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...I would have been OK with that... OP: thanks, good info thread, shall use

Short version; - get your orbit outside the kerbal's by about 10km, matching his inclination - create a retrograde manoeuvre node that would bring your periapsis down to his altitude *somewhere*, then drag the node around your orbital path until you get some kind of intersect (you may have to advance an orbit or two) - make the manoeuvre, warp to that intersect point - put your navball in target mode and try to equalise your velocity with the kerbal (burn at the retrograde marker until you're at 0.5 m/s or less) - if you're now within about 10-15km, great, just gently burn towards the target marker, and tweak your course to keep prograde on top of him. If not, consider repeating the above steps and trying again.* - just keep the target and prograde markers aligned as you get closer, and avoid getting too fast. Arriving at 100m/s is useless because you'll overshoot, or worse, bump him away. 20's plenty! Use 10x warp if you're impatient. - once you're hovering in visual range, burn retrograde to the best stop you can manage (true 0.0 m/s is hard, the game's numbers aren't accurate below 0.1) - now it's easy to hit [ and ] to flip between the ship and your kerbal. Activate his RCS with R, and gently fly him over to the pod so's he can get on board Scott Manley has a decent episode on rendezvousing with a space station - it sounds different, but it's basically exactly the same as a kerbal rescue mission. Yours should be easier, since all lost kerbals seem to be in a perfect equatorial orbit, so assuming your launch was good you'll probably only need to adjust the radius of your orbit * being much beyond about 20km apart can do weird and counterintuitive things when trying to meet something in orbit. You need to be at a really similar altitude or you get swept away by your orbit quite easily.

I wouldn't say it's "simple" but good explanation Important thing for the OP is that if you just keep time warping and get out of Mun's SOI, the broken lines will merge at the point of escape, you'll be back on the original orbit you expected to be on. In fact, if you'd focussed Mun in the middle screenshot, it should have showed you what the orbit would look like once you were in it's SOI. Your velocity isn't changing, but the way the game is displaying your movement is.

Very sage advice. Minimal is the way to go if you want to make a profit; never deliver more than was required. I've been running a new game since 0.90, with just 50% funding, and I'm sitting on $1.2 million in the bank with most facilities on the middle tier upgrade. Far as I can tell, the most common problem for people who're short of funds is over-engineering. Get Kerbal Engineer (or MechJeb) so's you know the precise capabilities of your ship, and don't go too far over requirements. It's often surprising how little you need to do to get the job done I love contracts like Minmus temperature scans*, because you can put a tiny little probe together with 4k delta-v, and get 2-3 of those missions done before you're out of fuel (no need to launch a new probe or bring it home; just get the measurements and transmit!) Initial launch cost below $20k. Equally good is plant a flag plus crew reports and ground EVA, because you can do all the orbitals, then finally land. On a really good day I've had 4 contracts in one launch, something like a 700% return on investment. A manned Mun or Minmus rocket doesn't have to top $30k before science dohickeys are added, but can rise to $100k if I want biome-hopping ability at the destination. * Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure the temp scan missions are stock; they might be DMagic's Orbital Science mod.

Yep, you can't decline it because the game really really wants to nudge you in that direction and doesn't want you to forget that other planets exist beyond Kerbin's SOI Everything else is randomly generated, but these ones are scripted and immutable. If you haven't upgraded your admin building yet, just don't accept them until you're ready to do them. But there's 20 or so slots for contracts, so even if you let the permanent ones hang around, you'll rarely have less than 17 others either available or accepted. Should be plenty to work with

Each individual piece should take fractions of a second - you'll never have all of them on one ship (or if you do, you're a bit mental and doing it for the lulz) so it should be fine. That'd be my approach to optimising, anyway. Can't say for sure it would work without proper knowledge of the game code, but based on how it acts and feels, it seems wide open to improvements of this sort

Thing is that while life support and remote connections with signal delay are realistic, realism doesn't always equate to fun. I think Squad is better focussing on new things you can do and explore (bigger ships, better planes, new planets, new reasons to build specific things in specific places) than on restricting play. Let mods add realistic restrictions, and let players choose whether they want them - or not AntennaRange however, not a bad idea - gives you a reason to use the bigger dishes, which actually broadens play, rather than narrowing it down.

I've just been terminating them from the tracking screen, or crashing them into the local planet to get rid of them. Effective, but shouldn't be allowed... As for life support, a combination of TAC and MKS does a fine job, and indeed makes me prefer to send probes for anything that's not a landing. And even some landings The down side is my kerbals may never get to level 5 unless I create some sort of training scenario for them... Hey, wait, why doesn't the top tier astronaut complex have a training facility in it?

