Please help me choose mods for my next career playthrough

[Ultimate Steve]

So, I was reading @Geschosskopf's "Alternis Kerbol Travelling Circus" and it got me inspired to start a new modded career. There will be a few givens, I will be using BARIS and a planet pack. The planet pack and the rest of the mods are up to you because I am finding myself unable to choose.

The planet pack must not have the stock planets (at least not without changes). I'm considering either Alternis or GPP, but I'm open to other suggestions (but they must be career compatible).

The other stuff (part packs, science mods, etc.) is mainly what I'm here for. I don't want my save to become too bogged down with parts that the game is unplayable. Any mod suggestions?

[JadeOfMaar]

Here's a nice pool of mods to choose from. In no way do I intend or expect you to install all of these.  But have a blast, man.

• GPP + OPM_Galileo (Together: OPM will fill Grannus' SOI) to give more meat to your endgame-- more purpose for endgame engines. Feel free to delete Eeloo (check the SarnusMoons folder). You won't get error spam.
• Wild Blue Industries
  • Pathfinder: inflatable bases, "Space-camping and geo-science" (needs KIS)
  • Buffalo: rover system, contains Jet-Wing so Kerbals can fly on EVA in atmo
  • Heisenberg: large airships and contains the AirPark mod. Many of GPP's worlds have atmosphere so airships and flying colonies can be quite a thing.
  • Snacks!: life support. Kerbals don't die in this one, but your rep and science points can!
  • MOLE: a different breed of science system. Works alongside stock. Early-game mod but it's viable all the way.
  • DSEV: Station parts and beefy interplanetary engines
• Spaceplane mods. Choose one:
  • Mk2 Stockalike Expansion
  • Mk3 Stockalike Expansion
  • Nertea's MkIV Spaceplane System (updated at last)
  • Procedural Wings (if you pick MkIV)
  • Airline Kuisine (one of my mods, only pick if you use any life support mod. Supplements Mk2 and Mk3 planes)
• Spaceplane mods if you plan to fly on Tellumo and return from it with less staging:
  • OPT and OPT Legacy Spaceplane Parts (very big, scifi-inspired mod. contains several SSTO engines including one tailor made by me for Eve and Tellumo)
  • Mk3 Hypersonic Systems (old mod with about a dozen parts but incredibly powerful on Kerbin)
• Karbonite: GPP has a vast supply of karbonite for you to do and design things you never thought possible with something likened to SolidFuel. Make every atmosphere your playground if you like aircraft
  • Karborundum: GPP has a few places where you can get it. More places than stock, and richer concentrations too, so always bring a scanner.
• More Nertea mods:
  • Near Future Propulsion: Great options for high efficiency engines and many options for probe engines (Argon, Lithium, and Xenon of course). Many GPP atmospheres have a decent supply of Argon and Xenon so probes can be refueled in-flight.
  • Near Future Electric: You're going to need it......  
  • Heat Control: if you want fancier, superior radiators
  • Near Future Launch Vehicles (heavy lifters)
  • Far Future Tech: (Not a recommendation, just a fun idea) GPP fully endorses it with complete resource distributions for LH2 and Antimatter.
• JX2 Antenna: The antenna mod for huge planet packs. Just one or two in low Gael orbit will keep your probes connected in Grannus' SOI.
• DeepFreeze
• Career and Science
  • FinalFrontier: GPP has a ribbons pack
  • Strategia: fully supported
  • SCANsat and Waypoint Manager (because why KerbNet?)
  • KrakenScience
  • ResearchBodies
  • Tarsier Space Tech
  • Not DMagic Orbital Science  (Too big of a science mod?)
  • Supported Contract Packs
  • Science Relay

Edited November 22, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[Geschosskopf]

29 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

So, I was reading @Geschosskopf's "Alternis Kerbol Travelling Circus" and it got me inspired to start a new modded career. There will be a few givens, I will be using BARIS and a planet pack. The planet pack and the rest of the mods are up to you because I am finding myself unable to choose.

