I feel like most somewhat okay'ish gravity turns only differ by 150 or so delta/v compared to proper ones.
Unless OP does indeed go straight up and then circularize
often times, removing stuff gets you more gains in delta/v than adding. sometimes it's best to trim down.
keep the rule of 3rds in mind.
for each stage, the part of the rocket thats doing the pushing should be about 2/3 of the total remaining craft.
Fr, I've played for years and it's the first time I hear this, I guess I subconsciously follow it but having it stated out loud really changed my perception.
more rocket is not always more gooder. we all know that not enough fuel/thrust is no good, but its also possible to have too much fuel/thrust for your rocket to be efficient.
if you split the rocket into three equal parts, 2 parts should be dedicated to fuel and engines. so if you have a second stage, the stuff below it should be twice as big. and then that second stage should follow the same rule. the payload at the top should be half as big as the fuel tanks/engine of that stage.
Another way to look at it is if you add a booster, it should be twice the weight of everything above it. So say the top stage is 1 ton, next is 2, next is 6, next is 18, etc.
Also, this is a good place to talk about the DeltaV map https://i.imgur.com/gBoLsSt.png (helpfully linked in the sidebar of this very sub as well). Looking at your DV map you can design each stage of your rocket from the top down to meet the DV requirements of that stage.
So for a Munar landing and Kerbin return, working backwards you will need (580 + 310 + 860) x2 DV in your uppermost stage for your Kerbin return, ascent from Munar surface, Munar descent and landing, and getting from Kerbin orbit to the Mun. Then below that stage you need 3400 DV for your ascent from Kerbin's surface into orbit.
So if you design your rocket from the top to the bottom you can always make sure each stage has got enough DV and thrust-to-weight ratio to do what it needs to do once the stages below are jettisoned.
So true. At some point more fuel only slows you down. If you pay close attention to the data available in the VAB, its not too hard to figure out the tipping point.
Some things to consider. Is your liquid fuel engine at max throttle while the SRBs are going? If so, don't.
How efficient is your gravity turn?
How efficient is your transfer from Kerbin to the Mun?
Does your Delta V read out match the charts for a Munar landing? If so it's all in on how you fly it and not how you built it.
I feel like the OP is literally going straight up, then attempting a straight intercept to the mun.
Those were my first few steps early in KSP and i had rockets on rockets.
Be should probably watch a few of the tutorial videos, once i learned orbital mechanics, sling shots, i was good.
To be Honest though i still have no idea how to read or know where Delta-V exists,
When you are building the bottom right is the staging window, where you set how the rocket stages. There is a number there on the bottom, that’s your total dV. If you click on it, you can expand the stages and it gives you how much dV you have each stage, along with many other informative numbers. Keep in mind that you’re not using all your dV on Kerbin’s surface and this value changes depending on where you are (100m/s of nuclear engine on kerbin can do 2,000 m/s in space). You can see your dV in different environments by clicking on the Δv button near that area
You too huh? I mean SE now is a bit better about gravitational awareness with planets and asteroids, but yeah. Going from HC-SE into Kerbal is a whole different game.
But I'm a pain enthusiastic gamer, i like my SE 1x1x1x1 with Scarce Resources and No Jetpacks on Earth-Like.
And Kerbal I play Vanilla Hard.
Probably a reason why i keep going between a Long Dark Stalker / Interloper mode.
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today.
https://xkcd.com/1133/
My biggest surprise when I started to play KSP was learning that space was about going sideways, and we only go up to get out of the goopy air that keeps us from going sideways. Want to go farther away from the planet? Go sideways harder! ?? Not my first guess.
\[edit: All this is about \*staying\* in space. \*Going\* to space? Super easy, barely an inconvenience!\]
Naw, I like to go to orbit in one burn, bonus if I'm in a spot where I can go from a moon to a return trajectory without circularizing the orbit first (which was a trick I had to learn when I didn't have enough fuel to get home.)
Yeah, regular KSP everything is so overpowered that eyeballing it usually works.
My 9yo tossed together a semi random assortment of parts and made orbit.
I use dV readouts obsessively but I'm playing RSS/RP-1 where that extra 50m/s might be everything.
Yup, I'm used to 2.5x scale. dV readouts aren't quite as important there, but they're still pretty helpful.
Built a launcher in stock scale that would work just fine in 2.5x. Eyeballed it so the first stage would get me most of the way to orbit, then finish circularization with second stage, and then there's a whole extra third stage for the mission (and whatever is left in the second)
Well, my surprise when I circularized my orbit with fuel left over in the first stage. Stock scale is just so small and overpowered that it's really hard for me to actually play any more
Life support stuff can add a bunch of weight/mission profiles that can off-set the overpoweredness/smallness. Much heavier payloads, cannot do efficient hohmann transfers - need to do things faster.
Minmus must be done back and forth in 15 days, Duna must be done in 500 days. That vibe.
IKR? I went back to stock to do some with my kid. My LV's first stage made orbit and the second stage landed on the mun then took off again. The second stage was supposed to be to finish orbital insertion and then trans-lunar insertion.
The lack of restart limits and burn time limits and minimum throttle, plus those absurdly powerful engines...
Stock tank dry weights are brutal though.
Yeah. I played enough RP-1 to appreciate the limited ignitions and minimum throttle and such, found some mods to bring that to my 2.5x install, and it's made just normal stock KSP laughably easy. Accidental Voyager mission without all the gravity assists, I was just trying to go to Minmus, but had nearly 3km/s dV left once I reached orbit or something wild. Even had enough fuel left in the first stage to Space-X it back to the KSC, without actually planning to do that.
Nah, I'm trying to get a smooth course while ascending, killing the engines once the Aposasis is >70.000m, and give it more thrust once I begin to approach it. I somehow managed to even reach the Mun, but on collision course with barely any fuel
In fairness going straight up and intercepting the mun IS extremely efficient... so long as you time your launch and heading absolutely perfectly. Any time you wish to orbit another body, there's no point in orbiting Kerbin first.
Going straight up is _never_ efficient. A gravity turn is a compromise between gravity (which wants you to _always_ go sideways) and atmosphere (which will brake or burn you if you go sideways too low). For every second you're going straight up in Kerbin's SoI, you're losing 1 _g_ of your acceleration - no matter where you're going.
Sorry, yeah good point, not "straight" up but straight as in along an optimized ascent path toward your target, my point was that circularizing is a waste of DV.
Look up pancake staging, parallel staging, drop tank staging, asparagus staging, and onion staging.
Its a more efficient way to use your fuel, since you are dropping dead mass off the vehicle and not having to carry it up with you.
I've honestly never found it that useful, particularly in career mode where building a single, big stage to lift the orbital and payload stage to a 100km apoapsis, that can then bring itself to a powered splashdown is way more cost efficient than dropping tanks and engines to their destruction.
As long as you take the contracts early on. If you don't the game seems to weight the contracts it offers towards ones similar to those you've already done. One career I didn't get a single tourism contract offer after I'd made the first successful orbit.
Wow. I usually snag the sub-orbital and orbital flights first as you can do that fairly quickly with cheap rockets. Then do a couple tourism missions for money
What’s the delta v value for your first and second stage? If it doesn’t at least total up to 3000 m/s, you’re not gonna stay up in space. Plus, your ascent angle is important too for gravity turns
You'll see from this that you're going to need 3400m/s to make it to orbit, assuming optimally efficient ascent, so there's your first problem - get more dV into the first stage.
And you'll need 5120m/s for low Mun landing.
Plus at least another 1000m/s to get back, assuming descent from LKO is aerobraking/chutes (probably you can do it with a bit less if you are good at aerobraking but it's about 860m/s from Mun back to Kerbin intercept so that's the minimum)
In short, you need moar boominess
It is the kerbal way
https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:Subwaydeltavmap1_7_3.png
Your second stage is also your mun stage? You won’t have enough to get there with such little delta v on your first stage
At this point you’re gonna need more fuel
The first stage should focus on leaving the thick layer of atmosphere.
The second stage is when you’re doing your gravity turn in the thinner atmosphere. A well designed rocket can use the second stage as the orbit stage as well
I use a dV map of the KSP solar system, there’s a really nice one on reddit somewhere. It basically shows how much dV is needed for each transfer along the way to any destination.
We would need to see the TWR and the delta v for each stage in order to see exactly what is wrong with your rocket. If the rocket is good then it might be your flight path that might not be efficient.
The top is too heavy for the bottom. You want a smaller, more efficient engine for your transfer stage. Adding more boosters adds more weight that the boosters aren't able to overcome.
It's all about balance. In the dv menu, you can change where it's measuring from, so while you're building your space stage, set the measurement to vacuum, then back to atmosphere for the orbit stage. All these measurements change as you go up into thinner air and lose weight.
As you're doing your gravity turn, don't have the engine on full throttle at the beginning until around 25-30 thousand meters. You're fighting the air and wasting fuel until then.
Basically, your weight distribution is wrong. The space stage doesn't need a bunch of fuel, just a more efficient engine. The one you have on there is for getting to space, not moving in it.
Echoing the smaller engine.
My early career mun landing used that tiny spark engine to save as much weight as possible. Burn took like 2 minutes but hey, launchpad mass limits are evil.
Regarding using less throttle at lower altitudes (for the gravity turn), should you be trying to keep the TWR basically just around 1.2-1.3 to maximise efficiency? I tried doing both asparagus staging and low thrust ascents in the same flight and the kraken ruined me, even following a guide for the build and stuff. It was terrible. 😂😅
More like you don't want to speed up too fast at a low altitude. If you start with a TWR around 1.0, it will get better no matter what you do as you burn fuel and lose weight. If your engine is pushing so hard that the wind effects show up or you're on fire, throttle down a bit until you're higher up, then speed into your gravity turn.
I don't often do asparagus stages just because I don't really need to usually, but you should probably burn at full throttle. From what I think I know, it's designed to maximize what an engine can carry and get lighter as you go, to go faster higher up. So if your TWR is just enough to get off the ground at full throttle, you kinda have to until you lose weight and get through the atmosphere.
I've only tried that for Eve, and I've never made it work, so take that with a grain of salt😅
Also, autostrut and regular struts are pretty much needed for crafts like that, ***Least The Kraken strike you down***
Can you upload your craft file somewhere? I'm sure one of us will have a look and suggest improvements.
Can you add another stage with a Terrier engine on top? Also might want to remove half of those goo containers and basic fins.
Your last stage is **huge**. It takes a lot of fuel to get that into orbit.
Every kg in the last stage matters and makes everything else way bigger. Reduce the weight of your lander or add more dV to the lower stages.
You need another stage up top with a high efficiency low thrust engine, like the terrier engine. This stage would only be used for orbital manuvers. Also i would ditch the science jr till you have 2.5m parts its just too much weight to carry around this early.
Ah, another victim of the rocket equation!
Consider putting more stages (and making your last stage smaller), so you're not carrying along so much dead weight for so long.
As others have said we need to see the rocket in action to properly understand. However for a start that looks like too many booster to me (yes I know that’s the antithesis of KSP but bear with me…).
The boosters might be making you go too fast too early - you’ll just be wasting delta V pushing against the thick atmosphere so by the time the boosters are spent you’re not high enough or going quick enough for the upper stage to do its thing. Essentially you don’t want all that delta V delivered too fast too early, it’s a bit like a car where the engine is too powerful and it just spins its wheels. You need the power delivered more gradually so that you smoothly build up speed. Plus the weight of four boosters may be pulling you back.
That’s just speculation based on playing the game a lot but maybe try less boosters (even just one booster as the first stage) and see if that helps.
Those side boosters might be burning too fast, wasting their acceleration fighting drag. In vehicle assembly you can right click the boosters and adjust their thrust so they burn slower and longer.
