Cuky

my top ten: MechJeb Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Docking Port Alignment Indicator Kerbal Alarm Clock Enhanced NavBall Crowd Sourced Science Near Future Solar Temperature Gauge Killer (since 1.0.2) Others I mix and match according to what I want to do in my career.

Today I had my longest crash-free KSP session ever, almost 3h in total. Though once I thought game crashed, but that was just sticky keys because of me abusing shift key on EVA. I sent Valentina and Hudrim (Scientist) to visit Minmus and complete "plant a flag" contract after which they used lots of fuel to jump around different biomes gathering science. I visited 5 biomes totaling in about 2430 science. They also took Bill with them as he was still my only Kerbal on roster that hadn't been to space. This was also my largest manned vessel yet. They had a little mishap on their return voyage as once again my decoupler and parachute were on the same stage. Luckily, unlike in Bob's case, I noticed it so I changed the slider in right-click menu to open parachute at 0.5 atmosphere so it didn't open when it was not safe to do so. When it was safe I moved the slider back down and parachute deployed correctly. After that I started design of satellites. I have to be quick though because in 10 Kerbin days there is a transfer window for Duna. I will put 4 satellites in equatorial orbit, maybe stationary orbits, but not necessary. Here is a pic of WIP version of long range DunaComm of which two will be placed in either Molniya or Tundra orbit. They will communicate all the way to Duna through those satellites in equatorial orbit. Though I still may add Infernal Robotics to better pack my satellites, but that remains to be decided.

I have decided to spice my career save a bit so I have installed Remote Tech...Now I have something to spend my excess funds on, I need to set up my comm network.

After failing to land a base on Minmus yesterday due to bad design I have sent new one today. This one wasn't designed for looks but just to mark that contract so that I can proceed forward with other things. I have used the same launcher as for previous one, only ditching one LFO tank from 1st stage because this design was quite a bit lighter so I didn't need extra fuel to have enough dV to reach Minmus and land.

I have killed quite a few of them...though since 1.0 came out I have only lost Bob and that was because parachute was in wrong stage so when I decoupled service module before re-entering I have also activated parachute which was torn off a bit later when it opened.

crashed my Minmus base while trying to land due to badly placed radial engines that caused it to spin around roll axis. It was possible to stop it rolling, but then it would start to spin out in either yaw or pitch axis. I managed to touch the ground, but I bounced back up and lost control. But that mission wasn't complete failure. I managed to put a satellite that was riding along in correct Minmus orbit to complete a contract and base managed to collect some science while trying to land.

Today I have launched a mission which as a goal has to complete 3 contracts: put satellite in equatorial retrograde orbit of Minmus, put a base for at least 6 Kerbals on the surface of Minmus and send or recover scientific data from Minmus' surface. I think I may over-engineered it though. It is now in Kerbin's orbit waiting for its transfer as for now Mun is kinda blocking my way.

I have been to Mun, Minmus and have mission ready and waiting for transfer window to Duna and I still haven't used more than 50-60 parts on my crafts. Crewed missions to the Mun and Minmus were tight on dV for a while with 30 parts limit, but they are easily doable after few trials and errors.

I totally forgot about that option. I will try in my next modification of the craft, re-entry test was successful as I had nice control through it, but will need to modify wings because if I come into thicker atmosphere with anything in my fuel tank it wants to keep far away from prograde. Thanks for advice

finalized my design for a small crew shuttle. Atmospheric testing went good, though I had to remove a tail fin and put on a bit smaller wings because it wouldn't fit inside 2,5m fairing. Although it still glided very well problem was that I have lost almost all yaw control and that it really liked to go into huge side slip whenever I turned. Because of that I use airbrakes as rudders while those 4 small Tier0 fins are there to prevent it loosing yaw control. Also, if needed, RCS can be use to help and stabilize it. Parachutes are on just for testing so that I don't kill my Kerbals. Now I plan to launch it up on a suborbital flight to test how it is flying during re-entry. It everything works well I will then design a small orbital module that will be attached on the back which will have batteries, power generation and a docking port, all of which will be jettisoned before re-entry.

