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Just bought this a couple days ago and had some time today to really get into it (after losing all my money at Saltybets). I picked up getting into orbit pretty quickly and decided to try to go to the Mun. First attempt resulted in me overshooting the Mun. The second time around was successful, albeit after a frantic landing attempt. I was elated much like my astronaut friend until we discovered that he did not have enough fuel to get back. No problem, we're just going to have to rescue him.
I designed a new rocket to fit the 3-person Command Pod and our rescue mission was on its way. We get into orbit around the Mun with no problems. I plot a landing point near our first Mun landing and we've entered the critical part of the mission. Unfortunately, my calculations were horribly wrong and we ended up landing pretty damn far away from our stranded brethren.
There isn't enough fuel in the rescue lander to go pick him up then fly back to Kerbin and the distance is far too big to walk. I figured, "Hey, we've still got a little fuel in the first lander, let's just use it to fly towards the rescue crew." What I didn't realize until our friend was on his way to his imminent death, was that I had no way of slowing it down from 500 m/s as it descended towards the surface. As a last ditch effort, I took the brave man out of the command pod and tried using his RCS to slow him down. He is now dead.
Having failed to achieve our mission objective, I took one of the two Kerbals sent on the mission and had him plant a flag in memory of our friend who had a need for speed. He then hopped into the lander and I brought them home safe and sound.
This game is too damn fun. I can't believe I didn't get into it before.
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Got back into the game with the update, science is fun eventhough some parts are a bit grindy. I think they'll tweak it but the concept is good and it really makes the game more enjoyable to have a purpose to your mission.
So far i'm trying not to kill my kerbals, unfortunately I ran out of fuel in an excentric Kerbin orbit with one of my earlier ships (before I unlocked unmaned vehicules). I'll try to rescue him eventually but it's going to be hard considering the orbit.
This sacrifice though allowed me to unlock the parts that I needed to send a probe. I started by going to the mun, then got into kerbol orbit. I could have orbited minmus the way there but for some reason i thought about it too late.
Then from my kerbol orbit I reached Duna, but before orbiting it I orbited its moon Ike for some science. My mission then ended on a low Duna orbit, all in all i probably got more than 2000 science from this mision.
My next step is going to send a rover to the mun and minmus and then of course manned missions. I love this game :D. The feeling you get when you realize how little fuel you need to make interplanetary travels if you're smart about it.
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So, because SCIENCE!! I played risky with Jebediah in a starting tech ship. Jebediah is now orbiting and has been for 139 days, in an elongated orbit with a periapsis of about 62km (and falling gradually) and an apoapsis of just over 2.2 million km.
He started at 68km and 4.2 mil km, respectively. I would just terminate the flight, but there's no comm equipment and I want the science.
Damn you KSP. Damn you.
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Blazinghand
United States25550 Posts
are you out of propulsion? you could try to dip him a bit further into the atmosphere or deploy a parachute or something to bring him down when he's in the air
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At apoapsis, you can get jeb out and have him push retrograde if you're out of fuel. Just 10m/s difference and you'll pretty easily be in the lower atmosphere.
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Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
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On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote:
Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it.
if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
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On November 08 2013 03:21 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote:
Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it. if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard.
I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.)
+ Show Spoiler +I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
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On November 08 2013 11:45 felisconcolori wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 03:21 Jetaap wrote:On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote:
Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it. if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard. I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.) + Show Spoiler +I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently.
7700 deltaV should be enough for a round trip.
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On November 08 2013 12:13 fishbowl wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 11:45 felisconcolori wrote:On November 08 2013 03:21 Jetaap wrote:On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote:
Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it. if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard. I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.) + Show Spoiler +I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently. 7700 deltaV should be enough for a round trip.
To break the delta-v cost down
- 4500 to get to LKO (Low Kerbin Orbit)
- Around 830-850 to get to Mun's SOI
- Around 230 to get into Low Mun Orbit
- Around 580 or a little bit more to land and another 580 to get back into orbit
- Getting back to Kerbin should only be around 300 if you burn retrograde respective to the Mun's orbit.
So around 7100 dV should be enough for a round trip if you are very good at flying.
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On November 08 2013 12:27 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2013 12:13 fishbowl wrote:On November 08 2013 11:45 felisconcolori wrote:On November 08 2013 03:21 Jetaap wrote:On November 08 2013 02:15 felisconcolori wrote:
Yeah, the tanks are dry. I haven't thought of using Jeb's booster pack - then again, I'm leery of falling off the ship and orbiting without it. if you are too afraid you can always use quicksave (F5 to save, F9 to load). You should be able to get your ship into a reentry trajectory with the your kerbanaut thruster, it really shouldnt be that hard. I had some iffy moments getting behind the ship and then getting back into the ship again... twice (impatience). But Jeb is back on the ground after only another day. Now I can figure out how to save Bill from the Mun. (I managed to land. Kindof. I laid the ship down, and then trying to get back off the moon left me with a capsule and Bill.) + Show Spoiler +I can get to the Mun without issues. But landing is tricky, and apparently 7700 deltaV won't get me off Kerbin, to the Mun, and back. My rocket designing or my flying sucks, apparently. 7700 deltaV should be enough for a round trip. To break the delta-v cost down - 4500 to get to LKO (Low Kerbin Orbit) - Around 830-850 to get to Mun's SOI - Around 230 to get into Low Mun Orbit - Around 580 or a little bit more to land and another 580 to get back into orbit - Getting back to Kerbin should only be around 300 if you burn retrograde respective to the Mun's orbit. So around 7100 dV should be enough for a round trip if you are very good at flying.