BARIS is.....  interesting.  It will definitely increase the grind, so choose your settings for it carefully.  Also perhaps increase your cash and science rewards so you don't go broke.

Well, I have now done careers in 3 planet packs:  OPM, New Horizons, and Alternis Kerbol.  Here are my thoughts on them.

• OPM is an extension of the stock system--everything from Jool inwards is the same.  The new stuff beyond Jool is awesome but very, very far away, with travel times measured in decades 1-way.  Thus, to do anything meaningful out there, you can't get bogged down with anything more than a few science-grab probes to the inner planets, and it helps to increase science rewards to accelerate your ability to go to the new stuff.  if you run life support, you'll pretty much require a Kerbal-freezer.  You'll also want some high-tech engines, either New Future or some sort of powerful nuke engines.
• New Horizons has Kerbin as a gas giant moon about as far from the sun as Dres is in stock.  However, the sun there is brighter so solar panels still work as at Kerbin in stock.  This has system has all or most of the stock planets but they're all rearranged.  It also has many totally new planets and moons, some of which are in unusual orbits.  Thus, it's got LOTS of places to go and things to see, many of which are new.  Unfortunately, when I played it, events conspired to keep me pretty much pinned in the gas giant system so I never got to see all the other stuff except in the tracking center.
• Alternis Kerbol has the same number of planets as the stock system and they all have the same names.  However, they've all gotten total makeovers and been rearranged.  Also, it appears that the topography of the planets is different in each save, so there's more replay value.  Kerbin is a moon of Jool, which orbits the sun at the same distance as Kerbin in stock.  Ike and Gilly are long-period comets.  I have only really gotten good started so can't speak for what's outside the Jool system, but it certainly looks interesting in the tracking center.  Nothing is particularly far away--the system is about the same size as stock--but there are bigger gaps between the planets due to Kerbin, Duna, and Dres now being moons.

As for part mods, other than those dictated by sheer distance, it depends on your taste.  I myself have pretty much standardized on the following:

• MOLE and DSEV:  I use these mostly because they have built-in fuel-switching and they work with the magic "wireless" resource transfer system of Wild Blue.  That makes building bases SO much easier.  Plus, the orbital labs of MOLE are useful early on for a continuous IV-drip of science.  But I mainly use these instead of the stock 1.25m and 2.5m tanks, and it's nice to have a 2-seat pod early in the game.  Also, the 1.8m and 2.5m multi-engine adapators and probe core/SAS units are VERY useful.
• Space-Y (and sometimes Space-Y Extended):  If you have BARIS launch failures turned on, you really want to minimize the number of lifter stages.  Ideally, it should be just a single LFO stack to orbit.  If this isn't quite enough, slap some SRBs on it for the initial kick, so 2 stages max to orbit.  But as payload mass increases over time, you'll need bigger lifter parts.  Eventually, even 3.75m isn't big enough---you'll need 5m with 3.75m SRBs.  Hence, Space-Y.  And if you get even bigger, you'll need Space-Y Extended.  Also has some 1.25m and 2.5m engines that have more thrust but less Isp than stock engines, which are quite useful early in the game, plus lots of engine cluster plates.
• Lithobrake.  This has a number of VERY useful parts, such as a 3-seat lander can and some really beefy lander legs.
• Chop Shop:  A very imaginative collection of odd bits and pieces that fill all sorts of niches you didn't know you had.  All sorts of very useful stuff here for all sorts of purposes.  Once you try it, you'll always use it.
• Pathfinder:  Inflatable bases with magic "wireless" resource transfer, the ideal solution for Kraken-resistant bases.  Plus, it comes with the excellent Buffalo rover (which can be a tilt-rotor) and the Jetwing.  NOTE:  pretty much requires KAS/KIS.
• Mk2 Extension:  Because at some point I always want a few small spaceplanes.  Lots of useful stuff in here for both SSTOs and atmospheric planes.  Plus, it uses stock textures so not a huge memory hit.
• Kerbal Foundries Continued;  Mostly for the airplane wheels with built-in electric motors.  Pretty much necessary for off-planet spaceplanes.  The wheels and tracks are cool but I don't use them much.
• TAC Self-Destruct:  My all-time favorite mod.  Causes stuff to explode gratuitously, no collateral damage.  Essential for keeping LKO from getting clogged up with spent boosters (I don't buy the hype on stage recovery).
• Something that gives you more options for vacuum engines.  Near Future Propulsion, Kerbal Atomics, or Space Tux Recycled Parts (which has Atomic Age in it).  Something like that.  You need a better option than the stock LV-N.  DSEV includes a nifty fusion engine but it's more for monstrous mothershps---you need something to fill the large gap between it and the LV-N.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Thank you both.

