nadreck

Only one death in 1.0.5 so far, but it was one of those avoidable ones and therefor tragic. Eva a short distance above Mun on a suborbital course to determine which Biome the craft was over, one of my rescue Kerbal scientists lost his hold on the Mk 1 capsule's rungs. Rather than jet pack to orbit (which would have been totally doable) he struggled to get back to the craft so as not to abandon all the scientific data and samples stored aboard. As soon as he was back on board a crater rim tried to board his craft too. RIP

Naw, I am versatile enough to make do with 30 part ships up to and including the first landers on Minmus and Mun. After that I need to unlock the R&D centre to the 2nd level so that I can do fuel transfers, I can refuel the 2nd generation landers in orbit around the Mun and Minmus then and send bigger ones with the next few science instruments because they can refuel in Kerbin orbit too. I find I need the big docking rings to make stable craft that are easy to do 2000m/s interplanetary burns that can last as long as 30 minutes. Even with the big docking rings, by my second kermanned interplanetary expedition I am probably sending 3 separate craft that are made up of docked sub craft. 140t for the launch pad is not a problem at all, I can put up almost a half orange tanks worth of fuel in an SSTO tanker that docks with whatever vehicle that needs it then gets 75 to 80% of its initial cost back if I can drop just offshore of the KSC complex.

Well, I chose a hard mode with 50% rewards and 200% penalties and for me the hump (or grindy bit) comes with getting the funds to unlock the R&D center to allow 500 point items. There is still a lot of my tree below that level that has not been researched but I want the large docking ports and the last of the science sensors before I go for lots of the other parts. I find it grindy if I go back to the same biomes on Minmus and Mun and I end up doing that a bit with the first interplanetary expeditions on their way to unlock the things I need for Jool and Eve exploration. My order for upgrading the complexes are astronaut complex to allow EVA first, pad to 140t limit 2nd, 7 contracts 3rd, tracking station to conic sections 4th, R&D complex to allow surface samples, then VAB to allow 255 parts - which is where I am at in my 1.0.5 career with my desire to get the big docking ports (hey anyone want to invent 3.75m docking ports?) and science sensors before I send my first kermanned interplanetary missions (an unmanned one is already on the way to Duna/Ike on a fast orbit using my first nuclear engines), then I will want to remove the 140t weight limit at the launch pad. Oddly enough one of the things that makes early career grindy for me is trying to do things in the least amount of elapsed Kerbal time, so I don't accelerate time as much as I could and rather fill that time with tasks that start to feel a little grindy as they advance my science and funds a little more slowly than just following the interplanetary adventures would. But that is simply a choice of how I like to play the game and not a complaint about the game. I must say the new contracts that ask you to follow up with existing stations, probes, science surveys have helped make it seem less grindy. Also are making me rethink my tech tree unlock priorities to allow for rovers much earlier.

Warzouz, I do career at 50% rewards and 200% penalties and while I could come close to full science without leaving the Kerbin/Minmus/Mun SOI I usually have my first Level 3 Kerbs before I have my last 3 science sensors. As for being grindy, no XP is definitely not grindy, I don't bother with flags for every single Kerb, but I do shuttle out large numbers of Kerbs when needed, I am not there in 1.0.5 yet, but in the previous version I remember a vehicle carrying 20 Kerbs that I filled with rescue Kerbs and took just out of Kerbin SOI then returned, then alternated among those kerbals on catching up on science and contracts on at the Mun and Minmus. By the time I sent my 2nd expedition to a body beyond Kerbin/Mun/Minmus more than half my Kerbals were at 3 stars and I still needed lots of science.

No need to upgrade the tracking centre to fly by and return, and even orbit/land/return can be done without it. I start over from scratch with a career in a slightly harder than hard career mode (50% returns rather than 60%) and play the first session while drinking a bottle of [url=https://bigrockbeer.com/beer/dead-reckoning]Dead Reckoning[/url] in that couple of hours of real world time I have accomplished a flyby, sometimes even orbited the Mun, and I don't tend to upgrade the tracking centre until ready to launch the first Minmus expedition. Usually I get offered (and accept and complete) one or more rescues before I have the funds for the upgrade as I put the priority on upgrading the astronaut complex before I upgrade the tracking section as the science from EVA's is worth more to accelerate the early career than the patched conics. But the tracking centre is 2nd, then the admin building to allow building funds more quickly for the next upgrade, next the R&D centre so I can further accelerate science with surface samples and more science sensors.

Long time space cadet(geek). Was president of my high school rocketry club. Watched Mercury through Apollo launches, in fact my mother was shocked when she found out my grade school didn't have us watching the launches and kept me home from school for every school day launch! Ended up in IT in the late 70's (though devolved into IR in the energy industry 10 years ago), always looked for a good space game, Orbiter was a great simulator but lacked 'game', KSP fits all my space cadet escapist needs (I have Latin Dance for my social escapist needs )

No need to add parts they are there, and in fact 1.0 just expanded their range! Structural Pylon, Fleas, Hammers, Nose cones on the atmospheric ones. You can have tele-operated ones outside of atmospheres. Collateral damage potential is there too! Anyone who has, in the new atmospheric model used a high powered stack seperator/decoupler when pointed the wrong way on re-entry can attest to that.