I believe you have just conclusively proven that I am bad at flying. 
+ Show Spoiler + For further proof, I took the same rocket, copied it into a sandbox save. This allowed me to use MechJeb in all it's automaton glory. Even using wasteful planning (get to LKO, transfer to the Mun, circularize around Mun, then land, take off, enter new orbit at Mun, return to Kerbin, waste fuel burning to slow down in Kerbin orbit and ensure successful parachute deployment) I still had over 600 m/s dV on return. All dV listed are atmospheric.
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I finally managed to rendez-vous two of my ships in orbit. Took advantage of this to rescue the kerbal that I had stranded in orbit, now I can safely say that no Kerbanaut was left behind!
I'm trying to reach eve, for some reason I find it harder than duna.
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On November 13 2013 08:19 Jetaap wrote:
I finally managed to rendez-vous two of my ships in orbit. Took advantage of this to rescue the kerbal that I had stranded in orbit, now I can safely say that no Kerbanaut was left behind!
I'm trying to reach eve, for some reason I find it harder than duna.
Eve is hard to get to, period. Don't feel too bad. Make sure you pack plenty of parachutes and lots of landing gear!
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Eve actually requires slightly less dV to reach and is very easy to land on, assuming you have parachutes. Returning from the surface, though... that's one of the 3 big challenges in the game. (getting to and returning from Moho, landing on Tylo, returning from Eve)
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Unfortunately I forgot to put a parachute on my probe but I managed to go to Eve then Gilly (sweet science) . I did a few pass in the high atmosphere before deorbiting so I could have the time to do science. I thought i might be able to slow down my descent enough with engines only but that was clearly not the case, i was not even able to keep the rocket pointed in the correct direction :D.
Well at least it was only a probe, my next challenge now is to get a kerbin to duna and back. How much dV do I need to come back from the surface of duna?
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Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot:
~1100 transfer orbit
maybe 50 for corrections
100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's)
1300 from surface to orbit
500 for returning to Kerbin
Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
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On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote:
Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot:
~1100 transfer orbit
maybe 50 for corrections
100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's)
1300 from surface to orbit
500 for returning to Kerbin
Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it.
I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it  . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ...
My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that.
On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
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On November 15 2013 21:01 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote:
Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot:
~1100 transfer orbit
maybe 50 for corrections
100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's)
1300 from surface to orbit
500 for returning to Kerbin
Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it. I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ... My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that. On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
Actually I prefer to play without any mods. FAR sometimes produces some very strange results, so I'm not fond of it at all.
In terms of information, I find MechJeb far superior to Kerbal Engineer, since you can create custom windows with all kinds of info (suicide burn countdown ftw). You can also use the auto-pilot to do the boring stuff like 10min burns for you, but don't use it to plot your maneuvers for you, that will take the fun out of the game and they will be inefficient anyway.
One really helpful mod is the enhanced navball, an improvement that the devs wanted to add in 0.18 or so, it will be in a future version for sure.
If you have trouble with docking this can help.
What do you mean by maneuver nodes acting weird? Most of their known issues can be resolved by going to the Space Center and back.
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On November 15 2013 21:01 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +On November 14 2013 02:40 nimbim wrote:
Not too exact, but it really isn't a lot:
~1100 transfer orbit
maybe 50 for corrections
100-600 landing (parachutes work on Duna, the atmosphere is just half as dense as Kerbin's)
1300 from surface to orbit
500 for returning to Kerbin
Pack 3.6km/s dV and you should be fine.
Also, remember you can pack the chutes again, you just need a Kerbal in EVA to do it. I have a ship with 7k dV in LKO but I messed up my transfer to duna big time so I had to burn way too much to get a capture, so in the end I only did a flyby of duna's moon and a couple of orbit around duna before burning back to Kerbin. But once again my capture was bad and I wasted of lot of dV for it . I also realized that the landing legs were too short anyway for a landing with a nuclear engine ... My maneuver nodes are acting weird not sure what I should do about that. On another note what mod do you use/recommend? I'm using Kerbal Engineer and FAR so far (it greatly improves the aerodynamic model)
The easiest way to get a capture around a celestial body is to set the periapsis as low as you can when you enter a new SOI by burning directly to the point where you want periapsis is (i.e setting the periapsis to the east of the body by burning at 90 on your navball because the trajectory would be a hyperbolic one when you enter the SOI. If the body has an atmosphere then put it slightly under the edge of the atmosphere. Then burn at periapsis to get a capture then stop when you get into an eccentric orbit for necessary plane change and just let the aerobraking by atmospheric drag reduce your apoapsis to your desirable altitude.
For mods, I would say FAR is very good. Also KW rocketry or Novapunch if you want some new parts. If you want some more challenge, then deadly reentry is a good mod.
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I sent a new rocket with landing legs in the correct position and I was able to do a two way trip to Duna . I had to save/load a good number of time for my landing because my aerobraking trajectory was sending me into high moutains (5k, hard to aerobrake considering the thickness of this planet's atmosphereo) and i wasn't able to slow my ship enough to prevent it from getting ripped in half when the chutes opened fully. However after altering my trajectory a couple of times i was able to find the sweet spot and land that felt great.
I had plenty of fuel left so the return was really easy, now i have to plan for new missions. I'll probably try to build a base on the moon.
bonus picture:
duna lander
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EPT