I had completely forgotten about New Horizons and it looks really, really cool. I will probably end up using that one. If the doubling of planets doesn't bring my laptop to its knees. I'm particularly interested in MOLE, I can see that being useful early career...

By the looks of it, though, I may turn off BARIS after a while. This could get interesting.

[Geschosskopf]

3 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

By the looks of it, though, I may turn off BARIS after a while. This could get interesting.

BARIS has the most impact early in the game, for several reasons which are independent of the particular settings used.

• You're poor so each failure is painfully expensive
• Building redundancy into ships increases costs, which matters more when you're poor
• Repeatedly testing parts on the ground (as opposed to the hideously expensive Test Bench feature) gets expensive after a while but is a necessary investment
• Parts earlier in the tech tree is inherently less reliable than parts later on, so failures are more frequent than later in the game
• Your Kerbals lack experience so are less able to deal with malfunctions

The most dangerous thing about BARIS is turning on launch failures, which actually means every time you stage, every part in the ship (that you've selected as vulnerable to BARIS) has a chance to fail.  This goes right through to deploying the chutes at the end of the mission, so you'll find yourself doing them via right-click instead, just so as not to die at the last moment    But in general, once you have some experienced Kerbals, the failure rate goes down significantly because they can prevent most malfunctions from actually happening.  And by the time you get 2.5m parts, your rocket quality should be high enough that staging malfunctions become very rare anyway.  Like going from 75% failed launches to maybe 10%.

Be sure to test all your newly unlocked parts repeatedly.  Build a framework of structural girders, mount all your new stuff on them with minimal fuel and very limited thrust, and launch, then stage.  Some parts will explode and you'll burn a little fuel, but you can recover nearly the whole assembly, so each test doesn't cost all that much.  You'll need to repeat this many times before your parts become reasonably reliable, then do it again when unlock more stuff.

 

[BRAAAP_STUTUTU]

8 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Thank you both.

I had completely forgotten about New Horizons and it looks really, really cool. I will probably end up using that one. If the doubling of planets doesn't bring my laptop to its knees. I'm particularly interested in MOLE, I can see that being useful early career...

By the looks of it, though, I may turn off BARIS after a while. This could get interesting.

Do you know what kind of hardware your laptop is packing?

[John FX]

If you get a better machine to play KSP on, I would suggest RSS/RO/RP-0/principia with testflight, which does similar things to BARIS. It's interesting...

[Ultimate Steve]

42 minutes ago, John FX said:

If you get a better machine to play KSP on, I would suggest RSS/RO/RP-0/principia with testflight, which does similar things to BARIS. It's interesting...

I tried that (without testflight, though). It was painfully slow but I managed to push through and I got to the point where I had a station comparable to the ISS in LEO and a station comparable to Mir in LLO. I was about to begin a manned Mars mission but I lost interest at that point (too slow. If I get a better computer I will try again).

2 hours ago, RobinVerhulstZ said:

Do you know what kind of hardware your laptop is packing?

It's a Dell Inspiron 5547 with an intel i5 @1.7GHz and 8GB RAM. Not the best machine for KSP, but waaaay better than the other two computers I've played KSP on.

