you split off all those little satellites probes around another planet. I'm considering trying that. Launching a 8 satellite rocket interplanetary and scattering their orbits across the planets gravity.

Go for it! I did something similar with 1 ship and 5 probes to land on each of the moons of Jool. Then sent the transport stage crashing into Jool.

Those Joolians are gonna be very upset with you.

Looks very badass in my opinion.

Anyway, I am focused atm on career mode, but starting to get tech to do cool things with. I think I am going "modular" now, and I am going to make spacecraft with reloadable fuel ports. I just found out one can run fuel through docking ports, so I don't need engines so much as just the fuel canisters. I am going to make a lander with modular landing fuel pods and modular launch engines, then I am going to fire spare fuel tanks into space where needed.

Let's pray to God the Kessler Syndrome doesn't claim the life of Jebediah Kerman, he has been with me since the beginning (suprised hadn't lost him yet).

Looking forward to see what you've come up with. This is my 2nd round using career mode. 1st in 0.23. With the completion of my Moho rescue mission I was able to unlock the rest of the science tree. In 0.23 I still haven't been to Dres, Jool (plus it's moons), or Eeloo. Only a lander probe has been to Eve in this version.

I've been leaning towards modular builds myself and I think the Kokopeli is going to be my flagship of the KSC fleet. The only thing that was lacking was a rover to go with the lander. I think I have a solution. Welcoming back from some of my earlier missions, the Beagle Rover, the latest addition to the Kokopeli...

It is just a single seat rover but with it's wide wheel stance and low CoG, she really handles well. I wasn't sure this could work. The docking port being off-sided, I was sure it would throw off the CoM. But a test flight to Mun and back worked out ok. I added a couple KAS radial struts for the front end, for tie-downs, when docked, and a probe body so it can land or take off unmanned.

Just launched some missile defense satellites into orbit around Kerbin. Mainly just an exercise in fun but now I won't be having issues with aliens or other space programs.

Well, put a claw and powerful thrusters on your satellite and you can now defend Kerbin against asteroids!