Hodari

0. If I'm going to make a permanent base at all, it'll be on Minmus. Lower gravity, more science, and plenty of perfectly flat ground all make it much better than the Mun.

You want that for airplanes, but not for rockets. I never even worry about the CoA on rockets. And you really need to do everything you can to keep the mass down, so don't try to bring EVERYTHING with you on every mission. Think about what you really need and bring only that. Remember that more mass in your payload means you will need more fuel(and possibly even a more powerful engine) in your final stage...which then means even MORE mass that the previous stage will need to lift, meaning that it will need to be even larger. And so on for every stage. It's not nearly as bad as real life(where it costs thousands of dollars per pound of payload), but still something you want to think about.

It's going to vary a little bit with each rocket design, so it'll take some practice and it's hard to give overly specific instructions. Make sure your TWR is reasonable(somewhere between 1.2-1.8 is probably good) and start your turn at about 50-100m/s to start out with, see how it goes, and then if it didn't work, make adjustments and try again from there.

This one should definitely be Mohemian...

I'm pretty sure that in order to do this, you would need to be entering the planet's SOI while already in the same plane as the target orbit, which in most cases WON'T be possible since the inclination you enter from will be determined by where you're coming from. The best you can do would probably be to get as low a Pe as possible and do a capture burn to a highly elliptical orbit with the Ap at the ascending/descending node, then correct your inclination there, and finally adjust your Ap and Pe to the desired heights.

You could also send up empty tanks though along with sending an ISRU rig to Minmus and using that to fill the tanks. May or may not be cheaper initially that way, but if you're building a station anyway, you'll eventually probably want to be able to use it for refueling like that, so might as well take a contract for it.

As I understand it, that part is usually only required if there is question as to whether or not the challenge is actually possible to do. This one clearly is possible. On the other hand, the challenge is also so poorly defined that it's pretty much meaningless at this point. OP, please read the Challenge Submission Guide and think things through more and post a LOT more details like how scoring would work, what you even consider to be a "station" for this challenge, and what mods are allowed or not.

Assuming you mean that no "active" means of slowing down are allowed, I'm pretty sure the only way you'll survive at all would be to make use of aerobraking to slow down as much as possible(which already narrows it down to only a few possible worlds you could do this on) and then a "crumple zone" of sacrificial parts to slow the capsule down enough for it to survive the actual impact. And using aerobraking kinda defeats the whole "full force" idea, as well as menaing that everyone who does succeed would basically be hitting at about the same speed. Also, would need to specifiy what difficulty options to use, since things like part G limits could make a big difference.

Pressure mechanics would take care of it if they removed the option to have parts destroyed when pressure limits are exceeded and made that mandatory instead. As long as that option can be disabled(even if it was only through the cheat menu), they need something else to prevent you from going below a certain altitude.

It definitely is fun and even more interesting now with the new comm system, especially if you use the option to require signal for any probe control at all, disable extra groundstations, and/or increase the occlusion modifiers a bit.

Ion engines are probably going to be the way to go for that one. You might also consider raising your Ap even higher than the final required orbit, doing the retrograde burn, and then dropping it back down and see if that would be more efficient, but either way, it's going to take a LOT of dV to do this one. Just set up the maneuver, start your burn, turn on physics warp, and go afk for a while or watch youtube or something while waiting. Might take a long time, but it's actually a pretty easy contract otherwise.

There's a newer version called Unmanned Before Manned which worked up until 1.2.x. at least. Not sure if it's been officially updated for the most current version, but last time I checked, it worked except for one empty tech tree node blocking progress(which could be fixed by editing a couple things easily enough.)

Actually, no....that is NOT what the challenge said. It was "Get a space plane into a orbit (it doesn't have to be perfect) using only air breathing engines. " Now, if you DO allow those other methods you mentioned AND if you can get your Ap high enough first, I'll agree that it might be possible. Not sure you actually can get the Ap high enough though for just decouplers to be enough and either way...

Depending on exactly how you define the rules and whether or not there is some bug or exploit you could use, there may be some very SMALL chance that there is some way to do this "challenge", but there is certainly no way to do it that actually complies with the spirit of it.

Can't complete the POLL because of the lack of good choices for question 3.

Also obviously, try to land someplace that's as flat as possible. For Minmus, this is easy enough as there are huge areas that are perfectly flat. For the Mun, it's a little bit harder, but there's still plenty of good landing spots. And even a 10 degree slope is fine with a decent lander. Using KER might also help since it can tell you what the slope of the ground beneath you is, along with some other useful info like time to impact and what height to begin a suicide burn from. I'd definitely suggest practicing on Minmus first since it's a lot more forgiving and then once you get that down, try the Mun next. It takes a lot of practice, but you'll get it eventually.

After being trapped in a small capsule with Jeb for any mission more than a couple hours long, they're probably breathing that much methane anyway...

I think this would be the best reason to add multiple bases. If nothing else, it would add a few more options for missions using early plane tech. Right now, planes might be fun if you're into that sort of thing, but for practical purposes, they're almost useless until you get far enough into the tech tree to be able to do spaceplanes(at which point, you're almost done with the tree anyway).

Yeah, it definitely should be optional and possibly default to being turned off entirely on lower difficulty settings, but would be nice to at least have it available in stock.

Stock KER, life support, and more planets. A bunch of topics from people complaining that the update broke all their favorite mods. And a bunch more topics asking what people think will be in 1.3.1 or 1.4.