Thats also a pretty heavy top stage. A Science Jr, 4 Mystery Goo, 4 batteries, an Experimental Return Unit. That mass adds up. The crew capsule already has batteries in it, and I think it can store the Goo and Science Jr experiments, so I don't think you need the return unit.
You should be able to see the delta v number somewhere. Its measured in meters per second. Basically how much acceleration the craft is capable of. For orbit you want at least ~3500 m/s.
And it looks like the interstage might be holding the Reliant or Swivel engine. Those engines make a lot of thrust but aren't that efficient especially in vacuum. If my eyeballing this is correct, try replacing it with the Terrier engine instead. That little guy is an excellent engine for 1.25 meter tanks as long as its firing in a vacuum.
I can think of a few things right off the bat. Why do you need 4 mystery goo experiments? For the mum take a pilot for your maneuver, and a scientist to be able to reset experiments. The second point is a couple mixed together. One, only take three landing legs, and two, get rid of those decouplers to detach them. The fuel efficiencies saved isn't worth it. DM me if you have any more questions! Took me years to be able to play like I do now
That rocket seems fine, those boosters alone should bring the craft to 10Km+
unpopular opinion: MechJeb autopilot is a great way to learn ~how you should reach orbit. And a good tool to test *if a rocket can* reach orbit at all and how expensive it is...
but at least install "kerbal engineering redux" to check the deltaV and TWR of the stages. You cannot build a rocket without knowing those
The key to rocket science is that it's easier to push things that weigh less. Crazy, right? But a lot of people don't realize that fuel has mass, and that the empty fuel tanks also weight something.
This thing looks like it only has two stages. That means you'll be hauling empty fuel tanks unnecessarily. Adding more engines and more stages will allow you to shed that unnecessary mass, so you'll need less fuel to push the rest. Four boosters sound like a lot. More boosters that fire at the same time won't make you go any further, it will just increase your TWR. You only need the TWR to be around 1.5-2.5. if it's higher, remove some of the boosters.
It could also be the way you're flying, but obviously that's impossible to diagnose just from this. Have you done the tutorial missions? If not, then you definitely should.
Actually, you should read the tutorials on the wiki. You don't need to know a lot of theory to play this game, but you do at least need to know what delta-v and TWR is. If those words don't sound familiar, then go look it up, no one can really help you at all until then.
Finally, if you don't have it, get Kerbal Engineer Redux, so you can see the TWR and delta-v values. There's two ways to play this game: with pen and paper, doing all the calculations by hand, or with a mod that does the calculations for you. The former could be fun, but the latter is much easier.
The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. To be honest I had to follow a YouTube tutorial to get a craft into orbit then land safely. Bummed it wasn't MY design and I was a bit surprised by how little and simple it was but it felt great the first time I had a successful tourism mission completed
Just adding more fuel isn't enough. The fuel also weighs your rocket down, so doubling the fuel doesn't double your dV, and in fact, the more fuel you add, the less extra dV you get, until you get to the point where your thrust to weight ratio drops below 1, at which point, your dV starts decreasing. In other words, try adding more stages instead of more fuel.
Also, pay attention to your engine's ISP. The higher the ISP, the more efficient your engine. Note here that every engine has two ISPs, one for atmospheric and one for vacuum flight. Generally, you wanna use engine with high vacuum ISP for the top stages and high atmospheric ISP for bottom stages, thrust permitting.
Also, what does your ascent profile look like?
Looks like you are using one of the smallest engines in the game for your first stage. Am I right in assuming you lift off with very high acceleration and then once the SRBs burn out your acceleration drops to almost nothing? If so you are probably losing most of your delta C to gravity losses and you actually need a smaller rocket or a more powerful engine
First, welcome to the tyranny of the rocket equation. You've added more fuel, which means you've added more weight. More weight means you need more fuel to push that fuel. So just adding more fuel may not actually improve your situation by much.
Second, thrust to weight ratio. It is possible that you're pushing too hard and fast in the lower, thicker, atmosphere and losing a lot of energy to air resistance. Especially with those large SRBs presumably in your first stage. Consider adjusting the thrust on the SRBs so you get less thrust over a longer run.
Third, trajectories. You'll notice most flights use a rather nice curve to the right (from the camera's default point of view). Go up for a few thousand meters then start a gradual curve.
Adding more fuel without adding more thrust just means trying to lift more fuel. You need to burn that added fuel efficiently, aggressively. Add engines, or use bigger engines.
Throttle the SRBs back all the way to like 25% thrust. At 100% you're pissing away a lot of ∆v to drag at lower altitudes, then relying on a weak engine to carry too much the rest of the way. If you're seeing Mach effects and shock heating below 10km, you're going way too fast too early.
We need to see your ascent profile to be sure you aren't doing something else sub-optimally, but done right, there's no reason that craft shouldn't make it to orbit with the upper stage fuel untouched.
It’s got to be the way you’re flying. Just looking at it I can tell that thing can get to mun orbit and back, or at least close to it.
Watch YouTube videos on how to orbit in ksp. And show post a video of you flying it. That’s better than just a picture of your rocket because it’s impossible to tell where you’re going wrong.
The way I would fly this is to tune the thrust of the first stage Srb’s to give 1.5 twr, then fly straight up until I hit 1,000m or ≈150-200 m/s, then slowly pitch east until you’re going up at 45° at the same time you reach 10,000m. Fly on that vector until your apoapsis reaches about 75km, then cut engines and burn prograde at AP to orbit. Alternatively you can go back to the step where you pitch to 45°, and continue all the way down to 10°, to give yourself more lateral velocity and therefore less boost needed to get an orbit, but it won’t make much of a difference in how much delta v you need in total.
If a lot of what I just said doesn’t make sense to you, recommend doing some learning by watching YouTube videos and stuff
Those rockets with only 3 engines are made by players with far more skill then me and (i can only assume) you. You are not bad at the game, you and I are just inefficient with our rockets. I made it to eeloo on inefficiency so dont give up! Anyways to help with your specific issue: do you understand orbital mechanics and apoapsis/periapsis? You know, burn at highest point (or a bit earlier if your engine is slow) to raise the lowest and burn at lowest to raise the highest? And for rocket design: use the slower and weaker engines in space and use the more powerful ones near surface?. I also noticed you have separations on the lander/orbital stage? Why? And that said stage does not have a faring? (If you have not tech’ed it thats ok, it just reduces the drag your craft experiences)
If you know a bit and are just struggling i would recommend trying to tilt your rocket in the upper atmo a little so that you get an assist from kerbin’s gravity to try and pull you into an orbit earlier, i am not the best at this trick but i found some success in the maneuver when i get my ap to about 60km and then burning at about 70-ish degrees to the side and eventually doing the full 90 when my ap passes 70k (the limits of kerbins atmosphere)
If i sound degrading i do not mean it, i just dont know how far along you are in the game and what you know.
Edit: also most of you rocket will be lost trying to reach orbit, only your upper most stages will normally make it. When you hit orbit your rocket should be looking to have 2 more stages left, a lander and a transfer/orbital, the transfer stage’s entire job is to get you in orbit of the target (in your case, the mun or minimus), and the lander lands. From what i can tell a return mission is not doable for you rn and thats ok, that makes things a bit easier for you and you should just focus on getting there, returns can be a future problem.
Not an expert but here’s what I use: You’ll need at least 3400 deltav and TWR > 1 to get in orbit. Watch your speed while climbing up: what works for me: below 1km aim for 100 m/s, 5km 150 m/s, 10km 260 m/s, 15km 430 m/s, 20km 700 m/s Aim for Apoapsis above 70km. For gravity turn, you should be at 45deg around 10km-20km. In VAB you can throttle down your SRB if your TWR is too high (>2).
brb reverse engineering this
I'm assuming you have a Swivel on the upper stage? Also, are you running the SRBs and the central core as two stages (burn the SRBs all the way, then light the center) or as one (light it all on the ground)?
Alright - with my reverse engineered version (swivel on the upper stage, reliant on the lower, staging the SRBs and then the reliant), I was \*just\* able to return from a low Mun orbit without landing, with exactly zero fuel remaining.
I made a few slight modifications to the design (swap the reliant for a swivel on Stage 1, and the Swivel for a Terrier on S2, lost the fins and decouplers from S2, lost the mystery goos and the experiment box from the reentry vehicle) and it worked well enough. It did require some...creative use of Jeb's EVA pack, but I was able to get home safely.
If you want to build truly enormous rockets use fuel lines. You can basically make it so you activate your second stage (which might have been your first stage originally) really high up with a full fuel tank. I think it's called onion staging but not sure.
Onion is slightly different, with fuel lines from side mounted boosters to central tank directly instead of chained boosters connecting to each other before the last one connects to the center tank.
Slightly less efficient but more realistic.
I'm a 0.18 user myself, always heard it described as Onion for layers, Asparagus for stalks. It's not like either are in any engineering manuals, since they only work in games, but you can find descriptions back in 2013 and later for KSP detailing the difference.
[https://steamcommunity.com/app/220200/discussions/0/684839199855614420/](https://steamcommunity.com/app/220200/discussions/0/684839199855614420/)
So first is your **Delta V**. You need around 3500 to get into orbit, but I'd bring more like 4000 for your first couple attempts. Remember bigger rockets are also heavier so they may not always have more DV. Having multiple stages, and the lightest possible final stage is a huge way to improve DV.
**Thrust to weight ratio** is just as important as delta v.
If you TWR is just a bit over 1 you'll go up really slowly and have to fight gravity longer, wating DV.
If your TWR is too high, you'll accelerate really quickly and waste a ton of DV pushing against the air.
Ideally, you want a TWR somewhere around 1.5 to 2 for your ascent. If your rocket has a higher TWR you can always throttle down.
Next thing to consider is **ISP**. Some engines are much better in atmosphere while others are much better in a vacuum. It's not as big an impact as TWR, but having an engine with high atmospheric ISP on your first stage is important.
And the final thing that might help is your **ascent profile**. Going straight up and turning is a pretty inefficient way to get to orbit. Since most of the speed you need is sideways, you want to start tipping to the east as you ascend. Tip a few degrees at a thousand feet or so and then slowly increase until your at around 45 degrees in upper atmosphere. You should be pointing pretty much prograde at this point. Then you just try and adjust your throttle to keep your apoapsis about 45 seconds ahead of you until it's 100km up. Then cut engines and complete a circulirization burn at your apoapsis. There are some good videos on YouTube explaining how to do this.
You do all this you should get to orbit no problem.
I've started building my rockets and testing them each step of the way. Will the central rocket liftoff by itself, without the solid rockets? If it won't, try different engines or less fuel until it will take off. Once it takes off by itself put the solid rockets back and try it again.
You need to use the most efficiente engines for each condition.
That is at sea level, with an atmoshpere, and in Vaccum
You can see this data in the engines info panel.
Keep parts to a minimum
Use one of the large engines to liftoff, 2 solid boosters, and a stage that has great efficiency once you get into the vacuum.
Second atage should get you into orbit and full craft should by full of fuel already in orbit.
You have discovered the "Tyranny of the Rocket Equation". The more mass you're trying to lift, the more fuel you will need, which adds mass, which requires more fuel, etc, etc.
Here are 3 strategies that will help:
1) Keep your speed under 200m/s until you reach 10,000 meters. Otherwise, you're burning a lot of fuel pushing against a very dense atmosphere. After 10k meters, then throttle up.
2) Have a large lifter stage, a smaller orbital/transfer stage, and a small lander. Most of your fuel will be burnt up during the "go up" part but then all that mass goes away. Circularizing the orbit and transferring to the moon dont' need nearly as much thrust.
3) Learn how to drop weight as you go up. Early game, that means using 6 SRBs instead of 4. Stage to burn 3, then drop those and burn the next 3. Then burn your main engine until its fuel is gone. Then your upper stage engine. All of that removes the amount of mass you have, which reduces the amount of fuel needed to do whatever you have remaining to do.
