Methusalem

My Science Lab has 10 Scientists (all 3-star) and it produces 40 science per day. I've dumped the full set of Minmus experiments into the lab and every 10 days the science gets transmitted to Kerbin and a couple experiments converted into data. It's a matter of a minute or two (you can process them in parallel if the science station has enough energy) and 400 science every 10 days is not exactly pocket change. If you play stock on normal difficulty, then you are right and the lab is useless. I'm playing right now with only 25% science gain and use mods (UKS and KSP-I) that triple the necessary science to unlock the full tech tree. Pretty much ALL my science comes currently from the lab until the new ship arrives at Duna/Ike and can me get science from there.

I wouldn't want to play without KER, Kerbal Alarmclock and ScienceAlert anymore. For actual content look at RoverDude's USI mods. They create real end game goals - building bases with complex production chains. Train the Kerbals and put them to use in these stations, create your own little economy as an alternative way for making credits etc. I think, now it's even possible to build crafts in these stations and outposts?

As others have mentioned, the issue is the drag at lower heights. You could: - stay below a speed of 320ish m/s until you've reached a height of 15-18 km - make sure to use fins for stabilization - build the rocket very top heavy (like an arrow, the weight is in the tip and the feathers stabilize) - for MechJeb: go into the Attitude control and change the values for Tf to min = 0.05 and max = 0.15. Then MechJeb will try to compensate quite a bit earlier.

Thar's actually an interesting point. On the next rocket I'll try fuel lines. Pumping from the bottom tank into the tank above, from there into the tank above, all the way up into the top tank. The payload on top is normally the heaviest piece, so that should keep CoM and CoL pretty close together and improve stability a lot. At least it's worth a try.

I wouldn't want to have dozens of useless satellites in orbit. But if the probe would be completely removed after you put it into the correct orbit and got your pay, that I wouldn't mind at all. "Thanks for fulfilling the contract, we'll take it from here."

Now that Scientists can reset the experiments, it's even possible to make the lander smaller than before. 3000 dV, 5.5 tons and has all the experiments that you can use on the moons. It uses a Scientist as crew and has still SAS, since the fuel tanks are arranged around an OCTO probe core. The lifter was a simple 1.25m design with a T45 as main engine and 4x T30 around it in asparagus staging. As long as you make sure to only use parts with a temperature resistance of 2000C for anything facing the atmosphere, you don't need a heat-shield for the orbital and moon missions. And if you build everything symmetrically (both, mass and drag) then it also doesn't need fairings. To be honest, they are cool and everything. But so far they never provided enough benefit to make up for their heavy weight.

Thank you both! Updated to Build 49 and MM 2.5.6. All recoveries have been working perfectly so far.

Using the latest RC and the Build#48 dll I still can't recover a vessel. It adds the money and science, but the vessel is still out there and no parts are added to the KCT inventory. Recovery works without problems after removing the mod. Other part mods used: MKS/OKS, Karbonite/Karbonite+, EPL, TAC-LS, DRE, Procedural Fairings ModuleManager 2.5.4 EDIT: Tried it with stock GameData, only KCT added and didn't run into this problem for the few launches I tried. What mods could mess with the file names? Active Texture Management or ModuleManager?

Should be no problem, but try it on the Landing Pad please. And if it doesn't work, just move some stuff around: The parachutes to the sides above the Goo containers (where the solar panels are right now) and the solar panels on the front and back all the way down to the batteries. That should definitely work.

He is probably using the engine as "heatshield". They are able to withstand the re-entry from a Kerbin orbit without blowing up. (The LV-909 can take up to 1800 celcius.) Although, if you come back from one of the moons, you probably want to get into an orbit first. Otherwise the velocity will be to high, which means too much heat and the engine will still get destroyed. I would change it to something like this. Although, the module comes in at 2.200 kg, plus whatever is in the tank. The engine only survives an impact up to 8 m/s. It might need a third parachute (a normal Mk16 on top would do).

My current playthrough is on extreme difficulty (only 10% Cash/Rep/Science). The core mods are from Roverdude (MKS/OKS, Karbonite, Freighters etc.), together with the common support mods (KAS, DRE, TAC-LS etc.). Starting out was not too hard, especially with the stock strategies being so overpowered for getting science. Now the complete Tech Tree is unlocked, but not too many parts purchased yet. I've got around 500k available, science probes around Kerbin and Mun (plus a lander on Mun), the Minmus vehicle is still in transfer. The next step will be to put a station in orbit around Kerbin and outposts on the moons. What are possible ways to finance that - and of course also all future exploration. Missions don't look like the way to go, the payments are rather low. There are the "Test abc in orbit around xyz" missions, which have quite decent rewards. But please keep in mind, that this amount is affected by the difficulty setting. And if the orbit is around Duna, then it takes a long time to do one of these missions and the Credits/Day ratio is even lower than doing a "Recover Science from Mun's Orbit" thingie. I also got a Karbonite Drill already set up on Kerbin, a Logistics Unit with storage and processing at the KSC and can start selling off either LFO or Karbonite directly. Is Karbonite the best material to sell? Or would it be better to process it into something different like Xenon or Monopropellant? Processing at the drilling site or better at the KSC (where it is a lot easier to add facilities and storage)? Does anybody know any good tutorials or has sample setups? Would it be better to build mining sites on the Mun? What material? How to sell it? What other options are there? Build a colony, start to produce and sell machinery? How much can you make from that? Basically, the question is: How do you finance your space program on the hardest difficulty settings?

The most general response would be to keep the parachutes out of the air stream. If you build a lander, mount them above the outer tanks/lab parts. If you have a standard cylindrical re-entry stage, then maybe use the Lander Can (the octagon shaped capsule) instead of the standard version. Then put the parachutes on top of the capsule. Maybe flip them and mount them vertically, that saves enough space that you can have 4 parachutes up there. By the way, I've got the same issue with the landing gears, they always burnt up during re-entry. Now I actually stopped using them for the landers and simply land on the heat shields (which are needed anyway to protect the outer parts of the lander).

Which one, Minecraft or KSP? Or both?

The "Landed at Kerbal" contracts are really great for that. They don't pay a lot, but they do give full science. For engine tests, simply set the thrust to Zero (and maybe remove the fuel as well). And the tests cost almost nothing since you never leave the launch pad. Other than that, I'm rather picky and only accept contracts when they fit into the flight profile. But especially the "In Orbit" or "While on Escape Trajectory" tests can pay so much later on, that it sometimes makes sense to adjust the rocket design or flight profile slightly to do these experiments. If you play modded KSP and use Tweakscale, then you can make the components so small, that they cost almost nothing and their weight is very low. But since the rewards are also balanced against the costs, it could almost be considered cheating.