WanderingKid

LOL. I do believe I mentioned the Comm 16-S

The trick to missions of this nature is that only a single part of the craft has to show up everywhere. That said, it's still not simple. Apollo is the answer, but you'll need to bring some disposable parts. The easiest way to approach this is to think "Bring a unique, disposable lander to each target". Tylo is similar in this nature for contracts. Whatever you land on Tylo with you don't want to have to drag everything back up to your mothership with you. Eve has the same problem, just worse. Now there's atmo too! Some of them won't matter. You can just leave a few gas cans on the mothership that can be left behind (Moho). On Eve, you want a big fat aerobrake component that you'll ditch during landing, a couple of parachutes to land, and a staged lifter that gets your Kerbal and the little pod that he dropped by in off the planet to hook up to his other landers with. If even a parachute hits everywhere, you win. The MK1 pod will be plenty, it just takes some planning.

I don't disagree. For note: It does it to my 1.2.2 too (assuming everyone else has moved to 1.3). My concern is how the file was generated. (Side note: I'm pretty heavily modded right now). There's just a lot of variables that can be removed if the full save is available, including: "So, is your drive making funny noises?" type problems. I may have jumped the gun, though, trying to help the OP help us to remove the random failures.

I'm not sure I (or others) can help you from this point. The problem is you adjusted the game files trying to fix it yourself. I do the same thing, but what happens from here is there can be no assumptions made about what should have been. Your concern is unusual, to the point of strange. If you *ever* run into this again, please immediately .zip your game folder so there is a baseline save that can be worked from. Right now... all anyone can do is guess. With that baseline save a number of modders and devs would try to figure out what happened if you provided it. Unfortunately, it seems like the data and game have moved past where an answer could be definitively provided.

If you're looking at staging, I mean when you're ready to pop Stage 2. Stage 4 is all 4 Thumpers and 4 T-45's at once. The Thumpers get dumped ~10k altitude, and you ride the T-45's to orbit. Everything in the middle is for after circularization. For the science car, try the shorter landing gear with structural extensions. The longer ones seem to explode if you look at them funny. An older album, but still a personal favorite if you'd like alternatives to the science car:

Quick and Dirty 6 man tourist orbiter for Mun or Minmus (do NOT land this thing... XD). It assumes you have upgraded the pad and VAB (more than 30 parts): 1.25m Servi ce Bay with Okto, 2 100 charge batteries (darkside), Comm 16-S, In-line stabilizer on that, and a nosecone on front (Type-A preferred). 3x MK1 Crew Cabins Heatshield for re-entry, along with 4 radial parachutes. Overkill but better then smushing 'em. Slap on a pair of SP-L 1x6's (close when reentering), and you've got a 4.15t tourist rig at 17 parts. From there, slap on a TR-18A stack decoupler, FL-T800 tank and a Terrier engine for 1,930 dV of Mun insertion and returning home. Plenty of fuel in that for error corrections and orbital rendezvous, as it should only take 850 to get to Mun, another 300 or so to circularize, and another 350 or so to get back. Next up, your lifter: Surround the center section with a four set of: 2x FL-T800, T-45 Swivel, and nosecone. 3,000 dV (roughly) in that. Strut to taste. Slap a few of the really cheap air fins to the bottom of the T-45 tanks for some extra stability. Now, just need to catch up a few extra hundred dV. Last bit: On the outside of THAT, strap on 4 Thumpers. Definitely strut these puppies up pretty good. Slap on a docking port and some RCS if you think you'll want it to bring tourists up to local stations for landing them in a separate lander and then using the vessel to bring them home. Cost: ~30k Funds. Weight: ~83t. Parts: 68. Very aggressive launch profile: You want to be at 70 degrees fast and then ride the prograde until you're over 20km up, then push down to 5 degrees until your apoapsis is 75k+. Then float out of atmo, then circularlize. Done with a reasonable precision you'll get up there with ~150-200 dV to spare. I'll typically pop the 4 pack of outside tanks just before Periapsis goes positive so I can dump them into atmo and circularize on the Terrier.

You've got the solid basics available for a Mun Orbiter with tourists, so you're good there. Might want to invest in the Launchpad for lifter weight if you haven't already, but since you're at Science 2 I assume you've done that already. Space Exploration (hitchhiker can) and Miniaturization ( Docking Ports) are good places to go next. Heavy Rocketry to lift them is a solid choice, you can get a lot of work done with the Skipper, and the Kickback is a superb SRB to reduce lifter costs. If you get Heavy Rocketry, you'll want Fuel Systems as well. Depending on preference, I personally would avoid the aerodynamics stuff until you can open up the Whiplash. The Panther CAN make SSTOs but I personally find them unwieldy, so that part of my tree is typically dead until I open up the entire battery of parts unless I get a bug to do something. Typically, however, my first target here would be for Electronics to get the Seismic Accelerometer open to get... more science. Then pop Miniaturization so I could refuel my Minmus biome bouncer to drain as much science with a single pass. My other immediate path (just a preference) would be to go up towards Field Science to get a decent set of rover wheels. Space Exploration -> Precision Engineering (RA-2 for later) -> Field Science... but normally that would be after Seismic and a Minmus trip for me.

