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I think the best way to zip through the science tree is a staged Ion probe with all the reusable experiments and an antenna :P

the best strategy (from my experience) is no strategy. You need reputation for good contracts, you need good contracts for lots of funds and science rewards, you need funds to go places and you need to go places to do science. Really as long as you don't have excessive amounts of funds it's not worth converting them and you always need reputation.

The best way to get huge amounts of science in my experience is to launch a refuelable lander with ~1200 m/s of dV with full tanks to the mun (or minmus) and then hop from biome to biome. Or, for even more science stick some capsules in orbit, rendezvous, transfer the science to them and send them back to kerbin for 100% return rate.

With such a lander I maxed out the stock tech tree in about 5 days using only transmissions and a science lab to increase transmission value a little (after I had LV-N's to get 5600 m/s dV :sticktongue:).

Edited by TheXRuler
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One quick method in the early game is to put a crewed ship in a somewhat inclined orbit low over the Mun, Minmus or Kerbin. Grab all the experimental science you can, and as you pass over each biome leave the ship and do an EVA report. You can get full science from each one and transmit them home with no losses. This should give you enough to unlock mobile labs, which will generate all the science you need to get through the 300 and into the 550 science level. At that point you will be sending your first crewed missions to Duna or Eve orbit, where EVA reports and mobile labs should be enough to finish the tree.

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In my experience, Reputation is the first currency you fill up on, because it naturally comes with diminishing returns. You get all of the stated reputation payout only at 0 reputation (neutral) and from then on it decreases. You get 50% of the payout at 500 reputation, 25% of the payout at 750 reputation, and so on... Plus, above maybe 500 to 600 points the contracts don't really get noticably better anymore.

So I usually grab a reputation converting strategy once I am somewhere above 700 rep, with a committment level chosen so the one-time investment cost doesn't drop me below 500. I generally convert it to cash because science is so excessively overabundant, and finishing the stock tree without even visiting Minmus (much less another planet) is so effortless, that it just doesn't make sense to convert anything into science. Funds never become useless, especially not later in the game when even the most basic throwaway cash-generating contracts ask multi-year interplanetary missions of you.

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Alt+F12

I was hoping the tech tree would be a little better for 1.0.x but it is not... How can you have a capsule without having batteries designed? I'm not a fan of how the have it now. There is little point in dicking around on Kerbin to get enough "science" to design a battery.

I'm really hopefull that Squad spends time to revamp the career for next release. Yes we would like some other things like parts, etc., but career just isn't fun anymore. And do I even need to mention the cost for Kerbals?!! It's a good thing they give you 4 free at the beginning. Try not to kill them...

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Also, if you think about it, Kerbals are astronauts, and astronaut training takes many years and is incredibly expensive. I think it's actually quite cool that there is now a kind of penalty for killing them.

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At the risk of feeding a troll, considering none of his points are even remotely related to the topic of this thread...

There is no "dicking around on Kerbin" whatsoever required to unlock batteries - even at 80% science and funds payout. I can provide you a step-by-step guide if you like, I started a new 1.02 save just this past weekend. The only Kerbin biomes I touched are those I launch out of (launchpad, shores) and the ones my rockets randomly happened to come down in (grasslands, water). All other science was pure rocketry based. I now have a rocket headed for a Mun flyby, and yes, it has batteries on board.

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Get the mobile science lab as fast as you can then collect all the data you can get from KSC. Oh believe me there is about 1000science in KSC. Send them into orbit and process. Get atleast 4 scientists and make sure their levels are 2+. Fast forward and enjoy the science. When the data level goes down just add more data from KSC since there will be about 100 science reports on your hand you can't even use them all the lab just gets filled with 500 data. This way i got about 4000 science from start... I know its cheesy but yeah... Then continiued to mun and minmus moving the science lab to their orbits. Here you go you have completed the tech tree.

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Endgame: Convert all rep to funds and occasionally sell science for more funds? :wink:

At the beginning I think funds are not that hard to come by to ignore the science points I could get for them, as even a few can mean a new node.

Also rep is rather plenty, the bigger contracts are beyond a starting space program anyway. (Still annoyed by the game dropping some explore body x contracts if I visit them in the wrong order :P )

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It's a "how long is a piece of string" question; the answer depends on where you're stuck. Have you made it to orbit yet? The Mun? Etc.

If you've made it to the Mun, then you're set. It's fairly simple to pull a few thousand science points out of a single Mun or Minmus landing. If you're still stuck on Kerbin...well, get to orbit and start collecting EVA reports.

You can make orbit with only the first two tech nodes unlocked, without any building upgrades. For example:

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If you're really having trouble, the quickest way to gather some easy science is ye olde research missile: Stayputnik (or a crew capsule if you don't have any probe cores yet); thrust-limited RT-10, parachute, tailfins, Science Jr and Goo pods. Fire a few off in various directions from KSC and you should be able to hit the ocean, desert, mountains, grassland and highland biomes with minimal effort or expense.

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Another good way to collect science is to not go to orbit, so the tourist missions will only generated for suborbital hops. Then start converting your reputation gains to science via unpaid internships in the labs, and keep doing that.

I've gotten almost all of the 90-sci nodes unlocked doing this, and you can collect mad bank, too. If you grind at it enough, you can pretty easily upgrade your runway and launch-pad to tier-3, and probably a few other bits, before it starts generating orbital missions for you.

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Yeah - at the earliest stages of the game it's a simple matter to run around the Space Center itself and collect a fair chunk of science. Visit each building and do a crew report, an EVA report, science and goo study. Each building should net you around 15-20 science IIRC. You can create a cheap vehicle to do this with at the space-plane hangar with a jet engine and a tiny fuel tank. Just keep the speed low. I recently tapped one of the street lights outside of mission control at around 8 m/s, and to my surprise the entire building exploded - only an unharmed plane and a startled scientist left in the wreckage. Later on you can slap some decent thrust on and do a quick survey of the biomes nearby. Highlands, Grasslands, Oceans, Shores, and Mountains will all yield fresh science. Unlock the thermometer and barometer at the first available opportunity. Also, surface samples yield a ton of data, so upgrading science center should be a priority.

Afterwards, you can build some very cheap probes. All it takes is a cheap auto-pilot with a small fuel tank and efficient engine, attached to a decent sized booster. Slap on a couple solar panels, some batteries, the thermometer and barometer, some goo, a science lab, and a radio. You can do the science lab once per flight - but thermometer and barometer can be done over and over. Probing Duna wasn't too hard early in the tech tree, and yielded good results. It's also not difficult to probe both Mun and Minmus on a single flight, and sending it off into solar orbit (which yields good science results).

Otherwise, taking a lander to Minmus can be done fairly early, and provides a ton of research. You can even visit multiple biomes per visit, as gravity is so low. Mun is a bit more difficult, as it takes so much more fuel to land and all that.

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Oh you ... :D

It is kind of oxymoronic to run a space agency where all you do is graze space, but it is a strategy, and it's been working out surprisingly well for me.

See, once you get to orbit, the reputation rewards for going on a suborbital trip go down significantly, but if, before you go to orbit, you can send 8 Kerbals up on suborbital hops in one craft (use hitchhiker containers), you can easily clear four suborbital tourism contracts in one launch.

With 60% commitment to intern usury, and mission reputation rewards which are nominally somewhere north of 20 points, it's fairly easy for me to bring home ~30-40 science in one suborbital hop that takes relatively little time to complete.

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