My Mun shot never made it into orbit. Munar 1 ended up being a ballistic missile, and the command module splashed down in the ocean some distance east of the KSC.

You'll get the hang of it eventually. MechJeb2 makes it much easier, though.

Also:

Here's lookin' at you, Mr. Armstrong.

You'll want to try some sort of parallel staged rocket.

Start off with your central main rocket for stage 1. Then you attach 6 more jettisonable rockets to the main rocket in pairs. Then you use fuel transfers so that the first pair jettisons is feeding the second pair jettisoned which is feeding the last pair jettisoned which is feeding the main rocket.

You're get pretty awesome altitude from this setup. This is better than burning all 7 engines at the same time (and jettisoning the six) or burning seven and having the outer six feed the main. This reduces your total mass during the firing of the first stage by burning rockets faster and jettisoning the empty fuel cells/engines so they aren't dead weight.

So, moved on to mods that work with latest build :

Kethane
Kerbal attachment System
NovaPunch
MechJeb2

Kethane really adds a new level to this, finding and then building refinery for the resources, then building upon the resources into a distribution base.

not that I was bored with stock, I just needed a direction, a motivation to build the next big thing.

only currently on the Mun, but looking to expand operations to other worlds asap.

So, I'm not sure when this happened, but the current version is 0.22.something, and career mode has been implemented. With R&D and a tech tree! Whee!

FOR SCIENCE !!!!

Also, my single most-hoped-for feature, SAS that doesn't resist control inputs!

My eldest son asked for this. I picked it up and ... the wrong person is hooked. Playing career mode, already made a Munar orbit. One big issue I've had is that I sent up a rocket with 3 of the Junior Labs on it, opened each at a different location and sent the kerbal out via space walk to collect all the data. However, upon return I found I only had one stored. I probably should have read slower; it sounds like this is a function of the command pod.

I did also realize that I can collect data in orbit, put the ship into a decaying orbit, then launch the research segment with a parachute and return the ship to orbit. Each research segment then lands and can be recovered separately. I'm hoping to figure out a way to 'drop' the research segments in different biomes to collect data from the ground upon landing.

Total aside, I'm so glad I waited a year to play. It seems like some of the fixes were worth it, and hopefully with all the money coming in, they'll fix faster (right? Right?)

That's odd. You most definitely should be able to collect multiple sciences in one go. Did they all say from "Low Kerbin Orbit"?




That's not too hard, but you will need radial chutes and solar panels if you want to do a Science MIRV.

Just build it up fairly simply: attach a Probodobodyne octagonal or hexagonal probe core to the top of the science module, radially. Affix a couple of small solar panels and batteries near the bottom of the module, radially, and attach the coupler upside down, so when it detaches, it stays on the bottom of the science module. You'll also need a small fuel tank and a couple of small radial engines, if you want any damn control whatsoever over where the thing comes down. It shouldn't be too heavy. (The fuel tank and engines should go under the science lab, above the decoupler, though hopefully that was already obvious.)

Now just stack them on top of one another (use the sub-assembly thingamabob to do this rapidly,) then stick a lot of directional boom under it.

You could also attach this whole assembly as a sub-assembly to the side of a longer rocket using decouplers, if you felt like it. Don't forget a few struts to make sure they stay on at launch! And there you go, Science! that you can drop anywhere on Kerbin. Feel free to strap more instruments to the side.




Heh. Soon! ™

The Science! collection issue is because most command modules can only store one report of each type. Had I returned with the 3 labs, I could have gotten all that points, but each time my kerbal returned with a new report, it overwrote the last.

Now working on rescuing Bill from the Mun. This is taking a good deal more thought than I expected, as each new ship seems to run out of fuel or crash.

It got mentioned in another thread, and I figured 2-year necro might be less rude than being off-topic.

Accomplishments:
Un-assisted (no SRS or RCS) airplane takeoff, observational flight, and landing at night. Only exploded about a dozen times before figured out I could turn the plane around in the hangar for easier take-off. Small planes can use the ramp at the back of the runway as a jump to get air. I eventually got the hang of takeoff from the runway as well.
Succeeded at a test of a radial decoupler on the landing pad. Neither the decoupler nor the stayputnik were ever seen again.
At a friend's suggestion, did a asparagus thing with solid rockets. Significantly more effective and significantly less entertaining after I added struts.
Built an orbital tour bus with one pilot and (so far) up to 3 Hitchhikers completely full of tourists in a successful orbit and landing.

