Dewirix

Having started a new career in 1.2, I spent last night planning and testing a new communications relay to provide a constant connection for my upcoming missions to Duna. Here it is in the VAB: And here's the result of test flight I conducted in separate sandbox save: Tonight I have to try and do the same again, with the added bonus of standing to lose a hefty chunk of my funds if I fluff the launch. Still, it should mean I can send probes to the entire inner system without losing touch with them (unless the sun is in the way).

A bit more callous than I'd have been, but this pretty much sums up their contribution to my current career save. Jeb died during the rentry of my first sub-orbital flight (1.0, before I figured out I could use parachutes as indestructible airbrakes) while Val died when her pod collided with debris during an abort procedure. My current pilots - Gemthy and Vernua - are too professional for such things.

I've been playing career mode ever since it was introduced (and I played a lot of science mode before that). For me, the challenge comes from putting missions together under tight constraints which forces me to look for innovative solutions. That said, career mode is far from perfect. I'll echo the charge that the tech tree is oddly designed and the interplay between the limited parts available and the part count limit in the very early game makes things more difficult than they need to be - a 30 part limit when all you've got are 100-litre tanks is pretty brutal. I think funding needs a rework: as people have said, the space programme should be funded on a regular basis (e.g. annually) with some form of Football Manager-style "the board expects you to land on Minmus this year" type goals. For more long term goals (such as visiting Eeloo) this might require a longer timescale, but that shouldn't be too tricky. Reaching or exceeding funders' expectations should result in an increase in the size of the regular payments. Failure would bring a decrease in reputation and funding, although the latter should never fall below it's starting level. Contracts could still be offered in the current manner, but they'd be a top up rather than a necessity.

Part of the reason I posted the SSTO was because the OP talked about being early into a 0.90 career save with only parts of the tech tree unlocked and that's pretty much the same point I'm at. With more tech I'd definitely go for turbojets over basic jet engines as they're just so much better at high altitude, which in turn would let me go for a smaller rocket for the insertion burn. I'm a big fan of spaceplanes, but since I don't have even have landing gear unlocked yet I'm limited to tail-sitters or seaplanes. By-the-by, that's a seriously impressive pair of guides you've put together.

I've just switched to a similar system. The advantage of just taking up a couple of parachutes is that you're not lugging as much mass all the way up to orbit and back. In terms of cheap launch vehicles, have you looked into single-stage-to-orbit designs? The advantage these have over disposable SRBs is that nothing is thrown away, so you can recover 90-100% of the non-fuel/payload costs of a launch. In my current career save I've got a workable design that can achieve orbit with around 1200l of liquid fuel and 1450l of oxidiser (shown below on the right of the image).

I mostly play career mode, although I dip into sandbox every now and then, mainly to test designs or to build aeroplanes to amuse my son. For me, the career mode offers a nice mix of directed and free-form exploration. There are contracts to take if needed, but I've also got the opportunity to go off and explore on my own. At first, my 0.90 career was a bit of a grind (I have memories of spamming science data from Kerbin orbit contracts just to upgrade some buildings), but now I'm much less restricted by limited funding. I've intentionally turned science gain down as low as it can go, because unlike funds I never really feel restricted by limited science. Before this career, I'd always used LV-Ns for every interplanetary mission, so it's fun to see what can be done with chemical rockets (the Skipper is surprisingly decent as both a launch and a transfer stage).

My ascender only had about 1.4 TWR per stage and that was able to make it to orbit from 3-4,000m with 11.1k dV. Bear in mind that because Eve's atmosphere is so thick terminal velocity in the lower reaches is really low (167ms-1 at 15,000m, compared to 438 on Kerbin) so there's a good possibility that you simply can't use a lot of that extra TWR. Eve's surface gravity is 16.7ms-1, so a surface TWR of 1.6 implies the rocket is capable of accelerating at 16.7 * 1.6 = 26.72ms-2. Subtracting Eve's gravity from this gives a net acceleration of 26.72 - 16.7 = 10.02ms-2, which is to say that you'd reach sea-level terminal velocity in about six seconds. From my back of the envelope (OK, Excel) calculations, you'll have enough acceleration to maintain terminal velocity up until at least 30,000m, which should be plenty. What I'm trying to say is I think you'll be fine, but I can well understand the anxiety on the first flight.

It certainly appears that way - after worrying about a potential redesign, I've now checked to find that not only does it fit within the circle, it fits within the yellow lines too. I've played around with a Lander Can version. I might see what I can do about putting a mission together this weekend.

I can't check right now, but I don't think so. According to this post upthread, the circle is at least 26.25m in diameter. I estimate the central core of the Phoenix to be about 5m wide, and the Gigantors to be about 7m in length, with a <2m separation between them and the core. That gives an approximate size of 23m, which should fit nicely. It might look bigger because of the angle of that particular photo. Here's one looking down on it from above.

I'll have to give this a go. My last Eve ascender - the Phoenix-M - was command seats only, so not eligible for this challenge. However, it should be possible to add a Mk I Lander Can so it can lift one kerbal in style. Here's a picture of it just before launch. I get the feeling it's a good deal smaller than a lot of the successful entries, but size isn't everything!

I'd pay good money for that, especially if it came with KER-like functionality baked in. Designing missions on my daily commute would be awesome, and it's something qualitatively different from what's on offer from mods.

Ah, running out of electricity never gets old (at least not for me). I remember when the same thing happened to of my first Minmus missions. Luckily I was already in a highly eccentric Kerbin orbit and was able to wait until I was pointing retrograde, at which point I could burn until I got a trajectory which encountered the atmosphere. On getting your now-empty craft back, you should be able to see it in the tracking station if you enable the debris display. Just select it and you should have the option to recover it. As for what I've been up to, I'm currently in the middle of a 0.90 career and have just finished prepping for an early Eve run. Here's the Ishara all ready to depart.