Prepper-Jack

What does the ascent look like in aerodynamic overlay mode? (F12 I believe)

Hard to say, as much depends on where you're doing your mining. In very low gravity areas like Minmus, a rocket based platform can be far more mobile and maneuverable. It's easy enough to build a mining rig that delivers ore to orbit, and makes its own fuel to make the run. If, however, you're in a more significant gravity area such as Mun or Duna, and are fueling a ground station, this kind of platform would work well. Fuel cells would work better for the outlying worlds I would imagine - where solar arrays aren't available (though it should be noted that max speed doesn't currently drain power anyway). I would definitely supplement with a couple gigantor solar arrays. As for the wheels buckling on the target planet - well, can only test it out I suppose. Anyway, like the design - got an industrial look to it.

This. SAS doesn't really engage in micro-movements as a whole, and frequently overshoots the target in a compensation. In lower atmosphere, you'll have to either tone down your control surfaces or remove gimbal and torque wheels to have a steady and controllable ascent. Aerodynamics causes issues at 150+ m/s there, and SAS will overcompensate. For a number of recent (relatively smaller) rockets of mine, I've been using small delta wings at the bottom - and it's much more stable than using tail fins. Also - reduce drag as much as possible to maintain stability. A long and thin rocket with little hanging on the outside is less likely to need SAS correction at all.

Depends how narrow the scan is, and how close you can get to the planet or moon, does it not? Did Kethane scanning tell you the exact orbit you need to get a complete picture in so-and-so number of passes? Exactly where is this "covered" in the game when currently all you do is put something in any-old polar orbit and leave it there for a split second? And the extra expense and challenge in getting larger payloads to the target, assuming you need extra equipment and the additional fuel required. A skilled navigator (one who could determine the appropriate orbits) would need less resources. And staying in the full light of the sun, depending on where you are, might not be the wisest approach if heat is more realistically modeled (unless you have engineered your craft to cope with this). It's a bit more complex than that in the real world, of course.. And my point is that much of the more advanced physics, and issues that real spacefaring deals with, would be nice to cover in advanced difficulty levels. I can see the issues in implementing a full gravitational model (though 2 or 3 body isn't entirely unfeasible if applied to small objects like ships and asteroids). But, basic issues of life support (food and O2), waste heat (already somewhat implemented on nukes), satellite relay systems, and all the other stuff already mentioned could be added to hard mode. When everything is added in, even simple probe missions do get more complex, interesting, and difficult. Difficult in a more fun way than "do 10 times more of this mission to get the same reward" that we currently have now. Difficult in a way that you can be proud you accomplished it.

More than waiting is necessary to get a complete scan from a polar orbit. A number of posts have explained exactly that, including mine, which you (conveniently) failed to quote the rest of.

Just an FYI - there's Tundra behind the KSC runway - about a minute on land at around 20 m/s IIRC.

It amuses me when people go off on rants where they claim nobody likes playing with "more realism" for added difficulty, and that the game should be entirely tailored to only their simplistic whims. To quote JFK: "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." I, and others, enjoy a more involved method of scanning for resources (among other things). Take into account factors such as orbits not picking up every sector (and many orbits never will), and it turns out you need more fuel for the same task of mapping, and/or be very shrewd about the orbits you take. Also, factor in that you'll need to be within sight of the sun for the duration, or have a tremendous battery capacity, as resource scanning should be fairly power intensive. Throw in waste heat as a mechanism, and that too becomes problematic, solved by adding mass (radiators), or navigationally. Add in decaying orbits as a result of the two most influential bodies - and it gets even more involved. Success then results in a feeling of accomplishment, and a good spike in the readings on the surface adds to the drama. In my opinion, the actual challenges of space flight should be more reflected as the game progresses in difficulty. "Easy" mode might do the baseline scan of a planet/moon instantly, where "Hard" might do it on a sector by sector basis in a narrow band. Surface scanning in easy might apply to the entire planet in Easy, where you would have to go sector by sector in Hard to get a precision spot to drill. As it stands, "Hard" mode doesn't really increase the difficulty of the game, just increases risk while reducing reward - which makes it more grindy. Relying entirely on the mod community to make your game more challenging, involved, and fun for a rather large segment of the community seems to be a poor way to go about it.

Yeah, this gets me every time. Playing a probe-only hard-mode game (so far), and Jeb is constantly hopping in the rescue wagon hoping for some action. Poor guy.

I had thought asteroids had a 90% ore rating, or thereabouts. They can be more quickly mined, therefore, than other bodies - but unlike other bodies, they can be depleted.

Speaking for myself: I really do like the mining and refining mechanics of the game so far. If I had to change anything, however, it would be to bring back some level of detail for those who want a more "realistic" experience - and put it in the higher difficulty levels. So, in effect, "Hard" mode players would have to contend with taking their time in scanning a planet/moon (with associated course variations as needed), and dealing with issues of heat waste from mining, conversion, and solar radiation. That is, as long as parts are included to counteract such things. Such things present an engineering/design challenge (and in the scanning, a navigational one) that make the game a bit more difficult, and less grindy than the current way hard mode is presented to us (higher risk, lower reward).

