Getting xp in bulk?

[Rylant]

Hey do you guys send huge ships with lots of Kerbals to plant flags on planets for xp? I have a couple good Minmus/Mun vessels with a capacity of 7, so I can take 7 At a time to get xp from then. Whenever I land on Minmus, I always escape Kerbin space to get the orbit the Sun xp before returning. My Gilly and Duna ships only holds 3 Kerbals, so I either have to design and build bigger ships to send maybe 7 at a time to get the xp, or send lots of separate missions.  Duna and Gilly missions can take game years. And my design skills aren’t great and bigger means less delta-v or bigger rockets, which tends to be more difficult to fly. Also me doing a Gilly or Duna run probably takes an hour or two as I am not perfect at this game yet lol. 

I know some people use SSTOs for lots of Kerbals but I suck at landing lol. The hangar is one of the dusty buildings in my playthrough. 
 

Rylant

Edited May 6, 2021 by Rylant

[Reactordrone]

I used to do bulk trips just outside Kerbin's sphere of influence to level up crews before going interplanetary but with the ability to level up on the fly with the MPL there's less need since I'm usually sending a lab on any planetary trips.

[bewing]

It's easiest to wait for a "land a station on X with some engineers and pilots" contract, so that you get paid for doing it. You really don't need all that many multi-star kerbals in the end. You can send along an MPL if you want to give them their stars immediately, and they are a long way from home.

[Mystique]

It's enough to plant 1 flag now to get this achievement for every green lad in physics range (no more need for UN style flag alley on Mun).

Also, taking into account KSP isn't actually for grind (after 1000+ hours I'm sure of that), there is a great small mod [1.9.1] Kerbalnaut Training: Field Training Laboratory (FTL) & Field Training Facility (FTF) (works nice with MK2 expansion mod, which adds MK2 lab capable of squeezing in 4 kerbals instead of just 2) - generally you just build science station around Kerbin/Mun/Minmus, send crew there, provide enough power and hit "train button". They'll be trained and well tanned after a year or so, you can just pick them up on the way out with some crewed mission.

[Mahnarch]

On 5/6/2021 at 9:02 AM, Mystique said:

It's enough to plant 1 flag now to get this achievement for every green lad in physics range (no more need for UN style flag alley on Mun).

That is nice to know.

I was unaware. Thank you.

[Starman4308]

While it only gets the Kerbals to level 3, it's relatively quick to have them plant a flag on the Mun and Minmus, then briefly pop outside Kerbin's SOI to get "orbited Kerbol" and the last few XP points needed to hit 3 stars. After that, though, you do need to go properly interplanetary.

On the Kerbol excursion, a good way to do it is to exit time warp just before exiting the SOI, point retrograde, engage stability assist, and fire to cancel and slightly reverse your Kerbin-relative velocity once in Kerbolar orbit.

[18Watt]

My first stop outside of Kerbin (and it’s moons..) is usually Jool.  I send ships holding ~13 Kerbals, each with a MPL and ISRU.  Plant a flag on Pol and Bop, and maybe do a fly-by of Tylo, and they all are Level 5.  Then, I have a nuke powered shuttle, which holds 16 Kerbals, to bring some of them back to Kerbin for the next mission.  Every time I get another contract around Jool, I fill up a ship with low-experience crews.

Seems expensive, but it’s not.  Every contract to do something around Jool is worth a lot more than it costs to send a huge ship out there.

[Jack Mcslay]

21 hours ago, 18Watt said:

My first stop outside of Kerbin (and it’s moons..) is usually Jool.  I send ships holding ~13 Kerbals, each with a MPL and ISRU.  Plant a flag on Pol and Bop, and maybe do a fly-by of Tylo, and they all are Level 5.  Then, I have a nuke powered shuttle, which holds 16 Kerbals, to bring some of them back to Kerbin for the next mission.  Every time I get another contract around Jool, I fill up a ship with low-experience crews.

Seems expensive, but it’s not.  Every contract to do something around Jool is worth a lot more than it costs to send a huge ship out there.

If you have a refueling base on Minmus and another on Bop or Pol you can basically have free travel from/to Jool as long as you have a ship with a lot of Dv