bewing

Check to see if you have parts autostrutted. Especially across the docking port (Root Node autostruts). That is the most common cause of explosions or shaking on docked craft. Turn off all the autostruts as fast as you can after you focus on the craft in orbit. (As spricigo said, "decouple node" is normal for your first undocking.)

If you fly it just right, you can make it just barely work.

No, I mean this:

Have you seen the promos for the upcoming version? It should be out soon, but maybe not soon enough for this little problem of yours?

I don't know anything about Mac OS, but in general: You open the Object Thrower window and leave it open! Click the "Arm" checkbox. Aim with the cursor. And middle mouse button (as antipro said) to shoot.

The advanced nosecones have more mass, but significantly lower drag. So using them depends on how much time you will be spending flying through the atmosphere, and whether you can decouple/discard them once you reach space.

If you got the game from Steam, it will download all of the most recent versions when you click "install" or "play".

The Aldrin Cycler is a 3 body gimmick. The craft is in orbit of the Sun, and visits two bodies orbiting the Sun during the cycle. So you could make a cycler in Kerbin orbit, going between Minmus and the Mun. But Kerbin is the primary in this case, so it's not theoretically possible for it to be part of an Aldrin cycle -- unless your craft is in orbit of Kerbol, going between Kerbin and another planet (Duna, Dres, Jool, Eve, etc.).

The navball has several modes, orbit, surface, and target. When you change modes, your navball will move. Additionally, your navball "points" in the same direction as the controlling part on your rocket. If you change which part is controlling your rocket, your navball will move. Beyond that, there is something call SAS that is sort of attached to your navball. You activate it with the T key. It also has multiple modes. It involves the little buttons to the left of the navball, which change the SAS modes. Using SAS is vital to flying your rocket. SAS steers your rocket for you, according to the markers on your navball. If you don't understand SAS, you need to watch tutorials on it -- because it is so extremely important.

There is a button in the editor for changing "symmetry". In the VAB, you can change symmetry to add 2, 3, 4, 6, or 8 parts at one time -- just as long as the parts are added symmetrically around your rocket.

That's totally easy to do on the runway. Especially if all you want to do is attach an SRB stage to the bottom of a SSTO spaceplane. The runway is perfectly flat, so it's easier to do there than on the grass. You'd have to launch a piece, drive it off the runway (because the runway is locked as long as something is parked on it), launch the second piece, drive the first piece back on to the runway, dock, and then launch. Trying to do it for a vertically launched rocket would be a huge undertaking, and probably not worth it. Moving something completely off the launchpad and then back on again sounds extremely difficult.

You save the game, do the burn once, write down all the numbers and angles, reload the game, and do it again "for real".

Prograde is always the most efficient. But without significant computation, you can't pre-plan the exact outcome of a pure prograde burn. Burning exactly with the maneuver node gets you a known outcome, but it is not maximally efficient. But your last statement is mostly correct -- it really does not make that much difference. As I recall, the absolute worst-case result is the square root of 2 worse than an optimally efficient burn. (ie. 41%) And most burns are much better than that. Usually only a few percent worse than optimal.

"Activate Navigation" adds the waypoint marker to the Navball. When you get there, not only does the marker on the Navball start blinking, but you also get a message at the top of your screen, "You are now entering Sector 1-8VS Alpha". You get the screen message even if you do not activate navigation. Depending on the number of stars on the contract, the size of the area that counts as being "good enough to work" gets larger and smaller. I find that the screen message is easier to watch for, than watching for the Navball marker to flash. When you take the correct measurement at the site, the Navball marker will stop blinking, and you will get a "Contract Specification Completed" message in your Messaging App. It's often a good idea to verify both things. If you fail to make the proper measurement while you are at the site, you will get a "You are now leaving Sector 1-8VS Alpha" message, which means it's too late and you need to try again. The whole point of these "Survey" contracts is to get you to explore the area a bit. So yes, the waypoint markers are only intended to get you close to the target. Then, especially for contracts asking for ground measurements, you need to be prepared to drive around a bit. So expect to need a rover or airplane. When you take one measurement of a set in a contract, the game will automatically update the Navball to point to the next closest waypoint of the contract.

Not except for holding onto a ladder. It's a fundamental rule of orbits that if two objects are at any distance from each other, then they will accelerate apart. It's gentle, but inexorable.

I see you have MechJeb. Isn't having the game play itself for you, exactly what MJ is for?

Your game may be corrupted. You may want to do a file validation from Steam, if you bought the game on steam.

The contracts you are offered are based on your reputation. At the beginning of the game, when your reputation is below 200, the only contracts you will ever get are survey contracts, tourist contracts, and part test contracts. The game requires that you do some actual grindy work before you get fun contracts.

There is a difference between a "direct" antenna, and a "relay" antenna. Relay antennas talk to each other. Direct antennas do not. The 88-88 is a direct antenna, and you cannot build a network with it.

Besides all the direct answers to the question that you have been given, it is also possible to find all the easter eggs without cheating. The KerbNet functionality that all probe cores have will eventually show you the locations of all of them, if you are patient and spend hours watching the display. In fact, there is one easter egg per CB that is in a random location, and the only way you will find it is to use Kerbnet.

Afraid not. The cheapest seats that work are the MK1 crew cabins, which seat 2 apiece.

You can save or move your copy of v1.10 somewhere else on your disk. Downgrading requires dl'ing almost the entire thing anyway. But yes, even if you downgrade your current copy to v1.8, you can upgrade it back to current at any time.

In the stock game, if you follow them all the way down until they land, they are definitely always there. I don't know why you are having trouble seeing them in the tracking station, but I am pretty confident they still exist and can be recovered.

How much fuel do you have in it? Or alternately, what's it's mass? Those cessna wheels you are using have very low weight tolerances. My guess is that you've greatly exceeded them. Try taking 90% of the fuel out of the craft, then see if it lands correctly. From your design, it looks like your landing speed should be below 30m/s, and make sure you touch down as much like a feather as you can. Don't slam your plane down onto the ground.

If you right-click the base of the fairing, a window will pop up. On the window will be a button that says "Build Fairing" (cofia construir, or something like that). That is how you activate it to begin.