None. They're pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned. I tried out the one for converting science to funds once, but the amount you get back is so tiny, it doesn't make any real difference and by the time you've unlocked the tech tree(or even gotten to interplanetary missions), funds don't seem to be much of an issue anymore either.

There's also the fact that one "mission" could fulfill several different contracts. You could "test part at launch site", "haul another piece of junk to 18km at 500m/s", "gather science from LKO", "fly-by the Mun", "orbit Minmus", and "plant a flag on Minmus" all by launching one rocket. Each of those would be a separate contract, but all part of the same mission.

You do have to be VERY careful with these contracts though and make sure you understand exactly what is required before accepting them. If it's just testing the part at the launch site, it's basically free money and almost always worth taking early on in your career. Sometimes though, you'll get a contract that asks you to test the part at a very specific speed and altitude(which may be almost impossible to match both at the same time) or to test it someplace where you would normally never use that part(like using an SRB while in orbit around Minmus). Contracts like this are probably not worth even attempting. Also note that there are two types of these contracts. Some will just require you to have the part in your vessel under the required conditions(these will usually say "Haul PartX to...") while others will require you to actually TEST the part under those conditions, which means for things like engines, you need to activate them through staging(just throttling to 0% and then back up won't work) and for other parts like heat shields, you need to right click the part and select Run Test while ALL of the conditions are still being met(and again, note that in some cases this may be a VERY narrow range of speed and altitudes, leaving you very little time). Obviously, the "Haul" contracts are a bit easier. As for more general advice, just be smart about which contracts you choose and try to pick ones that you can complete by doing missions you were planning to run anyway or combine multiple contracts into one mission. Try to be as efficient as possible with designing your spacecraft. As mentioned above, just the advance payment on many contracts will be enough to cover the cost of the craft needed to complete it. And finally, keep in mind that this is mostly an issue early on in the game. The biggest thing you need to worry about is upgrading all of your buildings. Fortunately, you'll also be getting a lot of money from World First bonuses at this point which should covers a lot of those upgrade costs.

I usually use the shielded docking port. Aerodynamic shape, high heat tolerance, and it serves a useful function as well.

If you're not worried about being especially efficient about it(and for stock game at least, you really don't need to be), then just do the following: 1. Launch your craft into orbit. Any stable orbit will do for now. 2. Set the other vessel as target. 3. Warp to either the ascending or descending node and burn anti-normal/normal in order to match the target's inclination. 4. Warp to your periapsis or apoapsis and burn until your orbit intersects the target's orbit in at least one point. By now, you should see a 'closest approach' marker on your map. 5. If the target is behind you in its orbit, you'll want to put yourself into a higher orbit so you take longer to go around and it can catch up to you. If it's ahead of you, you want to be in a lower orbit so you catch up to it, if possible(but don't forget that you need to stay high enough to not enter the atmosphere, so if you can't go any lower, you'll have to put yourself into a higher orbit instead and wait until you circle all the way around relative to the target). 6. From your closest approach point, do a burn to put yourself into the appropriate orbit described in step 5. Watch the separation distance shown at that closest approach point. The greater the difference between your orbit's height and the target's, the faster you will catch up to it, but you'll also be moving faster relative to the target when you do approach it and need more dV to slow down. There's usually no rush, so don't be afraid to spend several orbits slowly approaching your target like this. 7. Keep time warping ahead to just after you pass the closest approach point and watch what the distance will be for your next orbit. When it shows you getting reasonably close to the target on your next orbit(or passing it altogether), burn either prograde or retrograde to adjust this distance and try to get it as close as possible(ideally under 1km). You might also need to do a slight correction burn on exactly the opposite side of your orbit to get it as close as possible. 8. Once you have the close encounter set up, warp ahead to a couple minutes before that encounter. You should now be close enough to see the target and will no longer need map mode. From here on, switch to the craft view and you can do everything visually or with the navball. 9. Switch the navball to target mode and point retrograde. Burn your engines until you get your relative velocity down to under 10m/s. If you're planning to actually dock, click on the port you want to use and select 'control from here'. Now set SAS to point towards Target and turn on your RCS. All remaining maneuvers can be done with that. 10. Maneuver so that the prograde marker is exactly aligned with your target marker(meaning that you are now moving directly towards the target). 11. (Optional)If you're planning to dock, switch to the target vessel, select the docking port on that ship and point it directly towards the other ship as well, then switch back to controlling your other vessel. 12. Keep SAS set to point at target and continue adjusting the prograde marker to keep it aligned with the target marker as you approach. Also as you get closer, reduce your approach velocity so you don't overshoot (or worse yet, collide with) the target. I usually keep it to 10m/s when I'm within 1km of the target, 2-5m/s when within 100m, and all the way down to 0.2m/s for the last few meters. If you're not actually docking and just doing a rescue contract, you can stop 20 meters or so away and just EVA across from there. If you're trying to be more efficient about things, or course you'll want to try to wait until the target is going to be passing overhead and launch into the right inclination to begin with as well as timing it so you end up close to the target right when you get into orbit. But since time doesn't matter much and it's easy to make a ship with plenty of dV to spare, this isn't required. For targets in equatorial LKO, I'd say launch when the target is over the ocean just before the continent the KSC is on and you should be fairly close. The exact spot will depend on your ascent profile, so adjsut accordingly from there.