Lighthawk

I had a version update related DUH! moment. Built myself a nice Moho probe with nuclear powered transfer stage with 6km/s dv. Was a bit bulky, but no big deal, got it launched, time warped to window and began burn. It was only then when I right clicked on the side drop tanks to monitor the fuel usage that I remembered...nukes only use LF now! All that excess weight in oxidizer... Well whatever, as long as it gets me where I'm going...

Huh...I've used that technique to simplify orbital rendezvous for docking, never considered trying it for planetary transfers though. I will say, whatever it lacks in efficiency compared to normal methods, the method is stupid easy to use and damn near impossible to screw up.

I went to Dres, hopped my probe around to three different biomes mining science, and then ran out of fuel heading for the fourth and splattered all over the place. That fourth biome? Dres's Impact Ejecta. Felt kind of poetic really to add my probe debris there.

I rarely name my vessels. Lots of 'Unnamed' satellites floating around my game. And when I do need to name something, it's usual a 'space station 1' or 'Duna Probe'. I have no artist in my soul.

Then clearly you have never heard Bob as performed by James Marsters

Harry Dresden, usually having arguments with Bob the Skull. Granted it would make no damn sense to have either of them on a spaceship, but the pure snark factor just fits so well with the way my missions tend to go and how my vessels get designed.

How to refill SRB using ISRU Step 1: Tip over SRB to be filled. (Removal from vessel optional but recommended) Step 2: Insert volunteered kerbal into SRB. Step 3: Supply volunteered kerbal with an adhesive, preferably one that can double as an accelerant. Step 4: Process solid fuel with ISRU. Pack into tight spheres. Step 5: Bowl fuel spheres down the length of the SRB to the volunteered kerbal. Step 6: Volunteered kerbal attaches fuel spheres to the interior of the SRB with accelerant adhesive until full. Step 7: Remove volunteered kerbal from SRB (optional) Step 8: Set SRB back upright. Reattach to vessel if formally removed. (Highly recommended) Step 9: Launch vessel Step 10: Pray the SRB's lack of throttle or ability to be shut down does not result in either a fiery crash or stranding your vessel out in the cold vacuum of space. Why to refill SRB using ISRU Step 1: Consider the question. Step 2: Toss the whole silly idea away and use liquid fuel engines like a sensible individual.

Docking is definitely one of the harder things in the game to learn, right up there with landing on an airless body. Keep at it though, once you get a method down that works, it starts getting easier and easier to pull off. Aside from the other advise already offered, the biggest thing I'd suggest is patience. It's very easy when docking to constantly over correct because it can be hard to see the relative motion of the two vessels unless you really hit the gas, which you don't want to do. You want to ease your way in. If you're fifty meters or closer, you really should be keeping your relative speed under 1m/s. Also when first learning to dock, I'd suggest only adding velocity along one axis at a time. Be sure you're in target mode and use your retrograde marker to zero out your relative speed before closing to dock. That way if, for example, you translate right at 0.2 m/s, then you know you can come to a relative stop by translating 0.2 m/s to the left. If you add 0.2 m/s left, then 0.3 m/s up, then 0.1 m/s right, etc etc it gets very easy to lose track of exactly how your moving relative to the target and what you need to do to stop it again. Of course left and right are relative directions, which brings to mind the camera. Hit V to switch to chase mode so that up, down, left, and right are relative to the camera, which is always helpful. Final bit I can think of is to make sure your target isn't rotating, which can lead to a lot of running circles around it chasing the docking port. If you know, or think even, that the target vessel is spinning, a brief moment of time acceleration will stop it. Good luck, you'll get it.

Depending on the design of your spaceplane, you could also try sandwiching the plane between two rockets using radial decouplers.

First hunch, you're starving your engines by climbing too aggressively, so you're not moving fast enough to shove enough air into your intakes to offset the decreased pressure as you climb. Try right clicking on one of your jet engines after take off and check the thrust level. If it's steadily dropping, you're climbing too fast. Pull your nose down and get it to a point where your thrust is slowly climbing as you ascend, and keep nudging the nose down as needed to keep your thrust increasing for as long as you can.

To add another use for (space)planes, which granted doesn't apply to the OP, but anyway...I find them useful for completing those 'test part x at altitude y and speed z' contracts. It's much easier to hit the height and speed requirements in a jet than a rocket.

I'm looking for ways to get the strongest possible connection while docking. I've heard that the big ports are stronger than the small ones, but how much stronger? Should I use a big port, or go with four small on a quad adapter for maximum strength? Does the Kerbal Joint Reinforcement mod affect docking strength? Any other ways to prevent docking ports from causing a rapid, unplanned disassemble of my work?

The base frame is pretty simple. RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit with a M-2x2 Structural Panel on top, a M-1x1 Structural Panel attached to the 2x2 on the front and rear edges with a pair of TR-2L Ruggedized Vehicular Wheels on either side of the 1x1s. Put a Rockomax HubMax Multi-Point Connector on top of to 2x2 with a Structural Fuselage on the front and rear connectors, add docking ports and battery. Accessorize as desired, and drive carefully, it is a bit top heavy. Probably shoot for Minmus first, since it has such nice, flat expanses to set up on. The Mun or Minmus wouldn't be a problem for my crew transport, it's got +10,000 dv. Though I'd probably want to take off the upper stage SRBs. Firing off engines you can't shut down while trying to make precision course adjustments just can't go right. And unfortunately no, the docking port got itself deleted at some point, probably the first time I switched back to the VAH. Oh well, that's what the pics are for.

Documentation and commentary of my first base that's an actual base, and not just a collection of ships landed near each other and called a base. For the sake of my sanity, and viewers' computers and/or smartphones, I've opted to just provided a link rather than jamming all 45 pictures and accompanying text into the thread. Enjoy if you will, or don't, I'll admit it's probably not the most impressive mission ever done nor the most amusingly documented. But maybe someone will like it. An at home test of my new modular base design. While such a test could easily have been carried out on the fields just outside the KSC, that would not have been the Kerbal way. After all, is it really science if it hasn't been strapped to a rocket first?

Thank you all for the good information, I greatly appreciate it.