I'm killing time during the glide anyway, why not setup a maneuver node and make it easy to warp to it? Mostly it's a habit for me with KAC and simple circularization. It's not a matter of ability, it's a matter of laziness. I find it easier to hit a maneuver node than to bother caring about eyeballing the NavBall. Can I? Sure. Do I want to bother? Nope.

It doesn't rip off in atmosphere when you deploy it, because you don't have to deploy it. It's basically for launch communications during liftoff.

Briefly: I don't mind paying for DLC (I purchased early 2014, so I'm paying) if they're what I want to add to my game. But a DLC needs to be an add-on, not required for continued 'full experience'. Since it's not Multi-player, this can certainly be the case here. I'm looking at you, Warcraft. So, onto what I WOULD pay for: Typically I do stock, and only stock. Between my tiny YouTube channel I like to show off on occasionally and generally not wanting to bother beating my way through a new parts list, I just don't (except for some of the Life Support ones). New parts would be nice to have, but that's not something I would pay for in a DLC unless: It added new game functionality to the core software. This is key to me. The game, with a lot of mods, has a huge footprint. Optimized into the core code would reduce this footprint for a lot of things. There are modded things I'd love to have included in game. Let's start with the four I consider mandatory to my enjoyment of the game: KER, KAC, DPAI, Ambient Light. There is little fun playing in the absolute dark, I don't care if it's realistic. It wastes time and records poorly, unless you're showing off the light show you attached to the outside of a craft. Would I pay for these? No. If they were bundled INTO one that I would like? Yes, it would prompt me to be more likely to buy it, or throw a few extra dollars onto the top of the price tag. But there are things I *would* like to see added to the stock game: - A complete contract overhaul for career. It's alright as it stands but it could really use some tuning. Yes, there's mods for that. I want SQUAD to do it. Why? I lost an entire career mode when I tried out a mod that apparently has been abandoned. It was a really cool idea... and simply won't work anymore. Squad is a company that will fix bugs. Modders are... well, people with a love of what they do, and they need to make money and take care of the kids with that free time, too. - Full graphical overhauls like the Astronomer's pack so it runs in the core game code and not as an add on. At least, I hope that would lessen the footprint of using it as it stands as a mod. - The YouTuber's DLC pack: Camera Tools that come with instructions. Ambient Light Tools that are a bit more ease of use/more options (like not washing out daytime shots because it's integrated and knows the time). Chatterer with some integration to launch/EVA/etc, since it would then know the game state. Other useful toys. This would certainly be one of those DLC's that you'd buy "If you wanted it", not because you'd need to so you could play with the big boys. - Removing the 'on rails to death' option for certain objects during a launch, so I can actually recover my first stage at 12k with the parachutes so I don't have to drive... without a mod. - Better tools for understanding Aerodynamics, and improving modder's abilities to interface with the existing tools for CoL and CoM integration. Also, some airflow diagrams and other neat stuff like that... so you can understand when you need to stick a hubcap on the back of your Terriers and when you don't. - Life Support/QOL components. I can see the name of the DLC now: "Green Reavers" ... There's a number of things I would pay for DLC for. There's a bunch I wouldn't. I don't care about interstellar, I spend the majority of my time dinking around in Kerbin's SOI, unless I head out to sandbox just for giggles. I pretty much enjoy the Kerbin SS as it stands, and have almost no interest in the challenge of RSS. I'm glad people love it, and that it's there, but these are the kind of things I'd rather see in mods then the developers spend their time on. I guess, in the end, what I would pay for are things that improve my experience with the game and my enjoyment of it further. It just needs to be opt-in, so I can cherry pick.

That altitude is 11,138 MegaMeters above the Sun, it's nothing to do with distance to Kerbin. Your altitude indicator is always distance above sea level (or whatever is used for sea level) above the body you currently are in SOI (Sphere of Influence) of.

Yes. You burn to intercept directly from Kerbin Low Orbit. Because of the Oberth effect this is much more efficient on your Delta V costs. I don't use MechJeb, however, so someone would have to walk you through that technique. I only know how to do it manually (-ish) with Maneuver Nodes and timing using these sites: http://ksp.olex.biz/ http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ The first one helps you locate where in the orbit of Kerbin you want to put your maneuver node, the second helps you plan your dates and delta V requirements.

