WanderingKid

Note: My channel isn't large, and is only about a year old. Take this advice for what it's worth; an amateur who's having fun and wants to see another person join in. #1: You can't please everybody. Do what you enjoy doing. 100 subscribers who like what you do, when you enjoy doing it, are worth more than 10,000 when you feel like you're going to work to put up an episode. AdSense doesn't pay enough to be worth turning this into a job until you've already enjoyed the hobby for a long time and you create an accidental career. That's almost word for word from some of the YouTube experts who have done it. (Side note: If you're getting a 50% "We can't HEAR you!", lower the music volume and repost the thing... ) #2: Post Production Processing: Do it. Even if you're doing raw Let's Plays, do some post production. Get your sound levels settled out otherwise you'll be all over the place. Letting YouTube handle your raw post production usually ends up with a blurry, and crappy sounding, project. I recommend Premiere Pro, but if you're on a budget go with whatever you can get your hands on. Even Windows Movie Maker improves things. If you've never used them before, expect to spend 10-30 hours learning to use a Non-Linear Editing tool before you don't feel like a complete moron. It's a great skill to get though. #3: Exactly 16:9 for widescreen. Anything else youtube chews up and letterboxes, stretches, or otherwise mangles. Most screens these days are 16:10 (or close enough in ratio). Use the Bandicam sizing controls (most likely 1280x720) and fit your game window into it. Bandicam also has the ability to record game sound as a secondary .wav. Use this to your advantage. Put the sound into your headphones so you don't feedback onto the voice so you have control of what sounds are in charge. #4: Watch Let's Plays or videos on games you absolutely don't care about. I personally like to try to take hints from Japanese dating games (though the presentation style is very different). The reason for this is you don't want to get absorbed in the content, you want to evaluate the presentation style(s). When do they put up notes? When do they highlight different items? When do they include sound effects (or mute the background)? Things like that. #5: Closed Captioning will open your video up to a LOT of audiences... and is very time consuming to do on anything unscripted. It's not hard, but it can add many hours to your post-production. My estimate for CC'ing works (I don't do it often) is ~1 hour/10 minutes of video... and I type at ~95wpm. It's getting the timings right that takes forever. #6: Try to learn one new effect or tool in every video. It keeps you from getting bogged down in trying to understand the entire process end to end before you start (inertia can fail), but it makes you better as you push forward. If you want a perfect example of just how things change over time, my channel still has my very first video I ever posted up. It's a mess. #7: Have fun! If you're bored, so is your audience, fast forward the event(s). If you're 'not feeling it', don't do it. Open up a sandbox and just have some fun on your own. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands, this is your relaxation and pleasure, not a job. Good luck!

I'll have to put in a comment for "I hope not." I enjoy tinkering in a game. I don't really want to become a rocket engineer.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the new complexity. I like the balance funds force between more powerful rockets/planes and possible bankruptcy (rather difficult to do with advances though). I'm playing it on Hard and may need to go custom to force me to really have to get efficient with things. Right now rocket -> mission income isn't really balanced (10k rocket for an 80k satellite mission, for example) so it's just a cash grind for upgrades to the facilities before I miss launch windows for Duna and the like.

Hey guys, I'm back. I've been trying to keep up with this thread (and others) via my phone while I was away, but didn't do so well. Once I get through all the discussion I'll update the first post. Edit: first post edited. Did I miss anything?

No upgrade Mun Landers: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/103878-18t-%28or-less%29-Returnable-Manned-Mun-Lander

27k? With just the radial intakes? How many intakes are you using? With 2 per, of course without wings so my intake path was rather different, I couldn't avoid a flameout past 18k or so. A 45 degree angle (vs. my 70 degree, putting prograde at 45 degrees) may make all the difference there.

Much obliged for the thoughts, Geschosskopf. I'd been wondering about this, and the max/planet makes sense. I was sending all my Kerbals on a flight in Atmo, then an orbit, and was wondering where that XP point went (I'd thought it was best/mission added up). This seems reasonable. Not simple in some cases (dropping out of, and back into, Kerbin SOI) but reasonable. I'll have to see what I can do with this.

