CeeBod

Thanks @Geonovast I didn't save the ship, but I did save the final stage in its original form, so if I can actually figure out how to add a screenshot here, then here's a pic of that - the one I got into orbit has the hitch-hiker module removed (I didn't realise how heavy that thing was!) and the MPL was moved below the 2 fuel tanks. I think to get it into orbit I just strapped on some boosters!

Thanks for the answers, but I actually managed to get it done after seeing someone else use have a rocket with the payload that wasn't at the top. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but moving the MPL underneath a couple of fuel tanks used for the final stage made a huge difference to how stable it was, and as a result I just successfully docked a ship to a station in orbit around the Mun for the first time ever! :o) I had to transfer fuel to the docked ship because I messed up its design and completely failed to connect up two of three small tanks, but I'm actually happy that it gave me an additional reason for needing to actually get my head around docking - or at least I was when I finally succeeded!

On a related note, does anyone have any advice for how to get the Mobile Lab into orbit in (relatively) early career mode? I've not had trouble with my other rockets tipping over so far, butwhen I try to design something to lift the MPL into orbit, I find it's always tipping over. A long and thin design I tried made sense to me as to why it was tipping, but I've also tried building out, even putting my main fuel tanks either side of the MPL and having them feed across to a rocket underneath the MPL, and even that didn't work! I only just unlocked the science node with the MPL, so I'm missing lots of parts on the same tier, but as my current 'explore' contract is for docking on or around the Mun, I really wanted to try putting a basic Lab in orbit around the Mun as the start of a space station - which I could then dock to with a lander, to help maximise my science

I've been coming to these forums for a while and playing since Alpha was first available on Steam - always content to just be a lurker, but today I felt like posting this in case it amuses anyone even a fraction as much as it amused me! Today my 1.0 career progressed to the point where I could start putting together large(ish) rockets, and start doing the over-engineered beasts that I like, as they allow visiting multiple biomes, lots of spare fuel to do multiple survey contracts and lots to cover my inevitable mistakes! I had zero expectation that I'd actually be able to get this half-assed construction into orbit, given all of the outcry I've noticed over the aerodynamic and thermal changes made in 1.0, but it launched absolutely perfectly, the ascent profile was pretty much perfect, and my first stage still had enough fuel after circularizing the orbit to do half of the burn to get me to the Mun! "This is awesome" thinks I. "What on earth are people complaining about?". "1.0 is easy!".... and then I noticed that I'd forgotten to put any landing gear on my landing stage..... One quick revert and 3 bolted on legs later and my second launch pitched over way too much on ascent, flipped and went boom. My third try went up much too straight to start with and then I over-compensated and flipped it again. My fourth got into orbit but having used up way more fuel than my first try as I'd had to fight it all the way up to keep it semi-stable. So the take-away lesson for me of all of this was that whatever changes get made to the way stock parts handle is always less of a hazard to my missions than my own ability to forget essential parts!