Yeah, but early KSP tech will get you to Mun for 25t at launch Meanwhile Station Science's core module is 15t and designed for a 2.5m launch stage (or bigger)... Moving that to LKO is harder than getting a 1 man pod to Mun and back!

Nice. Finally a use for my 32gb of memory (other than supporting Chrome when it decides to just haemorrhage memory for no reason) Probably would help if KSP/Unity was a bit more selective about what was loaded though, so's to help people with lower spec systems. Given that it never fluctuates (at least not downwards) it seems likely that the entire game, every model, every texture, is in memory all the time. That's just not necessary! Not even in the VAB; just needs the game to render a few static thumbnails first time you go in there.

DMagic's Orbital Science and Scansat combine to give a good reason for satellites. The techs unlock slowly enough that you'll end up launching several to get a full slew of reports from Kerbin, Mun and Minmus at least. That said, I think it would be totally fair if contract satellites became unowned objects, or disappeared, once they're in place. Your job was to put one there then turn it over to a private company, after all... it's a bit cheaty that you can then re-route it ten seconds later, or route your ​communications through it

For those who find the Stayputnik unusable, Lack Luster Labs' SXT has an early access probe core with SAS. Very little torque, needs a reaction wheel (or command pod) to do much, but it's an option if you're struggling with stock probe cores

FAR, but with a game option to turn off disintegration (default off for easy/normal). Stuff flies much better, but it's no fun watching your early rockets fall apart because you tried to turn just a little too fast, or having your first space plane disintegrate on re-entry after an otherwise successful mission... Primary reason for calling FAR over NEAR is the sim window in the SPH. With NEAR, you're still pretty much guessing at stability, where FAR lets you know in advance if you're gonna die. Lol, it could be made a little more friendly though. The decimal point accuracy of the display is a bit overkill and scary

If you delete them, you probably won't get them back... But you don't have to accept them until you're ready to launch (or even until you're in orbit)! And Station Science is good, but the modules are heavy as hell - it's easier to get a kerbal to Mun and Minmus than it is to lift the basic station module into LKO. Remember we did Apollo before Mir or the ISS

Basically everything I launch in 0.90 with the first winglets. Cannot steer them at all under FAR - half a dozen satellites have fallen into the pond because they wanted to fly level until they ran out of fuel Got a solar powered probe-rover all the way to Eve after 9 real time days, only to realise that the light side is now facing away from Kerbin. Waited another week for it to rotate round enough for a daylight landing (was using Remote Tech, needed LoS to Kerbin). Then discovered that Eve's atmosphere rips extended solar panels off the moment you start moving, so had to keep stopping to charge up, then folding up to move. Exploring Eve a hundred yards at a time xD And yesterday, only installed 1 TAC small life support cannister for my Minmus run and spent ages in a polar orbit getting crew reports for a contract. Arrived home with just 3 hours of oxygen to spare - I hadn't even looked at it until I was back in Kerbin's atmosphere. Not quite a failure, but it was darn close to killing Bill

Really? I'm out of the loop, is that a 64-bit fix, or unloading stuff when you're not actually using it?

I played with RT2 in 0.25, and I can see where it's coming from with the realism aspect, but in the end I haven't kept it for my new 0.90 game. Short version is that it adds a whole lot of new problems (line of sight, range, connection targets, signal delay) without offering viable solutions for them. - Signal delay; there's nothing in RT2 to help you with getting a probe down onto Duna or Eve, let alone places without atmosphere. Really needs a lot of timing devices and integrated smart autopilots to make this work. And just forget probe-rovers. You can however turn signal delay off, so we're left with things like: - Line of sight; fair and realistic. Unfortunately I never found the flight computer reliable at performing manoeuvres, and it was too hit and miss to consider aerobraking, which pumped up my fuel requirements massively. - The geostationary issue; never once did I manage to get two satellites into sync. They always needed maintenance every few weeks to nudge them around and stop them bunching up. Maybe RT2 could have a 'station keeping' device that would have a satellite hold it's own position, even when not focussed, as long as it's within say 50m of the ideal altitude? - Connection targets; oh the frustration of having forgotten to point your dish at 'Kerbin' instead of mission control. Surely all probes could have a 'try to stay connected' mode where they search the sky for anything that's listening? Or the basic omni antenna could be allowed to receive 'open your main dish' signals. - Power issues; those dishes suck so much juice! Keeping them powered through the dark bits of orbits is remarkably hard. - Range; this was a minor irk for me, but I always felt mission control should be automatically upgraded as you unlocked more antennae. The power problem prevented me from putting a ground-relay next to mission control until I had RTGs, because the battery requirement was so enormous to get through a 3 hour night. - Lack of ground stations; this felt harsh. Ideally, RT2 could provide the option to purchase more ground installations at the equator and poles, upgrading to full-sky coverage without the need for a Kerbin-SOI relay network. - Save file size; when you're upwards of 50 missions in flight, saving becomes a chore. Every switch to the VAB, SPH, or any other building was starting to take ages as the game saved in the background. (This is not RT2's fault, but it is a problem.) Despite this, I have nothing against RT2. I can certainly see why some people really enjoy it - it's a great realism mod, and if that's your thing, you'll love it, and maybe in a few months I'll have a playthrough with RSS and RT2 and DRE, etc, just to see how realistic, and hard, I can make the game. But, IMHO, RT2 is not a mod for 'fun', and it's not at all newbie friendly, and therefore needs not to be Stock.

