I made my first inter-planetary trip to Mercury (kinda)

[Killer Toilet]

I have been playing Orbiter for the past week and a half or so and I have no knowledge how to use TransX or IMFD yet. But I have been reading this post recently http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=2533 and I had the same idea of launching myself into the Sun. I was on noob mode where fuel was unlimited and safety only meant that I don't accidentally launch myself out of the Solar System by accident (like I did on several occasions when I forgot to cut the engines).

Anyway, I launched myself into the Sun, forcefully stopped my rotations, and retrograded burns everywhere. Soon I had the orbit I wanted to go into the giant texture, and when I got to the center, the game spazzed out and I somehow landed on Mercury.

So now I have to try to get at least to the Moon without exploiting glitches. At least I can say I made it to Mercury knowing nothing other than basic orbits around Earth.

I wonder what would happen to that if Mercury was deleted from the game temporary in the config section. I might have to test that out...

Now I am orbiting the planet. If there is one MFD I DO know almost completely, it's the orbit MFD. If only I could make actual interplanetary flights...

 

[flytandem]

(...snip...) If only I could make actual interplanetary flights...

I remember having that feeling. And finally shaking that feeling was worth all the effort.

 

[Eagle]

You ended up landed on Mercury just because the game glitches like that. It is possible to successfully land on the Sun in Orbiter, but it can be a bit difficult. It would be fun to have a mesh sun with a photosphere and realistic atmosphere but its not a high priority for either Martin or most developers.

The principles of interplanetary flight is the same as rendezvous with satellites and the moon. The difference is you usually want to arrive in the next half orbit so your journey time is months instead of years.

Keep playing around with the little stuff and the more difficult things will come. Incidentally traversing between the many moons of Jupiter or Saturn is an excellent crash course because of the exceedingly fast transfer times.

 

[Killer Toilet]

You ended up landed on Mercury just because the game glitches like that. It is possible to successfully land on the Sun in Orbiter, but it can be a bit difficult. It would be fun to have a mesh sun with a photosphere and realistic atmosphere but its not a high priority for either Martin or most developers.

The principles of interplanetary flight is the same as rendezvous with satellites and the moon. The difference is you usually want to arrive in the next half orbit so your journey time is months instead of years.

Keep playing around with the little stuff and the more difficult things will come. Incidentally traversing between the many moons of Jupiter or Saturn is an excellent crash course because of the exceedingly fast transfer times.

One problem though. I never made it to the moon before. I have attempted using different tools, but I will learn the IMFD tutorials beforehand. It would probably be 2 weeks before I accidentally slingshot my way from the Moon to God-knows-where...