Russoft

I somehow have ended up on the north pole of Duna twice in the past two trips there. It's definitely different from the rest of the planet.

My naming scheme is currently quite boring. My space agency is called Lagorbital so I prefix everything with L. LR # - manned rocket. where # is a hexadecimal number (1 thru F) indicating the chronological order of creation. LX # - experimental vehicle. LP - unmanned probe. LAP - SPH aircraft LAX - SPH experimental vehicle I often tag a name on the end of important missions (i.e. "Duna Direkt", "Duna Return", "Manned Mun", "Mun Base")

What NecroBones said. Just stick legs on the bottom. I usually widen the landing base with girders. Then I aim for land rather than water.

I said "without mods" but to be totally accurate I do have Kerbal engineer redux installed, I just don't use it and haven't removed it (not sure it even works in .24).

my weird, but good, habit is that I make a savefile backup before switching to an unmanned probe that's been unattended for an extended period of time. All my corrupt careers were caused by that.

split the community?! I'm on windows 7 64 bit but refuse to start using the 64-bit version of KSP until I'm confident that they've worked out the kinks. I'm sure a lot of windows players are still on 32 bit.

Yeah, All my upper stages have a probe body, solar panel, battery, and sometimes landing legs. The added parts are way cheaper than the cost of the entire booster, even if I screw up the de-orbit and drop it far from KSC.

Not necessarily more efficient. Can also be less efficient but more direct (and therefore faster and shorter) path.

I follow a few others too, but if I'm going to be honest, these are the only two that I can claim to have seen all, or almost all, of their videos.

Bahahaha, so true. Though, academics do have to work for their grant money. The difference is that once they have it, they can sink it into whatever they want as long as they get nice looking results. Who cares if it's profitable or practical for industry. Just as long as it means they can write a better grant application next year.

Yeah, I play stock and I tried this. I was disappointed. I couldn't bring myself to downgrade the design to a single man pod as I wanted the launch escape tower on top so I ended up using a 1 large to 3 small adapter and used multiple SRBs.

Yikes! I've only spent about 400,000 on my priciest launch for a Duna mission which used the SLS parts for stage 1 & 2, and a nuclear rocket transfer stage.

Jeb is in transit from Duna back to Kerbin after planting a flag to complete a contract. Swung by Ike on the way home. Ignored the launch window so he's got a long trip home...

I landed on Pol and really liked it. Probably because I did it using Ion propulsion. First time that's worked! The ground scatter also gave it a very alien feel.

Practice some patience in learning. If you've been playing a single day, then I'm not surprised you haven't reached the mun. I took about three days to figure it out in the demo and I had so much fun failing over that time period that I bought the game the next day. Start by getting a rocket to fly on a sub-orbital trajectory (goes above 70,000 m but doesn't stay in space), then try to get a rocket into orbit. Then attempt a fly-by of the Mun with a return to Kerbin. Then attempt your Mun landing.

Embrace disaster. You're going to hate the game when things go catastrophically wrong (even if it's not your fault, like when the Kraken strikes) if you can't just laugh as your Kerbals go down in flames.

this will probably fail, but you could have your CSM (3rd stage rocket / transit stage) match speed with your lander once you've spent all your fuel+mono on the lander. That's assuming you can control it. Of course, if your lander is on a sub-orbital trajectory, not sure you'll have time to match velocities and rendezvous then re-establish an orbit. I've never tried. Another option is to lower your orbit on the transit stage so your zipping along very close to the surface. Then burn parallel the ground with your lander to get into orbit. Make sure your orbit is above any mountains though before trying to rendezvous.

Recreate the early years of the space program. I found that quite time consuming and enjoyable.. and educational.

RCS is hugely helpful for docking but I find it even more helpful for interplanetary stuff. The difference between a PE of 13,000,000 and 10,000 above the target planet is a bit of play with IJKLHN keys.

What I hope for is one or two more gas giants (Saturn, Neptune, or Uranus analog) with moons and a Kuiper belt or Oort cloud with randomly spawned asteroids. Maybe a hidden planet or two that is discovered only by observing certain "asteroids". Personally, I haven't been to all the planets yet (and by "been to" I mean landed on) but I think interplanetary is an important aspect of the game for those who've played long enough that Mun landings are routine if not a chore. But I'd agree with the notion that completing the existing planets is more important than simply adding more. Duna and Eve would be far more fascinating with biomes. In fact, I'd like to see every terrestrial planet get the same treatment that the Kerbin system got.

Witty Commentary / Just game sounds / Other ? Educated commentary. Webcam on Streamer / None / Other ? I don't need to see the commentator. Long, encompassing stream / Short, to the point stream / Other ? If you can't stay interesting, keep it short and to the point. Lots of mods (> 30) / Some mods (< 10) / Other ? Stock. The more mods, the harder it is for me to appreciate what's happening. Well thought out missions / Random chaotic direction / User submitted missions / Other ? Don't care, but there needs to be direction. Anything else you can think of? Keep it funny and/or informative.

most of mine have been sensible. But I have gotten a "test SRB while splashed down on Kerbin" which is a strange kind of test. Also, test SRB while in orbit of Kerbin.

Fascinating. I guess I haven't tried, just assumed that was the case based on what I'd heard. I'll have to try this. Thanks!

The issue isn't opening a chute. You can stage is that way so that the boosters float down. The issue is that without a probe core, you can't get refunded for the booster, and below about 20 km objects tend to vanish even if they have Kerbals aboard (if you're not focused on the craft). Hence, if you want to recover boosters, detach them at a point where they will rise to a great altitude (300 km for example) before plunging back to Kerbin. Then get your payload into orbit using its engines. Then switch back to your booster(s) and watch them float back to the surface. Keep in mind that boosters aren't worth much to begin with (depending on design) and using this strategy, the boosters will fall far from KSC which means a small refund. My best successes come from a cheap first stage/boosters that can be discarded and a pricey second stage that takes the payload to LKO and still has fuel to be deorbited above KSC for an almost full refund.

My first Mun rocket was about 50-60k. I used 7 SRBs as the first stage, a recoverable liquid fuel second stage (skipper) and partially recoverable lander. In fact, I regularly discard the first stage and keep the second stage and manage to accrue quite a bit of money. The trick is to complete multiple contracts with each launch.