Kerano

Not OP, but these tips helped me to make more efficient Tylo landings.

When I get beyond 99,999,999 funds.

I've had a couple of trips back from Moho to Kerbin in my Supership where I've been about as close as it's possible to get to the line. 1. Ran out of rocket fuel, switched to rover RCS. 2. Ran out of RCS, switched to satellite ion engines. 3. Nearly ran the xenon tanks dry, finally got an intercept with Kerbin. Phew!

Damn, I was holding out for Mrch.

Congratulations! An impressive effort. I'd be interested to see a screenshot of your Eve return vehicle - even just in the hangar if you don't have one in flight. I recently hit 99,999,999 funds in career mode, which was a proud moment for me. My own Jeb, Bill and Bob haven't yet got the flag XP from Eve and Tylo though. The Tylo mission is actually on its way, but Eve is still in the planning stages.

All three of them go on missions together once I've unlocked the 3-man capsule. But before that, I probably use Jeb the most in the early game. I've turned to Bill a few times though, as a rover driver for Kerbin contracts once he gets the ability to repair wheels.

It used to be 80 km for me with my old ship designs. Since 0.24 though, funds matter and so my ship designs changed to allow recovery of the final (most expensive) booster stage. As a result I usually boost my apoapsis up to 100-120 km while suborbital so I'll have enough time to land the final booster stage on Kerbin, then switch back to my main ship to bring the periapsis above 70 km. So now my parking orbits usually end up being slightly elliptical, with a semimajor axis around 85-95 km.

Tylo has always had 80% of Kerbin's gravity. There are different delta-v cheat sheets floating around with different values, some conservative and some optimistic. In general though, Tylo takes about 2300 m/s to take off from (with a good TWR of 1.5-2+) and about 2700-3000 m/s to land on. The landing delta-v is much more variable than the takeoff delta-v because it depends a lot on your technique and how much risk you're willing to take. It's possible to land using 2500-2700 m/s of delta-v, but it requires a very careful near-constant-altitude descent and coming to a safe landing speed just as you're about to make contact. Likewise it's quite feasible to use more than 3000 m/s of delta-v during the landing if your descent burn is non-optimal, or if you come to a safe speed well above the surface to reduce risk of impact, or if you have to spend extra time in flight finding a safe (flat) landing spot.

By this point in the game I don't usually have a problem with money. You can comfortably make 2.75 million with just 2 Eeloo contracts (3 at most). But if it's a problem you could always pay upfront for the highest commitment level, and change your preferences later for free. I imagine the UI for "Avoid Body" as having a list of planets/moons with checkboxes you can select and deselect, up to the maximum allowed number for your commitment level. The setup costs were just approximate suggestions anyway, and could be made much lower (or nonexistent). The functionality and control is what I'd really like to see.

Cool news on the re-entry heat. I wonder if we'll get specific heat shield parts with the update, or if we'll need to fashion our own "makeshift" heat shields out of structural panels and the like? On the suggestions front, there are a couple of things I'd really like to see in a future update: 1. Contract types which interact with your existing ships (Expand Station, Expand Base) 2. Admin strategies which allow you to prioritize contracts for a price (Avoid Body, Avoid Mission) - New contract type: Expand Station. Requires X tonnes of fuel, Y crew members, or Z modules to be docked to an existing orbital station of yours. Only available if you currently have a station in orbit around a planet/moon. - New contract type: Expand Base. Requires X tonnes of fuel, Y crew members, or Z modules to be landed within a certain range (e.g. 1 km) of an existing surface outpost of yours. Only available if you currently have a landed base on a planet/moon. - New admin strategy: Avoid Body. Effect: New contracts for a specified body will not be generated until this strategy is cancelled. One body can be specified per 5% commitment. Setup cost: 250,000 funds per 5% commitment. Example 1: Player wants to avoid new contracts at Kerbin, Mun and Minmus - pays 750,000 funds for 15% commitment and selects to avoid those 3 bodies. Example 2: Player wants to only generate contracts at Laythe - pays 4,000,000 funds for 80% commitment and selects to avoid the other 16 bodies. - New admin strategy: Avoid Mission. Effect: New contracts of a specified type will not be generated until this strategy is cancelled. One procedural contract type can be specified per 5% commitment. Setup cost: 350,000 funds per 5% commitment. Example 1: Player wants to avoid asteroid redirects and visual surveys - pays 700,000 funds for 10% commitment and selects to avoid those 2 missions. Example 2: Player wants to only generate part testing missions - pays 4,200,000 funds for 60% commitment and selects to avoid the other 12 procedural missions. (Continued here.)

