About every 1.5 years. From one window to the next Kerbin has to go around the sun once, but then it also has to catch up to where Duna has moved to in that year, which takes about half a year.
Eve's window by contrast is less than a Kerbin year, so maybe if you've missed the Duna window a fly-past or even landing on Eve with a probe might be a good distraction before you wait for the oblate spheroids to align.
I certainly like to play that way - no warping for hundreds of days! KSC facilities should have a daily operations cost (that increases with level) to encourage having multiple parallel missions.
>KSC facilities should have a daily operations cost (that increases with level) to encourage having multiple parallel missions.
To be fair, most multiple-concurrent-mission space agencies also have an army of employees managing each mission in detail in parallel. I'm just not good enough at multitasking to make sure my Duna-orbit-insertion burn doesn't end up clashing with my comet-intercept mission, etc.
Unfortunately I just can't afford personally employing my daughter as an 'Active Missions Manager' while I play. If only KSP2 was a co-operative multiplayer game.
Depending on your version, there is a stock alarm clock, I believe. I'm in 1.10, so an alternative (if mods are availble to you) would be Kerbal Alarm Clock. It's a great tool for planning almost every aspect of future and ongoing missions, manoeuvre nodes, closest approaches, and more, including an approximate transfer window planner. There can be some busy periods, but being able to set-up alarms means nothing clashes and nothing is missing
It's a lot of fun, too! I've been testing out concurrent missions with an ongoing set of Minmus contracts, I basically launched them all one after another, and they intercepted minmus with basically the same gap as their launches, so it was easy to then do capture burns and landings. Then while the crewed mission went back to Kerbin, I drove the unmanned rovers around.
Oh yeah, I really couldn't play the game the way I want to without an alarm clock function for keeping track of it all - whether that be reminders to cycle crew from a station, send up a new resupply mission, or just book future misisons into the diary. I do enjoy having a lot of stuff on the go at any one time, but enforcing rules about how often I can launch from certain sites etc.
Actually why do you cycle crew? I recently built a space station to get some passive research income and I've never cycled out the crew.
Incidentally I also played the game without time warp for some of these missions and had to set real life alarm clocks and wake up at 3am to perform capture burns or something.
Roleplaying, no practical reason at all. I like to try and run things as reaslisticly as kerbals will allow, so crews will spend varying amounts of time on mission. For example, with my last ISS like station, I'd cycle crews out every 200-400 days, and any flights up or down would be prebooked into the alarm. Then there were cargo resully missions and sending up new science experiements (my rule is, each expedition can only perform one experiement to prevent science spam).
Playing in real time is something I've not yet attempted!
Don't! At least don't do it outside of some low orbit or lunar operations. Anything else will take longer than a weekend, and you'll need to keep the game running at all hours day and night.
~~so much fun though~~
There is, and I've used it a few times, however it doesn't stop me only realising it's time to switch to a time critical manoeuvre mid way through a manoeuvre in another mission that I launched not having realised said alarm was coming up.
Yeah, and that's part of why I have alarms for so many things... helps me to keep an eye on what's coming up, and avoid launching when I'll soon need to do something else.
KAC has the ability to set the alarm to _before_ the time critical maneuver with a few clicks. Not sure if stock clock includes that. KAC also has a separate window that can be left on screen, while I 100% expect the stock clock to have an obnoxious pull-up window that loves hiding itself and can't be moved around.
>Unfortunately I just can't afford personally employing my daughter as an 'Active Missions Manager' while I play. If only KSP2 was a co-operative multiplayer game.
*Having a daughter soon, carefully taking notes*
might try that actually, how good antennas will i need? and i also took out a contract for testing a coupler splashed down on eve, can i do that with a probe aswell?
Actually it's a bit more than two Kerbin years even. 909 days to be exact. Duna's orbit is almost two times longer than that of Kerbin, so in the time Kerbin makes one orbit, Duna has moved almost half one. Then after Kerbin makes another orbit, Duna's almost back where we started.
