I don’t know what happens if you bring Jeb back. Poor Jeb!
If memory serves, the target TWR is a bit over 1.0, isn’t it? More than 1.01 to give yourself some margin for error, but less than 1.50 or 2, which wastes fuel?
It used to be that about 2 was the most efficient, and probably that’s still a decent guideline. TWR of 1.01 will expend all of its fuel lifting your rocket 10 feet off of the ground. (TWR=1 is just enough to counteract gravity.) You need enough thrust to accelerate the rocket upward, but too much will cause increased drag in the lower atmosphere. High thrust engines also tend to be less fuel efficient.
Ah OK, I’m sure you’re right. Back in the day I spent quite a lot of time tweaking TWR so that I’d get optimal fuel usage. Does the optimal TWR number vary from one planetary body to the next? Maybe it’s lower lifting off from Minmus than from Kerbin?
If there’s no air, high TWR is always more efficient. The less time you spend battling gravity, the better. On other bodies with air (Duna, Eve, Laythe), I think the TWR=2 (with weight relative to the body’s gravity) rule is still valid.
200 hours and you haven’t landed elsewhere??? I feel like you’re focused so much on modding the game that you’re missing the actual gameplay.
At this point I’d say you should play 100% stock and start the Kernel X scenario. You might feel different about all of the mods once you’ve sent a Kerbal to the Mun and gotten them back home again.
I’m playing stock right now! I just orbited the Moon with Jebediah and then I was coming in too fast back to Kerbin with no fuel and could not slow down he blew up lol. In my career I’m kinda having trouble with money at the moment as I desperately need to unlock more buildings and I’m short on science too (I don’t have a lander unlocked yet so building a lander with my current parts might be tricky).
@Fozzle @Matt_W @tfernando @Alan_Au
OK. The mission system has just jammed me I think. All the missions available now require precise maneuvering. But I have not unlocked the maneuver node yet. So without maneuver nodes, how am I supposed to hit precise spots in half a planet away? Or rendezvous with a guy floating halfway between Kerbin and the Mun? Or all the rest of my mission choices which demand I have some kind of predilection to know when to take off and when/where to do burns?
I did some interception missions before maneuver nodes were a thing, back in the day. Just bring plenty of fuel and save/reload a lot ! :)
I haven’t played career in awhile. How do you unlock maneuver nodes? Do you need science?
They’re unlocked after you’ve upgraded the Tracking Station and Mission Control to level 2.
Ah, so funds are what is needed, for which you need to complete missions.
Both rendezvous and precision landing are possible without maneuver nodes, but they take a little practice. You can still see trajectories in map view, which is what you really need.
For precision landing, you can do it either from the launch pad or from orbit. From the launch pad, you have to control your rocket during the launch from map view. You actually have pretty good control over the trajectory during launch. You’ll need to set your trajectory so that it touches down a ways ahead of your desired landing spot, then ditch the rocket and use the heat shield on your re-entry capsule to steer during the descent. Deorbit is similar, but you need to be passing over your target zone. If you’re not, adjust your inclination by burning normal/anti-normal to your orbit when you’re 1/4 of the way around Kerbin from the landing spot and watch map view until the orbit goes over the landing spot. With some practice, you can get pretty close.
Rendezvous is actually easier, but is trickier to describe. This image explains how to do it, and you don’t need maneuver nodes for any of it.
Awesome pic. Thanks!
Hey do you think my reputation is too high? I have no idea what it is. Maybe I should take one of those options to turn rep into money (though the conversion rate looks horrible)?
Just realized I don’t have the right conversion selected as I was just taking a screenshot.
You can definitely afford to unlock maneuver nodes with that big a stack of cash, if you haven’t done so yet. The required building upgrades only cost √225,000* or so, if I remember right.
High reputation has two benefits: you get harder/more rewarding contracts more often, and all contracts pay more. If the contracts you’re getting are all hard, dumping some rep might help you get back on tract.
Regarding landing on a specific point, I like the Trajectories mod for that. I try to run a pretty lightly modded setup, but usually end up with some combination of…
- Kerbal Engineer Redux, even with the 1.7 features. The live telemetry window is super-useful.
- Kerbal Alarm Clock, because I like having multiple missions in progress simultaneously.
- Transfer Window Planner or equivalent, so I don’t have to rely on a web app for it.
- Precise Node, even with the 1.7 features. It has buttons which add or subtract a fixed amount of velocity from the maneuver node, so I can get close with the grab-and-pull handles and adjust fractions of a meter per second to get a maneuver planned just so.
Everything else is gravy, but those are the ones I find myself preferring.
* I don’t know if there’s an accepted symbol, but the square root symbol is close, at least.
I believe the mission selection cycles from time to time, so if you wait an in-game day, there are usually more missions to choose from. I tend to take Kerbin satellite missions, and if I’m clever, I can stack 2 on a single launch assembly. I also take the easy sub-orbital tourism contracts; they don’t pay much, but given the low difficulty and cost, it’s basically free money.
For “efficiency” yeah, I mostly mean TWR, but also it’s better to use a single large fuel tank instead of 2 smaller ones, etc.
I had one mission where I ran out of fuel but managed to just barely skim the Kerbin atmosphere over multiple orbits and eventually slow down enough for reentry, with the caveat of not getting to really pick where I landed.
But there is always the advanced orbital maneuvering backup jets to help control that.
It’s called send Jeb out there to use his backpack to push against the capsule.
You get a decent amount of delta V that way. Push Jeb, push!
I did that just last night to salvage an aerobraking attempt which didn’t dive deep enough into the atmosphere.
OMG I just did that today! I made it to the moon, but when I side swiped it, it blew my periapsis from 80k to 400k. I was just able to scrape 55k above Kerbin for my new peripasis and had no fuel left to adjust my apopasis. As I bounced through the atmosphere for 3 orbits I watched with horror as my ablative shielding all burnt off. I’d finally bled off enough speed I knew my next dive would be the one that keeps me in Kerbin, but I figured I’d blow up. Surprisingly the heat shield still worked.
I have to upgrade mission control as well before I get the maneuver node (It’s a two-part upgrade before you unlock it). That is $750,000 all together.
Are you sure? It should be available after the first upgrade for both buildings—that’s how it unlocked for me.
Hrm, I don’t think that is right. You just have to upgrade each building once and you get maneuver nodes. Seeing unidentified objects is the next upgrade, not maneuvers.
To change orbital inclination (like from East-West to Polar North-South) is it better to do that at the Apoapsis or Periapsis?