Waxing_Kibbous

As the OP is experienced already, if you are getting no good contracts early on but have some decent tech do a moon (either one) flyby, orbit, and/or landing. You'll get the world first dough and it will open up a new level of contracts. No need to wait for these to show up as a goal, if you can do even a simple Mun flyby that is a good kickstart on better contracts. Ouch! I both agree and disagree with that- some career things, like rescues, are more fun than infinite L5 Kerbals IMO, and having some constraints can make something more fun. That being said, I watch some KSP YT vids and think to myself that I am a boring human being and am not doing this game right

I look forward to it- the idea of designated living space seems both interesting and humane

Lately I've been bringing my entire lander back into Kerbin- no heat shields, just the terrier and the bottoms of fuel tanks taking the heat (sometimes I do lose the landing gear though if I'm too aggressive). Landing the whole unit is easy enough, just a burst from the terrier for a bit before landing and Bob Kermin's your uncle. I find if you can get your orbit to under 80Km then head on in helps a lot to keep things from exploding- coming in hot from Minmus with a 25Km Pe on the other hand...

Obviously, nobody here knows how to deliver a rover properly (quite possibly the ugliest craft I ever built- it did work though!)

+1 Snark and Slashy- I generally keep the bottom of the SRBs either level with or below the LFO engines, and the decoupler is about 1/4 of the way down on the SRB, with a strut holding at about 3/4 of the way down. *If you don't know how to do this use the translate tool in the VAB to move the SRBs down on the decoupler because it's tough to attach them properly anywhere but the middle

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/94581-104-k2-command-pod-two-kerbal-stock-alike-pod-v133/&page=1 works (mostly) in 1.05- it sinks like a rock in the new water. Other than that, a definite must-have (if you want just the pod only)

The concept is pretty simple- life support would be in the form of habitation modules that require only electricity. An example of balance would be: 1 day without power (in any module, command pod, lander can, or habitat) equals Kerbal death (or MIA, or USI-LS tourist mode), 1 week without a adequately powered habitat module would equal the same fate. The habitat modules act as long term life support and living space for Kerbals, if you want to get into the imaginary details one could say that the units break down Kerbal Krap, hair, and skin cells into their base atoms and reassemble them into tasty hot chicken wings and sauerkraut pierogis. The overall benefit is that it would simply add an element of LS along with the idea of a proper living space for our intrepid Kerbonauts. An example of possible units: 1.25m- single and double habitats (inline and/or radial attachable) 2.5m- 3 and 4 kerbal habitats (hitch-hiker can can be used for the 4 kerbal unit) Bonus 3.75m- 6 kerbal habitat So 3, maybe 4 new units + the coding end. I have a bit of Blender experience (but am a bit rusty, it's been a few years), and if anyone with some modding chops thinks this is a cool idea and wants to give it a shot I can chip in with modelling and texturing, but I'll need some initial guidance on the technical requirements (poly counts/mesh standards, UV layouts, etc.) at first.

I'm pretty sure you will lose the science this way- once Jeb collects the science and re-enters the capsule the science gets stored in the capsule. When you leave it again you have to grab it, which will be pretty hard because EVAing from a fast moving object blows the Kerbal right off, and the capsule will get destroyed. There are only 2 ways to get Jeb and the science back- an orbital rescue mission or getting very lucky during a lithobrake. It sounds like the craft is in Kerbin orbit.

I love this mod, but it tends to bring my game to a crawl when I bring up the maps- maybe because of the animations? Is there a way to optimize the map views to keep things snappy?

You will need lots of luck, but have Jeb collect all the science from the experiments and take them to the command pod, and like others have said take the whole unit in and try to slow it down as much as possible with the terrier, and land on the terrier- if you are lucky the pod will be rolling around when the smoke clears. Your batteries will explode so you could very well run out of power on the way down- next time put them high up on the command pod (next to the chute ).

Nice, you have a great set of mods in the USI series. I have a question about the nom-o-matics which probably has been answered here already- does having more help, or is it only a one to one ratio, eg. if I have 2 crew and 4 units do I get more life support time?

I have to admit it'd be cool to have some high performance rally car class parts that run on LFO Quick question, is there a way to lock the W key down when going forward long distances? Rover for base assembly https://youtu.be/yxScp2ZymSU?t=47 Great YT channel BTW

Be very careful with editing the save file if you go that route- back it up somewhere safe, because even seemingly minor changes can nuke your game. I would say don't do it, and if Jeb is simply "MIA" (depends on game settings) he will be back in the lineup in a few days anyway, although missing any experience gained.

I like the idea of a part that can act as a validator for exp- perhaps to balance it it would need to transmit experience data, then X amount of time later receive it from Kerbin to make it official. Come to think of it this would be a cool mod. The kerbal has to be there for broadcast, but can leave and do other things while the application gets approved- when it is approved they then have to enter the pod to become upgraded.

Good luck! I've never landed on Duna either and have been thinking all day today that I would give it a go over the next couple of long weekends

OT, but as a history fun fact in the mid-80s when I was in elementary school we had something called "Metric Mondays" where every Monday the math class was centered (or the metric spelling, "centred" ) around the metric system.

Great concept, thanks for making this!

I would guess you are running out of electric charge and the reaction wheels stop working. Also, from my experience the danger zone is between 1500-1000m/s for potential control loss on re-entry- be careful during those times.

Wow really, this is a common thing? If I recall in the tracking station you can see potential contract satellite orbits and location markers, but not kerbal orbits (I've had some outside the moon but they were not crossing paths). I will have to either not accept them or accept them then do them right away from now on... (it's actually odd that something like this would happen within a year of a 5 year contract, could this qualify as a bug?).

I had a rescue contract that initially started in an eccentric, pretty big orbit around Kerbin- fast foward about a month and I think ol' Clautine got a gravity assist into interplanetary orbit: It's seems as though it's going to take way more dV than I can muster to catch her, also I haven't done much interplanetary flying at all so I'm at a bit of a tough spot here, any tips would be appreciated.

Pretty sure there is an airlock in this set http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/82833-104-stockalike-station-parts-expansion-04062015-bugfixes/

If anyone is still confused about current Kerbal experience and how to get it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUD6883ZMCo

The issue with simply "adding multiplayer" is that it adds a whole level of complexity onto the dev team- more code to maintain (and probably a lot of it rewritten), server infrastructure, security issues, etc. I don't really get as a science/exploration game how MP would add much if anything at all (space races?), and as far as war games go they are a dime a dozen, plus the fact that a war game designed as a war game from the ground up will obviously be a better experience than a game hacked into one. I would guess 99% of people playing KSP would rather see more effort going into single player in the form of parts, planets, stability/optimizations, user experience, utilities, and refinements in general. There is a saying in coding- the first 90% takes 10% of the time, and the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time

Ha yeah, I was thinking "Oh great, after everything I'm going to smash into the mountains," but this junkheap decelerated quite nicely

In 1.04 you could go straight up and down, not so much any more. Try cranking it over to the right so you get a decent arc happening- this is especially important when you go suborbital. Also you could try to rotate the craft so more surface area is available to slow it (I only recommend this at less than 1000m/s). *from my experience anyway