RCgothic

Mods: FAR Deadly re-entry Kerbal Engineer Redux Remote Tech Procedural Fairings Today I placed my first several satellite contracts and saved up enough money to purchase the first upgrade for every building. I have every 45 science node unlocked, as well as Heavy Rocketry, Advanced Flight Control and Electrics from the 90 tier. I'm ready to go to The Mun, but first I decided to build a 3-pod training ship to get all my kerbals orbited around Kerbin and up to the first tier in two batches. I had to revert once after, having successfully re-entered and landed on kerbin, one of my kerbals tripped over and died whilst on EVA in Kerbin's grasslands. >.< Next stop, The Mun!

We were in alpha. We are now in beta. Unfortunately incompatibility occasionally comes with the territory.

Nope. I'm a long way away from nodes. My solution was to use a manned launcher to place 2 unmanned relays in a 100km orbit and then send them up to 710km 120deg apart on RCS as and when connection allowed. (710km gives me more leeway for angular position than 600km and keeps 700km clear in case I want it for something later). I didn't have enough dv to send a mk1 capsule to 710km and back on 30 parts inc payload. A third relay completes the triangle by getting to 710km without Jeb's help. They're now in almost perfect orbits, max +/- 30m and inclination down to 0.0003deg, within 0.1deg of correct orbital phase. Slightly undercut my probes-first approach, but oh well.

Today I will not go to space because I forgot that my first Remote Tech probe will be over the horizon before it's planned LKO circularization burn. Unplanned re-entry resulted.

Over the weekend I started a new .90 moderate career. Mod installed: FAR Deadly re-entry Kerbal Engineer Redux Remote Tech Procedural Fairings ScanSAT Chatterer Sounding Rockets I started off with a four-capsule tumbler to explore KSC and unlock the first couple of tech nodes. I then used some sounding rockets to grab atmospheric and low-space science, and after upgrading the launch pad I sent Jeb up in a manned mission for a first orbit. Next I sent up a two-pod craft that JUST had enough dv and electric charge to effect a rescue rendezvous. I used the science gained to unlock the steerable winglets and batteries. At this point I thought I'd got all the low-hanging science available, and unadvisably took two satellite contracts. I was prepared to manually fly a Stayputnik, but turns out that not having solar panels is a serious impediment to an unmanned craft, even with a trio of the first batteries on board. Further complicating things was Remote Tech. It's difficult to circularise your orbit when the horizon breaks your comms link. That was a slightly unplanned re-entry... And a manned launcher was too heavy to loft to the required orbit and return, even for Jeb. Luckily I had enough funds to upgrade Mission Control, so I got around my contract lock-out and remembered that I hadn't returned any high-orbit science. So I sent up a manned suborbital and that gave me enough to unlock the first solar panels and RCS thrusters. I still didn't have enough funds to upgrade the VAB, and I'm not getting to either of those contract orbits with a manned launch, so that means setting up a relay network for my unmanned probes. The delay meant my relays were Octoprobes rather than Stayputniks, which helped a lot. They each had four RCS thruster blocks, four solar panels, a communication 16 and the first circular battery. The mk1 probe had a single spherical monoprop tank. The mk2 had 2 monoprop tanks after I realised it would need to manoeuvre relative to the mk1. The mk3 was much the same as the mk2, but with a slightly optimised weight distribution. The mk1 and mk2 were placed in a circular orbit by the manned launcher at 100km, and then used their RCS to boost up to a 710km orbit. Jeb de-orbited the manned launcher safely each time. 710km is a little above the minimum of 600km for line of sight to give me a little more leeway during the initial positioning. Also, one/two monoprop tanks was a little more than required to reach this orbit, but I like to de-orbit as much as possible and the surplus have me the capability if these relays ever get replaced with something more capable. After they were both placed in a circular orbit 120' apart, I launched the mk3 with the same launcher, but without the manned pod. This meant I could stick the launcher on a suborbital flight to 710km and have the relay ciecularize at Apoapsis. The advantage of this was that the uncontrolled launcher de-orbited itself, which it wouldn't have done if I'd done a usual civilization burn at 100km. After a little bit of fiddling, my relay network is completed! This evening I'll be able to go for my first satellite contract. It's a retrograde orbit inclined 176' at an altitude of 2.1Mm.

Tbh, I see why they went with manned starts as the default for new players. It's more fun to accidentally kill Kerbals. But purists certainly have a point regarding unmanned starts. Perhaps an alternate tech tree could be a toggleable difficulty option.