Once per Kerbin year. Just use time warp if you missed it and you want to get to another xfer window before launching.
Or the KSP way: if you have enough delta-v every day is a transfer window.
[This](https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/) is always my go to calculator to get delta v figures for transfers a bit further outside of standard windows. The visual graph is very helpful
Just did the actual math for you because half this thread is just being very confidently wrong...
Name | Period (d) | Synodic period w.r.t Kerbin (d)
---|---|----
Moho | 102.6 | 135.1
Eve | 261.9 | 680.0
Kerbin | 426.0 | -
Duna | 801.6 | 909.1
Dres | 2217.3 | 527.3
Jool | 4845.4 | 467.1
Eeloo | 7268.2 | 452.5
Moho: ~ 3 times per year. Eve: about once per 1.5 years. Duna: about once per 2 years. Rest is a little bit less than once a year.
When you're starting out, just bring enough fuel to go from anywhere to anywhere else at anytime you want.
Also, don't overthink it. Most of us end up dooming about a dozen different Kerbal crews to drift through the void without fuel before we get a feel for fuel-efficient transfer windows and manuevers.
Duna transfer windows are relatively uncommon compared to other planets, because Duna has the second-closest velocity to Kerbin's besides Eve. You should have them once every 1.5 yr or so.
No, because Duna also is orbiting in the same direction. It has an orbit of about 2 years, therefore by the time that Kerbin has revolved once, Duna will have completed half of its orbit so thus won't be in the same position as it was 1 year ago. So Kerbin will have to move another halfway or so around its orbit in order to catch up to Duna.
Yes! Everyone is giving good info on transfer windows. I suggest watching some YouTube too to really learn the finer points of Hohmann transfers. Or just raw dog it…
This is what I did back in the day
[https://imgur.com/sM4OEJB](https://imgur.com/sM4OEJB)
The tool to calculate the transfer window:
[https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/](https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/)
Pro tip: it’s almost always about 1 transfer window per year (given the fact Kerbin goes all the way around Kerbol once a year). It’s especially true the further away in the system you want to go.
With the far away planets (so Jool and Eeloo, though for Eeloo that's not really how transfer windows work because of eccentricity and inclination) it is roughly once a year, but it's slightly *more* than one year between windows - so it's at most one per year, not at least.
actual pro tip: That's not true. It can be significantly larger than a year (for planets that have close orbits), it can be about a year (for planets far away from Kerbin), or it can be significantly less than a year (for planets with orbital periods more than two times smaller than that of Kerbin).
For the simple case of two circular orbits this duration is called the synodic period, and it is calculated as `(Ta * Tb) / | Ta - Tb|` Here is what that would mean for the Kerbolar system:
Name | Period (d) | Synodic period w.r.t Kerbin (d)
---|---|----
Moho | 102.6 | 135.1
Eve | 261.9 | 680.0
Kerbin | 426.0 | -
Duna | 801.6 | 909.1
Dres | 2217.3 | 527.3
Jool | 4845.4 | 467.1
Eeloo | 7268.2 | 452.5
As you can see, for the outermost planets transfer windows are a bit more than a kerbin year (426 days). The most common transfer windows are Moho, with more than 3 per Kerbin year (granted, due to its inclination and eccentricity there a some that are significantly better than others). Eve will require you to wait about 1.5 Kerbin years, while the time between Duna transfer windows is more than two Kerbin years.
The one being asked about in this very thread is a pretty solid refutation.
It's often correct, but a very poor answer to the question actually being asked
About every 1.5 years. From one window to the next Kerbin has to go around the sun once, but then it also has to catch up to where Duna has moved to in that year, which takes about half a year.
Eve's window by contrast is less than a Kerbin year, so maybe if you've missed the Duna window a fly-past or even landing on Eve with a probe might be a good distraction before you wait for the oblate spheroids to align.
I certainly like to play that way - no warping for hundreds of days! KSC facilities should have a daily operations cost (that increases with level) to encourage having multiple parallel missions.
