Talk:Tutorial:Aeris 4A mission

I've tried following this tutorial, and found I had better luck with a (much) higher initial rate of climb, and then once near the flameout threshold, a liquid rocket engine climb 10-15 degrees above the prograde. Did they change some of the dynamics since this tutorial was created? Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The braughtwurst (talk • contribs)

Yes, I found that dropping the nose to just 10° @ 15,000m resulted in it being stopped from reaching 20,000m by chronic flaming drag somewhere around 17–18,000m. I don't know if this is something which has changed across KSP versions, as I've only attempted this tutorial under 0.22, but I'd guess that it probably did work ok when written, with an older KSP version.

Personally, I found that going for 30° all the way from just after takeoff until a 100km apoapsis is achieved works quite nicely, and seems fairly efficient. I have given the tutorial a fairly major overhaul, added lots of details, etc, and believe it now represents something fairly easily achievable in 0.22.

It's quite possible that there's a better combination of angles for maximum efficiency, but I put my efforts into testing if 30° was simple, easy, reasonable, repeatable, achievable, etc; rather than seeking absolute maximum efficiency. Without doing another test right now to confirm, I seem to remember that MechJeb tells me that I've got around 400m/s dV remaining after circularising at 100km (plenty for a little manoeuvring, then de-orbit). I'll go ahead and say that 30° is NotBad™, but am more than happy for someone to improve on my improvements. ;-)

--Murph (talk) 17:13, 15 November 2013 (CST)