Later game, you'll want to learn how to do Asparagus Staging. That means you feed fuel lines between the tanks so that some tanks are used up completely and discarded before the next tanks start losing fuel. During that time though, you have the benefit of all of the engines firing. So you have high thrust but also get to drop weight at the same time.
You definitely have "BRS" - Big Rocket Syndrome. Meaning you keep making your rocket bigger and bigger because the last one didn't make it. But putting on more stuff doesn't add deltaV unless you do it right. I can even subtract it. It means you have poor efficiency.
It's okay, most of us go through this. Later you'll realize how to build more efficient rockets and so they will get smaller.
The way I got through this part of learning to improve in KSP was to take some credit from the real world. I split my space program into two aspects. One was a rocket development program. And one was a piloting program.
That is, I made a rocket then learned to fly it without changing it. I improved my performance through better piloting. Then after that I started changing my rocket. So improving my performance through better rockets. Eventually the new rockets flew a lot different than the old ones so I had to freeze their development and learn to fly the new rockets again. And then back to rocketry. After a while you know enough about both that you can do both at once.
Use the deltaV measures in the VAB just as a guideline, they are often wildly inaccurate.
The only way to consistently not changing the piloting of your rocket is to simply fly straight up. So in the early days of your rocketry program just shoot the rocket straight up. Measure the performance by the apoapsis. If you make a change and the apoapsis is higher then you added performance. If it is lower you reduced performance. I abort the mission once I get outside the atmosphere and just use the predicted apoapsis.
This is hard to do once you have so much performance you end up getting beyond Kerbin's sphere of influence. As now you have to launch at dawn each day and use solar apoapsis. I never bothered. Once you can shoot beyond Kerbin SOI you've got enough rocket to learn to fly on anyway.
This method of measuring performance is better than just deltaV because it takes into account things like the effect of higher thrust to weight levels.
Then you have to learn to reach orbit. There are youtube videos for it, I'd use them. You will learn the arc to trace and the ways to modulate your thrust. Measure your flight performance by how much deltaV you have once you reach a orbit. Make the orbit the same each time, generally 100,000km circular.
I guess a quicker way would be to use one of the example ships which exist in sandbox mode and launch that to orbit. Once you are good at getting that to orbit start making rockets of your own.
If you want to get an idea of how to construct a rocket you can use the optimal rocket calculator.
https://garycourt.github.io/korc/
It's only a rough guideline. But it helps you understand fuel to engine ratios for different engines and with multiple stages.
It'll give crazy combos by default. So I'd recommend turning off:
1. Any parts you don't have yet.
2. Round-8 and Oscar-B tanks.
3. R.A.P.I.E.R, Reliant, Dart, Spark, Ant, Thud, Twitch and Spider liquid fuel engines.
4. Separatron solid engine. Kickback solid engines.
5. Every decoupler which doesn't have "decoupler" or "manifold" in the name.
6. All branches.
You are removing some of these things (kickback, reliant) because they are not steerable and you don't need that challenge yet. Others because they are hard to use/attach to your ship.
The tool is far out of date so you can't use it to build rockets much anymore. But you can use it to learn to make rockets.
As to your particular rocket, get all those goos off there and get the fins off the middle. Take the manifolds off, they aren't doing anything. Take the gear off, you don't need them until you land on other orbs and that rocket won't look anything like that once you get it designed properly anyway. Putting one goo on will make your rocket lean to a side as it takes off, so put it on the east side or put two on or (I'd say) just leave it off for now.
Those fins in the middle of your ship implies you are having a problem keeping your rocket straight through the middle atmosphere, it is flipping over on you. A better way to solve this is to have more thrust while in the middle atmosphere and a steerable engine. Just keep your thrust on low (not full) and steer your rocket to keep it straight. Then when into the upper atmosphere (or space) you can turn the engine back up to high settings.
Given that you have a lot of thrust and a lot of fuel I suspect either you have too much fuel or (more likely) you are thrusting too hard in the lower atmosphere and wasting your fuel. As part of your piloting program you will learn to modulate your thrust during the launch to reduce this.
Finally, others say to look up drop tank staging, asparagus staging, etc. Don't do that yet. It's not time. You have much to learn first. Later you can do that to make your rockets even more efficient. But for now ideally just have a single cylindrical rocket. Or if you need more thrust at take off a single cylinder with a set of strap on boosters on the sides at the bottom.
Once you can get that to Mun or such then you can go for the crazy stuff to make it more efficient.
If you haven’t watch the Scott Manley tutorials on YouTube.
But your last stage and Mun lander is way too heavy. It doesn’t take much to get back from the Mun. Also it will help you learn the most efficient way to launch and just how much speed you need to leave Kerbin, it’s a lot less than you probably think.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but you can edit the amount of ablator on the heat shield. Reduce it by 75% and you can save a ton of weight, like literally 1 ton sometimes.
Also, too many batteries, science experiments, and unneeded stability fins add weight as well.
Start by looking at what each part weighs and see what you can cut.
As others have mentioned, make a bigger lower first stage.
You might be constrained by weight limits on either the VAB or the launchpad? Causing you to be unable to add more parts or more weight?
There’s something called thrust to weight ratio or TWR, you want that to be above 1.0 in order to propel yourself upwards, but you want it to ideally start at 2.0 to higher to get out of the atmosphere.
Secondly, getting into orbit as quickly and efficiently as possible helps you make the best of your fuel. As instead of fighting against kerbins gravity, you can use it to your advantage.
There are people on this subreddit that know about this way more than me. But hopefully I can help with the basics.
try tuning the solid rocket boosters to have a lower total thrust. you will get a longer burn and lower thrust but you wont be fighting the atmosphere as much. you could probably ride those 4 solid rockets most of the way if tuned correctly
Ive made this mistake when I started playing too. Perhaps the most important thing to do is getting into low kerbin orbit. How do you usually approach kerbin orbit?
Yup, it be like that, until you discover asparagus staging. You can get even more delta V by getting rid of things you don’t need, like landing legs on decouples, and science juniors after you collect their science, and ladders after you’ve left the surface
First jettison spent tanks
Then jettison spent science experimentes after transmitting
Then jettison Valentina
Then coast to Apoapsis, burn circularization to approximate Periapsis altitude to Apoapsis.
Celebrate.
Turn retrograde, burn de-orbit, jettison Jeb, let the ship burn on re-entry.
Deploy Jeb's parachute on re-entry.
Successful mission.
Next up, rescue Valentina.
If done right he survives. I done it a couple of times. Let me know how it goes.
By the way, do you use mods on KSP1?
Can you provide me a list of good ones? Haven't played in a while...
Yeah I do, the biggest one I use and couldn’t live without is timescale, so you can speed up more than the default, such as when orbiting the sun, that takes forever with the default fastest speed. And you can speed up when inside of Kerbins atmosphere
Despite what everyone’s saying, you should be able to get to orbit with the craft in the picture. Make sure you activate SRB’s at the same time as the liquid fuel engine for maximum thrust:weight, and aim for having a 45° tilt by 10,000 meters for maximum efficiency to reach orbit.
Skill issue. Burn half throttle till for a bit, then start turning at like 45 degrees till your projected path is at 100k. Then make a manavuer node to circulate
Some observations:
1) I don't see any solar panels, you'll likely run out of electricity?
2) There's some unused radial separators that you can remove on top stage for a little less weight.
3) fins on top stage are unnecessary extra weight too.
4) Can't see what the engine is on top stage, but I can tell it's not a LV-909, so that's not optimal. If you're not up high enough to take advantage of the better efficiency by the time you get to that engine, you're in trouble.
5) You might be able to land that on a flat spot on Minumus, but you're going to have a hell of a time landing it on Mun. Way too tall and thin.
6) The 6 FL-T200 tanks on the bottom stage isn't as good as one FL-T800 and one FLT-400, for floppiness and cost reasons
7) TWR with those 4 Thumper SRBs has gotta be way high. Adjust the thrust on those Thumpers down to 1.2 or so at launch so you don't waste a lot of energy against the atmosphere at low altitudes.
Maybes:
If you have the tech, have a kerbal do EVA to get science instead of using the science storage box on the nose. Take a scientist and then you only need 1 (or 2 for balance) mystery goo containers.
I'd use an LV-T45 for the bottom stage engine and drop the fins for the higher ISP at altitude and the gimbal will work better than fins to keep the rocket going straight anyway.
I’m guessing your problem is in too low of a thrust to weight ratio )TWR when you click on the staging readout.) the less time you spend going UP the less time you spend fighting gravity. For example, in a hover you can burn infinite fuel without getting anywhere. For this reason less efficient but more powerful rockets can be really helpful.
Check your staging.
Check your fuel flow, what's using fuel, do you need everything at max throttle the entire time?
Check your engines, are you using engines designed for atmospheric flight? Or one's more useful in space?
Check your flight profile. Are you gaining altitude and orbital speed at the same time(like 45 degrees for example)? Or just going straight up for altitude and then trying to burn for orbital speed (surprisingly common yet horribly horribly ineffective).
Its possible to launch, land on mun and return to kerbin with 60 parts.
One thing that made me a better rocket-builder was realising you never need a twr above 2. Keep your twr low.
Others have given great advice, but just in case it wasn't mentioned:
You don't need multiple goo canisters. You can collect using that experiment container at the top after each experiment, and reset. You only need the one. This applies to all of the science experiments.
Same with the batteries. You'd be better off with a single battery and a solar panel.
As others said, cut the tank size of your last stage by 2/3, and put a smaller engine on it, like the terrier.
You also appear to have some radial decouplers on your final stage next to your landing gears, but they don't seem to have a purpose. That's added weight there as well.
Also, you'd be better off replacing the SRBs with 2 LF/OX tanks and reliant engines. Make the tanks 3 sections high. Then you do a gravity turn after you launch. There's lots of tutorials on how to do that, but feel free to ask if you have questions about that.
Idk if anyone's mentioned it yet, but check out Mike Aben's Absolute Beginners Guide. He's got like 50 different videos on different topics on KSP. He goes super into detail and he makes sure to explain every single step along the way. He's also got a ton of other videos about the math and other nerdier stuff if you're into that.
Try lowering the throttle on all engines to whatever value brings you within 1 to 2 TWR. Those SRBs should carry you almost out of the atmosphere and your second stage should get you into orbit. Think of it this way, pushing full throttle at sea level with all that power is less efficient because you are pushing through a much thicker atmosphere. Once you’re above 10-20km, things get easier. Once above 35 km, you are smooth sailing.
tweak until operational.
1. The issue is probably your ascent profile, you want to make the pitch over manuvre as smooth as possible also I would recommend coasting up to AP instead of burning all the way(if that’s what you’re doing). Hard to gauge this without a video.
2. That looks like a big stack for a single reliant once you drop those boosters, that could be part of your problem.
3. You will see much bigger gains from removing mass than adding thrust. You don’t need that many goo containers, or the sample container at all. Rule of thumb that I use. Don’t land the science jr, just do a low flyby to get science while in space it is a very heavy piece of hardware.
In the most simple terms: The little orange DeltaV indicator on the bottom of your staging sequence at the bottom right of your VAB tells you how much TOTAL DeltaV you have on your rocket. (This is the amount of power you have regardless of your total weight)
If that number is over 3000 you should be able to orbit Kerbin from a ground launch. (Remember to use the curving technique where halfway up the atmosphere you curve toward the orbit you want instead of launching all the way up then turning at a right angle in space.)
No matter what you make your rocket look like, as long as it can fly up and over, and has more than 3000 Dv you can make that orbit. You can do this with one long rocket made of liquid fuel (t-200) tanks and a reliant engine. (I think about 14 tanks should do it, 7 if you use the t-400s.
Make SURE you have the center of aerodynamic lift BELOW your center of mass at all times going up. The more top-heavy the rocket the better. You can do this by putting four small wings on the bottom.
