Travisfv

Kerbal Space Exploration Administration Hire's largely from the military and the worlds top scientists to be it's prime astronaut crews. I have recruiting standards. Courage and/or stupidity (which is reverse I think) must be at least half. If courage or stupidity is maxed out, they are used but never as mission commanders or lead scientists, to be leaders they must have a higher stats than the rest. I assign the crew roles into two teams, being commanders/pilots and engineers/scientists. Commanders are, Max courage and high intelligence Pilots are, High courage and reasonably intellgent. Engineers are, High intelligence and reasonably brave. Scientists are, Max intelligence and reasonably brave. Kerbals who fail at obtaining my standards are not hired into crews that go on the big missions. They are given jobs on the stations and bases that require some basic mechanical skill(KAS) and are relatively safe and routine to do, or they do the projects around the space center. I operate mostly in Kerbin's SOI, rarely venturing further than Duna, unless it is a probe.

You could implement kerbal attachment system, or a create a new system with launch clamps that can be moved and reattached and can pump fuel back into the ship. Even if only for craft that you can later remount onto the top of a new rocket. Which gives me an idea to build a large crane.

That is what I get for using my phone to reply to a thread. That is autocorrect in its truest form.

I'm not for or against any type of fuel tank or rocket motor. Kinda silly if you ask me. These aren't political parties or ideologies. It's not coke and pepsi. It's literally a 12 oz can vs a 2 liter bottle of your favorite soda. Just depends on what you need. One is a personal size, the other is party size. It's up to you to use what you need in that situation, unless you drink a 2 liter yourself and bring a 12 ounce can to a party. But, to each their own.

So I wanted to ask you guys and gals, what do you think career mode will become when the contract system is released? 1. Will we be flying mission to mission based solely on what contracts we have taken or been awarded? 2. Will money be appropriated per contract and then we use that to build, or will the previous contracts funding be used to complete the next contract? Contract bonuses perhaps as a reward for a successful mission? 3. Do you want to see a monthly stipend from the Kerbal Government? Not a lot, but enough that overtime we can fund personal missions? 4. Will those "Personal/sandbox" missions disappear? I personally want to still be able to do a mission for my own agenda sometimes, because I believe the world we create in career mode will be vast and interesting. It would not longer be our own creation, but a literal space program that is almost evolving and expanding beyond your own intention simply by the nature of the contracts we take. I'd like to see the player be payed first for the contract as well, and coming under budget will net them a profit, and a bonus for the mission's completion which we could use on the more complex missions or to fund that trip to Duna we always wanted. In that as well doing missions on your own, being tracked in an invisible progress bar, should net you funding from the Kerbal Government. I didn't get a contract to go to Duna, but I did and we returned, thereby funding has been expanded. What do you all want to see in the new career mode?

Really, do this. I've gifted it to probably three people now. When it goes on sale again I might be gifting it to one more person. It's such a good game and the devs deserve the extra cash.

Tankers are okay, but very specific and are most of the time a one use ship and then they are de-orbited. My station maintained two of the largest fuel tanks, and when a ship arrived back to Kerbin and would be preparing to de-orbit, it dumped as much fuel as possible back into the station, thereby saving me the need to launch another tanker for my reuseable ships. And the ship the station was designed to service was a large, twin nacelled, 13 manned, 5,000 D/V research ship built to hit all the biomes on Mun and Minmus. And stations look cool.

I needed my station to refuel my Minmus Science Mission. It launched practically empty, without most of its 13 man crew, with only one fuel tank full and once RCS tank full, and none of it's landers. It docked with my station where the crew was waiting along with the huge fuel cells that could fully load the ship before it departed for minmus. I know that it took all those rendezvous to prep the station to launch the mission, but the hardest part was getting a 132 ton practically dry mass ship into space, and once it docked, I could load it with the crew, three landers, and the fuel for the full mission. Just felt nice that when it was entirely ready, I could depart after the hardest part of the mission was over. There was no more daunting tasks beyond, and I could do the mission as soon as I was ready.

