Frank327

It's actually even from 18t to 140t.I mostly agree although it has to be said that the VAB and launch pad limits are limiting at different points. You need a pad upgrade for munar missions and a VAB upgrade after that for interplanetary. So it's not exactly from one to infinity. But between level 1 and 2 there should be another step and the costs should probably be spread out accordingly.

The starting point of this discussion seems to be that EVERY SHIP NEEDS SAS AND IF IT DOESN'T HAVE THAT IT WILL SURELY CRASH, which I respectfully disagree with. Most orbital rockets can be easily piloted by scientists or engineers without it going wrong. Sure, it takes a lot more attention to pilot it well, but once you do it, your scientist/engineer will immediately have 1 star. It's only in bigger ships that aren't easy to control where it can become a problem without SAS. But by that time you've probably unlocked or are about to unlock the second tier probe cores.

The fix is really easy. Go to the administration building and convert reputation into either science or funds. I did that in my moderate save with 25% commitment. Before I did it I got the mission of launching a satellite with a polar orbit around Duna. After doing it the most difficult satellite missions were equatorial orbit around Mun. So yeah, reputation determines how highly the game thinks of you in terms of the difficulty of missions you can complete.

But it would probably make more sense if the stock vessels were useful for beginners to learn how to fly, not how to fix broken spacecraft. When you want to teach someone how it's done, you usually show them how it's done, not start by showing them how it's not done. They can't use the stock craft in career anyways because they need lots of science and building upgrades to use. Having a sensible and mun-capable version of the kerbal X for newer players would probably help them learn the game and not make it such a wall of youtube information for them to climb.

I don't think the VAB is a ridiculous hurdle but I have to admit I breathed a sigh of relief once I got it upgraded. The way I see it the steps you need to take are Pad -> VAB -> Pad -> VAB. You can reach orbit quite easily without an upgrade, you need a pad upgrade for the mun, you need a tracking centre upgrade for minmus and then a VAB upgrade for interplanetary. Not all of those steps are easy though, and those specific hurdles will determine what difficulty level is right for you.That said, I'm not under the impression that moderate is all that more difficult than normal. even on normal those buildings are really really expensive. Maybe the pricing of the buildings should be spread out more across difficulty levels? (a.k.a. normal and easy really need lower building prices, especially VAB and research facilities)

What I do is just fix it visually. Make sure you look at the orbits from all different directions and don't try and don't be afraid to make corrections all the time. You're in orbit anyways so you're only limited by fuel. Using the normal/antinormal markers (cyan coloured) to line up the apoapsis and the periapsis is very important. Once those are lined up, just look at the distance of ap/pe and you can get them really accurate. Also try and get the phase angle of the orbit right the first time. For a kerbin orbit this means launching at an angle and for other orbits it means fine tuning your transfer.

Once you've got the FL-T800 fuel tanks it becomes very doable. The career I'm doing in this beta was the first time those tanks were of vital importance for me. Also, be very careful with adding batteries, science equipment and even the amount of landing legs. Every part counts. If you want I can show the craft that I did it with.

Actually you can pretty quickly do without pilots. The second probe core has the stabilizing system and if you combine that with solar panels, every craft can have SAS just like in earlier versions. I disagree by the way that pilots are vital in the early game. You just have to build your rockets completely symmetrically and keep them managable with winglets/gimbal/stabilizing parts. None of the classes are really all that important. But I'll probably take one of each on my interplanetary missions just in case.

The way to really get going is to not take too much science stuff with you to the mun. My first mun landing only had 2 goo containers and I had upgraded the building to let my kerbals EVA. Just with that you can get hundreds of science points in a single trip. Just spam EVA reports like it's nobody's business, get every crew report and send it back. Then spam contracts on the mun to get you loads of funds and upgrade the VAB.

Maybe it is an idea for easy mode to start with tracking station + launch pad at level 2 and have stability control always on regardless of the kerbal/command unit? It would ease players into the game a lot better. Then they'd only need to upgrade the VAB and recruitment centre to start doing mun missions, which shouldn't be too expensive on easy. Right now I agree with most people that the challenges in the early game are more difficult than in the late game. Late game the money you can earn vs. the cost of the spacecraft stops being 2/1 and starts being more like 5/1. And that's for a single contract. But aside from that, the tutorials need to be looked at again.

I'm playing on moderate and it's exactly the experienced-player-but-not-scott-manly difficulty level I expected it to be. I just skipped the kerbin survey missions though. Boring and you need 180 science. Much better to upgrade launch pad + recruitment centre, get batteries and the longer fuel tanks and go to the mun. I never used the tip "burn for the mun once it shows up on the horizon" before but it works perfectly. Also I found out that reputation isn't useless. The more reputation you've got, the more challenging missions become available. It was actually a big hit to start a program of rep -> science as suddenly I didn't have a mission for a polar satellite to duna (which I totally could've done) anymore but an equatorial satellite at the mun. The coolest mission I've got now is a permanent base on the surface of minmus.

But how do you make a reusable rocket that weighs 18 tonnes and can get into orbit? And how do you make a 30 part moonlander that is completely reusable? Back when weight and parts were unlimited, making everything reusable was viable but I don't know if that's the case anymore.

LV909 and Poodle are just so versatile. Unlocking the lv909 means I build my first orbital rocket and I won't stop using them until I need to go beyond Eve/Duna. I only use nukes if it's really necessary because of the long burn times and the difficulty with landing (if used on a lander). This was my Duna + Ike mission.

