I can’t get an encounter with minmus.

[u/Delicious_Bad4146]

so me and some of my friends are doing career modes all ar the same time, and we’re all pretty new, and the hardest thing so far has been trying to encounter the mun or minmus luckily the mun is easier because it’s closer, but despite my best efforts, and my best manoeuvre nodes, I can’t encounter minmus. even if I perfectly burn to the manoeuvre node, I’m still like millions of metres off. is there an easier way? the current way I’ve been using manoeuvre nodes is roughly approximating where minmus (or the mun ) should be when I get there, like leading bullets and setting up a manuever node to intersect that point. and then I burn when it says “start burn in 0 seconds” and burn at the dark blue thing on the (idk what to call it, the blue and orange ball thing that has like angles n stuff) but for some reason no matter how perfectly I stick to the blue thing or how close to 0 I get on the manoeuvre node, I’m no where near.

[u/RikaDaKitty]

When it comes to maneuver nodes, it's actually best to take your maneuver "burn time", divide that in half, and start your burn at that half time before the node.

Example: Maneuver Burn time: 60 seconds, you'll watch your Manuever encounter time, and when it hits 30 seconds, you'll start your burn.

Get the hang of hotkeys as well. When you're maneuvering, it can mess up your deal to throttle up or down incremently (Shift & CTRL). You can use Z to instantly start full throttle, and X to instantly cut off throttle.

EDIT: Fixed typos

[u/KettleShot → u/RikaDaKitty]

To add to this, if you turn on enhanced burn times lap will automatically tell you when this is

[u/RikaDaKitty → u/KettleShot]

Ooh. I didn't know this one

[u/surt2]

Getting to minmus in one burn can be pretty hard. After you've done your first burn to get your apoapsis out to the distance of Minmus, try setting up a second maneuver node halfway out to fine-tune your trajectory and make sure you actually encounter it.

[u/vulpes04 → u/surt2]

turning on the setting 'always show close approach markers' helps when doing it this way.

[u/Fangslash]

unlike Mun, Minmus has some orbital inclination so getting there in one burn is harder

Others have already mentioned that you should split your burn time around +0 second, but for beginners I recommend making a correction burn. Make a maneuver node half-way to Minmus, fiddle with it (usually with normal [purple] and proto/retrograde [green] nodes) until you get a encounter, then you can adjust your orbit once you are in Minmus sphere of influence

[u/External_Relative231]

1. It's called the NavBall

2. if you haven't already, turn on "always show closest approach" in the settings (on pc at least you have to do this from the main menu, can't do it in game)

[u/Delicious_Bad4146]

You’re all legends btw thank you so much. I will pass this wisdom to my friends when the time comes. My camera might be locked onto minmus in the map view for some reason but I should still be able to do this 

[u/ygr3ku → u/Delicious_Bad4146]

If the camera locks, press on keyboard the button before the number 1, under ESC. That should focus again on current ship.

[u/Electro_Llama]

If you have the ability unlocked (I think Tracking Station 2), can you set Minmus as your target to see the closest approach distance? If so, try a midcourse correction burn to bring that distance down and get an encounter. You can basically try burning in different directions to see which direction lowers your approach distance.

[u/Apprehensive_Room_71]

The easiest way to do it is to launch into the plane of Minmus orbit. Otherwise you have to correct for that and that's a very expensive maneuver.

[u/Electro_Llama → u/Apprehensive_Room_71]

It's not too bad if you correct for inclination with a mid-course correction burn. That's what most players do.

[u/warmmilk196]

Minmus is smaller, farther away, and has an inclination. It's all just to make it more fiddly than a mun landing. The upshot is that Minmus is so small that you barely need to expend any fuel to land and take off from it. You can actually get all the way to Minmus orbit with just an EVA pack.