I hit 99,999,999 funds in my stock Beta Than Ever career.

Heh... given that the most expensive part only costs 32,400 funds, that would require a minimum of 3086 parts. More in reality, because the cluster engine only has 1 attachment point so you'd need many other (cheaper) parts to allow all those connections. So you're looking at more like 4000-5000 parts minimum. If you use the largest fuel tanks (22,800 funds) you'd need 4385 of them. I don't think my computer could handle the lag. Maybe Whackjob could give it a go though?

Hard to say, I have the website version of KSP rather than the Steam one. Most of it was over the Christmas break, probably close to 100 hours over that period. Then an hour or so an evening on average since I suppose, perhaps a little more in the weekends. So maybe 120-150 hours. I guess that's about 30-40 minutes per contract? In reality most of them take only 10-20 minutes once you've got a decent setup, and many take less than 5 minutes. So you could probably do it a bit quicker if you wanted, but I wasn't really playing with that goal in mind - I was experimenting with SSTO's or otherwise having silly fun for a good chunk of the time.

Beating Beta Than Ever So there’s no official “winning condition†in KSP, but in my latest career (KSP 0.90.0, no mods, no cheats, Normal difficulty) I just achieved 99,999,999 funds. For anyone curious as to what happens beyond that point, your funds keep ticking upwards but the counter rolls over to 00,000,000 – i.e. missing the first digit. You can spend money to launch ships though, and the funds tick down to below 99,999,999 again. So the funds are safely tracked, they just don’t display correctly in the game anymore. Pictured in the screenshot above is the "Supership" which I used for the bulk of my missions. See below for more details and a download link. By this point in the game (year 39) I had 170 Kerbals in my space program - 68 at 5-star, 52 at 4-star, 16 at 3-star and 34 rookies. Contract Statistics The breakdown of my completed contracts: I should note that I accepted every contract which was offered to me with a few exceptions: - After I had reached Duna I ignored most Kerbin contracts (payout too low, more interested in interplanetary travel) - After I had reached Jool I ignored most Mun and Minmus contracts (same reasons) - I ignored contracts which required a manned spacecraft to land on Eve (wanted to return everyone, and it's currently too annoying to build large Eve launchers with the radial decoupler bug) I didn't complete any Tylo contracts yet, but I have 7 active contracts I'll be getting to soon. I've already built and tested my SSTO Tylo lander+launcher with rover in sandbox, just need to build a booster capable of getting it from Kerbin to Tylo orbit. Contracts I only tried once or twice included satellites around the Sun, satellites around Jool, gravity scans of Jool, and asteroid redirects. I found these contracts simply took too long to achieve relative to their payout. The Sun satellite in particular required an absurd amount of delta-v (~10,000 m/s from Jool, ~20,000 m/s from Kerbin) and only paid out 250,000 funds. The most fun contracts for me were probably the orbital stations and surface outposts, mainly because my design made them relatively easy to achieve and they paid well. The requirement to build a base "on wheels" only came up twice, which was a shame as I thought it made for an entertaining challenge. The requirement to build the station "into an asteroid" came up half a dozen times, but I never accepted because the payout was far too low relative to the required time investment. Almost all of the part test contracts were on Kerbin. It was rare to receive an offer to test a part elsewhere, and usually the payout was too low to bother with. The majority of the other Kerbin contracts were made up of satellites, visual surveys and science data from space. Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus are underrepresented in the numbers because I ignored most of those contracts after the early game. I really wanted to do more Laythe contracts once I started building Mk3 spaceplanes, but unfortunately they were rarely available. Contract Improvements I posted a few suggestions on this already, but here are a couple more thoughts on improving the contract experience. - Add new contract type: Expand Station. Requires X tonnes of fuel, Y crew members, or Z modules to be docked to an existing orbital station of yours. Only available if you currently have a station in orbit around a planet/moon. - Add new contract type: Expand Base. Requires X tonnes of fuel, Y crew members, or Z modules to be landed within a certain range (e.g. 1 km) of an existing surface outpost of yours. Only available if you currently have a landed base on a planet/moon. - Add new admin strategy: Avoid Body. Effect: New contracts for a specified body will not be generated until this strategy is cancelled. One body can be specified per 5% commitment. Setup cost: 250,000 funds per 5% commitment. Example 1: Player wants to avoid new contracts at Kerbin, Mun and Minmus - pays 750,000 funds for 15% commitment and selects to avoid those 3 bodies. Example 2: Player wants to only generate contracts at Laythe - pays 4,000,000 funds for 80% commitment and selects to avoid the other 16 bodies. - Add new admin strategy: Avoid Mission. Effect: New contracts of a specified type will not be generated until this strategy is cancelled. One procedural contract type can be specified per 5% commitment. Setup cost: 350,000 funds per 5% commitment. Example 1: Player wants to avoid asteroid redirects and visual surveys - pays 700,000 funds for 10% commitment and selects to avoid those 2 missions. Example 2: Player wants to only generate part testing missions - pays 4,200,000 funds for 60% commitment and selects to avoid the other 12 procedural missions. Supership It's capable of transferring and returning 17 crew to any body other than Eve, Tylo and Laythe - tested and confirmed to work on Duna, Vall and Moho (as long as you're careful with the transfer windows and descent burn) as well as everything smaller. The 4 largest booster stages are recoverable with parachutes during launch, saving about 200,000 funds when they splash down (nearly 20% of the 1,100,000 ship cost). They detach simultaneously around 45 km altitude, and I never have a problem with them moving out of physics range during the descent. The upper stage with all the crew plus the satellites is fully recoverable on Kerbin for around 350,000 funds, meaning that the net cost of a return mission is only about 550,000 funds - and that includes leaving a fueled tanker in orbit around the visited body. Aside from the crew compartment, there are 4 ion satellites (redockable), a detachable rover (redockable with monoprop engines), and a large tanker which provides enough fuel for multiple landings on most bodies. It can satisfy pretty much any contract on the smaller planets and moons. Variants: - For Duna missions I swap 4 of the regular parachutes for drogue parachutes. - For Jool missions I add 4 extra xenon containers to each of the ion satellites. - The largest crew requirement I've had on a contract is 19 (twice), and in those cases I just add an extra crew container near the top. If you'd like to download my Supership, the link is here.

I made a Mk3 spaceplane which is SSTO capable on Kerbin and Laythe. It has two cargo bays, one with a laboratory and the other with a rover for surface science. The rover is redockable with monoprop engines. Here's what it looks like launching from Kerbin. After the main boosters detach. One time I got overambitious and flew too far around Laythe, eating into my liquid fuel reserves. I didn't have enough fuel to return to orbit, so I had to design a second plane to rescue it. This second plane was of similar design - shorter due to the lack of a lab, but instead of a science rover it had a liquid fuel tank rover. The tanker rover made use of a claw for docking. Refueling was a success. Both spaceplanes made it safely back to the station in orbit. You can see one of the "return tugs" at the far end of the station, which docked to the spaceplanes to give them the extra delta-v necessary to return to Kerbin.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Orbital rendezvous is definitely one of the toughest things to do, because it requires so many steps. The basic requirements are as follows. - Launch into an orbit roughly matching the plane of the target. - Correct the orbit plane to match the target. (Or if target is around another body than Kerbin, bring apoapsis down just inside SOI for an elliptical orbit, and plane change at the highest altitude node.) - Ensure your periapsis is just below the altitude of the target's orbit. - Change your apoapsis to be just above the altitude of the target's orbit (~10%). - Warp ahead, noting the change in distance to the target each time you hit periapsis. (It may be necessary to switch to the Tracking Station if the max warp level is too slow.) - Stop the warp at periapsis when it looks like the target will be ahead of you at the next periapsis crossing. - Bring your apoapsis down very slowly until one of the rendezvous markers gets below 0.2 km (ideally 0.0 km). - Warp until just before the rendezvous marker. - Change to target mode and find the retrograde position. - The green marker indicating the target should now be directly behind you. - Burn retrograde to the target when you are at your closest point (<200 m) until your relative velocity is <0.2 m/s. There are many things that can go wrong along the way, including the game automatically switching out of orbital mode before you're ready to go to target mode - confusing the direction for burns. Then if you want to dock you need careful advance planning: - Both ships must have a docking port (or at least one must have a claw) - Both ships should have a reaction wheel or command pod for sufficient torque. - At least one ship should have a decent amount of monopropellant (ideally both ships). - RCS thrusters should be placed with 4-way symmetry as close as possible to the center of mass on any ship with monopropellant. If you're missing any of these ingredients, life is going to be a lot harder while trying to dock. The process to dock following rendezvous is also tricky: - Learn what the HNIJKL keys do when using RCS before you start. Also know that RCS is turned on/off by pressing R. - Make sure your velocity relative to the target is <0.2 m/s and your distance is <200 m. - Right click the docking port on your ship you want to use and select "Control from here". - Right click the docking port on the other ship and select "Set as target". - Make sure RCS is OFF, and use only torque (WASD keys) to turn both docking ports until they are facing one another. Switch between ships as many times as necessary using []. - Turn on RCS (R key), and move forward (H key) towards the other docking port at 0.1 m/s for each 10 m of distance (e.g. 100 m = 1.0 m/s). - The prograde marker and the target marker should be overlapping. If they are not, use sideways RCS (IJKL keys) to make them overlap. This may need repeating a few times as you approach the target. - When you are getting close to your target (~10 m), use RCS to slow down (N key) to 0.1-0.2 m/s. - When you are very close (~5 m), turn RCS off (R key) and use torque (WASD keys) to make sure you are pointing directly at the target docking port. - If all goes well, the "magnetic" force from the other docking port will "catch" you and docking should follow. - Note sometimes docking will not be completed until you toggle off SAS (T key) on both crafts.

True, that is a little annoying... it'd be nice if their accuracy improved as they levelled up. Right now I usually just flip on and off the direction button so I know which way to move, then do it myself. Or I let the pilot do it but flick in and out of timewarp once he hits the right vector to cancel the torque. Perhaps a little cheaty, but I can't be bothered wasting time waiting for the metronome effect to come to rest on large ships - especially once I have level 5 pilots.

That already works, I've used it dozens of times while docking in 0.90. What would be nice though for pilot functions are: - Hold position at the prograde horizon, e.g. 90 degrees/East (level 4?) - Switch from retrograde to stability mode automatically on touchdown (level 5?)

Plenty of games have been released in a state which was much less complete and far more buggy than KSP 0.90.0 is currently. As long as the patches/updates don't stop too soon, I don't see a problem with Squad labelling the next version as the "official release". I mean, I'd like to see a Gas Giant 2 and a fix for the radial decoupler torque bug at some stage soon, but aside from that I'm very happy with the stock game.

Thanks once again for the transcription, ObsessedWithKSP. Much appreciated as always. Interesting that the design decision on fairings has changed from "they'll never be stock" to "they'll definitely be stock" in the past few months. I'll be interested to try them out. Looking forward to the bigger landing gear and wings. Tourism contract sounds good, would still like to get contracts that use your existing spaceships (e.g. "add X tonnes of fuel to Y" or "add Z crew to Y"). Glad to hear there'll be an additional Tier of buildings, the VAB and Launchpad in particular could really use an extra tier between 30-255 parts and 18-140 tonnes respectively. Not entirely sure about deep space refueling, I've always thought tanker stations were supposed to be an integral part of the game. Guess we'll see how it affects game balance in the next update.

With the list of additions they're planning for the next update, I'd say it's almost ready. Would be nice to have a full Kerbol system on the 1.0 update (add Saturn, Uranus and Neptune analogues along with a few moons), and squash a few more bugs (crazy radial decoupler torque is the most annoying one), but in terms of what a new player will experience I think it's pretty much ready. I've played a lot of other games which have been much further from complete - and far buggier - on their initial release than KSP is at 0.90.0. Those games were still popular and improved dramatically after a few patches and/or an expansion. So yeah, I'm not concerned about KSP going to 1.0 with the next update. I'm still petitioning for Gas Giant 2 to be included though.

Sounds good. I hope while you're at it you can also fix the air flow logic. (Credit for the diagram to ScottKerman.) Excellent, now just need some sort of alarm system to allow multiple simultaneous missions without manually keeping track of crafts (or using a mod). Hmm... multiplayer? Good things to remind about... let's see: - Adding crew (prompt if there are any empty slots when launching) - RCS thrusters (prompt if have monopropellant tank OR docking port; prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Monopropellant tank (prompt if have at least 1 docking port; prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Solar Panels/RTGs (prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Batteries (prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Probe core/crew module (prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Reaction wheel (if no crew module; prompt for each section separated by a docking port) - Docking port (prompt for crafts beyond ~100 parts or ~100 tonnes) - Ladder (if have landing legs or wheels) - Parachute (if have crew module; also check if sufficient parachutes) - TWR < 1 (takeoff warning; check TWR of first stage containing a liquid fuel engine) - Total delta-v < ~4500 m/s (orbit warning)

Testing isn't really optional for me, especially when designing a new super-heavy booster stage or a new SSTO spaceplane. I usually revert test flights, but only up to LKO. Any missions beyond there become the real deal.

Cool news. I wish we could hear more about the progress on multiplayer than just a few 140-character snippets though. If only there was some sort of forum to allow for unstilted conversation... I can't wait to build my first collaborative space station in real time with my brothers. It'd be awesome to have the option for two or more players to perform docking manoeuvres within physics range of one another.