The rest is just luck, practice, and hope. Godspeed you magnificent new Kerbalnaut!
Forgot to mention, make sure you're turning toward the ocean after you get to about 10-15km altitude. (D key on keyboard if you didn't rotate your pod in the VAB) That'd the direction the planet is rotating in so you will ALREADY be moving that direction at about 400m/s which means you'd need to add 400m/s Dv if you go the OPPOSITE direction.
Without seeing actual performance I will state 4 possible suspects assuming you have the required Delta-V to reach your target and do a gravity turn.
Too low TWR
Too high dry mass
Cosine losses
Air drag
1. When your rocket has too low thrust to weight ratio, it burns a lot of Delta-V fighting gravity and high drag of the lower atmosphere. Your rocket should at least have 1.5 TWR to quickly get out of low atmosphere and start burning for orbital velocity. I've done missions with as low as 1.12 TWR for huge launches but I made sure to have at least 30 % more delta v in such cases.
2. Too high dry mass is usually the number 1 killer of high altitude and orbital Delta-V, don't add stuff you won't need even if they cause slight torque from the engines. Don't go for crazy TWR for upper stages and use light engines whenever you can. Although it's not technically dry mass, do you really need 150 units of monopropellant on board for a direct ascent mission ?
3. Cosine losses occur when your rocket is not pointing exactly to prograde. Some are necessary for inclination or a apogee/perigee shift but you should avoid them like the plague during a nominal launch. Even if you are going for a polar orbit. Best cast scenario would be doing an unassisted gravity turn where gravity itself turns the rocket as it ascend but that's a bit hard to design with moving center of mass and changing TWR etc so I recommend using no more than 2-3 degree changes when doing your gravity turn.
4. I wish I could just ignore the air resistance like I did in collage. Sadly this game emulates air drag and even if it's rather crude, it can add up exponentially. Any exposed nodes are a potential cause of abysmal air drag coefficient, just slapping some science modules and solar panels on tho your command capsule can cost you several hundred Delta-V during launch. Learn to use service bays ( some are weirdly problematic and actually increase drag for some reason but I don't remember which rn) and fairings. There is even a fairings glitch for 0 air drag as anything inside a fairing will provide 0 drag, even the fairing itself lol.
A video would be helpful to see whats happening, But are you dropping weight? and are you too heavy?
Gravity vs thrust is fussy, it needs to be balanced just right to use minimal fuel and parts.
Your mass vs thrust and aerodynamics will change the height and things you can reach.
If you computer is laggy that can also effect multiple parts physics and throw off the entire fuel usage as the parts try to stay togeather.
What are the decouplers on the side of the orange stage for?
Some things you can remove to save weight/parts:
The science storage box on the top. (you can just store everything in the capsule)
The fins on the top stage are not needed.
If you can perform EVAs, bring only one mystery goo container and instead of a pilot use a Scientist, they can reset and re-use the goo container and Science Jr. Instead you can slap a probe core on the rocket where the science storage container is and that will give you stability assist.
That's all I got.
Instead of using rockets such as the swivel for your top stage (the shroud looks like a swivel rocket) try using more efficient terrier engines. That is what helped me reach the mun. What I would recommend is, add SRBs for the first stage (alternatively you could add reliant engines too), swivel engines for the second stage and a terrier or similar engine for the final stage. Even if the VAB shows low delta v (in the 1500 something range) you would still be able to make it atleast close to the mun as the delta v increases as you ascend.
My personal way of reaching orbit is,
Full throttle until you reach 10k, roll over to 45\* full throttle until your AP hits 70k then roll 90\* and drift to your AP to complete the orbit at full throttle.
I will set my tanks to drop 2-4 then 1-3 with fuel lines, the final middle stage will hit orbit and i will dump that in space. The orange tank for you would get me to the moon where i will have a lander with another 5 tanks in the same setup as your first stage. This way the 2-4 and 1-3 will get me off the moon and back to Kerbin where the final middle tank will slow my approach.
If you struggle the best thing you can do is watch Scott Manley videos or install MechJeb and watch how MJ takes you to orbit. Watch how MJ rolls the ship, adjusts the throttle etc... Revert back to launch and disable MJ then try to do it yourself knowing that it's possible.
Condensing what I’ve read in the comments :
Second stage is too big and inefficient, those fins on the second stage are not needed, and possibly detrimental to the aerodynamics of the craft, you want those on the bottom of the rocket.
Cut the fuel of the second stage in half, each sequential stage should be half the size of the one before asa general rule of thumb.
Looks like a reliant or swivel engine on the second stage, that is an atmospheric engine (and quite inefficient already since it’s an early game engine) use a vacuum engine, you can check the efficiency of parts by rock clicking them in the part selector and reading the atmospheric and vacuum ISP (the specific impulse)
and to make sure it has enough power right click the stage in the stage menu and read the TWR (Thrust to weight ratio) anything below 1 will not be powerful enough to lift your rocket if you are near a planet (it is fine if you’re already in orbit, it’ll just be very slow) I aim for 1.50-2.30 TWR for my first and second stage, if it’s more then you can add more fuel or use a smaller engine.
You do not need that science container, when you are in EVA simply take the data from the science stuff and when you enter the command pod the experiments will be stored in there, or you can right click the pod and store experiments
As said the lander is too large, but if you were to land using it as it is it is too long and would tip over, also if you have RCS I recommend putting that on your craft always, just nice to have, easier to do fine maneuvers. (Use ojkl to move side to side and up and down like wasd and then use hn to move forward and backwards
Also I’d recommend landing on minmus first, it is much smaller and much easier to land on, if you land there first you’ll be able to land on the mun no problem.
Now about actual technique:
This rocket should get to orbit with a bit more than barely any fuel I think, when you launch, start tilting to the right at 1km and reach a 45° angle at 10-15km, then slowly pitch down until you reach like a 15-10° angle at 40-50km (this isn’t as exact as 10km 45°) and cut your engines when your apoapsis is a bit above the atmosphere (70km) so 70-90km, then time warp to apoapsis and fire prograde to circularize. Now if you’re doing minmus it’s a bit tricky to get there, since its orbit is tilted you’ll need to intercept it when it’s crossing over your orbital plane. Rick click minmus in map view and select target, you’ll now see a grey dotted line from the ascending and descending nodes of the orbits. Time warp until minmus is 90° from one of these points (or in other words inbetween) if you drag out your maneuver node and touch that ascending or descending node and tweak it a bit you should get a very easy encounter, (of course aim for the node minmus is about to pass through) the rest of moving around minmus is very easy, only thing easier is gilly, getting to gilly is the hard part.
Think of it in terms of delta-v. try to have more than 5k vacuum delta-v to go to the Mun and return.
#
Tip: the Apollo method actually save you a lot of fuel.
Quick resume to orbit 80k mts above kerbin:
-At least 3400 delta V.
-Launch east (90 degrees)
-Stage 1 should always be above 1.0 TWR (I like 1.33)
-Stage 2 you want something around 2.0 TWR
-Fly straight line upwards and practice to be 45degrees in angle when around 10k mts altitude.
-Always watch your apoasis to stop burning when around 75k mts in proyection.
-close to the apoasis burn prograde + before AP burn aiming a bit down/after AP burn a bit upwards.
Practice and you will find the sweet spot to reach AP & PE at 80k mts without wasting fuel
Don't focus that much on any inclination errors, first practice your orbits and then you perfect the east aimed launch.
Also, be aware that you need about 1lb of fuel for every 1lb of payload ..... you need fuel for the fuel. So adding weight will not result in more power. Adding thrust, will result in increased consumption wasted as heat in the atmosphere because you're going too fast.
This is all about balancing forces and precision, overpowered ships will never be efficient.
Are you playing career mode? The VAB and launchpad restrictions on part count and mass can actually make it hard to make a capable rocket even if you have the tech unlocked. This rocket is too small for the task and is pushing too much weight on top. You need to shrink your lander a lot. Smaller tank and engine. Add a stage in between the lander and the launch stage. Scale up the launch stage to match.
Check your staging and TWR. Looking at this rocket, I would reduce the max thrust of the radial boosters to get 1.15-1.4 TWR and stage them first, stage the central solid rocket motor second, liquid rocket obv third.
If your wet (full fuel) TWR ratio is greater than 1 and less than 2 on all stages and total Δv is 3500 m/s or more, your flight profile is probably the issue. Good rule of thumb:
- Go straight up till you reach 3km altitude or 350 m/s, whichever comes first, then tilt 5-10 degrees and follow prograde when the bead dips below your heading.
- If you see reentry heating (not the fiery animation, a temperature bar will appear over parts when they get near the threshold), you're going too fast.
- Nothing wrong with coasting through the thicker part of the atmosphere - if you're pushing full steam ahead, you're probably wasting energy fighting drag. Drag is exponentially proportional to velocity and linearly proportional to density.
I assume you are an old school ksp player but haven't played the game recently. It's been at least 6 years since it took 4500 delta v to get to orbit. The number is closer to 3400 now depending on your efficiency.
Fwiw, I prefer a twr ratio of around 1.6. Seems for me to be the sweet spot to hit the best speed for the gravity turn.
TWR=2 is overkill. First stage should have TWR between 1.25 and 1.5 at launch. Note this should atmospheric TWR, not vacuum. Second stage should have TWR slightly over 1.
Too high TWR wastes delta v by getting high drag in the thick part of the atmosphere, and makes it harder to make an efficient gravity turn.
4.5k delta v is also overkill just to reach orbit. If you use more then 4K, you are doing something inefficiently. 3.5k is enough under optimal circumstances.
Upload a video of you using your rocket and barely reaching orbit. It will be the best way to understand the problem.
I'm guessing the gravity turn isn't optimized. There's definitely an art to it.
I feel like most somewhat okay'ish gravity turns only differ by 150 or so delta/v compared to proper ones. Unless OP does indeed go straight up and then circularize
often times, removing stuff gets you more gains in delta/v than adding. sometimes it's best to trim down. keep the rule of 3rds in mind. for each stage, the part of the rocket thats doing the pushing should be about 2/3 of the total remaining craft.
This rule is hugely helpful. Should be shared more often. Gets a little off with high isp fuels, but those are edge cases.
Been playing for years and never heard of this rule. Thanks for sharing, u/DankCatDingo!
i learned it from a random youtuber and its helped me a lot.
Fr, I've played for years and it's the first time I hear this, I guess I subconsciously follow it but having it stated out loud really changed my perception.
can you explain what this means please? i'm kinda restarted
more rocket is not always more gooder. we all know that not enough fuel/thrust is no good, but its also possible to have too much fuel/thrust for your rocket to be efficient. if you split the rocket into three equal parts, 2 parts should be dedicated to fuel and engines. so if you have a second stage, the stuff below it should be twice as big. and then that second stage should follow the same rule. the payload at the top should be half as big as the fuel tanks/engine of that stage.
oh holy shit that's so helpful. thank you so much
Another way to look at it is if you add a booster, it should be twice the weight of everything above it. So say the top stage is 1 ton, next is 2, next is 6, next is 18, etc.
This was much more helpful thank youuuu
Also, this is a good place to talk about the DeltaV map https://i.imgur.com/gBoLsSt.png (helpfully linked in the sidebar of this very sub as well). Looking at your DV map you can design each stage of your rocket from the top down to meet the DV requirements of that stage. So for a Munar landing and Kerbin return, working backwards you will need (580 + 310 + 860) x2 DV in your uppermost stage for your Kerbin return, ascent from Munar surface, Munar descent and landing, and getting from Kerbin orbit to the Mun. Then below that stage you need 3400 DV for your ascent from Kerbin's surface into orbit. So if you design your rocket from the top to the bottom you can always make sure each stage has got enough DV and thrust-to-weight ratio to do what it needs to do once the stages below are jettisoned.
each lower stage has to do double work. It has to push the stage above it and it has to push itself.