See my sig. Don't do my mistakes (which I show), just the things that work well.

KSS Lawn Dart.

Goo and Mat bays take 3 (or 4, if you're going whole hog, but the 4th is minimally useful) fully returned to Kerbin for max science. Thus the idea of 'science bombs' which you send out, use, and then send home on a suicide burn with chutes. EDIT: With a Science Lab, you can store multiple reports of the same experiment for return. So, if you're being frugal, you can take a Kerbal on EVA, load everything up into that, and send just the lab home.

?? A FL-T100 + 48-7S + OKTO + Comm + Thermometer will satisfy a number of different requests, particularly around low g bodies like Mun and Minmus. It's got roughly 2,500-3000 m/s dV. For High-alt satellite requests, such as the ones between Mun/Minmus around Kerbal, it's only ~100 dV to transfer your orbit once you're roughly stable out there.

I believe I've confirmed that simply putting a new satellite on the pad is enough to satisfy the 'launch a new satellite' request for the contract and you can re-use old ones. Problem with actually confirming it works is really stupid placement of OX-STAT panels and a now permanent shadow...

How do you propose to deal with this when everything self-destructs after 2.5 km from your active craft in atmo? It's a nice idea, but right now it's not a fair request for those on tight budgets.

Same idea, but you have to eyeball the angle from the orbital map. If you can 'see' how mun lines up, do the same with Minmus. Burn out to just before the orbit for your Apo. When you get there, guess. Small Radial/anti-radial burns can help move your apo back and forth some if you want to try to get it better lined up.

Unity and rounding errors on nearly inconsequential parts causing tremendous pain for little actual effect.

That could work. A percentage of the fee/sci/prestige results is based upon the percentage of the science of the experiment. Only problem is spamming them for the advance would still be viable. A 0% return on the result and a 7k advance is enough for me to collect up two or three, swap to a satellite, and just get them out of my queue. Not having an advance could mean a lack of funds to put up the satellite to fulfill the mission. - - - Updated - - - With a Kerbal on the Mun still? Or did you have to deorbit again?

Edited original post, thanks for that.

I don't see anything about it in the list for the 0.90.0 list on the wiki: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/0.90.0

I wanted to create a place to get all of the abusable contract mechanics in one place for review and discussion. Note: There's been some discussion on why spammable contracts feel required and further politics of game grind. I'd hope to avoid that in this thread, as it's not focused on that topic. There are plenty of discussion threads on funds, over/under pricing of building upgrades, and the like. Please keep this to abusable contracts and possible solutions and/or explanations of further abuses. Thanks. So far, the contracts that are the most abuseable: [FIXED]Plant a Flag on X. (X being a foreign body)Abuse: It requires a Kerbal there with EVA ability, that's it. Contract is randomly accessible just via contract cancellation spam. Solution in place: After the first Plant a Flag Mission on a body, all additional Plant a Flag missions will not recur until there are no Kerbals on said body. Return science from orbit/landed: Abuse: Does not require new science. Method one: Satellite with temperature gauge and single solar panel. Method two: Stayputnik on a Mk1 with battery spam/solar panel can spam crew reports. Method three: Leave a Kerbal there and EVA/Crew report transmit with battery spam or solar panel Possible fixes: Require NEW science. Concerns: After building out a giant space station, it has no purpose. Investment should have return. Remove 'fishing' for new contracts to reduce (but not remove) abusability. Require science to be returned, not transmitted. (Possible bonus/con: Would require shuttles to Kerbin, some of which can take in game years for a transfer window.) Complete multiple Satellite requests with single satellite: Abuse: Does not require satellite to be left in orbit designated on completion, and contracts can be 'stacked' as available. These contracts all are marked as having a 'new satellite deployed' at the same time. Method one: Fire off lightweight satellite with necessary pieces and extra dV, move to orbit, complete, repeat for next orbit. Method three: Spaceplane with probe core moves to orbit(s) as needed, lands. Minimal expenditure. Possible problem: Loss of control of satellite needs to make sure rest of ship isn't taken with it. Possible solutions include: Button to complete (and lose control) Require Satellite to exist in orbit for a period of time. SOI changes need to be addressed (in particular, Mun collisions) before this could be considered. Kessler Syndrome is another problem. A new tab for filtering could possibly be useful for this. Confirmed not an abuse method: Method two: (Needs Confirmation, looks viable) Have Sat in orbit on difficult to reach body (say, Moho). Launch new satellite from Kerbin. Move Moho satellite to new orbit. When positioning the satellite, even though you can 'green check' the mission from the ground with a new satellite deployment, it doesn't carry over to the mission completion tab for your old satellite. Thus, if you want a new sat contract at Moho, you're shipping a new probe core (I assume that's the part it's using as a timestamp) to Moho. I'm sure there's more. I know the habitat, for example, can be transferred from orbit to orbit but I don't have the full details on that yet as to how abusable it is. Add to that I'm leaving tomorrow for the holidays and won't be on for a week, so I won't be able to upkeep first post past the next 24 hours or so. When I come back I'll make sure I catch up on it.

