Hodari

I don't usually see any "impossible" contracts or even truly hard ones. Normally the worst ones I get are some of the very early career, overly specific part testing contracts(like testing a Juno at 25315-25335m and between 240-243m/s) or rescue contracts where they start out in a high, but manageable Kerbin orbit, but by the time you've actually gotten around to trying to rescue them, they got too close to the Mun and were ejected out of the Kerbin system altogether.

It actually DOES matter now in some cases, especially tourist contracts if you enable the G force limits. But I've usually been able to keep the G forces to reasonable levels just by adjusting the number of parachutes used. You basically just want the least possible amount of chutes you can get away with while still slowing you down to a survivable speed(and you'll probably want to use the least possible amount of chutes anyway to save on weight.)

As long as you have your parachutes set to "deploy when safe" (which is the default setting now), you can get away with using timewarp all the way down now, at least for smaller reentry craft(pod, heatshield, battery, experiment storage unit, and parachutes work fine for me). I usually just use normal timewarp from when I jettison my last engine stage until the reentry craft hits the atmosphere, then immediately go to physics warp, stage the chutes as soon as the icon turns red, and let SAS hold retrograde all the way down until 50 meters above the surface. For a slightly larger or less solidly built craft, you might want to come out of warp just before the parachutes open and before they fully deploy as well.

If anything, I'd say reentry is considerably EASIER now than it has been in the last few versions since I started playing, mostly due to the improvements to SAS. As long as you don't come in MUCH too steeply and you use a heatshield for anything beyond LKO, you should be fine.

Like so many things that would otherwise be good ideas for this game, this is ruined by the fact that time is completely meaningless.

Too Kerbal? No such thing unless you manage to make your rocket fit inside its own Kwarzschild radius.

Or for that matter, the wheel.

I'm getting the same null ref errors also. Seems to only be happening for tourists though. I'm also using Tourism Plus if that matters at all and the tourists were from one of those contracts. It happens regardless of whether the torusits are loaded onto the vessel from the VAB or from the launchpad

One does not simply transfer into Duna.

And this is a good example of why cut scenes would be difficult to implement in this game...nothing says you HAVE to land on Mun first, then go to Duna after that. It would be entirely possible to land on Duna first or even Eve(good luck returning from that one, but you could at least get there.)

I wouldn't exactly classify hauling an asteroid around like that as "easy science" (though if auto-strut works for them, it may have just gotten much easier than it used to be). By the time you're capable of doing that though, you've probably already unlocked most of the tech tree anyway and certainly are capable of reaching all of the other planets, which seems like a much easier way of getting whatever science you still need.

The game treats asteroids as a part and not as an actual world that you can land on.

Also make sure any radially attached boosters have enough struts to hold them in place. A lot of times for me, that sort of rotation seems to be because the boosters' thrust is pushing them out of alignment.

Start with Normal difficulty, Kerbals level up immediately, pressure and g limits on, always allow action groups, require signal for control, plasma blackout, Vacuum occlusion modifier to 1.00 Current playthrough is using Unmanned before Manned, TAC Life Support, and Bluedog Design Bureau along with a few visual mods. Will add KER once it's updated as well.

No, you don't need to build "stupid, ugly, glitchy ships" or walk around for hours. At least not on default difficulty settings or anything close to them. What you DO have to do is be smart about which contracts you take and especially which nodes you unlock in what order. At each step in your progression, think carefully about which things you will need for the next step and unlock those. Top priorities early on will be more science experiments and better rocket parts so you can get into orbit, then batteries and solar panels. Once you do get into orbit, just doing EVAs over each biome will give you a lot of science. And don't forget that you can also get science from high orbit as well before you need to move on to the moon. And from whatever biomes you land in or fly over on the way to and from space. As for contracts,only take ones which either are easy to complete or which you can accomplish on missions that you were planning to do anyway(or ones that look especially fun if you're not TOO worried about optimizing for efficiency). Read the fine print carefully. Part test on the launchpad? Easy, take it. Part test between 32500 and 32600m and between 200-275m/s? Skip it unless you want to abuse the fact that it unlocks that part until you complete the contract. As long as you're smart about these things, money should be no problem early on(world firsts alone will cover most of what you need even without taking a lot of extra contracts) and there's plenty of science available as well. You might need a couple "extra" missions early on to get all of it, but not a huge amount of grinding or building anything ridiculous.