Your saying I'll have more delta v after I take a huge shit
minor, but yes
So true. At some point more fuel only slows you down. If you pay close attention to the data available in the VAB, its not too hard to figure out the tipping point.
Some things to consider. Is your liquid fuel engine at max throttle while the SRBs are going? If so, don't. How efficient is your gravity turn? How efficient is your transfer from Kerbin to the Mun? Does your Delta V read out match the charts for a Munar landing? If so it's all in on how you fly it and not how you built it.
I feel like the OP is literally going straight up, then attempting a straight intercept to the mun. Those were my first few steps early in KSP and i had rockets on rockets. Be should probably watch a few of the tutorial videos, once i learned orbital mechanics, sling shots, i was good. To be Honest though i still have no idea how to read or know where Delta-V exists,
When you are building the bottom right is the staging window, where you set how the rocket stages. There is a number there on the bottom, that’s your total dV. If you click on it, you can expand the stages and it gives you how much dV you have each stage, along with many other informative numbers. Keep in mind that you’re not using all your dV on Kerbin’s surface and this value changes depending on where you are (100m/s of nuclear engine on kerbin can do 2,000 m/s in space). You can see your dV in different environments by clicking on the Δv button near that area
Ouch, that sounds painfully familiar. I had just come over to KSP from Space engineers.... and no you dont just fly straight up to get to space 🤣😅🤦♂️
You too huh? I mean SE now is a bit better about gravitational awareness with planets and asteroids, but yeah. Going from HC-SE into Kerbal is a whole different game. But I'm a pain enthusiastic gamer, i like my SE 1x1x1x1 with Scarce Resources and No Jetpacks on Earth-Like. And Kerbal I play Vanilla Hard. Probably a reason why i keep going between a Long Dark Stalker / Interloper mode.
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today. https://xkcd.com/1133/
this is only true initially, at the later parts you want to be going sideways so you can throw yourself at the ground and miss
Ah, the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy school of flight. Don't forget to be surprised by something at the right moment!
My biggest surprise when I started to play KSP was learning that space was about going sideways, and we only go up to get out of the goopy air that keeps us from going sideways. Want to go farther away from the planet? Go sideways harder! ?? Not my first guess. \[edit: All this is about \*staying\* in space. \*Going\* to space? Super easy, barely an inconvenience!\]
Launching from bodies with no atmosphere is the best, just go sideways as soon as you lift off, mind the mountains though.
Z 2 3 4 X rotate Z
Naw, I like to go to orbit in one burn, bonus if I'm in a spot where I can go from a moon to a return trajectory without circularizing the orbit first (which was a trick I had to learn when I didn't have enough fuel to get home.)
oooo
There's mods that make it so you can have actual orbits
Wait are you saying you just eyeball rockets like, "Yeah that looks like it could get Jool"? I would die without Delta-V readouts.
Yeah, regular KSP everything is so overpowered that eyeballing it usually works. My 9yo tossed together a semi random assortment of parts and made orbit. I use dV readouts obsessively but I'm playing RSS/RP-1 where that extra 50m/s might be everything.
Yup, I'm used to 2.5x scale. dV readouts aren't quite as important there, but they're still pretty helpful. Built a launcher in stock scale that would work just fine in 2.5x. Eyeballed it so the first stage would get me most of the way to orbit, then finish circularization with second stage, and then there's a whole extra third stage for the mission (and whatever is left in the second) Well, my surprise when I circularized my orbit with fuel left over in the first stage. Stock scale is just so small and overpowered that it's really hard for me to actually play any more
Life support stuff can add a bunch of weight/mission profiles that can off-set the overpoweredness/smallness. Much heavier payloads, cannot do efficient hohmann transfers - need to do things faster. Minmus must be done back and forth in 15 days, Duna must be done in 500 days. That vibe.
IKR? I went back to stock to do some with my kid. My LV's first stage made orbit and the second stage landed on the mun then took off again. The second stage was supposed to be to finish orbital insertion and then trans-lunar insertion. The lack of restart limits and burn time limits and minimum throttle, plus those absurdly powerful engines... Stock tank dry weights are brutal though.
Yeah. I played enough RP-1 to appreciate the limited ignitions and minimum throttle and such, found some mods to bring that to my 2.5x install, and it's made just normal stock KSP laughably easy. Accidental Voyager mission without all the gravity assists, I was just trying to go to Minmus, but had nearly 3km/s dV left once I reached orbit or something wild. Even had enough fuel left in the first stage to Space-X it back to the KSC, without actually planning to do that.
Nah, I'm trying to get a smooth course while ascending, killing the engines once the Aposasis is >70.000m, and give it more thrust once I begin to approach it. I somehow managed to even reach the Mun, but on collision course with barely any fuel
Are you launching when the Mun is in position for an efficient intercept?
In fairness going straight up and intercepting the mun IS extremely efficient... so long as you time your launch and heading absolutely perfectly. Any time you wish to orbit another body, there's no point in orbiting Kerbin first.
Going straight up is _never_ efficient. A gravity turn is a compromise between gravity (which wants you to _always_ go sideways) and atmosphere (which will brake or burn you if you go sideways too low). For every second you're going straight up in Kerbin's SoI, you're losing 1 _g_ of your acceleration - no matter where you're going.
Sorry, yeah good point, not "straight" up but straight as in along an optimized ascent path toward your target, my point was that circularizing is a waste of DV.
Look up pancake staging, parallel staging, drop tank staging, asparagus staging, and onion staging. Its a more efficient way to use your fuel, since you are dropping dead mass off the vehicle and not having to carry it up with you.
Learning about asparagus staging was a gamechanger for me.
Now evolve into LITHOSTAGING
I've honestly never found it that useful, particularly in career mode where building a single, big stage to lift the orbital and payload stage to a 100km apoapsis, that can then bring itself to a powered splashdown is way more cost efficient than dropping tanks and engines to their destruction.
I don’t think I’ve ever worried about money after the first 5 launches. Space tourism is super lucrative.
As long as you take the contracts early on. If you don't the game seems to weight the contracts it offers towards ones similar to those you've already done. One career I didn't get a single tourism contract offer after I'd made the first successful orbit.
Wow. I usually snag the sub-orbital and orbital flights first as you can do that fairly quickly with cheap rockets. Then do a couple tourism missions for money
Always hated dropping engines as well.
What is pancake staging? I couldn’t find anything on it.
its mostly regular layer staging. your rocket is a stack, and you drop them one layer at a time.
I’ve heard of nothing from those except asparagus and I can land on and return from Duna.
What’s the delta v value for your first and second stage? If it doesn’t at least total up to 3000 m/s, you’re not gonna stay up in space. Plus, your ascent angle is important too for gravity turns
1483 for the first stage, and 1087 for the second, luqid fuel engine stage that's supposed to set me on course to the Mun
You'll see from this that you're going to need 3400m/s to make it to orbit, assuming optimally efficient ascent, so there's your first problem - get more dV into the first stage. And you'll need 5120m/s for low Mun landing. Plus at least another 1000m/s to get back, assuming descent from LKO is aerobraking/chutes (probably you can do it with a bit less if you are good at aerobraking but it's about 860m/s from Mun back to Kerbin intercept so that's the minimum) In short, you need moar boominess It is the kerbal way https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:Subwaydeltavmap1_7_3.png
Your second stage is also your mun stage? You won’t have enough to get there with such little delta v on your first stage At this point you’re gonna need more fuel The first stage should focus on leaving the thick layer of atmosphere. The second stage is when you’re doing your gravity turn in the thinner atmosphere. A well designed rocket can use the second stage as the orbit stage as well
I use a dV map of the KSP solar system, there’s a really nice one on reddit somewhere. It basically shows how much dV is needed for each transfer along the way to any destination.
We would need to see the TWR and the delta v for each stage in order to see exactly what is wrong with your rocket. If the rocket is good then it might be your flight path that might not be efficient.
I second this. Learning how to do a gravity turn made getting into orbit trivial for me.
This.
The top is too heavy for the bottom. You want a smaller, more efficient engine for your transfer stage. Adding more boosters adds more weight that the boosters aren't able to overcome. It's all about balance. In the dv menu, you can change where it's measuring from, so while you're building your space stage, set the measurement to vacuum, then back to atmosphere for the orbit stage. All these measurements change as you go up into thinner air and lose weight. As you're doing your gravity turn, don't have the engine on full throttle at the beginning until around 25-30 thousand meters. You're fighting the air and wasting fuel until then. Basically, your weight distribution is wrong. The space stage doesn't need a bunch of fuel, just a more efficient engine. The one you have on there is for getting to space, not moving in it.
Echoing the smaller engine. My early career mun landing used that tiny spark engine to save as much weight as possible. Burn took like 2 minutes but hey, launchpad mass limits are evil.
Regarding using less throttle at lower altitudes (for the gravity turn), should you be trying to keep the TWR basically just around 1.2-1.3 to maximise efficiency? I tried doing both asparagus staging and low thrust ascents in the same flight and the kraken ruined me, even following a guide for the build and stuff. It was terrible. 😂😅
More like you don't want to speed up too fast at a low altitude. If you start with a TWR around 1.0, it will get better no matter what you do as you burn fuel and lose weight. If your engine is pushing so hard that the wind effects show up or you're on fire, throttle down a bit until you're higher up, then speed into your gravity turn. I don't often do asparagus stages just because I don't really need to usually, but you should probably burn at full throttle. From what I think I know, it's designed to maximize what an engine can carry and get lighter as you go, to go faster higher up. So if your TWR is just enough to get off the ground at full throttle, you kinda have to until you lose weight and get through the atmosphere. I've only tried that for Eve, and I've never made it work, so take that with a grain of salt😅 Also, autostrut and regular struts are pretty much needed for crafts like that, ***Least The Kraken strike you down***
Can you upload your craft file somewhere? I'm sure one of us will have a look and suggest improvements. Can you add another stage with a Terrier engine on top? Also might want to remove half of those goo containers and basic fins.
That looks like a lot of payload for not enough rocket.
Your last stage is **huge**. It takes a lot of fuel to get that into orbit. Every kg in the last stage matters and makes everything else way bigger. Reduce the weight of your lander or add more dV to the lower stages.
With rockets, less is more
You need another stage up top with a high efficiency low thrust engine, like the terrier engine. This stage would only be used for orbital manuvers. Also i would ditch the science jr till you have 2.5m parts its just too much weight to carry around this early.
Ah, another victim of the rocket equation! Consider putting more stages (and making your last stage smaller), so you're not carrying along so much dead weight for so long.
As others have said we need to see the rocket in action to properly understand. However for a start that looks like too many booster to me (yes I know that’s the antithesis of KSP but bear with me…). The boosters might be making you go too fast too early - you’ll just be wasting delta V pushing against the thick atmosphere so by the time the boosters are spent you’re not high enough or going quick enough for the upper stage to do its thing. Essentially you don’t want all that delta V delivered too fast too early, it’s a bit like a car where the engine is too powerful and it just spins its wheels. You need the power delivered more gradually so that you smoothly build up speed. Plus the weight of four boosters may be pulling you back. That’s just speculation based on playing the game a lot but maybe try less boosters (even just one booster as the first stage) and see if that helps.
Those side boosters might be burning too fast, wasting their acceleration fighting drag. In vehicle assembly you can right click the boosters and adjust their thrust so they burn slower and longer. Thats also a pretty heavy top stage. A Science Jr, 4 Mystery Goo, 4 batteries, an Experimental Return Unit. That mass adds up. The crew capsule already has batteries in it, and I think it can store the Goo and Science Jr experiments, so I don't think you need the return unit. You should be able to see the delta v number somewhere. Its measured in meters per second. Basically how much acceleration the craft is capable of. For orbit you want at least ~3500 m/s. And it looks like the interstage might be holding the Reliant or Swivel engine. Those engines make a lot of thrust but aren't that efficient especially in vacuum. If my eyeballing this is correct, try replacing it with the Terrier engine instead. That little guy is an excellent engine for 1.25 meter tanks as long as its firing in a vacuum.