Got to call mining. In-situ refuelling as an early-ish option allows you to turn the science gain right down (and thus gives reason to explore the whole solar system), because you stop needing massive fuel tanks and nuclear rockets to go places (and come back), and makes things like a Duna base desirable for logistics purposes Although I would also like to see more planets and stars too, if implemented sensibly within the bounds of the game engine. The obvious, if cheesy, option is to 'find' a honking big stargate around the back of Mun that can dial you out to multiple systems. Avoids the need for stock warp drives (no really, I like the 70s tech) and should mean you only have to have 1 system loaded at a time, thus not ballooning the memory footprint - and it's pretty expandable in future without breaking stuff

Assuming OCTO2 has SAS but not torque, it should have a niche for ferrying lone scientists/engineers around without a pilot. Admittedly the use of this varies on your style of play... I use Contract Science Modifier so field science is all I have. Seems worth rushing probe cores to be able to send Bill (or is it Bob?) out on his own to Mun and Minmus!

Appreciate this thread is already answered, but you could also use a mod like Time Control A running Kerbal doesn't need much by way of physics calcs and doesn't suffer by turning them to 25% accuracy. I've had Jeb legging it at 22x speed between ground survey points (landed on the first point, but upside down) which was much more tolerable for what would otherwise have been a half-hour waddle

Yes! Excellent mod, thank you, Ser! I much prefer field science to be the main source of knowledge, piggybacking experiments (and indeed scientists) on the contracts that fund the KSC. I feel it actually reduces the sense of grinding, because it makes you go out to new places with new science packages, rather than being tempted to do 100 survey missions in Kerbin SOI to get to those nuclear engines. Far more interesting when your first interplanetary missions have to be done with LV-909s This mod definitely deserves a lot more publicity, anyone who likes having a reason to explore the solar system ought to be using this...

Re, the OP; yeah, I agree. Admittedly, 0.90 has kind of reset my expectations on how to kick off the game - I've gotten used to 20% science and 40% funding, and now I think the latter is better left at 80-100%, but ultimately... that's not a game breaker, that's a rebalance of something that was so out of whack it was laughable. I still suspect science gain is too high, but that's what the option sliders are for! And maybe it isn't after all, can't say for sure, only had a couple of sessions on 0.90 so I'm not a good judge. What I can see is that Squad have left us with all the tools we need to essentially fast-track back to something very similar to 0.25, if we choose to use them. Worst case, the save file is plain text - just tweak it! Single player game, rules as defined by a single player Also it's making me think about things like economically small ships, and prioritising multi-man missions - anything that broadens the way players use the game's features seems like a good call ^^

These things are so dinky and adorable I must have them for my 20% science playthrough - another RoverDude can't-live-without mod!

First probe - Dontstayputnik I think. And I'm not sure about the torque, sorry, I'll have to check when I get home. But Jeb (at level 1) wasn't able handle the rocket nearly as well in atmosphere as the DSPN was. Could be that it was something more obscure like FAR's handling of having a DSPN sphere on the nose vs an MK16 parachute. Either way, scientist Bob (or Bill - one of those guys) had a much easier ride to orbit and I wasn't fighting to keep the nose above the horizon Shame about the wheels - it does seem silly that they're so far down a weird branch in the stock tree. Not sure what Squad's goal is there...

Well, I sure was grateful for SXT's probe core last night when I discovered it has SAS control (and better torque than a manned pod?). Got me through a hairy moment in my progression and let me send up a scientist instead of a pilot... but that said, in the interests of balance, maybe this is something to review for the future? Kinda breaks Squad's vision of technical progression Also as a thought - any chance of something like a small/light gear bay to go with the early plane parts, maybe with a low weight limit? I keep getting survey missions, but I can't work out how to launch horizontally without wheels On another note, thank you for thinking ahead and only using stock textures to keep memory requirements down! Usually a parts mod like this comes with the knowledge that it reduces my time between restarts/crashes even further, but hopefully that won't be the case here