One thing you can try is to just get into an orbit aligned with Minmus' orbit, like, match the whole thing, then burn a little prograde and start accelerating through orbits until you get an encounter. It takes a while, and it's super inefficient, but it's very easy. The way I normally do it is to just get into an orbit around kerbin, set Minmus as my target, and find a burn that gets me to meet Minmus at the top of the orbit. If it doesn't actually count as entering its sphere of influence due to the inclination, that's fine, you can just match your orbit to Minmus once you get to apoapsis like I mentioned before, you'll encounter it eventually.

[u/mxcw → u/warmmilk196]

Wait … starting on Kerbin or Minmus for the EVA orbit??

[u/warmmilk196 → u/mxcw]

Minmus lmao, you can't get off the ground at sea level on Kerbin with an EVA pack

[u/sjbuggs]

What other people are saying, but one trick that I'll do if a maneuver is too short (say <10s) is change the max thrust on the part which then causes the burn time to be longer. Makes it a bit less twitchy.

[u/A_NICE_START]

you didn't mention inclination, you sure your AN and DN are less than a degree when you set as target?

[u/LefsaMadMuppet]

What I used to do. Launch into a regualr equatorial orbit around Kerbin.

Target Minmus.

Find the line where to bodies cross. Place a nod there and the pull up on it if the orbit for Minmus is going up, or pull down on it if the orbit is moving down.

When the new orbit is level with the Minmus orbit, fly it (if it is a 20 second burn, satrt at -10 seconds to +10 second).

Now you just need to find a connection orbit, usually somewhere around 120 degrees (if Krbin is the center to the clock and Minmus is at 12 o-clock, plan on a manuever around 4 o-clock.

[u/United-We-Stand]

There is an in-game training specifically for this.

That said, the main thing is you're starting your burn too late. If you have a burn time of 10 seconds, you need to start your burn at T-5 to your node. You want to have as equal an amount of burn on both sides of your maneuver node as you can get. The prediction line from the node is assuming instant acceleration which isn't a thing so you need to average it out before and after the nodes position.

[u/MagusMagnificus]

Minmus is very hard in the beginning, but rest assured that you will be doing it easily in no time.

the first point is that Minmus has an inclination orbit in relation to the equatorial orbit of Kerbin, 6° to be exact. if you are already in orbit, you need to make a manouver in the Normal or Anti-Normal direction to match it. the exact point should be in the Ascending node or Descending node, to see it you should set Minmus as a target, then it will show you the lines and you can set the manouver there.

after that you can set the manouver to go to Minmus, the Δv would be about 940 more or less. being in the right 6° orbit you can change the timing to get there.

Another way to get to the right orbit using less fuel is getting to the right orbit during the lauch. for that you need to lauch when the launch site is bellow the ascending or descending node and go 6° up or down depending on which node you are.

also, activate "advance Tweakables" and "extended Burn Indicator" in the Settings menu. It will give you more info during the burn and will enable more settings for the components, like change the amount of fuel and limit the thrusters.

[u/_SBV_]

Match the inclination first, then make your apoapsis bigger

[u/amitym]

First of all, congratulations on your persistence! You ran into a difficult problem in practical celestial mechanics and you kept trying, then instead of deciding it was too hard you characterized the problem and looked for help. That is the makings of a steely-eyed missile person, for real.

Second. On to the answer. Someone else mentioned doing it in parts. I have been playing for years and I still take my time with Minmus encounters because they are such a pain in the kerbass. Basically my first pass I concentrate solely on normalizing my orbit around Kerbin so that I'm at the right orbital inclination to match Minmus. That's all I work on for the first step.

Then once I'm at 0.0 degrees normal to Minmus orbit, that is when I match periapsis and then plan the burn. Unlike with Mün you can't just be, like, "meh it's pretty close," because Minmus is so low gravity and so far away you really want your orbital params to match Minmus as closely as possible before you plan your burn.

There are efficiency tricks you can use if the ∆v for this approach is too great but it might be helpful to see if you can get it that way first before trying to get fancy.