DaPatman

Let's see... There's a Hummingbird-class orbiter on the way back from Gravioli-ing the [EXPUNGED] out of Minmus orbit (low and high). There's a Nomad-class orbiter that's just started a sundive to get all the low-Kerbol-orbit science. There's a Flame-class asteroid grabber currently holding onto Fred the A-class and waiting for periapsis to do the capture burn. There's a Frost-class asteroid grabber on the way to intercepting an E-class that's currently on a collision course with Kerbin. And there's a Zephyr-class Kethane scanner probe (the rest are all manned) in orbit around Minmus. On reflection, that's a lot more concurrent missions than I normally have before going interplanetary in a career mode save (sundiving doesn't count as interplanetary, since I'm not visiting another planet). I blame the asteroids.

First, I take a small command pod, stick a parachute on top, an SRB underneath, and Jeb inside. Then I get a crew report from the launchpad, before launching it straight up, picking up crew and EVA reports from flying above Kerbin's shores and flying high above Kerbin (the craft (something so primitive doesn't deserve to be called a rocket) can just about reach 18km above sea level if you keep it pointed straight up). Then I land at KSC, get a grew report from there, get out, and take surface samples and get EVA reports from KSC, the launchpad and the runway. Then I end the flight. This mission will net you 60.4 science, which is enough to unlock the first four nodes of the stock tech tree, so that's what I do next. Having done so, I then use the newly obtained parts to build a rocket capable of making polar orbit, even with half a dozen goo cannisters attached to it, and launch Jeb in it. I forget the exact amount of science this mission nets me, but I do know that it consists of, in order of obtainment: One (1) Goo observation from the launchpad One (1) Goo observation from Kerbin's lower atmosphere One (1) Goo observation from Kerbin's upper atmosphere One (1) Goo observation, one (1) crew report and nine (9) EVA reports (one per biome observable from space) from low Kerbin orbit One (1) Goo observation, one (1) crew report and one (1) EVA report from high Kerbin orbit One (1) crew report and one (1) EVA report from Kerbin's lower atmosphere above my landing site One (1) Goo observation, one (1) crew report, one (1) EVA report and one (1) surface sample from my landing site Plus the science from recovering a vessel that orbited Kerbin Having done this, I'm a lot looser with how I progress through the rest of career mode.

At the start of a sundive. When he reaches periapsis, he's going to grab all the low-over-Kerbol science he can before working out when, where and how to execute his return burn.

I used the new LFB to build my first ever SSTO rocket. Then I took the payload to the Mun to grab all the low orbit crew reports:

I've only captured one asteroid so far, and since they were sat next to me at the time, I turned to my sister and her boyfriend for naming suggestions. The boyfriend suggested "Brian", and since my sister couldn't think of anything that could top that, I went with it.

Given the following: (a) I have never successfully docked two ships together ( The first asteroid I went for was an E class on a collision course with Kerbin © The ship I sent to divert its course had no monopropellant (d) Despite all this, I didn't just divert its course, but also put it in a ~10km x ~10,000km highly inclined retrograde orbit I have to say actually capturing an asteroid is actually pretty easy, thoygh having said that, I imagine doing anything more complicated with an E-class' orbit is alot harder.

I haven't really been playing with ARM much, as I'm waiting for compatibility mods for all of the mods I use. I did want to try all the new stuff out for myself, though, so I started a stock sandbox save and started looking for asteroids. I was going to start with a class A, but then I spotted a class E on a collision course with Kerbin, and felt obliged to do something about this. You will be pleased to know that I didn't just divert the asteroid's course (despite having forgotten to put RCS on my ship), I even managed to put it in an inclined retrograde orbit whose apoapsis was inside the Mun's orbit.

I am recording at high precision - the screenshots prove that. I suppose it could be due to the fact that despite turning all the graphics options all the way down, I'm still experiencing slowdown when the Persistent Trails window is open. That might be the reason why sometimes it stops drawing for a second before drawing half a dozen steps all at once which in turn could explain the early cutoff - I must have stopped recording while it wasn't drawing. Ah, well. I'm not rerunning it anyway - that was a full 4 seconds better than my second fastest run, and I'm not sure I could repeat the feat. I might close the Persistent Trails window while doing future runs, though, see if that helps.