I think we're getting a little too touchy here. None of these parts exist in real life, nor were they involved in the Challenger or Columbia disasters, nor can these parts fail in the same manner.

My first one was at 134 hours. It took me forever to figure it all out and I was so impatient with it that I had given up for a long time. Now? I started planning a mission yesterday at 5. Started it at 10 and ended it at midnight. Landed on Minmus about 10-12 times, docked with the main ship after each landing. I've gotten so good at it that it took me all of 5 mono propellant to dock each docking.... And thanks to minmus being so nice about TWR and rendezvous, ships were small and rendezvous took only like 5 minutes each time. I love docking.

Thanks for the idea! I was looking for a cool, fun mission idea that didn't require interplanetary travel. I just put a base on the Mun, and gathered a little science there. But now you've got me thinking. One station in orbit that has a ship capable of returning to Kerbin with attached science module, a base on the surface for keeping the lander at with support crew, and a ship with a few thousand m/s delta-v for gathering data. Overly complex? Mayhaps. Awesome? Most certainly.

I just got Jim Kerman. Max courage, max... Stupid... So he's smart.... Right?

Simple solution. Launch a bit later and switch to ensure the correct SOI change. My last Duna mission consisted of a refueling ship and a manned orbital ship. The manned ship left a week later than the fuel ship. Cost a little bit in delta V, but it saved a headache.

But how do you then quantify how successful a mission was? If you fly to laythe and get there and do no science, how can you be rewarded? What kind of government would fund a program that isn't doing anything but planting a flag and walking away. Science earns you that money, which in turn unlocks you more parts. Sure, a temperature reading on laythe doesn't get you a new wheel, but the fact that you went there and got it increased your funding and thereby allowed you to research new parts for future missions.

Their is a lot of anger is this thread. For those defending the pace, just because others cannot build a game, doesn't mean they can't want more and can't criticize. For those opposing the pace, I don't believe every update can be the latest and greatest all the time. There will be times when what they release isn't impressive to the eye, but the smoothness that the game runs now (especially for an alpha), and the ease it is to build rockets (compare that to good old wobbly rockets), and you'll see where the time is going. This game, as alpha as it may be, is a pretty solid piece of software. I don't ever crash playing this game. Dice and battlefield 4 are still working out the kinda with millions of dollars and huge teams. Squad is perfecting their product as they go. When 1.0 is released, it will be as stable as games come if they keep up this work. And I would say I am for more big stuff and stock parts at each release, but what I want isn't what squad is going to do, and my judgment is not final or even reasonable, given the quality of the game so far. Let's just all understand that the slow pace is the price we pay for the insane stability of this game.

I also think veteran players also need to realize that not everyone is on their level. I can't do a landing on eeloo with some duct tape and a can of whipped cream. Yes it's impressive when you can, but try to remember that this game is still trying to be accessible to simpletons like myself who still have to try really hard to reach Duna.

They way I see it is that research requires successful missions due to proof of concept. Say the government gives you a set amount of funding. You then have to prove what you are capable of. Less daring missions earn you less funding (less parts unlocked at once). Find a way to go interplanetary early and you'll reap the rewards (bigger budget, more parts unlocked). Basically what I'm saying is that the government won't give you money to do R&D until you prove you can make it worth their while. Sure money would be an easier representation, but this plays into a more political explanation, which let's face it, is very important to governments to show off what they can do.

I'm almost ready to give up on them all together. In the last week I've spent an hour a day trying to figure them out. Did it once, but the plane had to land early because I had no battery left. But that was the only one to do it. No matter how hard I try nothing works all that well. I tried the new rapier engines, can't do it with them. Tried the regular jet engines with ram intake and 2 extra intakes per engine. Nothing. I think I'm gonna go back to rockets. Quicker to orbit, I can get them to orbit, and it's so much easier balancing RCS thrusters on a capsule than across a plane. And it seems every thread I've looked into give the same advice but none it helps me get my planes to orbit. Unless someone can point me to an extremely detailed guide, I think they're out for me.

