WhirlwindMonk

While I like the idea of a "victory condition" (so long as you can continue to play after completing it), I think there needs to be a lot more done to make it good than what you've described. The biggest difference between Civ and KSP is that Civ has a significant random element from the start. What the world looks like, where you start, what other civs are in the game, which ones ended up close to you, what resources you get, etc., not to mention the huge variety of civ choices you have that change how the game plays regardless of those other elements. That's what makes doing the same ending a hundred times still fun, because it may still be the science ending, but a science victory as Babylon on an archipelago map is a very different game than a science victory as Greece on Pangaea with the Huns planted on your doorstep from year 1. KSP doesn't have that. As it stands, there is nothing, no starting choices nor random elements, that would force you to approach that asteroid collision or sun explosion or resettlement project differently from the game prior. This is already a problem with career mode, where there's very little to differentiate one game from the next that would make you want to start a brand new game after "finishing" one. That's something that needs to be fixed first before victory conditions could really add anything to the game, in my opinion.

They could always add a "Complete Contract" button that's only clickable when in the proper orbit so you can detach whatever you need to before you lose control.

Temporarily stranded in Kerbin orbit because I...I mean, Bill​ forgot to put a parachute on the ship.

Chilling in orbit around Minimus. She's pilot of the lander for my science station. Not that she's done a dang thing in weeks since the low level scientists are so slow at processing the data she already got them. I'm heavily considering bringing her back and replacing her with the low-level pilot I just rescued so I can send her out on my first Duna mission of this campaign.

I'll sign onto that claim as well. Definitely still room for improvement, but every time this game drags me back in with a new update, it's better than ever. I am really looking forward to getting far enough in my new career try out the new resource system.

I was trying to get a science lab set up around Minimus with a lander to go down and collect more science as needed. Everything went great until I was taking off with a lander full of science that I realized I hadn't put any RCS on either the lander or the lab. That was a bit annoying, but I figured I could just EVA the science over instead of docking. That was when I discovered my second mistake. In an effort to save weight and money, my 1.25m lander and 2.5m station connected at the end of a Rockmax Adapter, rather than the larger command pod, meaning the station could do nothing unless I docked the lander. After 15-20 very tense minutes, I managed to dock two crafts in minimus orbit, one being completely uncontrollable, the other having 3 LV-909s as its sole method of propulsion. Oh, and the docking port was pointing in the same direction as the engines. I have since put another station in orbit, this one with a command pod and both halves with RCS, but that first one, despite (and because of) its flaws, is definitely my most satisfying accomplishment in 1.0, and possibly the most satisfying thing I've ever done in KSP (with over 200 hours played).

That would be cool. Make it very difficult, if not impossible, to make a profit on the up-front rewards, but the on-going rewards eventually make them very valuable.

I like the idea. I don't use MechJeb because it feels a bit cheat-y and immersion-breaking to me, but properly integrated, requiring a pilot with sufficient level would fit well enough that I'd probably be willing to use it.

Like a couple other people in this thread, I don't sit there and watch it while fast fowarding. I go and do other stuff and check back in every couple missions. It's one of the reasons I find Kerbal Alarm Clock a critical mod. Send a ship toward Minimus, set an alarm for Change in SoI, go do some tourist or satellite missions, maybe a Mun mission, while I wait for the Minimus SoI alarm to go off.

Interesting, I'll give that a shot. Thanks! That's what I do, the problem is that I'm only okay at it. If there's another option, regardless of whether it's fins or reducing gimbal, I'd like to at least try it out and see if it can do it better than I can manually. Plus, building a rocket that can very nearly fly itself into space simply by thrusting and letting physics do its thing sounds really dang cool.

Thanks for the information! It helps explain why one of my rockets kept tipping over terribly. The giant lander behind a faring up top gave it nice, high CoM, but without anything to correct the CoP, it flipped the heck out every time. It should be efficient, but is it really efficient as implemented in the game? Maybe there are other issues with my rocket designs, but it seems like when I try to let my SAS follow prograde, it either overcorrects so badly the rocket flips out, or it does so many dozens of tiny corrections every second I have a hard time believing it's efficient (though maybe it is, I'm certainly no expert).

Probably because of this line from the patch notes:

I've never built any sort of outpost, either on land or in space, nor have I ever sent a ship further away than Eve or Duna. I intend to fix that with 1.0 (I guess technically 1.0.1, now). Also, OP, I found the new docking tutorial to be quite helpful. I had basically never docked before, and I've managed it several times in my career game without incident since doing the tutorial.

For a thread claiming that SSTOs are no more, it sure has inspired me to try to make some of my own. I'm also encouraged by the people saying they had trouble pre-1.0 but can do it now, since I've always been terrible at planes in general and don't think I have ever managed to successfully take a spaceplane to orbit. Just need to spam a few Minimum missions now to unlock enough of the tech tree.