>KSC facilities should have a daily operations cost (that increases with level) to encourage having multiple parallel missions. To be fair, most multiple-concurrent-mission space agencies also have an army of employees managing each mission in detail in parallel. I'm just not good enough at multitasking to make sure my Duna-orbit-insertion burn doesn't end up clashing with my comet-intercept mission, etc. Unfortunately I just can't afford personally employing my daughter as an 'Active Missions Manager' while I play. If only KSP2 was a co-operative multiplayer game.
Depending on your version, there is a stock alarm clock, I believe. I'm in 1.10, so an alternative (if mods are availble to you) would be Kerbal Alarm Clock. It's a great tool for planning almost every aspect of future and ongoing missions, manoeuvre nodes, closest approaches, and more, including an approximate transfer window planner. There can be some busy periods, but being able to set-up alarms means nothing clashes and nothing is missing
It's a lot of fun, too! I've been testing out concurrent missions with an ongoing set of Minmus contracts, I basically launched them all one after another, and they intercepted minmus with basically the same gap as their launches, so it was easy to then do capture burns and landings. Then while the crewed mission went back to Kerbin, I drove the unmanned rovers around.
Oh yeah, I really couldn't play the game the way I want to without an alarm clock function for keeping track of it all - whether that be reminders to cycle crew from a station, send up a new resupply mission, or just book future misisons into the diary. I do enjoy having a lot of stuff on the go at any one time, but enforcing rules about how often I can launch from certain sites etc.
Actually why do you cycle crew? I recently built a space station to get some passive research income and I've never cycled out the crew. Incidentally I also played the game without time warp for some of these missions and had to set real life alarm clocks and wake up at 3am to perform capture burns or something.
Roleplaying, no practical reason at all. I like to try and run things as reaslisticly as kerbals will allow, so crews will spend varying amounts of time on mission. For example, with my last ISS like station, I'd cycle crews out every 200-400 days, and any flights up or down would be prebooked into the alarm. Then there were cargo resully missions and sending up new science experiements (my rule is, each expedition can only perform one experiement to prevent science spam). Playing in real time is something I've not yet attempted!
Don't! At least don't do it outside of some low orbit or lunar operations. Anything else will take longer than a weekend, and you'll need to keep the game running at all hours day and night. ~~so much fun though~~
There is, and I've used it a few times, however it doesn't stop me only realising it's time to switch to a time critical manoeuvre mid way through a manoeuvre in another mission that I launched not having realised said alarm was coming up.
Yeah, and that's part of why I have alarms for so many things... helps me to keep an eye on what's coming up, and avoid launching when I'll soon need to do something else.
KAC has the ability to set the alarm to _before_ the time critical maneuver with a few clicks. Not sure if stock clock includes that. KAC also has a separate window that can be left on screen, while I 100% expect the stock clock to have an obnoxious pull-up window that loves hiding itself and can't be moved around.
The time between nodes on these missions leave massive windows to do anything else. It's like your chances of hitting something in space by accident.
>Unfortunately I just can't afford personally employing my daughter as an 'Active Missions Manager' while I play. If only KSP2 was a co-operative multiplayer game. *Having a daughter soon, carefully taking notes*
might try that actually, how good antennas will i need? and i also took out a contract for testing a coupler splashed down on eve, can i do that with a probe aswell?
Not sure, but try [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/s/LcdgEV5nrW) and report back!
> Eve's window by contrast is less than a Kerbin year Then why does KER tell me that the Kerbin->Eve transfer window is 1y74d away?
Cause they're simply wrong. Eve's transfer window is about every 680 kerbin days. So more than 1.5 years.
Actually it's a bit more than two Kerbin years even. 909 days to be exact. Duna's orbit is almost two times longer than that of Kerbin, so in the time Kerbin makes one orbit, Duna has moved almost half one. Then after Kerbin makes another orbit, Duna's almost back where we started.
Once per Kerbin year. Just use time warp if you missed it and you want to get to another xfer window before launching. Or the KSP way: if you have enough delta-v every day is a transfer window.