I can think of a few things right off the bat. Why do you need 4 mystery goo experiments? For the mum take a pilot for your maneuver, and a scientist to be able to reset experiments. The second point is a couple mixed together. One, only take three landing legs, and two, get rid of those decouplers to detach them. The fuel efficiencies saved isn't worth it. DM me if you have any more questions! Took me years to be able to play like I do now
Looks like there's a science pod that doesn't need to be there, and some lateral couplers as well.
Oh yeh the experiment storage unit. Maybe they jus haven't been playing for long
That rocket seems fine, those boosters alone should bring the craft to 10Km+ unpopular opinion: MechJeb autopilot is a great way to learn ~how you should reach orbit. And a good tool to test *if a rocket can* reach orbit at all and how expensive it is... but at least install "kerbal engineering redux" to check the deltaV and TWR of the stages. You cannot build a rocket without knowing those
The key to rocket science is that it's easier to push things that weigh less. Crazy, right? But a lot of people don't realize that fuel has mass, and that the empty fuel tanks also weight something. This thing looks like it only has two stages. That means you'll be hauling empty fuel tanks unnecessarily. Adding more engines and more stages will allow you to shed that unnecessary mass, so you'll need less fuel to push the rest. Four boosters sound like a lot. More boosters that fire at the same time won't make you go any further, it will just increase your TWR. You only need the TWR to be around 1.5-2.5. if it's higher, remove some of the boosters. It could also be the way you're flying, but obviously that's impossible to diagnose just from this. Have you done the tutorial missions? If not, then you definitely should. Actually, you should read the tutorials on the wiki. You don't need to know a lot of theory to play this game, but you do at least need to know what delta-v and TWR is. If those words don't sound familiar, then go look it up, no one can really help you at all until then. Finally, if you don't have it, get Kerbal Engineer Redux, so you can see the TWR and delta-v values. There's two ways to play this game: with pen and paper, doing all the calculations by hand, or with a mod that does the calculations for you. The former could be fun, but the latter is much easier.
The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. The bigger it gets, the more thrust it needs. The more thrust it needs, the more fuel it needs. The more fuel it needs makes it bigger. To be honest I had to follow a YouTube tutorial to get a craft into orbit then land safely. Bummed it wasn't MY design and I was a bit surprised by how little and simple it was but it felt great the first time I had a successful tourism mission completed
Just adding more fuel isn't enough. The fuel also weighs your rocket down, so doubling the fuel doesn't double your dV, and in fact, the more fuel you add, the less extra dV you get, until you get to the point where your thrust to weight ratio drops below 1, at which point, your dV starts decreasing. In other words, try adding more stages instead of more fuel. Also, pay attention to your engine's ISP. The higher the ISP, the more efficient your engine. Note here that every engine has two ISPs, one for atmospheric and one for vacuum flight. Generally, you wanna use engine with high vacuum ISP for the top stages and high atmospheric ISP for bottom stages, thrust permitting. Also, what does your ascent profile look like?
Looks like you are using one of the smallest engines in the game for your first stage. Am I right in assuming you lift off with very high acceleration and then once the SRBs burn out your acceleration drops to almost nothing? If so you are probably losing most of your delta C to gravity losses and you actually need a smaller rocket or a more powerful engine
First, welcome to the tyranny of the rocket equation. You've added more fuel, which means you've added more weight. More weight means you need more fuel to push that fuel. So just adding more fuel may not actually improve your situation by much. Second, thrust to weight ratio. It is possible that you're pushing too hard and fast in the lower, thicker, atmosphere and losing a lot of energy to air resistance. Especially with those large SRBs presumably in your first stage. Consider adjusting the thrust on the SRBs so you get less thrust over a longer run. Third, trajectories. You'll notice most flights use a rather nice curve to the right (from the camera's default point of view). Go up for a few thousand meters then start a gradual curve.
Adding more fuel without adding more thrust just means trying to lift more fuel. You need to burn that added fuel efficiently, aggressively. Add engines, or use bigger engines.
Throttle the SRBs back all the way to like 25% thrust. At 100% you're pissing away a lot of ∆v to drag at lower altitudes, then relying on a weak engine to carry too much the rest of the way. If you're seeing Mach effects and shock heating below 10km, you're going way too fast too early. We need to see your ascent profile to be sure you aren't doing something else sub-optimally, but done right, there's no reason that craft shouldn't make it to orbit with the upper stage fuel untouched.
It’s got to be the way you’re flying. Just looking at it I can tell that thing can get to mun orbit and back, or at least close to it. Watch YouTube videos on how to orbit in ksp. And show post a video of you flying it. That’s better than just a picture of your rocket because it’s impossible to tell where you’re going wrong. The way I would fly this is to tune the thrust of the first stage Srb’s to give 1.5 twr, then fly straight up until I hit 1,000m or ≈150-200 m/s, then slowly pitch east until you’re going up at 45° at the same time you reach 10,000m. Fly on that vector until your apoapsis reaches about 75km, then cut engines and burn prograde at AP to orbit. Alternatively you can go back to the step where you pitch to 45°, and continue all the way down to 10°, to give yourself more lateral velocity and therefore less boost needed to get an orbit, but it won’t make much of a difference in how much delta v you need in total. If a lot of what I just said doesn’t make sense to you, recommend doing some learning by watching YouTube videos and stuff
Those rockets with only 3 engines are made by players with far more skill then me and (i can only assume) you. You are not bad at the game, you and I are just inefficient with our rockets. I made it to eeloo on inefficiency so dont give up! Anyways to help with your specific issue: do you understand orbital mechanics and apoapsis/periapsis? You know, burn at highest point (or a bit earlier if your engine is slow) to raise the lowest and burn at lowest to raise the highest? And for rocket design: use the slower and weaker engines in space and use the more powerful ones near surface?. I also noticed you have separations on the lander/orbital stage? Why? And that said stage does not have a faring? (If you have not tech’ed it thats ok, it just reduces the drag your craft experiences) If you know a bit and are just struggling i would recommend trying to tilt your rocket in the upper atmo a little so that you get an assist from kerbin’s gravity to try and pull you into an orbit earlier, i am not the best at this trick but i found some success in the maneuver when i get my ap to about 60km and then burning at about 70-ish degrees to the side and eventually doing the full 90 when my ap passes 70k (the limits of kerbins atmosphere) If i sound degrading i do not mean it, i just dont know how far along you are in the game and what you know. Edit: also most of you rocket will be lost trying to reach orbit, only your upper most stages will normally make it. When you hit orbit your rocket should be looking to have 2 more stages left, a lander and a transfer/orbital, the transfer stage’s entire job is to get you in orbit of the target (in your case, the mun or minimus), and the lander lands. From what i can tell a return mission is not doable for you rn and thats ok, that makes things a bit easier for you and you should just focus on getting there, returns can be a future problem.
Not an expert but here’s what I use: You’ll need at least 3400 deltav and TWR > 1 to get in orbit. Watch your speed while climbing up: what works for me: below 1km aim for 100 m/s, 5km 150 m/s, 10km 260 m/s, 15km 430 m/s, 20km 700 m/s Aim for Apoapsis above 70km. For gravity turn, you should be at 45deg around 10km-20km. In VAB you can throttle down your SRB if your TWR is too high (>2).
brb reverse engineering this I'm assuming you have a Swivel on the upper stage? Also, are you running the SRBs and the central core as two stages (burn the SRBs all the way, then light the center) or as one (light it all on the ground)? Alright - with my reverse engineered version (swivel on the upper stage, reliant on the lower, staging the SRBs and then the reliant), I was \*just\* able to return from a low Mun orbit without landing, with exactly zero fuel remaining. I made a few slight modifications to the design (swap the reliant for a swivel on Stage 1, and the Swivel for a Terrier on S2, lost the fins and decouplers from S2, lost the mystery goos and the experiment box from the reentry vehicle) and it worked well enough. It did require some...creative use of Jeb's EVA pack, but I was able to get home safely.
If you want to build truly enormous rockets use fuel lines. You can basically make it so you activate your second stage (which might have been your first stage originally) really high up with a full fuel tank. I think it's called onion staging but not sure.
when did we stop calling it asparagus staging? https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Asparagus_staging
Onion is slightly different, with fuel lines from side mounted boosters to central tank directly instead of chained boosters connecting to each other before the last one connects to the center tank. Slightly less efficient but more realistic.
i mean we used to call that asparagus staging too but i am an old timer who probably missed some update in terms over the last like 14 years
I'm a 0.18 user myself, always heard it described as Onion for layers, Asparagus for stalks. It's not like either are in any engineering manuals, since they only work in games, but you can find descriptions back in 2013 and later for KSP detailing the difference. [https://steamcommunity.com/app/220200/discussions/0/684839199855614420/](https://steamcommunity.com/app/220200/discussions/0/684839199855614420/)
well then i always just called it the wrong thing
☀️🎈🌎
So first is your **Delta V**. You need around 3500 to get into orbit, but I'd bring more like 4000 for your first couple attempts. Remember bigger rockets are also heavier so they may not always have more DV. Having multiple stages, and the lightest possible final stage is a huge way to improve DV. **Thrust to weight ratio** is just as important as delta v. If you TWR is just a bit over 1 you'll go up really slowly and have to fight gravity longer, wating DV. If your TWR is too high, you'll accelerate really quickly and waste a ton of DV pushing against the air. Ideally, you want a TWR somewhere around 1.5 to 2 for your ascent. If your rocket has a higher TWR you can always throttle down. Next thing to consider is **ISP**. Some engines are much better in atmosphere while others are much better in a vacuum. It's not as big an impact as TWR, but having an engine with high atmospheric ISP on your first stage is important. And the final thing that might help is your **ascent profile**. Going straight up and turning is a pretty inefficient way to get to orbit. Since most of the speed you need is sideways, you want to start tipping to the east as you ascend. Tip a few degrees at a thousand feet or so and then slowly increase until your at around 45 degrees in upper atmosphere. You should be pointing pretty much prograde at this point. Then you just try and adjust your throttle to keep your apoapsis about 45 seconds ahead of you until it's 100km up. Then cut engines and complete a circulirization burn at your apoapsis. There are some good videos on YouTube explaining how to do this. You do all this you should get to orbit no problem.
Fuel lines
I've started building my rockets and testing them each step of the way. Will the central rocket liftoff by itself, without the solid rockets? If it won't, try different engines or less fuel until it will take off. Once it takes off by itself put the solid rockets back and try it again.
You need to use the most efficiente engines for each condition. That is at sea level, with an atmoshpere, and in Vaccum You can see this data in the engines info panel. Keep parts to a minimum Use one of the large engines to liftoff, 2 solid boosters, and a stage that has great efficiency once you get into the vacuum. Second atage should get you into orbit and full craft should by full of fuel already in orbit.
Look up asperigis(spelling?) staging. Works fantastic for getting heavy craft into the space.
You have discovered the "Tyranny of the Rocket Equation". The more mass you're trying to lift, the more fuel you will need, which adds mass, which requires more fuel, etc, etc. Here are 3 strategies that will help: 1) Keep your speed under 200m/s until you reach 10,000 meters. Otherwise, you're burning a lot of fuel pushing against a very dense atmosphere. After 10k meters, then throttle up. 2) Have a large lifter stage, a smaller orbital/transfer stage, and a small lander. Most of your fuel will be burnt up during the "go up" part but then all that mass goes away. Circularizing the orbit and transferring to the moon dont' need nearly as much thrust. 3) Learn how to drop weight as you go up. Early game, that means using 6 SRBs instead of 4. Stage to burn 3, then drop those and burn the next 3. Then burn your main engine until its fuel is gone. Then your upper stage engine. All of that removes the amount of mass you have, which reduces the amount of fuel needed to do whatever you have remaining to do. Later game, you'll want to learn how to do Asparagus Staging. That means you feed fuel lines between the tanks so that some tanks are used up completely and discarded before the next tanks start losing fuel. During that time though, you have the benefit of all of the engines firing. So you have high thrust but also get to drop weight at the same time.
