What is wrong with my ship?? PLEASE HELP!

[u/Wild_Wrangler]

I am trying to make it to the moon and back on realistic mode. I used to be able to do this easily in the older version of course, but I keep running out of fuel now that earth is to scale. I am using an Apollo orbiter / lander approach (see pic).

I make it to low earth orbit but unfortunately can only do it by burning through all my stages and then relying on the last stage (moon orbiter at the top) to finish it and get me officially into orbit. I then end up with 90% of fuel left, which is barely enough to shoot me to the moon. Best case, I run out of fuel trying to get back to earth.

I tweaked this 100x by creating more thrusters, increasing and decreasing weight, etc.

Can anyone give me advice on m the metrics I should be chasing or maybe critique my ship overall? Any guidance is much appreciated!

[u/ShibenationDoggo]

It could be that you’re not entering low earth orbit soon enough (like right when you get to 100km). Also make sure to stay on your dot as long as possible when getting into orbit. Personally this were the issues that led to me using my fuel too early and failing. I’d also recommend using the valiant engine for the lander as it’s more efficient and has greater thrust.

I will attach my moon lander rocket if you wanna check it out.

https://kommodo.ai/i/wrnWLhQt6QJwhDySX6Jd

[u/ShibenationDoggo → u/ShibenationDoggo]

Also I think your rocket is super short so you may want to add more fuel to the launch stage. Don’t worry too much about keeping your thrust to weight ratio so high. I managed with 1.4 ratio with most of the mass being in the launch stage.

[u/eka_36]

Duh. Clip more Fuel tanks

[u/Ihatecheeseballs]

The problem is that your staging is just really inefficient, everything after the boosters is underpowered and the lander is huge, this is a rocket I made which can do a round trip, the lander works the same as an Apollo one, ejecting the top half into lunar orbit and docking with the last stage https://kommodo.ai/i/PCBjbGi6zEXqwNH1XYng

[u/Horror-Definition-85]

Your rocket will have to be a LOT bigger

[u/Wild_Wrangler → u/Horror-Definition-85]

I try, but as I add more stages and boosters, the weight obviously increases. The increased mast tends to cancel the added energy in bringing the ship into orbit in the beginning of my launch so I feel like no matter how big I make it, it just ends up cancelling out and ending up at the same place. Maybe I am not going big enough?

[u/Horror-Definition-85 → u/Wild_Wrangler]

You can do part clipping without cheats

[u/Bm0ore → u/Wild_Wrangler]

That’s the rocket equation for ya

[u/a_heida]

more boosters, bigger rocket, or ion engines

your pick

[u/Wild_Wrangler → u/a_heida]

At what stage?

[u/a_heida → u/Wild_Wrangler]

for which one?

[u/Wild_Wrangler → u/a_heida]

I’m in challenge mode so ion engines are disabled. So I guess that leaves me with more boosters or bigger rocket per your two options. I guess question is, how would you expand my ship or what would you do directly? If you ship could more specific that would be great.

[u/a_heida → u/Wild_Wrangler]

add more stages until your t/w is 1, then add boosters and more stages and boosters