Hupf

Ah Dres, the King of Asteroids.

*gosh* you mean like in real space craft?

At mach 6.8 One other related point: if you do have trouble with uncontrolled spinning or the craft not pointing in the desired direction (usually with a heat-resistant part in front, like a heat shield or in some cases an engine): put aerodymanic surfaces (tail fins etc) on the end you want pointing retrograde (i.e. opposite of the heat shield) and make sure mass is concentrated at the front (e.g. by pumping remaining fuel to the front-facing tanks). You will get a "shuttlecock" effect and the vessel will have a stable orientation.

Try to keep a horizontal flight profile instead of a vertical one (by not slowing down too much): you'll spend more time in the atmosphere, giving it more time to slow you down. Fine-tune your Periapsis between blowing up (too low, heating up too quickly) and blowing up (too high, too much time building up heat) Make your craft lighter. Light craft are more easily slowed down by the same amount of drag. Do this e.g. by appropriately burning fuel during descent Increase drag: use Airbrakes or try to steer such that larger surfaces are exposed to the airstream (if you don't go spinning wildly or exposing temperature-sensitive parts doing this)

As per information about your KSP version and which mods are installed would be helpful as well.

You can customize your Difficulty Options for Career: increase funds rewards, decrease decline penalty. Also have a look at the administrative strategy which I forget the name of - it decreases contact rewards and increases "world first" rewards proportionally. That way, you still get the contracts for ideas/funds, but don't have to rely on grinding for funds.

You may want to have a look at the RemoteTech mod.

https://www.xkcd.com/695/

With the Advanced Tweakables Setting enabled, that would be possible.

Since it was not mentioned yet: for more precise rotational alignment during in-orbit assembly, you can use multiple docking ports (e.g. on a bicoupler or carefully placed radially). In the VAB you cannot make multiple connections (i.e. having loops in the ship graph instead of it being a tree), but in space, you can.

As a german, I second this. Remember last time we tried to take over rocket science?

You can always design your craft in the career game, save it (doesn't cost funds). Then copy the .craft file to to the sandbox save and test it from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series

Instead of manually installing mods, you can force ckan to install them if deemed "incompatible" using the CLI: https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/wiki/User-guide#using-the-cli & https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/issues/881#issuecomment-104538090 Pro: if the mod gets updated, CKAN will automatically manage it in future (it would list, but not update manually installed mods AFAIK) Con: you have to get the package name from the GUI first and also would have to care yourself for any dependencies in the same way.

How about a Civ clone? Kerbal Politics: Using the Kerbal approach to strategic weaponry or why there is only KSC left on the planet.

So how much are you willing to pay for a coder's time on this then?

By risk of clarifying the obvious: you can easily set flags as your target from the map view, allowing you to take advantage of the appropriate navball markers for fine-tuning your landing/rendezvous.

Also, when building the lander, keep in mind the TWR. The lower it is, the longer it takes to slow down, making landing harder. Higher TWR engines are usually heavier and/or less efficient, so you'll want to compromise.

When performing the experiment, you select the "store" option. Then you dock the lander to the lab or "Take Data" via EVA, so that the experiment is stored somewhere in the vessel with the MPL. Then, you bring up the report again with "Review Data" and there you should have the button for transferring the report to the lab, even if it originally came from elsewhere.

Use one radial separator per SRB (mounted slightly above the SRB's CoM, using the offset tool, so that it will not collide so much on separation). Reinforce with struts as necessary instead of trying to use multiple separators. The struts will automatically disappear on detach (but you should start them at the part to be jettisoned because the starting part remains on the craft, consuming mass). €: oh sorry, forgot to refresh before posting

Now that you mention EA, I would actually be happy with one type of paid dlc (even fancy micro-transactions), The Sims style: what if you could pay for new parts that serve more of an aestetic purpose, i.e. that model real-world (or at least planned there) craft? Maybe even "license" stuff from well-known companies (Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, Boeing)?

Oh no, sorry, but this is abuse. You want room 12A, next door.

On lower orbits, your orbital period (time it takes for one "turn") is smaller (you're going faster) than on higher orbits. So if your target is "ahead" of you if you watch the map view, you want to switch to a lower orbit. If you're ahead, you want to "slow down" by switching to a higher orbit until the target catches up with you. To switch to a lower orbit, you lower your periapsis a little by orienting towards the retrograde marker (in "Orbit" mode on the navball, not in "Target" mode!) and doing a small burn, then repeating the same at the new periapsis to lower the apoapsis as well (though this circularizing is technically optional, it makes some things easier in the beginning). To switch to a higher orbit, you do the same but burn prograde instead of retrograde. So, a bit counter-intuitively, if your target is "in front" of you on the same orbit, you first have to burn "away" from it a little. Once you are on a slightly lower/higher orbit, wait for a few turns until the target has gotten closer, then return to the same orbit as the target. Once you upgrade your tracking station sufficiently, you'll be able to place maneuver nodes and preview the new orbits, as well as possible encounter locations with your target.