I've just recently began working with space planes. I actually put a set of four small decoupler with two separations each. During the cruise down the runway, at 100 m/s I activate the separations and they boost the plane up to 200 m/s and then the plane shoots up almost vertical and begins it climb to 25000m. What I plan on trying next with .23 is building a short takeoff/landing cargo plane for transporting pilots to a new air defense wing I'm going to build on the small island off the coast. On a side note, is anyone else excited to line the area near the runway with a wing of space planes just to add to the life and scenery? Imagine being able to refuel and select each plane, load it with its crew and cargo, and launch it into space. Land, refuel and do it ll over again. KAS has never been more needed than now for me. And thinking about flying over the island base and seeing a wing of fighters just sounds cool to me.

Restrictions: 1. Do not attempt a mission unless I can get my Kerbals back home. 2. Stick to mission outlines. I do not do anything that wasn't a part of the original plan. 3. No mods that do anything for me (beside math... I hate math). I still let myself use mods that are parts mods, but if I am using an engine that puts out 4800 thrust, It better carry a large payload. In my book, proportionality is necessary to maintaining the fun. That big engine is used to build a space station or launch parts for a massive interplanetary ship. No point in using it to put a tiny probe into orbit. Also, for the people who do not strand Kerbals, what is your opinion on purposefully landing them in one way ships, that is then followed up by a lander in order for their return? I'm wanting to go to Duna, but I want the mission to last a while so I planned on putting the Kerbals there and then sending someone else to pick them up later down the line.

For me, career mode is what this game needed. I do not have the skill of people who can land on every planet and return with general ease. I find leaving Kerbin's SOI to be nerve wracking. One wrong move, mis-timed burn, or misjudged aerobrake and the mission is a failure. So I hardly ever left Kerbin. Career mode is pushing me to be riskier. I have to know what I can do, what my ships capabilities are, and I really set firm goals for a mission. I was sitting in Duna orbit with about 2200 D/V left. I probably could have done an orbit or atleast a flyby of Ike, but I didn't. The goal was only to get to Duna and gather some scans from orbit. But on the next mission, I'm landing on Ike. And after that, landing on Duna. Its giving me the push I needed to want to do more. I spent most of my time playing this game just sitting around the Mun and building bigger rockets.

My first multi ship transfer to another planet. I sent a small fuel carrier to Duna four days before I sent my team. Just after it arrived, I got it in a nice high orbit and switched to the team, and then got them settled in. The mission was only to gather a quick bit of science and test my ability to have that coordination. Seriously, they dipped into Duna's atmosphere for an aerobrake to get some samples while burning through the sky, and then went right into orbit to meet the fuel carrier. Refueled and like 60 days later left for Kerbin. I really wanted to orbit Ike and get some EVA reports from it, but I only has 2000 D/V left over and I really didn't want to lose any Kerbals. Havent lost anyone in .22 yet.

It took me I think like 32 hours. It would have taken a lot longer but I watched a ton of videos on how to do it. But that doesnt mean I am anywhere near as good yet. At 332 hours of playtime, I still do not venture far from Kerbin. Very rarely do I send a manned flight out. Today was my second, yes second, manned flight outside of Kerbin... that was successful. Third if we count unsuccessful. And even then, only once landing on a planet. But trust me, as things progress you'll get better. And one day you'll look at the Mun and say, I wanna go there real quick, and in like 30 minutes you're touching down and taking soil samples.

I am soon going to do my first manned mission to Ike. I just put a probe in orbit around it, and got it home. But now I really need to work on landing a Kerbal. This has all been to build up to a manned mission to Duna. It's the main focus I always strive for. In 320 hours playing, I've done one manned mission to Duna and returned it, but now in career mode, its so much more satisfying to get somewhere. Sending probes out has also been a lot more fun. Oh, and kerbal engineer helps immensely in planning.

I purposefully make sure that my launches never leave anything in orbit. Even if I have a large amount of fuel in a stage, if I see that staging will leave it in a persistant orbit, I use what I can but always drop in into the atmosphere. And the new way I've been doing my launches kinda ensures I don't need more than 200 m/s to circularize at my apogee.