EricT43

I've managed to land both kerballed and unkerballed craft on the Mun and Minmus, but have not been successful at returning anything to Kerbal. My landers thus far have been a command module with drone for SAS (scientist-flown), a Science Jr., 200 fuel tank and a 909. The contraption is rather tall, and my only kerballed landing tipped over on landing. Also ran out of fuel, but that's a different story. Anyway, I have unlocked the Mk1 lander module, and thought of trying that. Just wondering what lander designs you all would recommend for a beginner that are fairly easy to land and stay upright, can collect a reasonable amount of science, and have enough fuel to get back home?

Good suggestions! I suggested in another thread that we have a "stop" button on the MPL so that it doesn't highjack all the power of the vehicle. Or perhaps the ability to set electricity priority for the different items on the ship!

Loving the game, guys, thanks! I launched my first orbital lab recently. Two scientists aboard, using remote guidance for piloting the vehicle. Unfortunately, I did not give it enough solar panels. When I started research, my batteries quickly drained, and the panels are not enough to power the whole ship. Now, research continues - as soon as any charge comes in from the panels, the charge is immediately consumed. However, this leaves the craft just as good as stranded, because the charge is gone as soon as it arrives, and I cannot move the craft, transmit science, or do anything else with it. It seems it will be quite a long time before the research completes. With two nerds aboard, it would seem that one of them would be smart enough to turn off processing of the lab in order to allow some power for the ship to move. Can we get a button to stop processing, to help in such a situation?

Welcome! I am a relatively new player myself, but I can say that getting into orbit is definitely doable without upgrading the launch pad. More than likely your ascension profile is inefficient. If you go straight up, and then vector sideways when you get into space, which is how I tried to do it when I first started, it requires a lot of fuel. There are a lot of tutorials on this website and on YouTube for getting into orbit, I would suggest checking those out. Make sure you find tutorials for version 1.0 or later, as there were changes to the game that makes some of the older tutorials obsolete. I'd highly recommend the new Career Mode tutorial series from Scott Manley on YouTube - he is an expert at the game and I think he covers getting into orbit in the first or second video.