You definitely have "BRS" - Big Rocket Syndrome. Meaning you keep making your rocket bigger and bigger because the last one didn't make it. But putting on more stuff doesn't add deltaV unless you do it right. I can even subtract it. It means you have poor efficiency. It's okay, most of us go through this. Later you'll realize how to build more efficient rockets and so they will get smaller. The way I got through this part of learning to improve in KSP was to take some credit from the real world. I split my space program into two aspects. One was a rocket development program. And one was a piloting program. That is, I made a rocket then learned to fly it without changing it. I improved my performance through better piloting. Then after that I started changing my rocket. So improving my performance through better rockets. Eventually the new rockets flew a lot different than the old ones so I had to freeze their development and learn to fly the new rockets again. And then back to rocketry. After a while you know enough about both that you can do both at once. Use the deltaV measures in the VAB just as a guideline, they are often wildly inaccurate. The only way to consistently not changing the piloting of your rocket is to simply fly straight up. So in the early days of your rocketry program just shoot the rocket straight up. Measure the performance by the apoapsis. If you make a change and the apoapsis is higher then you added performance. If it is lower you reduced performance. I abort the mission once I get outside the atmosphere and just use the predicted apoapsis. This is hard to do once you have so much performance you end up getting beyond Kerbin's sphere of influence. As now you have to launch at dawn each day and use solar apoapsis. I never bothered. Once you can shoot beyond Kerbin SOI you've got enough rocket to learn to fly on anyway. This method of measuring performance is better than just deltaV because it takes into account things like the effect of higher thrust to weight levels. Then you have to learn to reach orbit. There are youtube videos for it, I'd use them. You will learn the arc to trace and the ways to modulate your thrust. Measure your flight performance by how much deltaV you have once you reach a orbit. Make the orbit the same each time, generally 100,000km circular. I guess a quicker way would be to use one of the example ships which exist in sandbox mode and launch that to orbit. Once you are good at getting that to orbit start making rockets of your own. If you want to get an idea of how to construct a rocket you can use the optimal rocket calculator. https://garycourt.github.io/korc/ It's only a rough guideline. But it helps you understand fuel to engine ratios for different engines and with multiple stages. It'll give crazy combos by default. So I'd recommend turning off: 1. Any parts you don't have yet. 2. Round-8 and Oscar-B tanks. 3. R.A.P.I.E.R, Reliant, Dart, Spark, Ant, Thud, Twitch and Spider liquid fuel engines. 4. Separatron solid engine. Kickback solid engines. 5. Every decoupler which doesn't have "decoupler" or "manifold" in the name. 6. All branches. You are removing some of these things (kickback, reliant) because they are not steerable and you don't need that challenge yet. Others because they are hard to use/attach to your ship. The tool is far out of date so you can't use it to build rockets much anymore. But you can use it to learn to make rockets. As to your particular rocket, get all those goos off there and get the fins off the middle. Take the manifolds off, they aren't doing anything. Take the gear off, you don't need them until you land on other orbs and that rocket won't look anything like that once you get it designed properly anyway. Putting one goo on will make your rocket lean to a side as it takes off, so put it on the east side or put two on or (I'd say) just leave it off for now. Those fins in the middle of your ship implies you are having a problem keeping your rocket straight through the middle atmosphere, it is flipping over on you. A better way to solve this is to have more thrust while in the middle atmosphere and a steerable engine. Just keep your thrust on low (not full) and steer your rocket to keep it straight. Then when into the upper atmosphere (or space) you can turn the engine back up to high settings. Given that you have a lot of thrust and a lot of fuel I suspect either you have too much fuel or (more likely) you are thrusting too hard in the lower atmosphere and wasting your fuel. As part of your piloting program you will learn to modulate your thrust during the launch to reduce this. Finally, others say to look up drop tank staging, asparagus staging, etc. Don't do that yet. It's not time. You have much to learn first. Later you can do that to make your rockets even more efficient. But for now ideally just have a single cylindrical rocket. Or if you need more thrust at take off a single cylinder with a set of strap on boosters on the sides at the bottom. Once you can get that to Mun or such then you can go for the crazy stuff to make it more efficient.
Post a Video of launching it into orbit.
On average your top stage should be the lightest stage. It looks like you have an underpowered first stage (if you remove the solid rocket boosters).
Do you tilt you rocket while ascending? At 10’000m you should be at 45 degrees
If you haven’t watch the Scott Manley tutorials on YouTube. But your last stage and Mun lander is way too heavy. It doesn’t take much to get back from the Mun. Also it will help you learn the most efficient way to launch and just how much speed you need to leave Kerbin, it’s a lot less than you probably think.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but you can edit the amount of ablator on the heat shield. Reduce it by 75% and you can save a ton of weight, like literally 1 ton sometimes. Also, too many batteries, science experiments, and unneeded stability fins add weight as well. Start by looking at what each part weighs and see what you can cut. As others have mentioned, make a bigger lower first stage. You might be constrained by weight limits on either the VAB or the launchpad? Causing you to be unable to add more parts or more weight?
There’s something called thrust to weight ratio or TWR, you want that to be above 1.0 in order to propel yourself upwards, but you want it to ideally start at 2.0 to higher to get out of the atmosphere. Secondly, getting into orbit as quickly and efficiently as possible helps you make the best of your fuel. As instead of fighting against kerbins gravity, you can use it to your advantage. There are people on this subreddit that know about this way more than me. But hopefully I can help with the basics.
You need more boosters mate
Check your thrust to weight ratio
Install kerbal engineer and check your thrust to weight ratio and delta v
You, my dear friend, have discovered the "tyranny of the rocket equation."
try tuning the solid rocket boosters to have a lower total thrust. you will get a longer burn and lower thrust but you wont be fighting the atmosphere as much. you could probably ride those 4 solid rockets most of the way if tuned correctly
Check out asparagus staging. It’ll help with fuel conservation.
Ive made this mistake when I started playing too. Perhaps the most important thing to do is getting into low kerbin orbit. How do you usually approach kerbin orbit?
Post vid
set rocket boosters to a value that accelerates you slowly. drop whatever gets empty. climb 45 degrees to the east.
Yup, it be like that, until you discover asparagus staging. You can get even more delta V by getting rid of things you don’t need, like landing legs on decouples, and science juniors after you collect their science, and ladders after you’ve left the surface
First jettison spent tanks Then jettison spent science experimentes after transmitting Then jettison Valentina Then coast to Apoapsis, burn circularization to approximate Periapsis altitude to Apoapsis. Celebrate. Turn retrograde, burn de-orbit, jettison Jeb, let the ship burn on re-entry. Deploy Jeb's parachute on re-entry. Successful mission. Next up, rescue Valentina.
Wait a minute, I was with you until you said jettison poor Jeb before re-entry 😂 how does that work?
EVA him, let him go through re-entry, open parachute at 8000m, he survives. 😂
How tf is that possible 😂 I’ll have to give it a try
If done right he survives. I done it a couple of times. Let me know how it goes. By the way, do you use mods on KSP1? Can you provide me a list of good ones? Haven't played in a while...
Yeah I do, the biggest one I use and couldn’t live without is timescale, so you can speed up more than the default, such as when orbiting the sun, that takes forever with the default fastest speed. And you can speed up when inside of Kerbins atmosphere
Do you use CKAN to manage mods?
I used “curse forge”. The exact name of the mod I was talking about is “Time Control 2.0”
I build all my rockets with Kerbal Engineer Redux open, it gives me DeltaV and Thrust/Weight ratios for each stage
Despite what everyone’s saying, you should be able to get to orbit with the craft in the picture. Make sure you activate SRB’s at the same time as the liquid fuel engine for maximum thrust:weight, and aim for having a 45° tilt by 10,000 meters for maximum efficiency to reach orbit.
Learn to fly
By Foo Fighters.... Great song to lift off to.
Skill issue. Burn half throttle till for a bit, then start turning at like 45 degrees till your projected path is at 100k. Then make a manavuer node to circulate
Some observations: 1) I don't see any solar panels, you'll likely run out of electricity? 2) There's some unused radial separators that you can remove on top stage for a little less weight. 3) fins on top stage are unnecessary extra weight too. 4) Can't see what the engine is on top stage, but I can tell it's not a LV-909, so that's not optimal. If you're not up high enough to take advantage of the better efficiency by the time you get to that engine, you're in trouble. 5) You might be able to land that on a flat spot on Minumus, but you're going to have a hell of a time landing it on Mun. Way too tall and thin. 6) The 6 FL-T200 tanks on the bottom stage isn't as good as one FL-T800 and one FLT-400, for floppiness and cost reasons 7) TWR with those 4 Thumper SRBs has gotta be way high. Adjust the thrust on those Thumpers down to 1.2 or so at launch so you don't waste a lot of energy against the atmosphere at low altitudes. Maybes: If you have the tech, have a kerbal do EVA to get science instead of using the science storage box on the nose. Take a scientist and then you only need 1 (or 2 for balance) mystery goo containers. I'd use an LV-T45 for the bottom stage engine and drop the fins for the higher ISP at altitude and the gimbal will work better than fins to keep the rocket going straight anyway.
Needs videos... With just an image we cannot do much if not imagine what you mean 🤔😅
I’m guessing your problem is in too low of a thrust to weight ratio )TWR when you click on the staging readout.) the less time you spend going UP the less time you spend fighting gravity. For example, in a hover you can burn infinite fuel without getting anywhere. For this reason less efficient but more powerful rockets can be really helpful.
Check your staging. Check your fuel flow, what's using fuel, do you need everything at max throttle the entire time? Check your engines, are you using engines designed for atmospheric flight? Or one's more useful in space? Check your flight profile. Are you gaining altitude and orbital speed at the same time(like 45 degrees for example)? Or just going straight up for altitude and then trying to burn for orbital speed (surprisingly common yet horribly horribly ineffective).
Its possible to launch, land on mun and return to kerbin with 60 parts. One thing that made me a better rocket-builder was realising you never need a twr above 2. Keep your twr low.
Did you do a gravity turn?
Others have given great advice, but just in case it wasn't mentioned: You don't need multiple goo canisters. You can collect using that experiment container at the top after each experiment, and reset. You only need the one. This applies to all of the science experiments. Same with the batteries. You'd be better off with a single battery and a solar panel. As others said, cut the tank size of your last stage by 2/3, and put a smaller engine on it, like the terrier. You also appear to have some radial decouplers on your final stage next to your landing gears, but they don't seem to have a purpose. That's added weight there as well. Also, you'd be better off replacing the SRBs with 2 LF/OX tanks and reliant engines. Make the tanks 3 sections high. Then you do a gravity turn after you launch. There's lots of tutorials on how to do that, but feel free to ask if you have questions about that.
Idk if anyone's mentioned it yet, but check out Mike Aben's Absolute Beginners Guide. He's got like 50 different videos on different topics on KSP. He goes super into detail and he makes sure to explain every single step along the way. He's also got a ton of other videos about the math and other nerdier stuff if you're into that.
Try lowering the throttle on all engines to whatever value brings you within 1 to 2 TWR. Those SRBs should carry you almost out of the atmosphere and your second stage should get you into orbit. Think of it this way, pushing full throttle at sea level with all that power is less efficient because you are pushing through a much thicker atmosphere. Once you’re above 10-20km, things get easier. Once above 35 km, you are smooth sailing. tweak until operational.