Failures:
Had the ship explode on re-entry during my first successful orbit, crashing the game, and forcing an auto-save. Down 1 pilot, but I got a mission to successfully return from orbit. A few hours later, the pilot re-appeared (probably another bug).
Tried orbital rescues without anything approaching success. Watched videos; no success. Downloaded Mechjeb; no success. Learned how to actually use Mechjeb and got close enough that I can probably figure it out some evening.

Much hilarity was had, and a few feelings of accomplishment. I'm hoping a successful orbital rescue will get me the rep for some kind of Mun-related mission. There is a Minimus one, but that's a bit of a jump. I'll see if I can get a new mission for landing, then another for surviving a landing. Maybe one for returning as well.

Kerbals reappearing isn't a bug, it's a setting. You can change it if you'd like.

Rendezvouses are one of the toughest things. But basically it's these steps;

1) Get both objects in (round) orbit.
2) With your control object (whatever the one is you'll be doing most of your maneuvering with), match planes with the target. Just find the AN or the DN and make a maneuver node there, pull one of the pink thingers until the AN/DN shifts around and is around 0 degrees.
3) You want both your ship and your target to be in approximately circular orbits. You can do others, but it's harder. Move your ship so its in either a larger or smaller orbit. If your distance is very far, you can make the orbit much smaller/larger to catch up, but overall, you want them kind of close so you can make changes easier.
4) When your ships are close-ish together, make a maneuver node and adjust your orbit to just barely intersect your target. It'll show the orange or purple triangles that tell you how close you'll get. You can move the maneuver node forwards or backwards on your orbit to get closer or further. If you can't get within 2.5km, wait an orbit or two and try again. You really only want to intersect at one point, or two close-together points.
5) Make your burn. Be very careful; little mistakes can have big impacts.
6) Once you get within about 2.5km, make sure your velocity is showing relative to the target. If it isn't, you can click on the velocity display to change it. At this point we're not doing orbits, so much as trying to approach (but with curves).
7) Burn until your velocity is around 10m/s, and your prograde is on the target. If your prograde is off target, you can burn on the opposite side of the target to accelerate and bring it back on target, or you can burn on the opposite side of retrograde from the away-from-target to decelerate and bring you on target.
7) Once you're within around 200m, you can use the ] key to change focus to your target. If you're just rescuing a kerbal, do that, have your kerbal do an EVA, and fly over. If you're doing a rendezvous, you can 'Control from Here' on your port and bring it around so it's pointing at your ship.
On your ship, drop to about 5m/s or less (less with bigger ships) and use the DEL key to shift to docking mode. Turn on RCS. Space changes from your normal aiming controls to lateral sliding. Make sure you 'Control from Here' from your docking port. You also want to dock during daylight, because it's good to be able to see. Just bring it in very slowly and continue to drop speed. Once they touch straight-on at about 1m/s, they'll bob back and forth a few times, then should connect.

It took several days of practice for me to get it the first time. Now it's pretty quick, usually about an hour. If you're doing Sandbox, Mechjeb can do it all for you. Otherwise you need to unlock that with science.

True in two ways.



I think this is the part I've got difficulty with. It doesn't help that I'm slow enough to react (mostly inexperience) that the window of opportunity has passed by the time I figure out what I wanted to do. Also, usually half of an orbit and 3 more misclicks to get it to give me the cancel button for any mistake/misclick I've made. I have gotten better about saving first so I can go through several rounds of trial-and-error so I can plan things out, but I'm still trying to plan while they're flying. I learned how to trick the ship builder into working correctly, I should be able to figure this out eventually as well.

I'm not sure here if you're just burning to try and get your intercept, or you're using the maneuver nodes.

If you're using maneuver nodes, you should ONLY be using the two green nodes, and dragging the node itself. (This is why you match planes first, to simplify this step.) Even as an experienced player, it'll frequently take me ten minutes to adjust the maneuver nodes just right.

Also, if your target and ship have significantly different orbits (like one is 50% larger than the other), this step is easier--but the next step is a little harder (because you have to kill all that speed again). If your orbits are very close, you'll need to do more waiting until your ships are close together.