Kind of a bummer that my Jeb doesn't have 2 stars yet after a fantastic mun mission with a planted flag and 750k worth of contracts fulfilled.

What I always do is make a normal rocket, set thrust very very low, press spacebar and then press x and recover it for 100%. It won't move but it will fulfill the contract. Maybe the problem is that your engine isn't pointing to the ground?

From my experience with moderate you have to really cherry pick the contracts to make good money. Especially the part testing in (sub)orbit and rescuing kerbals make decent amounts of money. Once you've got the launch pad and the recruitment centre upgraded (for eva in space and bigger rockets) it's up to the mun and minmus to make serious cash.

This is true and very important. If you've done these rescue missions before with patched conics and manouvre nodes you can do a decent job of it without them. If you can guess your way to being some 25-50km away, get out of map mode and double click the kerbal in the distance. From there it's just as difficult as it always is. When I accepted the mission without thinking too much about it I was also afraid that I wouldn't be able to complete it but it was surprisingly doable.

I can understand how many people have difficulty doing that. Hell, many people have difficulty getting to the mun without asparagus staging, let alone doing it with a dressed down rocket and no patched conics. But yeah, making a 30-part mun rocket is exactly the step you need to still do career relatively quickly. This update has made the game a lot more difficult. Which means the tutorials should probably be looked at again, because games where you need to learn everything from youtube vids aren't often fun.

Technically almost every orbit is egg shaped. And there's nothing wrong with that. Once you've got the rocket for it, orbit goes like: 1. Go straight up until 10km, and don't go way too fast (like 300m/s) or way too slow (like 100m/s at 10km). 2. Go east at a 45 degree tilt, full throttle. 3. Start keeping a look at your map view (m key), and stop going up once your apoapsis (ap) is at 80km. 4. Wait until you're almost at apoapsis and then burn prograde (yellow circle) until you've got orbit. As for the rocket: command pod + parachute -> decoupler -> FLT400 tank + LV909 engine -> decoupler -> 3xFLT400 tanks + LVT30 engine -> decoupler -> RT-10. Also if you've made a manouver node, somewhere on your navball there will be a dark blue icon. That's the direction you have to burn.

Rejecting missions you don't want and cherry picking the right ones is really crucial in the beta. I've just done my first mun landing and I've already got a polar satellite at duna as a mission but I have yet to get a satellite at kerbin mission. The missions range all the way from testing lots of stuff landed at kerbin to... well, interplanetary stuff. Also I need to get in the mindset of career again. Just forgot to pick up the "flag on mun" mission once I landed. That's 80k down the drain again. Can't even update the mission control building without getting into trouble with funds. And I'm still on tier 1 VAB. Actually once I think about it, a satellite at duna might not be so difficult. It just takes a long time and an update to the tracking station.

Great update! I'm playing career on moderate and I'm in a bit of a conundrum. Cash and science aren't exactly flowing freely anymore after getting into orbit, getting the update for EVA suits and getting most of the space EVA science done. I have 54 science and can either: 1. Get the big fuel tanks. I've upgraded my launch pad but not my VAB. I think I can build a mun-capable rocket with 30 parts. Only problem would be I'd have to guess the hohmann transfer, but I can just wait for the mun to appear on the horizon. 2. Save up a bit more science and get airplanes. This would be a slower approach but probably financially safe. I love that I actually have these considerations. Used to be I could just blindly go to Duna in my 4th flight. Now it's actually somewhat strategic.

In my experiences it's best not to focus on part testing contracts. You're more likely to lose money on them than to gain it. If you can get a series going like 1. fly a basic rocket 2. establish orbit 3. mun landing 4. minmus landing 5. duna landing you'll be swimming in money. The system does not work in such a way that you have to save up money for big missions. Also, a few other tips: 1. with explore missions, transmit the crew report from the surface immediately, go back to the space centre. Maybe there will already be a "plant flag" mission ready for you to complete instantly. 2. With kerbal recovery missions you can get good money if you're down on funds. Once you're near the kerbal, press [ or ] to take control of them and get them back home. 3. Look at the part test contracts to see if there's some in there with big payouts, and then look if it's a realistic mission. I once got some 200-300k for testing the nuclear engine near either mun or minmus, which you can imagine is really easy. However, sometimes it can be something like testing the mainsail near the mun so watch out for that. 4. You don't have to stage a part for the first time to complete part test contracts. Just right click the part that's already running and click on "run test".

A mobile processing lab becomes useful way earlier than that if you're doing apollo style missions. For example my mission to duna + ike had two science jr. and goo containers on the lander and a processing lab in the main module. The lander was really small, which was useful because it burned some 2k more dv than the main module.

I don't know how difficult the mission is with life support and heat shielding but this was my duna + ike mission with at least the habitation module. In my experience you can make sleek and efficient spacecraft if you keep it well organized. Keep the main ship and the lander apart so you only need one docking port and you don't get problems with the centre of mass. Your construction with the hubmax looks really odd, though I don't know if it matters much. Also you never need as much rcs as you put on the craft. On this ship I used the lv909 as a one size fits all engine, but that was because it's in career mode and I didn't unlock nukes yet.

One last tip, you don't have to land at 1m/s. Landing legs can take landing speeds of at least 8m/s, especially on moons. So make sure you're gentle with your throttle and remember that it's better to have a hard landing than to bounce around all the time.