Hodari

Not to mention being able to be built almost instantly. I always pictured them as having something similar to the replicators on Star Trek. General-purpose ones capable of making any item require a facility the size of the VAB or SPH, though a smaller "portable" version capable only of recycling waste matter into snacks is built into all crewed pods. Once the part pattern is perfected(through researching the appropriate tech node), that part can be replicated instantly and perfectly every time, so the only difficult part of rocket design is figuring out how to put those parts together in the right way. In fact, a whole semester in the engineering program is devoted solely to "Which way is up?", despite which they STILL occasionally get this wrong when placing decouplers or docking ports.

In that case, you basically just launch into an orbit first and then follow the same instructions. Ideally, wait until the target's orbit is directly above you and then follow a launch trajectory that will put you on the same inclination as the target. If you're launching from the equator and the target is on an equatorial orbit(which is often the case when using the stock KSC), you can launch at any time and be in the correct inclination, so you can then try to time it so when you do reach orbit, you're already as close to the target as possible.

Slightly off-topic, but after a few attempts, I managed to get this communications satellite into LKO for under 2k funds. m

Yeah, definitely impressive. I had figured the cost could easily be cut to something like 12k, but not quite THAT low.

Need to fix that link there

Why choose one or the other? The true Kerbal way is to send a rescue mission, then send a refuel mission since the rescue craft also ran out of fuel, then send a second refuel mission since the first refueler also didn't have enough fuel and had to take some of the fuel that it was originally bringing to refuel the other vessels with and use that fuel instead just to get there...and finally send another rescue mission to bring back the crews of the refuelers.

I'd say flyby/orbit Mun first, then flyby/orbit Minmus, then land on Minmus, then land on Mun would make the most sense as far as difficulty is concerned. Of course, if you have any contracts available for either of them, you might want to change the order to complete them. Also worth noting that you don't necessarily HAVE to match Minmus' inclination in order to get an intercept(though it certainly does help). As long as your ascending/descending node is reasonably close to the spot where you need to perform your injection burn, you can probably get close enough for an encounter even if you're starting in an equatorial orbit. Might take a bit more playing around with maneuver nodes in order to find just the right spot though. You'll definitely want to learn how to match inclinations eventually anyway before you try to do interplanetary missions or orbital rendezvous, so might as well get some practice on it now.

Either MechJeb or KER would be the only absolute "must have" mod for a new player. KJR might be a good idea as well, especially if you're planning to build anything particularly large. After that, a lot of it depends on what exactly you're planning to do or what parts of the stock game you don't like. Various contract packs, mods that add more planets, and rescaled solar systems are good options to look at eventually, but I'd say start with the stock game first and only move on to those after you've mastered the basics.

That used to be what I used as well, but in the last couple patches I've had problems coming in that slowly. Seems like it doesn't grab it and just bounces off at that speed and I've had better luck at 0.3m/s lately, so might try that instead.

Unless you're being FAR too picky about which missions you take, I don't think this should be a problem. Early on, I usually have no trouble finding at least a few contracts that can be completed on the missions I wanted/needed to do next anyway. And even if I don't get a contract for the next place I wanted to go, the World First bonuses will probably cover the cost. Later on, it's easy to save up so much extra money that you don't really have to worry about it. Either way, just check what contracts are available before each mission, take the ones you like or the ones you can complete without having to go too far out of your way, and then do your mission and check back again after that to see what new ones are available. Not to mention that there are tons of mods which provide their own sets of contracts and allow you to disable certain types of stock contracts.

I'd say there's nothing wrong with having them, but fi they're going to have something that obviously constructed, it should come with some sort of backstory. Who constructed them and why? Was it some ancient pre-Kerbal civilization or even aliens? What happened to them? They don't even necessarily have to ANSWER all of these questions, but at least address them in some way. This could even be the reason why the KSC was constructed where it was, in order to study the first monolith more closely, and then once they realized that there were more monoliths like it on other worlds, that could be one of the main motives for developing their own space program.

This. I'd say basically, assume that whoever built the KSC chose that location precisely because it was particularly flat. Therefore, you can make the surrounding areas as flat as possible for a realistic NATURAL environment, but not absolutely perfect. The level 1 runway should represent a dirt runway and even it should clearly be better to land on than the surrounding areas. Rely on size/weight limitations and the size of the runway itself to give us a reason to upgrade it ir maybe even add in something like ILS for the level 3 runway.