It's doable, Panzer. Look at the post before yours. 100% stock, no EVA.

I've always felt the Science Grind was just in the way. The tree needs a rebalance, sure, but that's only part of it. Understand that no matter how you look at it, it's strange. You research temperature on Minmus... to create a bigger gas tank and rocket. You research gravity near Jool... to get wings for Kerbin. Or even not commenting on the abstractions involved, NASA doesn't do a lot with the results it gets from its readings, JPL (and others) do. I wouldn't mind seeing research missions, though. They should be 'tack on' parts from other companies. Example: Duna colonization might like to know the gravity, soil density, atmo pressure, and maybe how some materials act at the gravity in a certain area (biome). Get us that information and they'll share research they've done into other things (abstracted science points). I personally dislike the science grind, though. The entire idea of 'Science Bombs' seems silly to me, though, and I'd love to see the entire plan revisited. Right now the Funds -> Science is overpowered and needs to be dragged into a reasonable level, but I am against the advocation of outright removal. I want to avoid that grind, personally. The Tycoon mode holds a LOT more of my interest.

Since this thread appears to be the discussion on the topic in general, the multi-contract / one satellite bit is rather abuseable. Because if you deliver a satellite to Munar orbit with a Mat Bay and a Temp Gauge on it with a decent amount of dV, you've got a single satellite that can complete 10+ contracts, whenever they might pop up. Duplicate this a few times with a few satellites, and it's amazingly abuseable. It's similar to 'Science from Orbit' with empty crew reports and multiple 'Plant a Flag on X' missions with a colony there. Maybe we should collate an 'Abusable Contract' list somewhere, and list the techniques for review by the devs? Offer up different ideas for containing the issue?

Once you've got OKTO/Stayputnik and Solar it's fine. Until then it's a mess, the dV to put up a dual capsule and rondevous is tight. So either you go up the tree or you're not getting him down. It's easier to put a satellite (.5 tons, usually) into Munar Orbit than it is to get two Mk1's (1.72 tons + parachutes (2 radial 0.3t) + decoupler) to that height and rondevous. It is, in theory, 'on the way' towards Mun landing, so it's situated correctly in the ordering. I think it's a matter of once Mun comes up, so does it.

In general, I've found that if I'm approaching the ground too fast, I've dove to altitude too quickly. Landing is not a quick event, particularly for beginners. You need to start WAY out. Like "Oooh, those are nice mountains for a picnic" way out. Then bring yourself around. You want to be cutting your engines while out over the grassland to your landing throttle. This throttle should be just enough to keep you on a glide path, but slowly losing altitude. You want to try to do your final adjustments to your landing path (other than very minor ones) before you hit the bright green. Your speed when you hit the green area should be no higher than 150 m/s. If you can arrange it you want to be right around your takeoff speed. Once you're lined up (and don't be afraid to let some runway go by underneath you to make sure), cut the engines. You should only be a few meters above the runway and you'll drop down. This is when you do your wheel tilt controls. Then slam on the brakes. I don't personally use FAR, but I can't see it being much different. EDIT: Also, Pic or Craft file of your plane may help us see if there's any glaring issues.

Starhawk, if they act like Ailerons do when that can happen, they default to the wrong direction. Every time... ... at least in my experience.