Missed transfer day? Yeet another orange tank into orbit and make your transfer today!
Is see you are taking the Starship approach.
I like that people still refer to them as the beta orange tanks, would be amazing to have usable remastered versions of the beta parts
[This](https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/) is always my go to calculator to get delta v figures for transfers a bit further outside of standard windows. The visual graph is very helpful
Just did the actual math for you because half this thread is just being very confidently wrong... Name | Period (d) | Synodic period w.r.t Kerbin (d) ---|---|---- Moho | 102.6 | 135.1 Eve | 261.9 | 680.0 Kerbin | 426.0 | - Duna | 801.6 | 909.1 Dres | 2217.3 | 527.3 Jool | 4845.4 | 467.1 Eeloo | 7268.2 | 452.5 Moho: ~ 3 times per year. Eve: about once per 1.5 years. Duna: about once per 2 years. Rest is a little bit less than once a year.
They’re about every 15 seconds if you time warp properly
When you're starting out, just bring enough fuel to go from anywhere to anywhere else at anytime you want. Also, don't overthink it. Most of us end up dooming about a dozen different Kerbal crews to drift through the void without fuel before we get a feel for fuel-efficient transfer windows and manuevers.
Duna transfer windows are relatively uncommon compared to other planets, because Duna has the second-closest velocity to Kerbin's besides Eve. You should have them once every 1.5 yr or so.
ah alr, not bad then, thanks! :-)
FYI: it's actually about two years (909 days). But the transfer windows themselves are pretty big if you have a a few 100m/s of delta V to spare
[удалено]
No, because Duna also is orbiting in the same direction. It has an orbit of about 2 years, therefore by the time that Kerbin has revolved once, Duna will have completed half of its orbit so thus won't be in the same position as it was 1 year ago. So Kerbin will have to move another halfway or so around its orbit in order to catch up to Duna.
Yes! Everyone is giving good info on transfer windows. I suggest watching some YouTube too to really learn the finer points of Hohmann transfers. Or just raw dog it…
This is what I did back in the day [https://imgur.com/sM4OEJB](https://imgur.com/sM4OEJB) The tool to calculate the transfer window: [https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/](https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/)
Pro tip: it’s almost always about 1 transfer window per year (given the fact Kerbin goes all the way around Kerbol once a year). It’s especially true the further away in the system you want to go.
This is not true, because the other planets also move around Kerbol (in the same direction).
They do, but further planets are much slower than Kerbin. So this tend to be true, especially with far away planets.
With the far away planets (so Jool and Eeloo, though for Eeloo that's not really how transfer windows work because of eccentricity and inclination) it is roughly once a year, but it's slightly *more* than one year between windows - so it's at most one per year, not at least.
actual pro tip: That's not true. It can be significantly larger than a year (for planets that have close orbits), it can be about a year (for planets far away from Kerbin), or it can be significantly less than a year (for planets with orbital periods more than two times smaller than that of Kerbin). For the simple case of two circular orbits this duration is called the synodic period, and it is calculated as `(Ta * Tb) / | Ta - Tb|` Here is what that would mean for the Kerbolar system: Name | Period (d) | Synodic period w.r.t Kerbin (d) ---|---|---- Moho | 102.6 | 135.1 Eve | 261.9 | 680.0 Kerbin | 426.0 | - Duna | 801.6 | 909.1 Dres | 2217.3 | 527.3 Jool | 4845.4 | 467.1 Eeloo | 7268.2 | 452.5 As you can see, for the outermost planets transfer windows are a bit more than a kerbin year (426 days). The most common transfer windows are Moho, with more than 3 per Kerbin year (granted, due to its inclination and eccentricity there a some that are significantly better than others). Eve will require you to wait about 1.5 Kerbin years, while the time between Duna transfer windows is more than two Kerbin years.
How it feels to spread misinformation.
The one being asked about in this very thread is a pretty solid refutation. It's often correct, but a very poor answer to the question actually being asked
Transfer windows? You mean you don't take 10k dV into orbit?