Way too big a craft needed for that, remember this has to return the pod as well. Given that it only pays a couple of hundred thousand √ launching a vehicle built from something assembled in LKO at twice that cost doesn't seem effective.

Target biome: polar lowlands; landed: poles; oh well, plane change to station is a lot of margin Jeb can use for a short hop.

So what is the most efficient way to retrieve both the pod and kerbonaut from low Kerbol orbit? Given that this may easily require a total ÃŽâ€V of over 15,000m/s including gravity assist from Moho and/or Eve? What do you see as a more efficient solution?

Ok, my explanation is ( as was pointed out ) that the ÃŽâ€V requirements are pretty high going in close to Kerbol (the sun) not Kerbin the planet. So far I have managed one mission that needed more than 12,000m/s in total and note that I have to retrieve whatever pod it turns out the rescue Kerbal is in as well. So if my vehicle did not have to pick up a Kerbal and his pod it would have more than 18,000 m/s of ÃŽâ€V. As for the economics of ISRU and my mission, if I could launch my recovery craft with empty Xenon tanks and fill it with "Free" ISRU made Xenon it would cost less than half of what it does and the rescue mission would be profitable, as it is it about break even and given the long amortization schedule (300 Kerbin days for low Kerbol orbit). I have another rescue mission out near Jool, that will have a much longer amortization period. But as I wrote in my original post, I am a sucker for a cute rescue Kerbal, especially the way they purr and rub up to you, and eat the snacks right out of your hand.

I seem to be a sucker for rescue Kerbals in expensive (to reach) orbits (ex I currently have 3 waiting rescue, 2 with craft retrieval, around 2M km from Kerbol) my rescue craft for this is a 3 Dawn engine 3 big xenon tank automaton with a claw heat shield and 3 chutes. But they are quite expensive with all that xenon and, if I could manufacture Xenon I could launch them with empty xenon tanks and fuel them at an orbital depot. Given that the ISRU unit can make all the other fuels I feel that this is a little unfair. And if I can't get Xenon, how 'bout a Argon at a 25% ISP penalty?

Particularly when I am starting a new career: https://bigrockbeer.com/beer/dead-reckoning but in terms of solid food, as opposed bread in a mug, I suggest tortilla chips and salsa verde, dim sum dumplings, nuts, sour wine gums as they all seem to qualify to me as the sort of snacks I envisage being referred to on the IVA sticky notes and storage lockers.

When I started with KSP back in .21 I found airless body landings and docking difficult and in fairly short order tried MechJeb - I did try a few other mods - but performance and crashes seemed to be an issue, I did learn to land and dock much better, I first stopped doing rendezvous with mech jeb because I could plan them easily enough and figure out how to interlace planned rendezvous with other activities, then I found out I could dock using a small fraction of the RCS that MechJeb used. No other mod seemed essential to me and when career came out in 0.23 I had no reason to install any mods right away and it would have broken my perception of the game experience to install any mods in the middle of my first career. I might try some mods again in the future, but there is no part of the game I need them for. I am one of those players who, 45 years ago, doodled rockets in boring classes at school, but my doodles had exponents of e beside them, my copies of A. C. Clarke's "Promise of Space" and Wiley Leys "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space" were so dog eared, especially around the pages with ISPs of engines, or common fuels, also those pages where orbital mechanics were explained in simple terms. One mod I might go for, or maybe I just find the file and replace it, is the background music, I saw chatterer mentioned here and sometime after the current tech tree is unlocked I might give it a try. However, I am still finding hard mode career and my objectives for doing as much as I can in as little elapsed Kerbal time as possible and keeping kerbals alive as much as possible as I immerse myself in the stock RP a satisfying challenge (note stock RP often has me trying to 'use' the island airport and creating bases with contrived purposes else where in the Kerbol system). When that stops being a challenge (which may never happen with upgrades to both the game play and the RP backstory) then I will probably seek out mods that enhance the elements of challenge I enjoy. Slashy, I never thought of the flight planing drone out Kerbol orbit just ahead of Kerbin, but honestly I can usually cobble together a good launch orbit, though using low acceleration craft I replot it each successive orbit, then correct once out Kerbin's SOI.

Hmm, ever since they put economics in I have been playing career mode in more or less hard mode (1.0 I reduced penalties to 100% from 200%) and I do try to keep my Kerbals alive, and yes I put an inordinate amount of caution around the orange suits so far haven't killed any of them in 1.0.x but have lost 8 other ones. Despite trying to keep the orange suits alive I also religiously try to have them be the first to each new experience level. I take the contracts that suit me, I don't recruit Kerbals, I prioritize getting the science instruments before most other things on the tech tree so that I can get the rest of the tech tree fairly quickly. Hmm, I do tend to anthropomorphize my Kerbals and consider their points of view as I make decisions in the game. Oh and I do like the looks of life from a beach on Laythe with Jool hanging in the air above the water.