D'oh! My bad, missed that. Knew something seemed horribly wrong when my math DIDN'T have me switch up to the RA-2... Sooo... Range: 500,000,000 meters, or 500,000 km, or 500Mm Distance between Eve and Kerbin at closest point: 3,668 Mm. You need more Powah!... or Antenna in this case.

Don't hit the solar panel, Jeb... JEB! THE SOLAR... *smash*... dammit.

Alright... you're down around Eve's orbit, roughly even with Kerbin on the plane rotation, and your orbit is well below the orbital path of Eve. Single MG-5: 5M distance. Tracking 2: 50G distance. Range of communication to another body: SqRt( 5,000,000 * 50,000,000,000) Range: 500,000,000 meters, or 500,000 km, or 500Mm Distance between Eve and Kerbin at closest point: 3.668 Mm. (Edit: Converted the distance wrong) For more info about CommNet mathematics, check out the wiki here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CommNet For the distances, see @OhioBob's post here: You should have plenty of range, yet your CommNet indicator says you've got Bupkis. Either my math is horribly wrong or there's something completely hosing you up... like Mun being in the way (which I doubt, you're way off the solar plane). You don't have the range, beef up to an RA-2 or RA-15. So, if it's not the CommNet... That looks like an OKTO core on the probe, but I don't see any solar panels nor batteries. Is it out of juice? Edit: One other possibility. If you're playing without the additional relay stations on Kerbin, the KSP could simply be rotated away from you at this time if you don't have a local relay network up in the Kerbin SOI.

Yes, it will, because you are very close to the same orbit, but not exactly on the same one. There is no way, really, to be 'exactly' on the same orbit in KSP. You can get incredibly close if you can get directly behind (or ahead) of the object on its orbit and you're killing relative speed directly on the prograde/retrograde orbit markers as well, but in reality it's almost impossible to do. I say almost, because someone is going to come in here and show that it *can be done*! For the rest of us mortals, however... You can kill relative velocity being four kilometers away from the target, or even on the other side of the planet (though prepare for a mess that way). All relative 0.0 means is "For now, at this VERY moment, our vector velocity matches". That's not orbital velocity, that's vector velocity. So if you think of two ships, one on a lower orbit and one on a slightly higher one, and you're directly underneath the higher one (from the planet's view) and match vector velocity, your orbits will cross up ahead and behind. Eventually, you create an X from that vector matching, because you're starting from a different orbital position. That eventual X creates a different vector velocity difference. This is why typically, when docking, you do three or four burns to get yourself much more aligned with the target orbit. The first one is a gross change, to get to a reasonable difference and then closer to the target... and its orbit. The next few are adjustments where if you had a NASA team behind you telling you exactly what marks to hit you wouldn't need, but we approximate by simply burning at the target then correcting a few times by killing relative again at closest point. Finally, your last docking approaches and adjustments match your orbits to near exactness. Note, I say near. If you don't dock you will always find you've had some drift after a while when you come back.

Career mode offers something science doesn't: The World's First contracts, which help guide you towards new objectives to pursue. It's a bit of a built in tutorial towards your next goals without being obtrusive. That said, an easy career mode game so you're not jammed up on trying to build up your funds against exorbitant upgrade costs for your facilities is also helpful. I find career mode to be the most fun, personally, because it gets me to constantly try to do more with less, and that's significantly improved my rocket building and enjoyment of the game. Science mode used to be the 'career' mode before they introduced career. My typical save files for a version install of KSP typically includes a Hard Career mode, a copy or two in science mode with cheats to match my science level in my career mode so I can experiment in a 'simulator' before I start blowing a few hundred thousand funds on a launch that won't fly, and a sandbox for when I just want to go loop around Eeloo for giggles, or fast forwards a few decades to see what kind of dV requirements I'll need to return from Moho, or that kind of thing. I'll typically reset my sandbox game after each mission just ... because. So, in the end, as was said above... "Are you having fun?" If you are, stick with career mode, I find it highly rewarding. If not, try one of the other modes if it seems frustrating to have to worry about making sure contracts are doable before taking them (some of the part test contracts are downright insane) and upgrade costs for facilities.

For those curious, an actual copywrite attorney (Leonard French) discusses the possible defenses for OpenIV if they chose to defend themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcoOxiaQppo&feature=push-u&attr_tag=PRlVdhgiUMizlC_V-6

Self removing poorly written, unhelpful comment.

Have you gone interplanetary? If not, I recommend you actually start here: http://ksp.olex.biz/ This lets you eyeball your departure times to play with maneuver nodes and get a rough idea of the dV required for intercepts. Then, for more accurate build outs, you go here: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ To get that kind of precision on your builds, you want a mod such as KER or MechJeb. I personally prefer KER (Kerbal Engineer Redux) for a number of reasons, but pick your poison. Once you understand those two sites and their links and instructions, the rest of the tutorials and whatnot out there will probably make a lot more sense. Here's the gist of it: The angle between the planets when you leave dictates where the planet will be when you get to its orbit, and the angle you're departing the home system from your orbit around it will dictate if you're 'slowing down' or 'speeding up' relative to other orbits in the solar system. This is one of those cases where doing, then learning the math behind it, can simplify the learning by having visual reference points.

