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[Krevsin]

Alternis Kerbol makes everything look so pretty... Jool just looks majestic as it rises above the VAB. The lighting engine makes everything look so warm and the darkness of space even more imposing...

It pretty much makes an already beautiful game even prettier.

[ChairmanPoo]

Ok, some advice requested: I'm playing Kerbal career mode, but I'm having a HELLISH time getting into orbit. My rockets simply spin out of control and are nigh-impossible to steer (I have the most basic solid fuel and liquid fuel engines). I haven't figured out how to do crew reports and/or take samples. Advice plz?

[LordSlowpoke]

you need sas

turn it on with t (or was it r?) and never, ever turn it off

also don't dare try turning when solid fuels are on, you will crash and burn

to do crew reports, click the command capsule in flight, it'll have an option there. to take samples, get a kerbal on the ground, click them, take sample (you can recover the kerbal if it's on kerbin at this point for science points)

ps. you need more boosters

[jhxmt]

Ok, some advice requested: I'm playing Kerbal career mode, but I'm having a HELLISH time getting into orbit. My rockets simply spin out of control and are nigh-impossible to steer (I have the most basic solid fuel and liquid fuel engines). I haven't figured out how to do crew reports and/or take samples. Advice plz?

Start with the most basic rocket you possibly can.  Pilot pod (I seem to recall you don't get drones initially?) with parachute(s), atop a single rocket (solid or liquid, your choice).  Practice launching it, separating stages, activating parachutes and returning to land safely.  You can record a crew report by right-clicking (I think) on the pod.  You don't have to be in-flight to do this (but it will give you different results if you do).

You can also get your pilot to climb out of the pod (either before takeoff or after landing!) and wander around taking ground samples on Kerbin itself.  Quick way to get some starting research points.

From there, just start attaching more rockets.  Take it steady, don't make quantum leaps in your construction all at once, or you won't be able to tell which of the 19-gazillion boosters you've just added is the one that's throwing your steering off. 

Later on you get SAS, which takes some of the pain out of steering.

Edit: ninja'd...by LordSlowpoke, ironically!

[Descan]

Actually, DO make quantum leaps. Quanta are very VERY tiny, you know. Wouldn't want to go overboard until you figured out what does what without having to test every little change.

[Siquo]

Ok, some advice requested: I'm playing Kerbal career mode, but I'm having a HELLISH time getting into orbit. My rockets simply spin out of control and are nigh-impossible to steer (I have the most basic solid fuel and liquid fuel engines). I haven't figured out how to do crew reports and/or take samples. Advice plz?

- Make them smaller.
- What can help with bigger rockets is extra, empty command modules on lower stages, as they have a SAS control each.
- Press "T" to enable SAS (and leave it on until you know what you're doing)

[ChairmanPoo]

Gravity turns?

Anyhow, I have 26 spare research points (I had a couple of semi-successful flights, one of which almost got into orbit, but I fucked up the periapsis-apoapsis thing), and I already have general rocketry and stability.

Should I save up points and go straight ahead to advanced rocketry, or research survivability and go for flight control?

[Aseaheru]

Should I save up points and go straight ahead to advanced rocketry, or research survivability and go for flight control?

survivability. It leads to power.

[MarcAFK]

You may find that at a certain point in your launch your thrust gets higher that your rocket can handle causing some instability, restart your launch and try throttling down just before that moment where your last attempt became unstable.
There is precedent in real rocketry, the Saturn V shuts down the center engine shortly before seperation of the first stage because acceleration gets too high as the weight goes down due to the fuel being burned off.
I have had many rockets that had this problem, witb enough SAS you may have a problem with stability but won't notice as the thrusters cancel out instability.

[gomez]

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Gravity_turn

I employ the gravity turn myself when playing KSP by manualy holding the required pitch at the required altitude, but the wiki seems to imply that gravity assists with the turn so flight controls are not needed. Have I misread the wiki, or missunderstood gravity turning?

[forsaken1111]

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Gravity_turn

I employ the gravity turn myself when playing KSP by manualy holding the required pitch at the required altitude, but the wiki seems to imply that gravity assists with the turn so flight controls are not needed. Have I misread the wiki, or missunderstood gravity turning?

Depends entirely on the flight characteristics of your rocket. Some rockets will pitch over with gravity and make a nice smooth turn on their own.

[LoSboccacc]

gravity turning means exactly that: you don't need to apply pitch to turn the rocket, minimizing drag (if control surface) and dv usage (if vectoring engines)

how does it work? many way to explain. let's try differently than the wiki

if you throw a rock up, it will go up, then down. if you trow at 45 degree, it will move forward and up, then forward and down.

if the rock top is painted white  and you can trow it with no rolling or tumbling, the rock will land with white on top as no force is exerted.

now if you add winglets on the bottom of the rock, winglet will exert drag and try to make the white nose to point forward (imagine the badminton shuttlecock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttlecock).

gravity is changing the velocity vector, winglets at the bottom have the rock(et) follow the vector. (gravity doesn't add turning on its own, you have to have an aereodinamically stable rocket)

a paper plane falls on its nose by the same principle: wings add a torque that tries to minimize the angle off attack (on a stable aircraft as defined by having the center of lift behind the center of mass)

[Siquo]

Operation "Milking Minmus" was finally a success, even though we had to stop prematurely due to a bugged kerbal. Grand total: 4565 science.

[LoSboccacc]

wow! congrats!

did you do it by hopping trough biomes or using a rover? (or both =P)

[Siquo]

wow! congrats!

did you do it by hopping trough biomes or using a rover? (or both =P)

I'm trying to find out the right way to use the Science Lab. I built a single rocket that broke down in four parts: One orbiter/return capsule with a Kethane detector (I know, Kethane is cheating), one rover/lifter (no wheels but gets around by flying), a lab/livingspace/fuel base, and a mining/fuel/refinery tower. After having landed all except the orbiter I connected the mining tower to the lab (using KAS), put two kerbals in there, and then had the third one use the rover/lifter loaded with science to hop around to the various biomes (Flats, Lesser Flats, Great Flats, Greater Flats, Lowlands, Midlands, Poles, Slopes, I only missed the highland one), and refuel at the main base after each hop. I only used the Science Lab to reset the goo and materials modules, and returned with about 60 experiments (went up with the rover with 3 kerbals on it, met up with the orbiter, and used that to get home).


Hard parts: the lifter. It's really hard flying around on an unbalanced vehicle. Low thrust and careful use of RCS and reaction wheels for maneuvering, after some practice I got better at it. Using it to lift the heavy Science Lab module (which also had fuel tanks and that big station-module) to the surface and landing it close to the mining tower was even harder. Getting the entire unbalanced contraption into orbit without it falling apart took quite a few tries as well. During the whole mission I felt myself getting better at doing stuff manually, where I used MechJeb before. Rendezvous, docking, landing, maneuvers, I all do them manually now. I do still use the orbital calculator to find planet-to-planet transfer windows, though.


I'm really liking these transformers-type builds with multiple craft in one launch. Yesterday I flew by Duna with a Science Lab orbiter, a lander for Ike, and a small landing probe for Duna. Does anyone know of a mod that has robotic arms or other moving parts? I like trying to build tiny aerodynamic packages for launch and then expand those into big spacethings.