MOST people probably never use mods at all. The people who use these forums or mods or anything like that are probably a very small minority. And it's hard to imagine any relevant functionality that isn't already covered by mods, let alone anything that COULDN'T be duplicated by them. The main reasons to buy paid DLC will probably be either people who don't know about mods or are unwilling to use them, the fact that DLC will be better integrated into the core game, or just simply a desire to support continuing development of the game.

Wingless planes land too. Doing so safely, now THAT is the hard part.

Largest tower you could build would be whatever the current physics range is(something like 20km, I think). Good luck actually putting together something of that scale though. And if you can build it, it would definitely work, but obviously just putting up a satellite would be much easier and give a lot more coverage. Still, if you're just looking for a fun idea for something new to do...

If the occlusion even on a world with atmosphere is set to 1.0, that's probably your problem. Keep in mind that Kerbin is much smaller than Earth, so the horizon will be closer. You'll probably need to bounce a signal off a satellite in order to use rovers.

Drills have been working perfectly fine for me, unless there was a newer patch that broke them. I was able to refuel all of my tankers just fine though. I have however run into a different problem(probably a bug). Seems like when using SAS to point the ship at Target, it's aligning it based on the center of mass rather than the part I'm actually controlling, even after using the Control From Here button. The navball markers look like they are lining up with where it SHOULD be pointing, but it actually aims the ship differently. This is particularly a problem with the way my Duna Lander is designed right now: Since there isn't actually anything AT the center of mass and I'm trying to control it from one of the 4 cockpits, it's ending up being WAY off on alignment when I'm trying to dock. Also, not sure if the shielded ports just aren't strong enough for ships this size to dock at all or if even my best attempts were still slightly misaligned, but after a few hours of trying, I was unable to get this and my refueling tankers to dock at all. Even when it looked like they were lined up perfectly and coming in at a range different speeds between 0.1 and 0.9m/s, they would just bounce off of each other. Any ideas other than having to redesign everything in order to use the Sr. ports instead?

Finding something that can safely land on Duna has been the part I'm having problems with so far. I'm using the prerelease version, so mods aren't an option for me. None of the stock landing legs seem to be strong enough. My best attempt was using an absolutely ludicrous number of parachutes(close to 200, I think) which was enough to slow it down so it could land on the engines, but then it tipped over if it landed on any kind of slope at all. I also tried something more like a spaceplane, but using only rocket engines. Again, was almost able to make it work, but the landing gear always failed. Will have to try again with a much wider vertical landing design when I have time. Mission update: Designs for the Duna Lander and Refueling Tanker have been completed, tested, and approved. The tankers are just BARELY capable of launching from Kerbin, flying to, and landing on Minmus on one load of fuel. The first 4 tankers have been sent to Minmus and are mining/refueling there. Tanker 3 touched down a bit hard at over 6m/s with ZERO fuel remaining, bur managed to survive and remain upright. Probably will be sending 4-8 tankers to the Duna system(mining/refueling on Ike) and another 4 staying in the Kerbin system and refueling from Minmus. The Duna lander is capable of launching from Duna into low orbit, returning to the ground, and refueling itself there, so will only possibly need the tankers for the initial trip to the Duna system. Mission update 2: All 8 tankers have landed on Minmus and started mining operations. The Duna Lander has also been successfully launched into LKO and is awaiting refueling.

First attempt completed: Total mass of spacecraft: 11.935t Mass without solar panels and science experiments: 11.885 Total science collected: 1553.7 Science from launchpad, atmosphere on the way up, LKO, high orbit, Mun flyby, polar orbit of Minmus, then escaped into solar orbit. ALMOST made it to Duna after that which would have been a lot more science too.

Can we assume that we should start this off as a new science/career mode game, use the cheat menu to unlock the tech tree, and then build/launch our vessel from there? Also, that equation seems like it gives more points for a LARGER vessel rather than a smaller one... I'd also say that ALL parts should be counted, including science experiments in the mass count. This makes it a bit more of a decision as to whether or not the mass of the experiment is worth bringing for the amount of science it provides. And finally, not sure how possible it is to make use of them within the mass limits, but might want to mention if ISRU and/or mobile labs are allowed, since those could allow nearly infinite science if someone can make effective use of them.

Even better, you can set SAS to retrograde during reentry and just leave it like that the whole time without completely killing your batteries

They take really good photographs? Yeah, if you've fully completed their contracts and they're still available, that sounds like a bug to me.