[BRAAAP_STUTUTU]

35 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I tried that (without testflight, though). It was painfully slow but I managed to push through and I got to the point where I had a station comparable to the ISS in LEO and a station comparable to Mir in LLO. I was about to begin a manned Mars mission but I lost interest at that point (too slow. If I get a better computer I will try again).

It's a Dell Inspiron 5547 with an intel i5 @1.7GHz and 8GB RAM. Not the best machine for KSP, but waaaay better than the other two computers I've played KSP on.

Still, i wouldn't go nuts with mods on that thing, laptop hardware is significantly less powerfull than desktop hardware, i'd try to conserve as much RAM as possible as not to have GC stutters every 5 seconds (hell i've had that issue on my gaming rigs and those have 16gb of DDR3)

[kerbalfreak]

A lot of suggestions in this topic are very useful. You will probably need Janitor, a mod for disabling parts of mods that you don't want to use, reducing RAM usage, load times and your part lists. You can also use it to see the mod a part belongs, all the installed mods and even disable stock parts you don't want (i disabled all the Mk3 parts and most wings, never made anything good with it - I use OPT). And the best: you do everything in game.

A Life Support mod are also very recommend. I find snacks too simply. TAC-LS is great, but unnecessary segregates the resources and wastes (you will always use/produce the same amount of all), and I had severe problems with bases and ships in the background. I prefer USI-LS, only one resource and waste, and worked without problems.

I also love KPBS and Feline Rovers, by Nils277. Extremely useful, integrates a lot of mods, and awesome models and textures, very "Kerbal-a-like".

[Ultimate Steve]

I've just now started the career, I went with New Horizons plus a lot of the suggestions shown here. My computer is handling it decently.

Note to self, install DSEV.

Also, yay! I managed to do three flights so far without killing anyone! But on the third flight all 8 of my fuel tanks failed at once...

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@Ultimate Steve BDB and Tundra Exploration and Cormorant Aeronology, and Shuttle Payload Technologies, and definitely all of @benjee10's mods!

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, so, good news, nobody has died (yet) except for one dude killed in training by an event card. My first few missions had several problems. Then BARIS went silent for about 5 missions and now it's devoured both of my attempts at a Sonnah entry probe. And the one I didn't integrate went farther than the one I did integrate...

EDIT: Extra 6 just exploded as well. :p.

EDIT: Alright, the second stage engine just exploded three flights in a row. Something's up here.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Ultimate Steve

[Foozle]

21 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Here's a nice pool of mods to choose from. In no way do I intend or expect you to install all of these.  But have a blast, man.

• • Not DMagic Orbital Science  (Too big of a science mod?)

Or you can lower science rewards in the settings.  I find it to be a "must have" for science variety and "reasons to do stuff"

 I reduce my science rewards by to 50%, and it balances well.

[JadeOfMaar]

1 minute ago, Foozle said:

Or you can lower science rewards in the settings.  I find it to be a "must have" for science variety and "reasons to do stuff"

Good point. I'm always testing and designing in sandbox. Playthrough activity is rare for me so I don't think of that.  That aside, I'd recommend DMOS, or not (need to) mention it granted its popularity.

[Ultimate Steve]

Yeah, I'm really feeling the science grind. I have the tech to get places, but I don't have the tech to return and until recently I didn't have the antennas necessary to transmit. Currently launching another (#3) Sonnah impact probe. Maybe I'll actually be able to transmit science this time... After that I'm going for an Aptur flyby (once I unlock probes that have SAS).

[Ultimate Steve]

Update: My Sonnah Impactor sort of accidentally became a Mun orbiter. Unfortunately it doesn't have enough EC left to transmit science.

[Foozle]

49 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Good point. I'm always testing and designing in sandbox. Playthrough activity is rare for me so I don't think of that.  That aside, I'd recommend DMOS, or not (need to) mention it granted its popularity.

It you nerf, of necessity, most contracts of  (e.g. "test a booster at 3500km in minimus orbit", what)    it does make sense.