today I have finally sent Valentina to the Mun to rescue Jeb who crashed there while gathering science for our contractors. He was punished by being left up there for a few days, while Valentina in the meantime did few atmospheric test of a light craft that will serve as crew transport to stations in LKO. In first version it will have capacity for 2 crew and 4 passengers (all Mk2 parts), docking port at the back and 2 radially mounted engines for orbital maneuvers. It will be launched on expendable rockets. Later I plan to try and make recoverable rockets for this craft which will probably remain unchanged until I decide to finally tackle something I was avoiding for almost a year: SSTO-s

I accidentally stumbled upon Scott Manley's video from his Eve or Bust series, then he started Interstellar Quest and I wanted to try the game for myself. That is how I got to KSP

you may experience crashes due to temperature gauges causing memory leaks. I have them disabled and can play a bit modded KSP for 2 hours (haven't tried for longer yet) without crashes. I am using Win 8.1 Pro, Intel Core 2 Duo 1,86GHz, AMD Radeon HD5450, 2GB RAM

was it maybe supposed to land using parachutes? You wouldn't need wheels then, simple leg would do the job

We in Croatia have them too

Jeb is once again stranded on Mun in my career, but this time hi isn't in orbit but on the surface. He went there to complete 3 contracts: science from space around Mun, science from Mun's surface and plant the flag. He did it all, but horizontal speed was a bit too high on landing so craft tipped over and exploded. All that survived were his capsule and scientific instruments. He collected data, planted the flag and is now waiting for Valentina to come and rescue him

Well, when an object (in this case a rocket) passes through the air it pushes air around itself leaving a zone of low pressure behind. Now, airstream that is at higher pressure is coming of from the edge and naturally mixes with that zone of lower pressure and that creates vortices which in turn drags on the object and slows it down. When you have back end tapering like that of a nose cone mixing of those low and high pressure streams is much more gradual, vortices are less powerful and are causing less drag on your vehicle.

Jeb and Lenble Kerman (scientist) went to Minmus and have successfully returned back to Kerbin. They had a bit of a problem as they damaged solar panels on their main ship, but those on lander were enough to keep them powered together with batteries. I am sorry for bad looking craft on launch, but I still haven't unlocked 2.5m fairings so I had to use those 1.25m to pack lander

you can still send Kerbals to land in Desert, on Mountains, and every other biome to take EVA report and Surface samples. Also, every building at KSC is different biome, so you can do every science experiment at every building and you will receive science. Quite early in tech tree you can build a small rover for one Kerbal (science guy preferably) with one of every experiment. Then you only have to drive to, say, VAB, do all experiments there and then EVA that Kerbal to collect Data and reset experiments so that you can repeat them at next building without need to recover vessel before you are done.

Today I got a contract to fly by the Minmus so I built tiny probe which was to complete that contract on a free return trajectory and when returning test how much heat shield is needed for re-entry so that I know what to expect for future missions with Kerbals on-board. It also took temperature readings in space high abouve and near Minmus to add a bit to Science. Then I built a launcher as cheap as I could with parts that I have and launched it on the mission. Everything went well, but I was surprised with how little of ablator has burned up when returning at more than 3km/s. Pictures in spoiler, though I forgot to take few of them near Minmus, but Jeb and his partner will take care of that on the next mission.

very efficient but be prepared for long burns as that TWR is quite small

I don't hate it nor do I like it. It is how Squad chose to make it and I have to adapt, though that was a bit easier for me as I used FAR in previous versions. When some things are plainly wrong, like flipping with heat shield attached, that needs to be fixed. Anything else I just have to adapt. Kerbin is not Earth and I don't expect it and its atmosphere to behave exactly like Earth. It is realistic, but not too much so that you have to spend extended times going through numbers and fixing it. When something is wrong with a craft and you have basic understanding of physics you can intuitively fix it. Keeping it somewhat realistic and fun in the same time is what I like from games I play and it is what I get from KSP and atmosphere model in it. When I finish my current career I may again switch to FAR, but for now I enjoy it like it is.

Sometimes you may be lucky and they will follow you wherever you go. This is from my first Munar landing mission and they were in this position to my craft up until I finished my transfer burn

smaller craft is just a Pol craft (Cygnus replica) from Tantares. Larger one is probe core, fuel tank, few batteries, one of orbital modules from Tantares mod and small docking port

I have successfully completed my first docking in 1.0 as a part of a contract to perform docking in Kerbin's orbit. First launch was a bit larger craft on a larger rocket which served as a target for a smaller craft launched on smaller rocket.