I'm torn, but that's mostly because I've been banging around forever. The old dev crew we got used to moved on. The new crew is doing nice work, but haven't been as chatty as I got used to... or I'm just not looking in the right places anymore, certainly a possibility... Add to that a new publisher who owns the IP now. This is an overhaul for the entire dynamic of the continuing game. However: I own a perfectly viable copy of a game I love, and will simply keep those zips just in case everything goes into a handbasket some day. Until then, though, I have high hopes for this. (No, I only read the first four pages, so... sorry if this is a repeat of a pre-hash) What I see is this: TT continues to support the current crew as well as they can to keep the community here and in high spirits. Somewhere in the background, while DLC is being created, the IP is being used to support the purchase and maintenance of the community with other projects. KSP II just being one of the possibilities. Unity 5 has enough issues and weird bugs that getting support to do their own engine from scratch to cure a lot of our weird bugs (ahem: wheels) would be worth putting up a new version of KSP alone.... and returning the investment. That of course is quite time consuming. I can't see KSP as we know it today getting hosed up by TT becoming an impatient publisher. This community is part of what they invested in when they bought the IP. They're not going to break it on purpose, and a browsing of the boards would have been simple in their Due Diligence. Now, AFTER they make a new version of KSP and it's entirely in their wheelhouse? Possibly. I just hope it doesn't go the way of a lot of the harder games out there that became dumbed down for public consumption on cell phones. It seems the staff, publically at least, is excited by the possibilities of Take Two being behind them. Let's support them as well as we can in that, hrm? The sky isn't falling until you hear the sound of the aircraft engines... Or you just heard Jeb take off and the boosters are falling.

Fair enough, and that's certainly enough. It's absolutely overpowered for what's needed, and still is pretty light and cheap . Mind usually my commnet is doubled as a series of satellite launches for contracts, so I don't typically fly up just a commnet cluster. I'll have to try your recommendation one day, it's about half the weight of what I usually launch and is only ~210 dV less. Do you typically launch 3 or 4 for your constellation on the single thumper (and I presume, fairing)?

If you can rover, you can sat network... as long as you've opened up the OKTO. The rest of this is an opinion for avoiding your original concern. However, as stated for your original question, when the face of the Mun the rover is on is facing Kerbin and you've got enough antenna, you can directly communicate with Kerbin to drive it. Be aware, you will be in the dark during this time 50% of your communication time, so no power generation on the rover when you can actually talk to it. This will severely limit you. Let's talk distances then. With a Tracking Station 2, which reaches 50 Gm range, the built in comm system on a MK1 pod/OKTO can directly talk to Kerbin. Mun is roughly 10 Mm up, and you can reach 15.81 Mm with those built in comm systems. Unless it's absolutely pinned on part count, however, I'd slap a 16-S or a 16 onto it for sanity. For reference, three Comm-16 antennas on a ship to Minmus for Tracking 1 is fine (54.77 Mm comm range) if you don't need relay. Tracking 2 is basically upgraded for near body interplanetary communications and Patched Conics/Maneuver Nodes, and can hit Mun without any help. However, I really recommend you put up your commnet. Three flat solar panels, two MG-5s for balance, two Oscar-B tanks, a Spark, and an OKTO 1 is a relay satellite. Put up 4 roughly on the corners of a square around Mun equatorially and you're good for a while, and they're incredibly cheap to put into orbit riding a thrust limited BACC SRB inside a fairing for most of the trip to orbit. You don't need to be too fancy. For an added bonus, stick a thermometer on it for 'science from around Mun' contract requests. Side note: You really don't want to rover the Mun with the little shopping cart wheels, so you should have the OKTO. Wait for the orange ones for sanity. The offroad looking ones are really where you want to be though, you're going to be doing ~50-100 kilometers of driving for some of the rover contracts, nevermind how well you can land it on target. Those little ones are fine for minor base movers but they fall apart too easily going overland at speed in my experience.

On a side note, if you know if your next launch is going to be ascending or descending, you can adjust with shift-rotation to an 85/95 degree path on the pad. This, of course, assumes you typically adjust the vehicle in the VAB to be facing down to turn 90, instead of right. This takes a lot of fiddling around during liftoff out of the equation for me.

Sounds like you came in waaay too steep, and then to boot you tagged a mountain on the way in losing another 2k worth of good atmo for final slowdown. You pretty much HAVE to skim now in the 20-30km range. Highly aggressive landing patterns are detrimental to your Kerbal's health if you're not running Drogue chutes.