My strategy is to get out of the atmosphere, jettison the first stage, then do my circularization burn with the second stage. The second problem with this plan is getting the first stage to land intact. It is no longer cost effective to throw all that equipment away in Career mode, so I have to change tactics.
Previously, in Sandbox mode I used to use "onion" staging a central tank/engine surrounded by tanks/engines surrounded by SRBs, which would be jettisoned as they were emptied. But that means the first stage has to get ALL THE WAY to orbit, a tough design challenge. This means that when you do the staging, it probably has to be in orbit. Any object in the atmosphere will 'vanish' past 2km. Limitations in the engine mean you can't just dump the first stage and magically recoup the cost. This lets me mount more powerful (but also more expensive) engines, knowing it won't be that costly. The idea is that the ship launches, and once the fuel in the first stage is expended, it lands back on Kerbin. My idea is to more or less have a two stage rocket where the primary 'lifter' stage has a probe core attached somewhere and parachutes.
I'm starting to veer toward the latter but it is very hard.
One unique dillemma that has arisen now is the tradeoff- a mostly-disposable ship which has you chucking off most of the weight via staging, helping to increase the chances your ship will successfully complete missions to recoup and exceed the launch costs OR building a ship (ideally a SSTO) that can take off and return with minimal money lost. As anyone who has played in Career mode has known, cost is everything.
0 kommentar(er)
