Nedal

Yeah interstellar is awesome. Not sure if it's .90 compatible yet though, I think someone was working on it in place of fractalUK though. Iirc

.18, collected and returned surface samples from all bodies before sls parts came out. Not sure when that was. Oh eve.. how I loathed thee

Also if you don't want to mess with mods and phase angles and such. How I used to do interplanetary transfers was to, eject from kerbin going the right direction. Away from kerbins direction around the sun to go inner. Or faster than kerbin to go outer. Get your kerbol periaps (inner) about matching somewhere on the destination planets orbit. Fix any inclination (burn normal on decending node or vice versa). Then when you get to the periapsis, fiddle with a node until you get an encounter on the next orbit. You may have to time warp a lot. try to manipulate your orbit so that it more closely matches the destination planet, so for duna, you'd want to burn retro grade at the periapsis to get your encounter, not Prograde (this helps not waste deltav once you arrive to make orbit). Overall it's not much more inefficient than using correct transfer windows. You just waste a lot of kerbal years timewarping. Sometimes you have to go around a few times to get a decent node to encounter.

Rescuing 4 men off the surface of eve. My massive lander had an engine fall off one of the inner stages on landing, that i didnt notice and thus quicksaved after. I tried my best to use a kerbals head and knock off its counter part engine to no avail. However i was able to make it by initiating a roll as fast as i could to kinda of ascend like a slowing top, and everyone got home alive. Recently on tylo in hard mode. I came in too shallow and had to ditch my drop tank early to get enough twr to not hit the surface and thus didnt have the fuel to reorbit. Flew in a probe lander with some fuel and refueled the lander on the surface of tylo. Got him back up to interplanetary ship, and off to laythe he went. However landing on laythe with parachutes, I ended up on a super steep slope, and toppled over and broke. Flew in rescue probe, but used 4x phys warp while running kirby up the hill to the rescue... he poofed.. rip kirby... Needed the science off that lander tho.. Flew the rescue probe back up to the interplanetary ship, pulled out a guy from the lab, went back to the crash site, picked up the science. then found out the guys head couldnt fit between two tanks and was unable to climb the ladder to the command seat.. :I But was able to knock the lander over, get him on board, then wiggle jiggle and dance with the sas and landing legs to and upright position and continue the mission... Fun times..

Pretty solid design, nice job!

Ah. Ok so you want to make sure you dont deviate too far from the prograde vector, and dont over accelerate. try to maintain around 2g / 2twr, seems to be pretty good for me. turn early and slow. dont let your direction get outside of the prograde circle until you're about 25ish km in altitude. Or if its really that aerodynamically unstable. just go straight up till about 30km, then turn and burn. But some fins on the rear should help quite a bit. - - - Updated - - - its tough flying pancakes with FAR. Is that what you're trying to do? hehe. fins in the rear, and strut it up extra. should help.

:< are you using FAR or something? It seems like a lvl 1 pilot uses sas just like it used to behave. Theres just more options for holding directions when he levels up. I could be wrong. Add more reaction wheels? Add fins down below so your center of drag is way behind the center of mass? Try to get a little creative so your rocket doesnt look and fly like a sledge hammer?

I think a different music scheme in each sphere of influence would be a nice touch.

I'm gessing we're talking about stock. And things that could be possible with a little parameter tweaking.. like an eve ssto. Maybe landing on and collecting surface samples from all bodies in one launch? Uhh achieving a 50x50km circular kerbol orbit and return in one launch. Stuff like that?

Can't wait to hear about stage 1 - - - Updated - - - Apparently stage 1 made it to the drone ship but landed hard "close, but no cigar"

I also heard it on reggie watts why @$!# so crazy. Heard it pop up here and there in other places too since. It's always neat. Bout 5 minutes till launch!

Playing hard mode, kirby Kerman had quite an adveture. So I set out with a goal of landing on tylo laythe and Val in a mission, after completing bop Pol contracts already. Designed a single aerospike lander that I felt up to the task. Complete with interplanetary nerva refueling lab thing. First stop tylo, as the lander has a unreusable drop tank to help on tylo descent. Messed it up, vertical velocity too high, had to drop the tank way early for twr so at least not to smash into the surface. But he lands successfully. Just without enough fuel to reach orbit again. Gah, send out a probe lander with Kas fuel pipes to land next to it and refuel. End up crashing the thing about 500 meters away. But the probe and most of the fuel is intact, so I'll just use what's left in kirbys lander to hover over and fuel up. Eh, get next to it, but fall over on landing. About 5 minutes of rocking rolling and extending\retracting landing legs I get the thing upright and fuel it up and make it back to the mothership. One down, two to go. Laythe is next. So I want to land on land, for the flag planting contract. Get over a nice island, deploy shutes, land right on a steep ass hill, fall over and all but the pod explode.. arggg. So I send out a replacement lander, for vall, as well as a probe airbreathing lander to rescue kirby. Get the thing landed, about 2.5km away, cause the hill he was on was so huge. Start running kirby up the hill to his rescue pod. Bump up the physical time warp so it doesn't take FOREVER..... ..... he poofs into the side of the mountain.. public service announcement, don't phys time warp running up steep hills on highish gravity planets.. Ok kirby had a good run but I want the science from the pod, and a surface sample. Reorbit the rescue airbreathing pod, grab a guy out of the lab, take him back to the crash site, grab the science. Oh.. his head won't fit between the tanks climbing up the ladder.. Was finally able to knock the lander over, get in the command seat, and get upright. Tom rod went on to land on vall, Pol, bop again for flag plantings, and even hit dres on the way home. But man.. to lose kirby by running up a hill.. arg.

Oh mark... XD

Yes. New\different mod sets.

I always play career. .25 has reinvigorated my interest with the difficulty settings, playing full hard mode is a whole new experience. I also impose a few rules upon myself to make it even a little harder. No leaving kerbals on bodies just to spam flags. Or probes to spam 0 science contracts. Also no boring mun\minus biome hopping. Just go if I have contracts, and return. I feel building mission specific ships with fund constraints is a big part of the challenge. So far I haven't lost a single kerbal, although came very very close a few times. Had to rescue Jeb from duna, and once from the mun, dumb mistakes and all. I almost went bankrupt early testing a landers shock absorption abilities and blowing up the launchpad 120Grand?! the most devestating recently I was randezvouing the final fuel pod on a jool 5 craft, being sleepy and not fully paying attention ended up smashing into my 1.5 million fund ship knocking off the lab. Thankfully it didn't explode and I was able to recover the kerbals from the lab. But man, the look of horror on my face must have been priceless. I abandon the jool 5 mission and sent a tylo only craft to recoup funds which was wildly successful and profitable. And just completed the jool 4 craft with a nice kerbodyne test pod destined for bop, which should finish the tech tree and provide much funds. It's been a fun ride. I just don't find sandbox as interesting, perhaps I just lack creativity. My personal endgame is basicly returning surface samples from all bodies and having the tech tree completed. I find it more challenging in career.