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Post by dortmunder on May 21, 2013 19:34:01 GMT -5
Yeah, the closer your orbit to a body, the faster you will move.
It's good info to know when trying to rendezvous with something. If you match orbit with something almost exactly, it will take forever to get close, unless you're already close when you match orbits.
So you'll want to be 5-10k away if you have some distance to match up. The further your orbit the slower you rotate around it.
So as you come in close to the planet, you pick up a lot of speed, which slingshots you further out the other side.
You should try the manuever nodes if you haven't. Click somewhere along your orbit(best spots to burn are apoapsis and periapsis). Burning on one side will affect the other, depending how you burn. Burning towards the green circle(prograde) will increase orbit on the other, while burning retrograde will decrease the other side.
That's generally how you want to line up a landing. Get onto the apoapsis or periapsis then burn retrograde until your orbit intersects where you want to land on the planet/moon.
After that you want to get fairly close to the surface and start burning retrograde again to kill your surface speed. Then straighten out and come down slowly.
I'd suggest going to Minmus for your first landing, it has very very low gravity, so makes landing a lot easier than a planet or a large moon like the Mun.
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Post by Loendal on May 21, 2013 21:40:37 GMT -5
Yea, I was using the maneuver points to get myself further and further out away from Kerbal. I think I just got lucky because I can't seem to do it again  I don't think I've even seen Minmus out there; maybe I'm not zoomed out far enough. I need to start using more then the AP for my maneuver points. Instead of trying to tweak out a maneuver at the AP (Which is usually right there a few seconds away when I finish a burn) I should go around to the Periapsis and burn there. Time compression is your friend! The game is really quite addictive once you start playing it. I haven't decided if I'm going to buy the full version yet or not, but it's certainly a thought. It might be fun to get all the other parts and see what horribly confounding rocketship I can come up with. My current rocket is basically a tube with 8 of the long fuel tanks feeding into a triple rocket connection at the base. I can get up to around 60k before I run out of original fuel. Then I just disengage the tanks and the lower 3/4 of the rocket and have my little pod/fueltank/rocket assembly with fins . I've been trying to be more efficient and keep my speed around 150 m/s like he mentioned in the tutorial video. My rocket is too long and unwieldy to steer much before I ditch the primary tanks though, so I can't tip over to 45 degrees. I'm probably very inefficient |
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Post by dortmunder on May 22, 2013 17:56:40 GMT -5
I believe the most efficient way to leave orbit is to choose either apo or periapsis, and start burning prograde. Burn for a bit so that the orbit is elliptical, close on one side of the planet, and far on the other. Then wait(or warp) around so that you circle back around to the close side(so you'll be moving at higher speed) and burn prograde again. Keep doing that until you get an escape trajectory. Once you're in open space with very little gravity pulling you, it's easier and uses less fuel to make changes, so you can get an encounter with a moon or planet. There's a lot of mods available to make the game more interesting as well. There was a big update today to .20, which broke a lot of mods. But the good ones will be updated soon. I just deleted my save and I'm going to start over, setting up a fuel mine on Minmus. Then start trying to explore the rest of the solar system. I've been more consumed with building vehicles and stuff so far  |
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Post by Loendal on May 22, 2013 20:45:19 GMT -5
I can never seem to get a good orbit though. When I try to burn my way out further into space, I usually wind up just stretching my Kerbal landing point further out. Which is cool, in a way, landing in China after taking off a few minutes ago at Cape Canaveral (Or however that's spelled ) is eventful if a bit pointless I'll just have to get better at making more steerable rockets that still have enough oomph to get me into space. I can't steer this tube of rockets very well and either I end up with a HUGE highpoint with a narrow arc or just flipping over and going insane before smashing into the planet agian |
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Post by dortmunder on May 23, 2013 9:25:32 GMT -5
Well, the easiest way I can suggest a good orbit is just getting the height you want(opening the map and looking at the apoapsis marker) then burning directly at the horizon on the gimble. Whichever direction you want your orbit to be. You should be pointing that way a bit already around 10-15,000 meters on your way up. Keep bouncing back to the map, or just keep looking at that, as you can see the gimble on the map. Once you get your orbit somewhat circular and above 70km, you can cut power and start fine tuning it from side to side Burning toward the horizon and prograde on the gimble will mostly build up your orbital velocity, which is what you want. As long as you get a decent height you should be fine. Just try to keep burning at or a bit before the apoapsis marker so you don't go past it. Trying to keep it around 30 seconds before you reach it is good, the time will go up or down depending on if you're burning too much, too little, or it will stay the same if you're burning exactly right. Also, if you're having problems building a rocket, try going wide on the bottom. And adding an upper atmosphere stage if you aren't already. You can use the heavy burning rockets to get into the upper atmosphere, then dump all the tanks and use something smaller and easier to handle once you're higher up. |
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Post by Loendal on May 23, 2013 13:43:40 GMT -5
Well, my latest design I've tried to be more efficient and organized about my disconnecting fuel tanks. I have my pod/fuel/rocket/wings combo on the top, attached to a couple tanks straight down to the triple rocket connector. Hung out on either side is a set of 4 of the long narrow tanks (With stripes that make it fly better, as per Kerbal scientific community). Two of the tanks feed fuel into the other set of two. And those two feed fuel into the main tube. I keep a popup of the fuel left in the outer tanks while I take off, once they're empty, I disengage them. Then I monitor the other two and dump those when they empty out. I've also been trying to keep in the habit of staying at / below 150 m/s on the way up. I can tilt over to about 70 degrees or so without flipping out of control and lock the ACS(?) system so it stays in place. I've gotten into orbit with my main tube and three rockets still intact pretty easily. After it runs out, I drop the entire lower assembly and have my mini rocket pod left.
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Post by dortmunder on May 23, 2013 19:33:16 GMT -5
Sounds like you're well on your way too the Mun, or even Minmus How much fuel do you have left once you're in orbit? It doesn't take a lot to get to either of the moons, depends on what engine you're using and how much mass your craft has. |
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Post by dortmunder on May 24, 2013 6:57:12 GMT -5
Eventually, I encountered the Mun! Settled into an orbit around it and had enough fuel (I thought) to at least land on the planet, though I know I would never leave again. However, when I tried to deploy my chute and come down softly, it didn't deploy at all and I wound up smashing into the surface with a bang Oh yeah, forgot to mention that you can't use chutes some places. The Mun has no atmosphere, so parachutes don't work there. Some of the other planets have enough atmosphere to use them though. Laythe, for instance, looks like another habitable planet  |
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Post by dortmunder on May 28, 2013 10:51:40 GMT -5
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I don't think I've even seen Minmus out there; maybe I'm not zoomed out far enough.