Oh, just discovered a nerf,

what = what

 

I can't seem to say "W."  "T." "F".

Because reasons.

[Ultimate Steve]

I've finally had someone die. I'm honoring them @Geschosskopf style.

So, this is the Sojourner 3, which is basically a small version of MOL.

Unfortunately, it lacked the thrust to get to orbit so I aborted. Shortly after the abort was initiated the Mk1 pod spontaneously exploded, rendering Valentina dead.

Bob bailed out after re-entry (no chutes any more) but he died upon impact.

^^^My pathetic excuse for a flag planting rover.

 

 

 

EDIT: Wow, this whole "Sojourner" thing isn't working well... Only two of the six have actually reached orbit. Sojourner 2 doesn't really count, though, because I nixed the lab (to rescue a guy) and Sojourner 5 developed a fuel leak and couldn't charge its battery. S6 just exploded on ascent.

EDIT2: I didn't intend to write any of this up, but just to give a brief summary of my career so far, Skybounds 1-7-ish were my manned rockets, some of which succeeded in getting to orbit, and later taking two astronauts briefly into Sonnah's SOI. Extra's 1-11 (?) were my unmanned rockets, which managed to orbit. Two of them managed to collide with Sonnah, one of them dipped into its atmosphere and then orbited the Mun. The last one in the series landed on the Mun.

The Sojourner series (1-7) were designed to fly 2 people into orbit with 1.85m rockets along with a MOLE setup. Unfortunately, that program didn't work out so well. S1 failed and the LES worked. S2 got into orbit with 1 person for a rescue contract and succeeded but lacked the lab module (I took it out to save mass). S3 blew up on re-entry due to BARIS. S4 exploded, LES worked. S5 reached orbit (again, a rescue mission, but with the lab this time) but didn't have the right power systems to make the lab work (I got, like, 0.05 research time before I had to return to Kerbin). S6 exploded but the LES worked. S7 finally got into orbit with working solar panels, but the research was slow and I determined that it wasn't worth staying in orbit for two weeks for 10 science. In the time it took to get 10 science, an experiment and another part (I forget which) failed. So, no, unless I can get one far away I'm not going to go down that path.

The Descender series are probes that land on other celestial bodies and have probe cores which use SAS. D1, the only one so far, landed on Aptur than orbited Eli. It would have landed on Eli, but the engine failed right before I was going to de-orbit.

And if it wasn't 1:30 AM here, I'd be launching Explorer 1, designed to send a crew of 2 to Aptur. But I'm soooo tiredddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

^^^Fell asleep with finger on the d key

Edited November 23, 2017 by Ultimate Steve

[Fergrim]

Steve, i'm using KSS and GPP combined, along with OPM.  That was the best combination of multiple planet packs I could find in order to create the largest play space.

 

Along with that you grab Interstellar extended, the entire USI suite (kolonies, konstruction, life support etc), RemoteTech and then a big key is ResearchBodies +Tarsier telescopes so you won't be able to see any of them aside from the closest ones until you start discovering them.

I also took the governments + cash mods so I could be rewarded for things like having a station house many kerbals.  Also extra planetary launchpads/Hangar modules for ships because it works well with the USI stuff and with such a large universe it helps to be able to launch in orbit or from established leapfrogging bases as you expand outward from Kerbin.

Aside from that, go ahead and add in any that will help in interstellar travel + whatever utilities interest you. Mech Engineer, MechJeb, Transfer Window etc (and for me, personally, ANY mod maintained by linuxgurugamer is going to be good.)

In my opinion that describes just about the most fun one could have in KSP via career.  Going further, I'd disable anything cushy like reverting launches and such, while allowing yourself bit more tool use.

[WuphonsReach]

What is the plaque part from?

[Ultimate Steve]

22 minutes ago, WuphonsReach said:

What is the plaque part from?

That's a stock feature that comes with a flags. If you plant a flag and type something, then later approach it with a Kerbal and right click it, there will be an option to read the plaque (the text you typed).