If you decline enough contracts, I'm sure there will be some new rescue missions available at some point. They might not be as easy as rescuing from low Kerbin orbit, but they'll be available.

Have to agree with Skorpychan. Terriers should be the go-to engine for most small loads in 30k+ atmosphere and space. I even use them on my 120 ton mining rigs. They're cheap, light, and very fuel efficient. Use a swivel on the lower stage with a couple good fuel cans, and I'm sure you'll get a better result.

Doesn't .5 ore convert to roughly 1 LF unit (or .5 LF+.5 OX)? If so, that's 18k liquid fuel - almost two of the big MK3 tanks. Or a few Rockomax Jumbos, if you go that route. Doesn't seem bad at all, unless you have unlimited funds to ship everything from Kerbin.

Yeah - I wonder. If you attach to the science outpost with a vessel that has a grabbing unit and antenna - will it transmit? Personally, I'd just revert (and have, from the same mistake).

Hmm. My only problems with the service bay have come when I've stuck objects close to the doors - inside or out of the bay. Hard to see the service bay layout in your picture - but it seems like there's one object on the right side that might be the culprit?

I would personally go with a Poodle over the Skipper on your lander stage, wrapped with Terriers on the outside tanks, in an Asparagus setup. That should set you safely down on Minmus from LKO. Launching that mass up there would probably need a Skipper, and an asparagus setup of Reliants or Swivels to boot.

Transmission rate is the big thing. If you have a probe (or even a lander) with a ton of experiments, and want to (or have to) move on to the next biome asap, it can be helpful to transmit more quickly. Of course, this comes at a cost. The highest end antenna expends almost twice as much energy per packet spent as the prior models. I typically use the original antenna for most missions - and then really only to transmit EVA and crew reports. Interplanetary probes get the second option.

Hmm. When landing, I spend a fair amount of time in navigation mode, and watching where the trajectory is taking me as I burn retrograde. If I'm comfortable that the current speed and trajectory is safe, I'll time-warp a bit to trim it up even more, and repeat the process until I have a vertical path to the target. When in normal view, I just keep an eye as to what is below. Zoom in nav-mode usually helps ensure you don't hit the edge of smaller craters, but sometimes you hit a lump that's apparent only when you get down there. When this happens, just speed up a bit to stop descent, change course slightly, then start your retrograde course to the ground.

As far as I can tell, this is right. When I found out the second decoupler wasn't really attached to anything, I switched to a single decoupler. Noticed my side engines started flying into the main in turns with regularity in even relatively light turns - at least when more than a single long fuel tank was involved. I went back to a more uniform decoupling method since then, and I notice less trouble. It may not be connected, but it still seems to be applying some ejection force. Sepratrons are still preferable on deeper turns when ejected mass is on the topside - though I tend to avoid them as you should use 4 of them per stack, and each is heavier than a decoupler.

Well, what I did last night with this situation might be considered a little gamey - but it can be done. Basically, set the autopilot to retrograde, went EVA with my lone crew (Bob) to behind the engine, and just pushed with RCS until down to 2 units of RCS, then went back to the capsule and repeated the process until I got an aerocapture orbit. But, I was already close as it stands at ~120k - process might not be altogether helpful if you're way out there.

Well, for a while I kept getting tourists who wanted a sub-orbital trajectory on the sun. I did oblige once, but alas, there was no return trip due to too little delta.

Besides what's already been mentioned... they can be used to get a small to mid-size rocket to around 10km @ 300m/s at the trajectory of your choosing, for very little cost in fuel. The main booster can even suck the remaining fuel before jettisoning, provided you throw some fuel lines between them. It's a costly launch option, but an option nonetheless.

Try throwing a bunch of tail fins on the bottom?

Well, at the start of my latest career run I loaded up the rep->cash policy to 25%. When I got the funds, I upgraded the building to the next level and took the rep->science policy at around 50%. I found this to be kind of nice, as it slowed the curve for harder missions, and gave me enough science to rapidly progress in tech. I chose to stay on Kerbin for a while during tech-up, doing suborbital tourist runs and parts testing primarily. Survey missions didn't yield much of anything for the time invested, other than whatever science I could scrape out of it with experiments. By the time I entered orbit for the first time, I had accumulated all of the 90 science level techs (and it didn't take all that much time). While my reputation was fairly low, it wasn't an issue really. As soon as I got into orbit the first time, I got missions to go to Mun - then Duna, Minmus. Same as usual. To be honest, I think better missions more commonly come with opening up new technologies and completing building upgrades. For example, as soon as I capped the tracking station at L3, I got 3 star missions to capture asteroids and recover parts from the orbit of the Sun.

Well, wouldn't it be better to land and get access to more data via thermometer/barometer/seismograph/materials bay/goo/crew report? It's not like landing on Minmus takes vast amounts of fuel. Think I made 5 landings in one trip last night on a mid-game lander. I mean, I suppose it's a fun thing to do - but... if you can't land it seems more an act of desperation than an exploit..