I totally agree. This is a track where for the most part you can avoid braking and just coast around corners. Having a tight hairpin right before the finish line wouldn't really fit. Anyway, Heikki has completed it in a time of 1:34 (MET 1:05 - MET 2:39):

I wouldn't say preplanned, as such,* but I certainly knew there were things I wanted to do. Some of the missions were winging it, though. Incidentally, if you're going for science from every biome on Kerbin, build a rover and drive it west/southwest. There's an anomalous patch of tundra there that you can get to quicker in a rover than the poles in a rocket. *Except the first mission, which was the one I do every time I start a new career mode save. I have that mission planned to the second.

02:13, and I've unlocked one more tier 4 node and two more tier 5 nodes, and sent two more ships to the Mun - one to do a close fly-by with a thermometer, the other to actually land. I've also launched a ship that will leave Kerbin's SoI to do some high over Kerbol science sometime around 09:45.

In that case, I actually unlocked all tier 3 tech in that first 11 minute mission (I was calling Start tier 0.) Anyway, I'm now at 01:11, and I've unlocked two tier 4 nodes and one tier 5 node, with two ships on their way to close Munar fly-bys. (One has loads of Goo cannisters, the other one has as many materials bays.) That's as much as I'm doing for now though - I need sleep.

I think I'll try this. I'll be using Kerbal Alarm Clock, Flight Engineer Redux and Enhanced Navball. (I have other mods installed, but I won't use them for this.) EDIT: All tier 3 tech unlocked at 00:14.

I only have two rules when flying probes: No Flight Engineer (Build Engineer is fine during design, as long as it's gone before launch.) Not allowed to attach Kerbal Alarm Clock alarms to probes (Unattached raw time alarms are fine.)

Mine is reusing designs. Today I wanted to pop outside Kerbin's SoI for a few minutes to do some high above Kerbol science, and realized the ship I'd built to orbit the Mun and Minmus (in separate missions) had just enough delta-v for the job.

On the way back from orbiting the Mun. When he gets home I'll be sending him off to go land on Minmus.

I've been scanning Kerbin for Kethane:

Why not? Maybe you can make it more aerodynamic! Actually, I just went back and looked at the track, and it looks like I went the right way round, but started from the wrong place. Don't know what effect that's had on my time, but I'm happy to run it again tonight. EDIT: ...And done! MET 1:10 - MET 3:04, for a time of 1:54:

Heikki has completed his inaugural race in 1:56 (MET 1:20 - MET 3:16):

In that case, DP Racing is pleased to announce its debut in the world of motorsports, with the DP-01 (dry mass 1.27t), driven by Heikki Kerman:

I don't suppose there's room for a latecomer is there? If so, I wouldn't be coming in until next race - I've never used Ferram before, so I'm gonna have to spend some time getting used to it.

I know that - I once had a kerbal on EVA land on Gilly, plant a flag, and return to his ship, all while said ship was itself coming in to land. Anyway, you do need a lander if you want to do science, which, since I stick to career mode, I do.

I once let Bill run out of jetpack fuel on the Mun, which wouldn't have been a problem except I hadn't put a ladder on the ship. I didn't want to leave it there, since it had science on it, so Bob brought a ship with a ladder, and Bill climbed into it while Bob flew to the first ship, and the two of them flew back. While all of this was going on, Jeb was on his way back from low solar orbit. The trajectory he took meant he entered Kerbin's SoI at 8km/s. It turns out that when going at such speed, a 30km periapsis isn't sufficient for aerocapture. Worse, the ion engine isn't powerful enough to change this fact. Fortunately, I had enough xenon to get another encounter, this time with a 20km periapsis, so even if that still hadn't been low enough for aerocapture, I would still go low enough that I could deploy the parachutes.

Rings around EVERYTHING!

I tried driving a rover on Gilly, and ended up spending more time flying a few metres over the surface. It was also very slow going - I did hit 6m/s at one point, but I was going downhill at the time.