advice please? - how do i achieve contracts

[JtPB]

... with the minimum of crappy-looking rockets & reasonable staging?

[Simes]

Repeatedly decline the contract until it comes up "landed at Kerbin" or "splashed down at Kerbin". You get a bit less science that way but it's WAY easier.

[Kasuha]

There's a lot of advice that can be given on this vague question but I think it would definitely help if you were more specific and told us what did you already try or what problem exactly do you have.

[Kerbart]

• Read contracts before accepting them. Don't be afraid to turn away “bad†contracts
  
• Make a list with all contracts. I just write them down, but you can use a spreadsheet as well. I have different categories like “in flight†(where altitude and velocity matter) and “in orbit/sub orbital†(where only altitude matters)
  
• Fly regular missions but pick out a few contract experiments that can hitch hike along. Except for very large parts you can usually bolt a part that needs to be tested along with one stage or another.
  
• Plan & Build: if you accepted that mission to test a KS-25×4 in Mun orbit, find a mission where you need such a monster. A scientific mission to Jool for instance. Build mission craft that happen to use experimental parts, don't build experimental craft to fullfill contracts.

[DrMonte]

I've built small plane to test parts "in flight", "in certain height", "at certain speed". That applies for the contracts with unusual speed at that height for the rocket.

Fly safe and get 100% part refund on landing at KSP.

[Wanderfound]

Depends on what sort of contracts you're talking about.

* "Science from": leave an unmanned satellite in orbit with a thermometer, a probe core, solar panels and a radio.

* "Plant flag": permanently manned moonbase.

* "Test in flight": forget rockets, use aircraft. Don't even need a spaceplane, atmospheric jets do it fine.

* "Test splashed down": build a rover, drive it into the water. Alternately, use an SRB with 90% of its fuel removed and take a 30 second flight from the launchpad to the ocean.

* "Test on ground": for a test rig, bolt together a few girder sections and stick a Stayputnik on top.

The only contracts that require launches are the exploration and "test in orbit" ones. For many of those, spaceplanes are the most financially efficient. And, once you get an SSTO up and running, you can construct as much orbital infrastructure as you like for almost no cost. Your exploration missions will be a lot easier to do if you can launch all of your vehicles empty before fuelling them up in orbit.

[Kasuha]

For many of those, spaceplanes are the most financially efficient.

Don't confuse SSTO with spaceplanes.

SSTO is the efficient technology since you can land it back on KSC to get maximum refunds.

Spaceplanes are mere part of SSTO technology. The other part are SSTO rockets, often jet-powered to save fuel. With them, you can get much more substantial payload to orbit than with planes.

[Wanderfound]

Don't confuse SSTO with spaceplanes.

SSTO is the efficient technology since you can land it back on KSC to get maximum refunds.

Spaceplanes are mere part of SSTO technology. The other part are SSTO rockets, often jet-powered to save fuel. With them, you can get much more substantial payload to orbit than with planes.

Yes, SSTO doesn't necessarily mean spaceplane. There are plenty of good vertical-lift airbreathing SSTO designs around.

Wings, control surfaces and landing gear do make it a lot easier to hit the runway for the 100% return, though. Spaceplanes aren't nearly as limited as most KSPer's seem to think. A decently built heavy lift SSTO spaceplane can carry better than 50 ton of payload, even without resorting to unrealistic tricks like airhogging and wing-stacking.

[dci]

System gives me contracts on TT-70 Radial Decoupler, LV1 engine and KR-2L engine. Still only these three parts.

Orbital / sub-orbital contracts:

The first two parts listed above are not so heavy to place them on rescue craft for saving stucked Kerbals on orbit or Munar lander, so you can do more contracts in one flight with roughly √30000-5000 rocket (or maybe less for LKO-only craft or SSTO). The KR-2L is quite a heavy, but it gives much more funds, so it is still pretty gainfull, doesn't matter, if you leave test rocket as a debris. (testing on Gilly's surface gave me approx. √7M total)

Fly over Kerbin situations:

Use jet for light parts, or crappy-looking test vessel for heavy parts.

Splashed down situations:

Use a rover and go east to the sea.

Science data:

Set probes by every celestial body, one landed and other one orbiting. You will do it only once for funds, but next science contracts will be pretty easy, just select probe, send some data (thermometer + antenna) and you are done without aditional funds.

Flag contracts:

just set permanent bases on celestial bodies and plant these flags. Immediate taking down doesn't affect contract accomplishment.

What do you mean by crappy-looking rockets? It is testing, not an expo

You can always decline contracts you don't like before you take them without any penalties.

Edited August 7, 2014 by dci

[Wanderfound]

Incidentally: how to have fun while part testing.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87950-Testing-times