ghpstage

Interesting. Any idea how to get the old ones to appear? I've yet to see any but it may be because i've moved forward as quickly as I could.

The old Explore Mun contract seems to no longer exist, having been replaced by partial contracts of flyby, orbit, return from flyby and landing. I suspect the same is true of Minmus, but I have seen the old Explore Duna contract so perhaps it only applies in the Kerbin SOI. There are a lot more of this type of contract now, and while you can't really miss most of the old altitude record type ones (the 2500m/s record is an exception that keeps vanishing without completion for me) theres a lot more to miss and the mission control seems very unpredictable in which contracts it hands out when.

396m/s at 6km altitude is far too high and is the primary cause of your problem. Turn down the thrust on those SRBs in the VAB and it should perform better.

Do you have a picture of it in the VAB/prelaunch? And one of just before it flips?

By been to the Mun are you talking about a landing or bypass/orbit? I did build a bare bones lander for the techs you have, but it barely made it home and that was before they bumped up the drag. I suggest getting the next rocket tech as it gives access to the S1 SRB, which gave my last rocket far more than it needed.

How slight? If you force a turn to go far off your prograde marker you are asking to flip over. A small 5 degree turn at around 1km is all you need, if it goes right you won't even need to put another turn command in until the upper atmosphere as it will slowly lean over by itself.

They are pretty much a necessity now. And I like it, its sensible for any largish early rocket you build to need something to stabilise them. Now that having to high a TWR can quite easily destroy a launch rather than just waste fuel the next thing stock desperately needs is a TWR indicator.

If the chutes already deployed then your going to need a rescue mission. Either with space to bring him home or an experienced (level 1?) engineer to repack his chute. I doubt it'll work, but aerobraking at around 40-45km on a few orbits to bleed off some of your velocity will reduce the total heat your chute will experience. I don't think it would be enough however.

A big tip for maximising science income - Scientists can both reset goo and Science jr experiments allowing unlimited re-useability, and can use them to perform experiments while EVA. I just did a second flight in a new career game where I grabbed just under 150 science while completing the first orbit contract (just about scraped high orbit), I bought the EVA upgrade while in orbit and reused a single material lab and two goo's to pick up in flight, high altitude, low space and high space as well as EVA spam and crew reports. Also nice is that thermometers no offer high space science rather than just bugging out. A small lander to Minmus, with a single science jr to hop around biomes may be able to pick up in excess of 1,000 SP.

Nice.Its amazing how quickly you can progress in the new versions career, especially if you abuse the new scientist abilities I started a new one with the hotfix, and broke new ground. First launch with the flea and two goo capsules, with some careful goo resetting with Bob got me 28.6 science, which was just over what I needed for the first two techs plus stability for radial decouplers. Second launch sent Bob scraping his way into high orbit, upgraded Astro Complex and got some impressive results! More than 60 science came from the materials bay while, only 20 came from the two mystery goos, so for future reference, perhaps it would be better to remove the goo's in favour of increased reliability in reaching high orbit, I only had 5 dV left with an orbit of 70.300 and 251,000 so it was extremely tight! Third mission, a Munar flyby is underway. It probably won't hit the 300 I did last time as I already took the first high Kerbin materials, goo, EVA and crew data but I do have a thermometer on board this time around.

In fact if you fail to accept it and accomplish the requirements anyway you lose the contract, and the reward permanently.

Landed on the Mun! Rocket I used was really simple, no additional science equipment nor even landing gear. It managed to get Bob to the Mun and home (just about). For obvious reasons I tipped it on landing, but after panicking a little I decided to try a ramped take off using the rim of the crater I was sitting in which surprisingly worked very well on the second attempt (quickload ) The orbit it threw me into wasn't exactly a good one, nor was my escape burn well planned and a second encounter with the Mun threw my orbit off even further making the final burn require every last drop of fuel. I was surprised by how little tech it actually required to achieve this. I didn't get much in the way of science, just the EVA from the biome he Bob landed and the recovery science, but I did get a lot of funds. Had contracts for science data from space around both Kerbin and the Mun, one for landing on the Mun, another for science from the Munar surface and one for planting a flag! And now the next great scripted achievement offered by mission control..... have two ships rendezvous in space..... I wanted to go to Minmus damn it!

There's a fair amount of early funds available, Rescue missions offer 45-60k rewards from LKO. Science from space around the Mun is worth around 30k Satellites around Kerbin are worth 60k+ Science data from space around Kerbin gives around 15k Surveys on Kerbin can give up to 60k and are now much more easily achievable with early aircraft parts! Ground tests of random parts now seem to give payouts of several thousand funds, and can be done empty and instantly staged to allow maximum recovery. Mix a few of these together and you can get quite a lot quite quickly. Tourists, especially the very early ones wanting sub orbital and orbital flights around Kerbin seem to be little more than a trap to me. I'm trying to make launch number 4 my Mun landing this time

I thought this record contract disappears permanently if you leave the atmosphere, or perhaps make it to orbit? Always has for me at least so i've never completed it

Pods don't seem to have any limit on the number of different experiments they can take, my Mun mission came back with around 20 and I have seen higher in 0.90. But it can't carry any copies of a specific experiment in a specific biome, i.e. mystery goo test from space near Kerbin.I get immediate cash from the records and scripted contracts, though I skip the 2500m/s record. I can quite reliably achieve orbit on my second launch. Though in this most recent run I did a couple of science from launchpad/runway scummy 'launches' in between. When in orbit you want to check the mission control for science data from Kerbin and especially the scripted contract about returning from orbit as thats worth a lot. With all the records and contracts to that point, I typically have 380-430k to play around with.

So I did that Munar orbit mission and came back with around 300 science points I took one goo pod and one mat lab and reused them repeatedly to gather the leftovers from Kerbin high atmosphere and low Kerbin space and new science from high Kerbin space, high Moon space, two lots of each from low Mun space (one stored in pod one in parts) and finally from the biome I landed in. Lots of EVAs and crew reports too of course and +5% from a levelled scientist.... Surprised it got me that much! Wondering if I can bag over 1,000 from Minmus now It does make sense, especially as you can upgrade while in orbit on your first orbital launch. Especially as you would probably want to look for the re-entry contract anyway as its worth like 30k if memory serves.

Just got 92.5 science from my second proper flight in a new career game. Sent a scientist to orbit and reused a mat bay and goo to grab high atmosphere and space near Kerbin science as well as the obligatory EVA spam.Had I not lost them both on re-entry I suspect it would have past 100. Pushed me up as far as advanced rocketry for 909's. Will try for at least Munar orbit with the next launch Seems like scientists now have massive potential, particularly in the early game. The low dV biome hopping you can do on Minmus with a single mat lab and goo could allow you to stack up ludicrous amounts of science.

I'm finding science to be my primary bottleneck in the new career, as a lot of the more useful stuff, such as the 909 and larger fuel tanks have been pushed way back. But now armed with the knowledge that scientists can reset science jrs and goo pods for re-use I have couple of ideas to try. Scientist in a plane to collect from the numerous biomes local to the KSP, and if I can get into orbit without SAS now, high altitude, space near Kerbin, space high above Kerbin, flying over Kerbin and whatever biome I land at in a single flight

Just restarted my stock hard career and got the Mun flyby contract after just 2 launches, first was an initial launch with the flea, second was into orbit with the first 2 techs. That cleared all the records bar 2,500m/s in atmos, all the scripted contracts including the de-orbiting one which is easy to miss (only appears while your first rocket is in orbit!) and a science from near Kerbin space one. Grand total of 430,000 funds from all that too Just remember to decline a couple of contracts to allow the list to refresh.

If you don't mind using time acceleration quite a bit and haven't already done them, the 'explore' contracts have huge payouts, and the overwhelming majority of them can be completed using a one way probe mission costing less than 10k. When doing them you can also frequently pick up 'science data from around' contracts from the bodies as a (big) bonus as they often appear once you have entered the SOI. Is this for the second R&D upgrade on the normal setting?

Don't forget about fine controls toggled with the caps lock key, its pretty much a requirement for flying Stayputnik probes/sats with any degree of accuracy.

Common mistake made here. Its important to recognise that the speed of sound is dependant on speed relative to air, not the ground meaning groundspeed is the wrong measure.The wind strength and direction makes all the difference if your are looking at groundspeed. If you were to send two aircraft off at mach 1 in opposite directions, with a 100 knot wind then the one facing th headwind would have a groundspeed 100 knots lower than the reference mach 1 speed, and the one with a tailwind 100 knots faster than the reference speed. It certainly is possible to exceed mach 1 with an airliner in a dive, but for obvious reasons that tends to be frowned upon!

Haven't seen this posted yet, but its would likely be a worthy contender on any list of stupid things said about space!

I only play stock, but fly without SAS regularly. I've done plenty of manned missions to and from the Mun and Minmus, and I have an ambitious, manned Duna round trip on the go (that cost less than 15K!) that I really ought to finish. I've done one way unmanned landings on everything bar Moho, Dres and Eeloo, and all in sub 18ton, budget launches. I have had quite a few probe losses in total, but 90%+ have been Tylo and Moho attempts. A lot have been launch failures due to the rocket I built flying like a randomly shaped brick, but Tylo's surface is even scarier without SAS! The only orbital rendezvous I have done have been Kerbal rescues. I probably wouldn't attempt docking without (until I got really bored), but I would think that a satellite rendezvous for engineering purposes, where you don't dock and don't require a long EVA would be quite reasonable given patience and practice. I'm not a user of spin stabilisation. I find with fine controls I can get the turns to very nearly stop very near to where I want while in space, where you have plenty of time, and for me at least, spinning in the atmosphere is an exercise in failure generation. Biggest tip I can give is to make sure you know if fine control is on or off off before you start a manoeuvre, as past experience has shown me that not knowing will often lead to a lot of fuel being wasted, and during take off or landings, can easily lead to explosions.

* Ninja'd by a much better description It does seem most probable that your parachutes are located in the launch stage. Its a common issue when building rockets that have no decouplers, e.g. an SRB, pod and parachute as ther game tends to stick everything in a single stage in their absence.