FlyingPete

I imagine Eve to be a planet of permanent storms. Ground-level fog blows around and makes navigation difficult, but also keeps the purple dust to a minimum. The seas are a chemical soup that could well contain the raw materials of rocket fuel. The thick atmosphere adds to the feeling of being underwater. Unsurprisingly, Duna is similar to our Mars- the opposite of Eve. Dust would be the main problem Kerbals would have to deal with, making cleaning solar panels a regular chore. On the flats of Minmus, if you put your helmet to the ground you could hear faint creaking sounds as the frozen surface slowly shifts. Up on the hills, the same sort of material forms a layer of 'snow', which you can scoop up into snowballs. They would of course keep going seemingly forever when thrown. Laythe strikes me as a colder Kerbin. The atmosphere isn't breathable for long periods, but you could survive for a few minutes with your helmet off. It would be too cold for comfort though, hence why visitors always seem to be breathing the warmed air inside the suit. The seas must have something approaching antifreeze mixed in to be liquid. Something probably already inhabits the seas, given that there's liquid water and oxygen in the atmosphere. Visitors should be cautious!

I'm setting up my 'Eve to stay' colony at the moment. It seemed more sensible to commit resources to a permanent outpost rather than a visit and difficult ascent. The three ship armada met up in orbit. Base commander Admund, chief engineer Gilbrett and scientists Gus and Obski have detached the base and prepared for deorbit. Lenke is still aboard the space station and will pilot the rover/plane hybrid down later. Three of the crew won't be landing on Eve, instead doing a side-mission to Gilly before returning to Kerbin. In we go! The landing zone is betwen the two rows of hills. The nearby lakes will be one of the first exploration destinations. With no backup, lots of parachutes to make sure of a soft landing Admund and Gilbrett look pleased with their new home. Gus and Obski were apparently too busy analysing the descent data in the lab to pose for photos. More to come soon- there's the aerospike rover/plane docked at the station which will be brought down next, plus a smaller ion-powered roverplane, 4-man rover and two more colonists on the way in.

I have an RCS-powered tug at my Kerbin station. It's useful either for 'valet-parking' station components that don't have their own RCS/control, or for adding extra control authority to something unruly. Either equip it with several sizes of docking port, or have some port adapters handy on the station so you can connect to anything. I also use the other sort of space tug- something with a large docking port, nuclear engines and lots of fuel. These are for carting payloads between Kerbin and elsewhere. This way you can reuse the engines and fuel tanks rather than hauling them up from Kerbin every time- just launch the payload and rendezvous with it. The analogy to a tug boat is fairly accurate- its purpose is solely to move stuff around.

I've just set up the beginnings of a colony on Eve (solving the problems of getting back to orbit ) while at Duna there's a more conventional exploration trip going on. I've landed on Ike and several places on Duna itself, returning to orbit each time. So I think Duna's good for exploring a large area, whereas on Eve you sort of have to study a smaller area in detail.

Do this to get 'close enough' to the center of mass, then use the 'free pivot' function on the claw to allow you to swing the attached ship into line. For bringing it into orbit, aerobraking is your friend. I landed one on Minmus after the resulting trajectory got me fairly close, with no fuel used.

This needs to be in the in-game tutorials, given how often this question comes up. Unless you know and already use the keyboard shortcuts, it's just not intuitive.

I like the reworked contracts system. Now funds are actually a factor in my space program and you have to make strategic decisions early on- such as doing a few small contracts before gearing up for a major one. For example, I've just had to upgrade mission control to level 3 so that I can take on a 'build a new outpost on Duna' (with wheels) at the same time as the 'Explore Duna' and 'Explore Ike' contracts. The funding advance from each paid for the upgrade. The crew for the Duna expedition will be trained on Mun and Minmus exploration. It seems more like a real space program this way- do some commercial satellite launches for profit so you can then go off and explore. One thing I've still never made use of is the administration building. Early in the game, you don't really have enough of anything for trading them off to be worth it.

You can tell in the map view which way to put the satellite by the movement of the dots on the target orbit. Make sure you're coming into a Munar trajectory in the right direction.

They've always been useful as a way to store fuel and bits of equipment on orbit. When science came along, I found it useful to have an orbiting station at Minmus or the Mun with a lab. That way, a single lander can be used to hit multiple biomes, refuelling and resetting the experiments at the station. A surface base still isn't all that useful in itself, unless you really like rover driving or you can position it at near the intersection of multiple biomes. In that case you could have a rover dock to the base and use it in the same way as the science space station.

So my space station is on its way Part 1 consists of a lab and hitchiker storage container, part 2 is a second hitchhiker, 1-man lander can (which I'm calling the control center) and some solar panels on a truss. Each section has two sideways-facing docking ports mounted on structural fuselages. I'd forgotten how wobbly the medium docking ports are- boosting out of Kerbin was interesting.

They tend to spawn on random 'near-Kerbin' orbits. They range from not quite encountering Kerbin to catastrophic rocks of doom. I've had one that captured itself after a Mun encounter. Part of the fun is in doing your own version of Deep Impact and nudging them away from Kerbin to avert disaster. You can't blow them up yet though

I've just received a 'build a space station around Minmus' contract. The trouble is, it's asking for an 11-Kerbal onboard capacity including a lab module, which seems like quite a large station to send into orbit given my current tech levels. I'm planning to launch the station in two pieces and assemble it in orbit of either Kerbin or Minmus. Will the game recognise this correctly? Pete

I can't remember exactly, but I think one of my uni friends was playing it. Downloaded the 0.13 demo, soon upgraded to 0.18, still here

This thing looks great fun Should have equipped it with a couple of small docking ports so you can use it to cart small payloads around on the Mun.

I'm starting to get better at timing my launches for a rendezvous. Usually though I launch slightly too early and end up going above the target altitude and making the rendezvous on the way back down, with a few correction burns here and there. If you do it right, you can do a direct ascent from Minmus with a Kerbal's jetpack and meet up with the orbiting ship.

Go visit Dres and Moho sometime. They seem lonely.

I like this idea. There's a surprising amount you can do with just the level 1 buildings, but eventually you'd run into either the 100 science, 18T or 30 parts limits. By then I imagine most new players would want to come back for more.

Sounds like a good excuse to send a probe into a low polar orbit so you can survey the terrain for a suitable landing site

Partly for the challenge/learning potential for future missions, and partly to save on the size of the rocket. Those rocket parts cost money now you know

It all comes down to how you use the stock parts. Some people build a huge rocket and send the whole lot up from the launchpad in one go, by which means it's possible to get to Eeloo and back. Some people (including me) prefer to assemble things in orbit and then go. I haven't been further than Jool yet, but that's just because I like messing around on the inner planets.

Trying to gain enough funds to upgrade the R&D building. Sent Jeb off the Minmus to fulfil the 'explore minmus' and 'explore specific area of minmus' contracts in one mission which should get me enough.

I've got a contract that basically reads 'put a satellite in the Mun's orbit around Kerbin'. Trying to figure out a gravity assist off the Mun to fling the satellite into the right orbit.

I've just done one of these where there were 3 sites close to each other (alpha, beta, gamma). I landed the plane somewhere nearby that was flat enough, and taxied the rest of the way. In the mk1 cockpit in any case, I got a 'Kerbin's surface' EVA report by having the pilot stand on the roof of the cockpit.

Still trying to get to the Mun in career mode. Did a few small contracts to gain funds for building upgrades.

I just built a small jet plane to do several aerial survey missions in one go- they were in close proximity to each other and a mixture of above/below 19000m. I didn't have landing gear yet so I stuck some legs on the tail, launched vertically and landed by parachute.