fat4eyes

Mechjeb. Or at least Kerbal engineer. Or even just the per-stage TWR/flight time/delta-V tables from those mods.

I don't understand all the mechjeb hate. I would not have learned as much about KSP so quickly without mechjeb. I would still be turning my kerbin launches at 70km if I didn't try out mechjeb, would never have landed on a planet outside the Kerbin system, done a spacecraft rendezvous and docking and I would still be designing rockets that are WAY too heavy for what they're supposed to do. I would probably not even have tried the science or career modes because I would have been utterly frustrated by the difficulty spike of interplanetery travel. Now I've sent probes all over the system and am working on building a manned exploration ship in orbit to explore Jool and it's moons. I could also now do most of what mechjeb does on my own (heck sometimes I HAVE to, since mechjeb has this tendency to shake really tall rockets apart during ascent), and can sometimes even do better than it. Mechjeb has smoothed the learning curve and showed me what was possible. Mechjeb is also great for automating repetitive tasks. Getting to the Mun is fun the first time, but gets boring once you've done it 5 to 6 times to grind science and experience. Same for mining operations on Minmus. It's consistency is also great when you're optimizing vehicles. It makes rocket tests very easy to replicate. I agree that there are parts of mechjeb that should be part of stock. The deltaV table during construction and flight for one. If there's any one thing that's given me the greatest insight into rocket design and flight in KSP it's the deltaV table. Understanding TWR and deltaV was the tipping point for me. It turned KSP from a game of just fooling around with rockets into an actual (if whimsical) spaceflight simulator. Mechjeb is a great learning and automation tool and I do not understand why people dislike it. Progress is, after all, built on the work of others, not by reclimbing the same mountain over and over.

New guy here, and just coming in to say that career mode is great for the new player experience. It's basically an big extended tutorial. I like funds too because it keeps rocket designs sane. Remember: "An engineer is someone who can build for one dollar what any fool can build with two." You get a constant stream of funds from contracts anyway one you have orbiter probes around Kerbin, Mun and Minmus.

New guy here, just bought KSP a few days ago. Career mode is great for the new player experience since it basically acts like an extended tutorial, starting you off with a few simple parts and introducing new parts at a pace that allows you to get a hang of the parts you currently have while you work towards new ones. As others mention, it also provides a progression, giving you goals in the early game (when you still dont know much) and by the end of it basically becomes the sandbox mode (albeit limited by funds). By then you know enough about the game to be able to set goals for yourself, and get mods to try to accomplish even more stuff. The science system did feel a bit grindy at first, but once I figured out that putting a polar orbiter on each body in the Kerbin system gives me a constant stream of science and funds from contracts it became way easy. I like the funds system too because it keeps the rocket designs sane. I've been looking at the spaceships in the spacecrafts exchange and a lot of the designs make my inner engineer cry. Throwing away liquid fuel rocket motors when an SRB will do the same thing at a fraction of the cost? Insanity. A quote about engineers come to mind: "An engineer is someone who can build with one dollar what any fool can build with two." I've been downloading mods to try to extend the tech tree, but unfortunately Treeloader seems to be broken. Looking forward to when it is fixed so I can try out Interstellar in career mode.

I've bought Kerbal Space Program a few days ago and I'm having a blast. I'm now playing career mode on normal and have a space station/fuel depot set up in orbit around Kerbin. And now I've come up against the problem of getting fuel up to the depot and doing it cheap. I've searched the forums and the internet a bit for a solution but the results I've found are way too expensive (one in the Stock spacecraft exchange costs more than 1M credits for 20000 units of fuel!). I've finally built one which I'm happy with and I'm posting it here so that other people can use it. Fuel Tanker (stock version) - Takes an orange tank's worth of fuel up to 115km, and then returns to Kerbin for (partial) recovery. All parts (except for Mechjeb) should be stock. Cost: 119987 Kredits (K-bills? K-dollars?) Recoved cost: around 48000-49000 Kredits Fuel delivered: 2880 fuel 3520 oxidizer (1 orange tank) Cost per fuel unit: around 25 Kredits per fuel unit Mechjeb 2 launch parameters: Turn height 10 KM, turn shape 45%. I got it up to 115 km with enough fuel left for a landing at the KSP launchpad. I learned a lot from on how to design more efficient rockets. Other new guys may find it useful.You can fine tune it to your needs by adding/subtracting fuel tanks from the final stage. Be sure to keep the thrust/weight ratio of the other stages around 1.3 though. If you have your own cheap fuel tanker please post them as well, I wouldn't mind shaving a few more Kredits from the fuel lift cost. Now I'm off to figure out if I can do the same with a fully recoverable spaceplane. Here be pictures: On the VAB: On the launch pad (with Mechjeb parameters): Final stage heading for the space station: Autodocking in the dark (shows full orange tank): Autolanding in the light: Recovery: