EricT43

I've managed to land both kerballed and unkerballed craft on the Mun and Minmus, but have not been successful at returning anything to Kerbal. My landers thus far have been a command module with drone for SAS (scientist-flown), a Science Jr., 200 fuel tank and a 909. The contraption is rather tall, and my only kerballed landing tipped over on landing. Also ran out of fuel, but that's a different story. Anyway, I have unlocked the Mk1 lander module, and thought of trying that. Just wondering what lander designs you all would recommend for a beginner that are fairly easy to land and stay upright, can collect a reasonable amount of science, and have enough fuel to get back home?

Good suggestions! I suggested in another thread that we have a "stop" button on the MPL so that it doesn't highjack all the power of the vehicle. Or perhaps the ability to set electricity priority for the different items on the ship!

Loving the game, guys, thanks! I launched my first orbital lab recently. Two scientists aboard, using remote guidance for piloting the vehicle. Unfortunately, I did not give it enough solar panels. When I started research, my batteries quickly drained, and the panels are not enough to power the whole ship. Now, research continues - as soon as any charge comes in from the panels, the charge is immediately consumed. However, this leaves the craft just as good as stranded, because the charge is gone as soon as it arrives, and I cannot move the craft, transmit science, or do anything else with it. It seems it will be quite a long time before the research completes. With two nerds aboard, it would seem that one of them would be smart enough to turn off processing of the lab in order to allow some power for the ship to move. Can we get a button to stop processing, to help in such a situation?

Welcome! I am a relatively new player myself, but I can say that getting into orbit is definitely doable without upgrading the launch pad. More than likely your ascension profile is inefficient. If you go straight up, and then vector sideways when you get into space, which is how I tried to do it when I first started, it requires a lot of fuel. There are a lot of tutorials on this website and on YouTube for getting into orbit, I would suggest checking those out. Make sure you find tutorials for version 1.0 or later, as there were changes to the game that makes some of the older tutorials obsolete. I'd highly recommend the new Career Mode tutorial series from Scott Manley on YouTube - he is an expert at the game and I think he covers getting into orbit in the first or second video.

I'm a n00b playing Normal career mode. I just got the game at 1.0 release, and love it. Gaming and cool science all in one package! Last night I flew Jeb and a scientist (inline cockpit) to a low Munar orbit and back and earned enough science to unlock solar panels and the SAS-enabled remote control thingy. Felt good. Launched a probe into solar orbit just to celebrate. Unmanned Mun landing is next up for me too! I will shamelessly copy your design.

Thanks all. Successfully rescued on attempt #2. Got within 50m!

+1 For two passengers (Mk1 plus two inline cockpits), I added a couple of extra heat shields on the bottom to shift the CoG below the midpoint. Otherwise it will flip over and burn up on descent.

DOH! Guess I'll need to go home and get another cockpit.

I'm doing my first rescue mission. There's a Kerbonaut stuck in orbit in her capsule. During the last 1.5 hours I've managed to get into orbit, close a considerable distance, and get "slightly" ahead so that I can go back and push to slow her down for re-entry. Problem is, I've got everything lined up, but I'm still about 40km in front of her. Anything I do to try to close the distance is going to throw off my orbit and make things worse instead of better? What do I do now?

That worked, thanks! FYI, for some reason you can only change the visibility status when the navball is shown.

Hi guys! New to the game and instantly addicted! In orbit view, I cannot see the icon of the capsule on the orbit path. Is there an option to turn this back on, or do I have a bug?