Incase anyone is interested, its currently 33% off on the steam store (weekend deal so it ends on Monday)
Bumping as I figured out how to change names of Kerbals. Who wants to be the volunteer for: a) Going into Kerbin orbit in a space station (I have no docking experience so expect getting sucked into a vacuum the moment I attempt to expand it) b) Going to the Mun for my first munbase (expect a kablam at landing) c) Going on a one-way mission to two closest planets and "establishing" a base on them (please not all of you) On a more serious note, did anyone figure out how to make a proper heavy-lifting spacecraft? I mean, sending a moonbase to the mun, for a start.
A-z-Kerman reporting for one a one way trip to the unknown! As for heavy lifting I have gone for pure stock parts since 0.21 so my go to lifter for mun/minmus comprises 6 mainsails under Orange tanks and using asparagus staging. I do favour sending multiple smaller payloads though. I'm currently trying to do the mars direct mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct - except there is no planetary mining/resources yet so I'm just going to use a cheat to get the return vehicle there with enough gas in it for the return
T +48 hours; "Kerbin we have a problem" "Go ahead commander" "It's BigTeef control, he's got a knife. He's locked me outside the airlock and he won't let me back in unless I sing baa-baa-black-sheep in girls voice"
You can start your gravity turn earlier and more progressive as you roll over, you only need to push your apoapsis up to about 125, then coast to it and burn prograde when you get there to circularise. Should save you a fair bit of delta v. If you stick a fuel line from the outer fuel tanks into the centeral one you can also burn the center engine and when the outer tanks are empty you can shed them and still have a full tank on the third stage, this way you will get more thrust and lose mass quicker during your ascent which should make a noticable improvement. might be worth experimenting with a slower ascent through the lower atmosphere, anything above 150m/s and you are spending alot of fuel pushing against the air.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbin Basically I stuck to that thing while ascending. Good point on the fuel ducts. Not sure why I ignored it earlier on.
Fixed up the lander a little and sent it out on attempt #4. Uploading. Spoiler: Lander design still needs an improvement EDIT: Attempt #4.
Don't get your hopes up, I tried to land a housing module next to the spacecraft and sometimes managed to fly it INTO it. Nice explosions. Be glad I could revert that.
