SorryDave

Bye SpacedCowboy i hope you find your way back to the game someday. Also, for the record: There are no cows in space.

For unusual designs like you suggest, I use sandbox to test my designs. I build overpowered rockets and send them to the destination. When designing, KER can be set to determine TWR for different bodies and RCS build aid is great for lining thrust to center of gravity. I then copy my successful designs to my career save and/or an archive folder.

Way back before career, I sent a crew on a solar escape trajectory when I was attacked by the Kraken on a routine trip to Eve.

I once built a monster booster capable of orbiting 500 tons. Just to see if I could without any real purpose. It's name was: WTF -What's This For

That's just poodleing awesome. Please report back after a few more hours and let us know if the crash frequency really did improve. I have never played or modded the steam folder, I always copy it and play from another location. This may be why I am not crashing as much as others. A few times in 30-40 hours of 1.1 time maybe.

A quote from the last dev note: "Everyone has dove into fixing bugs for patch 1.1.3 and improving on our processes based on the lessons we learned with KSP 1.1. The 1.1.3 patch will be focused on reworking a few systems and fixing a large number of critical bugs that the community found and reported to us, amongst other things we’re working on crashes in the VAB and SPH, and the orbits calculations." I've had a few bugs cause me to have to restart the game since using 1.1. I play with a few mods like EVE, KAC, and KER. I play in 64bit mode on a decent 1-2 year old lap top. I play this game a lot and probably will be for several more years as long as SQUAD keeps improving the game, fixing bugs, and spending time improving the development process as they gain new experience.

Mostly this: SkunkWorks (sandbox) for testing rocket designs. Kerbal Space Patrol (career) for role playing my high tech program. Space Patrol uses flags of mythical animals for the different divisions. The four biggest divisions below. skunk - contracts turtle - roughnecks (mining) rats - science bases and vehicles fox - scouts/explorers

Using the "tourist orbit Kerbin" contract types as an example, I've noticed the following: The three star contracts earns more money per tourist than the two or one star contract. It also has a higher rep gain for the complete contract, but requires more tourist to complete. I use a rocket that carries two tourist and a pilot, so the higher star contracts earn more money per launch, but earn less rep per launch. I've found this to be generally true: 0-25% Rep = 1 three star contracts 25-50% Rep = 2-3 three star contracts 50-75% = 3-4 three star contracts where the % rep is visible on the save game and it is 10% of the rep number available after rocket recovery. For example: 1000 actual rep, shows up as 100% rep. Hope this helps.

I would add more biomes to all the planets so I could farm science for funds for a long time after I unlocked the tech tree.

Thanks for the clarification RoverDude, I can't wait to try it out in 1.3.

After you complete a mission, the recovery screen shows you the numerical value of you reputation. Recover a rocket from the launch pad and it is on the bottom of the third screen. Reputation gives you much higher paying contracts.

My understanding was that the feature being added will be used to give a science buff, not using a relay will not impact probes.

Hope to see you back some day Xyphos. Otherwise happy flying... or whatever.

Moho is the place I will never forget. I spent weeks trying to return a growing list of stranded Kerbals there.

Or he could go here and leave a message: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/profile/119812-overland/

I cheat I use Kerbal Engineer for dV calculations. I also manually fly my craft and eyeball my transfer orbits. I know NASA doesn't do this, but they haven't even sent a manned mission beyond the moon.

Everyone loves trains! Overland has inspired me to explore Kerbin from the ground. I see no need for any player who enjoys the game to "emerge from the darkness", because in truth everyone enjoys this game for their own reasons. I hope that you enjoy the train on your to do list, just give a nod to Overland for the inspiration. Happy flying, or whatever.

I use strategies, the most useful trades science for funds. I also will raise rep for a penalty to funds until at 85-90%, then I'll do the opposite.

When I showed my son how to intercept and dock his huge plane shaped rocket.

I don't care when they decide to take a vacation. I just hope they keep producing updates with more frequency than the last one.

I find that sandbox is good for testing rockets or doing one mission which I enjoy once and a while. For my longer lasting saves I play career mode. if you don't enjoy the grind at start, set the options to 5,000 science, half a million funds, and 1,000. This is a great kick start and the rep gives you higher payed missions right away.

Go for you to stick it out, I'm glad you didn't rage quit. If you are playing in career remember to save often with different names, in case you find later that you want to take a whole new approach. good flying

KAC and KER My most useful mods. I also think that RCS build aid and trajectories is useful.

I test all my rockets with Kerbals first to be sure it is safe for probe cores. No dead kerbals in a long time, mostly because I got better at piloting.

For my first trips years ago, I just winged the delta v required based on; "if you make it to orbit you are halfway anywhere". I first built a rocket that could get to orbit, and then built a rocket underneath that could launch it into orbit. I did not use any mods or tools. I would eyeball my transfer windows based on tangents. I learned this from the video I saw from the WIKI: