Hodari

Thanks, that one worked

When I try to click on this link 1.4.X to 1.4.3(x64) This patch will only work on KSP 1.4.X for Windows (x64). to download it, it still just gives me the KSPx64-Patch-1.4.X-To-1.4.2.exe version. Tried installing it just to make sure and it's definitely the 1.4.2 version still.

Mine is working now as well.

Same here.

Same here.

They're badges from completing various challenges in the challenge section of the forum. Once you earn them, you just need to edit your signature under your profile and include the appropriate image links.

From that point of view, I'd say 90% of the game is useless. All the other planets? Useless. Sending Kerbals anywhere beyond LKO? Probably useless. Science lab? Probably not needed on lower difficulties at least. Aircraft? Useless. Ion engines? Useless. Spaceplanes? Really useless. Once you can land a probe on either of the moons, you can get enough science from them to fill out the rest of the tech tree easily enough. So the only real reason to do much of anything beyond that is because it's fun and/or challenging. It might be nice if there was more to explore and to give reasons for doing all of those other things, but beyond a certain point, you just have to be happy with doing them because you can.

Well, there's your problem. You even said the contract requirements stated, " has to be a new rock". So, if you were already tracking it before then, it wouldn't count.

You might want to check if your "probe" is, in fact, being classified as a probe. Especially with certain mods, sometimes it seems to end up being classified as a relay if you have a relay antenna on it and that can make it not count for contracts. If so, just right-click on the probe core and click "Rename Vessel". Then change the vessel type to probe.

For me, it's mostly my very first mission or two where I don't even have batteries yet, so at best I could only transmit one report. I'll grab the report from launchpad, EVA, get the EVA report and crew report(and any other experiments I have available, depending on what tech tree mods I'm running), then launch and get that crew report, land/splashdown, EVA, grab reports again, and one last crew report from there. Also, sometimes I won't even bother with an antenna on a piloted mission since he can just return all the science back with him anyway. Only reason to put on one at that point is realism.

My guess is that it would be very hard to be certain that you've found the absolute lowest possible place on the surface. There would always be the chance that you missed one spot somewhere...or even that the surface might change somehow and a new spot might become the lowest point. Then your height measurements for every other point on the planet would no longer be correct. Whereas the mean elevation will probably be far more constant and missing one or two extreme points wouldn't change the value that much, so you wouldn't have to go back and readjust all of your other numbers.

Time-based gameplay is definitely needed in the game. I just haven't seen any life support mods yet that really get the balance right. Or maybe it's the base game itself that makes it that way since in most cases, it's still too easy to just add enough supplies without really needing to sacrifice anything else to do so. IRL adding any extra mass to the payload is far more of a problem and needs all kinds of tradeoffs, but in KSP, it's usually not a problem at all.

It's cameras all the way down.

It definitely should be optional if it's going to be added at all. I'm not sure it really adds THAT much to the game most of the time though. I've tried a few different life support mods and it seems like at best, it just ends up being "Stick an extra part or two onto your rocket while building it and then forget about it because it doesn't add anything further to the gameplay." If you forget to add the part or miscalculate the length of the mission and run out, then odds are either your Kerbals just die without you having time for a rescue mission or anything(which is more frustrating rather than actual fun) or the mod has them enter some sort of "suspended animation"/tourist/useless state, but remain alive indefinitely until you can rescue them(which basically kills whatever realism the LS mod was supposed to add in the first place). Life support seems like a good idea, but after actually trying it...I usually end up uninstalling those mods fairly quickly.

Here's an example of what you can fit in a 2.5m bay.

Yeah, it probably is easier that way in most cases. Just saying it IS possible if you're trying to recreate a real-life craft or have some other reason for wanting to do it that way.

If you really want to, you can fit a rover into the 2.5m service bays. It'll take a bit of careful design, but if you're trying for something like an Apollo style Mun landing, it can be done.

Probably within a degree or less. The good news is, if that's the only thing that's wrong, it's easy enough to fix unless you're completely out of fuel. Just a very small normal/antinormal burn at the ascending or descending node to correct it. Another possible problem is that even if your apoapsis and periapsis are at the right distances, they could be in the wrong place(argument of periapsis). Check the orbit in map view and make sure that everything lines up correctly there. Also, make sure your probe has ALL the required parts. There's been plenty of times when I finally got a probe launched, into the correct orbit etc, and had everything else correct...only to realize that the contract required an accelerometer or something and I hadn't put on on there. And finally, make sure it's actually showing up as a probe if that's what the contract requires. Mostly only an issue if I'm using certain mods, but there's been times when a contract failed to complete because it required a PROBE, but the game was classifying mine as a RELAY. You can just right-click on the probe core and select "rename vessel" to correct this.

I also think that, at least for these official challenges, they should be possible to do in the stock game and not REQUIRE specific third-party mods. It's one thing for challenges posed by random users on the challenge forum to require mods, but these official ones are a bit different. By all means, ALLOW mods(possibly with restrictions or in a separate category, depending on the nature of the challenge and the mods), but don't require them.

No idea on how to make it work in mods, but for stock, it's some combination of reputation vs. the difficulty of the missions and needing certain prerequisites before a contract can be offered. Those prerequisites will be things like needing to orbit Kerbin before it will offer a Mun mission, leaving Kerbin's SOI might be required before a mission to another planet, or even needing certain parts unlocked before it will offer various types of contracts.

Well, if you want to get technical, the vessel was split before landing on Eve, so if Eve is included in the definition, it still doesn't qualify as an SSTA unless it can at least land there in one piece(which I'm guessing this vessel probably is capable of at least, but hasn't been demonstrated yet). On the other hand, most of the time Eve DOES seem to be excluded from this and being able to return from Eve at all is extremely impressive, let alone doing so with a fully reusable vessel that can go everywhere else as well. Whatever you want to call it, that is a really nice design there.

Yeah, looks like that is going to be an issue with my first idea for this as well. Going to have to rethink my plan. Probably have to plan on going back out and flipping my orbit a second time after doing the rescue, then heading back to Kerbin from there so we're at least going in the same direction again.

Might be a few days before I have time, but I'll definitely have to attempt this one at some point.

I wonder what percentage of players do this with their first rocket in career mode. Pretty sure I did it my first time and probably at least a quarter of the time, I STILL do it when starting a new career.

Yeah, the submission isn't required in a case like this, though it's probably still a good idea since doing the challenge yourself forces you to think things through and refine it a bit more. I'd say this challenge definitely needs SOME sort of rules and/or scoring system beyond what's there so far, though. And this definitely seems like it was intended as more of a "challenge" rather than "mission idea"(again, there isn't even a well-defined mission/goal other than "Send a probe somewhere.")