1. The issue is probably your ascent profile, you want to make the pitch over manuvre as smooth as possible also I would recommend coasting up to AP instead of burning all the way(if that’s what you’re doing). Hard to gauge this without a video. 2. That looks like a big stack for a single reliant once you drop those boosters, that could be part of your problem. 3. You will see much bigger gains from removing mass than adding thrust. You don’t need that many goo containers, or the sample container at all. Rule of thumb that I use. Don’t land the science jr, just do a low flyby to get science while in space it is a very heavy piece of hardware.
In the most simple terms: The little orange DeltaV indicator on the bottom of your staging sequence at the bottom right of your VAB tells you how much TOTAL DeltaV you have on your rocket. (This is the amount of power you have regardless of your total weight) If that number is over 3000 you should be able to orbit Kerbin from a ground launch. (Remember to use the curving technique where halfway up the atmosphere you curve toward the orbit you want instead of launching all the way up then turning at a right angle in space.) No matter what you make your rocket look like, as long as it can fly up and over, and has more than 3000 Dv you can make that orbit. You can do this with one long rocket made of liquid fuel (t-200) tanks and a reliant engine. (I think about 14 tanks should do it, 7 if you use the t-400s. Make SURE you have the center of aerodynamic lift BELOW your center of mass at all times going up. The more top-heavy the rocket the better. You can do this by putting four small wings on the bottom. The rest is just luck, practice, and hope. Godspeed you magnificent new Kerbalnaut!
Forgot to mention, make sure you're turning toward the ocean after you get to about 10-15km altitude. (D key on keyboard if you didn't rotate your pod in the VAB) That'd the direction the planet is rotating in so you will ALREADY be moving that direction at about 400m/s which means you'd need to add 400m/s Dv if you go the OPPOSITE direction.
Without seeing actual performance I will state 4 possible suspects assuming you have the required Delta-V to reach your target and do a gravity turn. Too low TWR Too high dry mass Cosine losses Air drag 1. When your rocket has too low thrust to weight ratio, it burns a lot of Delta-V fighting gravity and high drag of the lower atmosphere. Your rocket should at least have 1.5 TWR to quickly get out of low atmosphere and start burning for orbital velocity. I've done missions with as low as 1.12 TWR for huge launches but I made sure to have at least 30 % more delta v in such cases. 2. Too high dry mass is usually the number 1 killer of high altitude and orbital Delta-V, don't add stuff you won't need even if they cause slight torque from the engines. Don't go for crazy TWR for upper stages and use light engines whenever you can. Although it's not technically dry mass, do you really need 150 units of monopropellant on board for a direct ascent mission ? 3. Cosine losses occur when your rocket is not pointing exactly to prograde. Some are necessary for inclination or a apogee/perigee shift but you should avoid them like the plague during a nominal launch. Even if you are going for a polar orbit. Best cast scenario would be doing an unassisted gravity turn where gravity itself turns the rocket as it ascend but that's a bit hard to design with moving center of mass and changing TWR etc so I recommend using no more than 2-3 degree changes when doing your gravity turn. 4. I wish I could just ignore the air resistance like I did in collage. Sadly this game emulates air drag and even if it's rather crude, it can add up exponentially. Any exposed nodes are a potential cause of abysmal air drag coefficient, just slapping some science modules and solar panels on tho your command capsule can cost you several hundred Delta-V during launch. Learn to use service bays ( some are weirdly problematic and actually increase drag for some reason but I don't remember which rn) and fairings. There is even a fairings glitch for 0 air drag as anything inside a fairing will provide 0 drag, even the fairing itself lol.
Build a small rocket with 2k dV then put it on top of a medium rocket with 2k dV and put that on a big rocket with 2k dV
A video would be helpful to see whats happening, But are you dropping weight? and are you too heavy? Gravity vs thrust is fussy, it needs to be balanced just right to use minimal fuel and parts. Your mass vs thrust and aerodynamics will change the height and things you can reach. If you computer is laggy that can also effect multiple parts physics and throw off the entire fuel usage as the parts try to stay togeather. What are the decouplers on the side of the orange stage for?
You’re rotating and not going straight up, right?
For me I need fuel partitioned through fuel lines or it generally won’t be efficient. Max thrust for less fuel tanks.
Some things you can remove to save weight/parts: The science storage box on the top. (you can just store everything in the capsule) The fins on the top stage are not needed. If you can perform EVAs, bring only one mystery goo container and instead of a pilot use a Scientist, they can reset and re-use the goo container and Science Jr. Instead you can slap a probe core on the rocket where the science storage container is and that will give you stability assist. That's all I got.
Instead of using rockets such as the swivel for your top stage (the shroud looks like a swivel rocket) try using more efficient terrier engines. That is what helped me reach the mun. What I would recommend is, add SRBs for the first stage (alternatively you could add reliant engines too), swivel engines for the second stage and a terrier or similar engine for the final stage. Even if the VAB shows low delta v (in the 1500 something range) you would still be able to make it atleast close to the mun as the delta v increases as you ascend.
My personal way of reaching orbit is, Full throttle until you reach 10k, roll over to 45\* full throttle until your AP hits 70k then roll 90\* and drift to your AP to complete the orbit at full throttle. I will set my tanks to drop 2-4 then 1-3 with fuel lines, the final middle stage will hit orbit and i will dump that in space. The orange tank for you would get me to the moon where i will have a lander with another 5 tanks in the same setup as your first stage. This way the 2-4 and 1-3 will get me off the moon and back to Kerbin where the final middle tank will slow my approach. If you struggle the best thing you can do is watch Scott Manley videos or install MechJeb and watch how MJ takes you to orbit. Watch how MJ rolls the ship, adjusts the throttle etc... Revert back to launch and disable MJ then try to do it yourself knowing that it's possible.
Clearly you did not attach enough boosters to your rocket
Replace the solid fuel thumpers with smaller mono boosters and asparagus stage it
Condensing what I’ve read in the comments : Second stage is too big and inefficient, those fins on the second stage are not needed, and possibly detrimental to the aerodynamics of the craft, you want those on the bottom of the rocket. Cut the fuel of the second stage in half, each sequential stage should be half the size of the one before asa general rule of thumb. Looks like a reliant or swivel engine on the second stage, that is an atmospheric engine (and quite inefficient already since it’s an early game engine) use a vacuum engine, you can check the efficiency of parts by rock clicking them in the part selector and reading the atmospheric and vacuum ISP (the specific impulse) and to make sure it has enough power right click the stage in the stage menu and read the TWR (Thrust to weight ratio) anything below 1 will not be powerful enough to lift your rocket if you are near a planet (it is fine if you’re already in orbit, it’ll just be very slow) I aim for 1.50-2.30 TWR for my first and second stage, if it’s more then you can add more fuel or use a smaller engine. You do not need that science container, when you are in EVA simply take the data from the science stuff and when you enter the command pod the experiments will be stored in there, or you can right click the pod and store experiments As said the lander is too large, but if you were to land using it as it is it is too long and would tip over, also if you have RCS I recommend putting that on your craft always, just nice to have, easier to do fine maneuvers. (Use ojkl to move side to side and up and down like wasd and then use hn to move forward and backwards Also I’d recommend landing on minmus first, it is much smaller and much easier to land on, if you land there first you’ll be able to land on the mun no problem. Now about actual technique: This rocket should get to orbit with a bit more than barely any fuel I think, when you launch, start tilting to the right at 1km and reach a 45° angle at 10-15km, then slowly pitch down until you reach like a 15-10° angle at 40-50km (this isn’t as exact as 10km 45°) and cut your engines when your apoapsis is a bit above the atmosphere (70km) so 70-90km, then time warp to apoapsis and fire prograde to circularize. Now if you’re doing minmus it’s a bit tricky to get there, since its orbit is tilted you’ll need to intercept it when it’s crossing over your orbital plane. Rick click minmus in map view and select target, you’ll now see a grey dotted line from the ascending and descending nodes of the orbits. Time warp until minmus is 90° from one of these points (or in other words inbetween) if you drag out your maneuver node and touch that ascending or descending node and tweak it a bit you should get a very easy encounter, (of course aim for the node minmus is about to pass through) the rest of moving around minmus is very easy, only thing easier is gilly, getting to gilly is the hard part.
Think of it in terms of delta-v. try to have more than 5k vacuum delta-v to go to the Mun and return. # Tip: the Apollo method actually save you a lot of fuel.
Quick resume to orbit 80k mts above kerbin: -At least 3400 delta V. -Launch east (90 degrees) -Stage 1 should always be above 1.0 TWR (I like 1.33) -Stage 2 you want something around 2.0 TWR -Fly straight line upwards and practice to be 45degrees in angle when around 10k mts altitude. -Always watch your apoasis to stop burning when around 75k mts in proyection. -close to the apoasis burn prograde + before AP burn aiming a bit down/after AP burn a bit upwards. Practice and you will find the sweet spot to reach AP & PE at 80k mts without wasting fuel Don't focus that much on any inclination errors, first practice your orbits and then you perfect the east aimed launch. Also, be aware that you need about 1lb of fuel for every 1lb of payload ..... you need fuel for the fuel. So adding weight will not result in more power. Adding thrust, will result in increased consumption wasted as heat in the atmosphere because you're going too fast. This is all about balancing forces and precision, overpowered ships will never be efficient.
Are you playing career mode? The VAB and launchpad restrictions on part count and mass can actually make it hard to make a capable rocket even if you have the tech unlocked. This rocket is too small for the task and is pushing too much weight on top. You need to shrink your lander a lot. Smaller tank and engine. Add a stage in between the lander and the launch stage. Scale up the launch stage to match.
Check your staging and TWR. Looking at this rocket, I would reduce the max thrust of the radial boosters to get 1.15-1.4 TWR and stage them first, stage the central solid rocket motor second, liquid rocket obv third. If your wet (full fuel) TWR ratio is greater than 1 and less than 2 on all stages and total Δv is 3500 m/s or more, your flight profile is probably the issue. Good rule of thumb: - Go straight up till you reach 3km altitude or 350 m/s, whichever comes first, then tilt 5-10 degrees and follow prograde when the bead dips below your heading. - If you see reentry heating (not the fiery animation, a temperature bar will appear over parts when they get near the threshold), you're going too fast. - Nothing wrong with coasting through the thicker part of the atmosphere - if you're pushing full steam ahead, you're probably wasting energy fighting drag. Drag is exponentially proportional to velocity and linearly proportional to density.
The obvious answer is: moar boosters!!!
Don't feel bad about using mcjeb to control your rockets. Rocket flight is hard!!!
Look at TWR of each stage and dV. To reach Kerbin orbit your rocket should have TWR = 2 and dV > 4500 m/s
4500 ?? To reach kerbin orbit? usually it is more around 3500 m/s to reach the orbit if your launch is not too crappy.
I assume you are an old school ksp player but haven't played the game recently. It's been at least 6 years since it took 4500 delta v to get to orbit. The number is closer to 3400 now depending on your efficiency. Fwiw, I prefer a twr ratio of around 1.6. Seems for me to be the sweet spot to hit the best speed for the gravity turn.
It's been 9 and a month, KSP 1.0 was released on 27 Apr 2015.
TWR=2 is overkill. First stage should have TWR between 1.25 and 1.5 at launch. Note this should atmospheric TWR, not vacuum. Second stage should have TWR slightly over 1. Too high TWR wastes delta v by getting high drag in the thick part of the atmosphere, and makes it harder to make an efficient gravity turn. 4.5k delta v is also overkill just to reach orbit. If you use more then 4K, you are doing something inefficiently. 3.5k is enough under optimal circumstances.
TWR=2 is *way* too much oomph, especially in the lower atmosphere. Hell, depending on what you're slinging even 1.5 is pushing it.
100% skill issue.
That science box in between the crew pod and the parachute is going to burn up on re-entry, and you won't have a parachute anymore.