And that's the problem. They SHOULD be. Doesn't need to be perfect, but if the balance is so off that no one wants to use a part at all, then it needs to be adjusted a bit. Especially since the fix in this case seems pretty obvious and easy to do. Just drop the mass to something more reasonable.

No need to stack them. You just need to make sure your reentry is done at the right angle. For a normal rocket, somewhere around 30km periapsis is probably good. Don't try to bring back TOO much stuff, only the parts you actually need. If you're trying to bring back parts that stick out to the sides(especially things like mystery goo containers or radial parachutes), placing them further up might help. And finally, especially when coming back from the Mun or further away, if you have any fuel left over in your final stage, do a burn just before reentering the atmosphere somewhere in between retrograde and radial out so that you're lowering your apoapsis as much as possible while still keeping your periapsis at the desired altitude. Burn off the last of your fuel before dumping that stage. If you're still talking about a spaceplane instead, then you'll want to keep your Pe MUCH higher for reentry(probably starting somewhere around 50-60km instead) and keep your craft pointing at Radial Out for as long as possible so you're bleeding off as much speed as you can before dropping lower down into the atmosphere. And yeah, the Mk2 is probably the worst one for that now. I like either the inline Mk1 or Mk3 with a shielded docking port on the front since the port has a very high heat tolerance AND is useful for its intended purpose as well.

KER is the only mod I'd say is absolutely essential(or you can use Mechjeb instead if you prefer) for the deltaV and TWR readouts. For anything beyond that, it's really up to you and what you're looking for in the game. I don't think ANY mods will improve your FPS(most will probably make it worse if anything). If you're a new player, I'd say just start with one of those two mods and an otherwise stock game. Once you know how the stock game works and have done everything you can there, then try some other mods to change things up. By that point, you'll probably have a better idea of what you're looking for and what parts of the game you'd like to see changed.

I wouldn't say the timing is quite THAT critical, unless of course you're using some sort of life support mod or something else which is imposing a time limit. Otherwise, timing the burn correctly so that you get a close approach right away is obviously still better, but even if your timing is completely off and you wind up on the opposite side of the planet from your target, as long as your orbital periods are different and not in some sort of resonance with each other, you will eventually get a reasonably close encounter. I've had times where I spent a few days timewarping around and gaining 1-200km per orbit on the target until I was finally close enough to make my final adjustments for the actual intercept(mostly because I didn't even bother to check the position of the target vessel before launching the other one). It's not really challenging or impossible, just means a lot of extra waiting. Either way though, congrats on learning to dock.

Well, there's your problem. If the mods aren't compatible, it's very likely to cause problems at some point.

I don't think the problem is that they took the adventure or excitement out of the game. The problem is that no matter how exciting something is the first time you do it, after you've done it enough times, it becomes routine and eventually even boring. You can still play the game by experimenting and seeing what works...until you've done everything enough times to already KNOW what you need to do. And even the real space program had this issue. The first moon landing was exciting and people were willing to throw almost any amount of resources into it. By the third attempt, Apollo 13 barely even got any news coverage at all until the explosion. And soon after that, the remaining missions started getting cancelled and no one's really bothered to try and go back since then.

Thanks, I've been looking for a good mod that offered an alternative method for leveling up...looks like this might be exactly what I wanted.

1. The presence of an atmosphere isn't really the issue here, so much as the gravity of the object you're taking off from. If you're trying to take off from Mun, there's not atmosphere, but if your TWR is too low, you still won't be going anywhere. And if you're trying to land with too low of a TWR, you'll probably have rather...unpleasant results. But yes, other than those situations, TWR is generally far less important since the exact timing of a burn while you're in orbit is far less critical in most cases. It will still have at least SOME effect since a higher TWR means shorter burn times which will allow more accurate burns and better use of the Oberth effect. If you're doing a transfer burn or capture burn, you'll probably still want a somewhat decent TWR, but doesn't need to be greater than 1 or anything. For any burns done in deep space, far away from any planet/moon, TWR can be as low as you want. This is where the nuclear or even ion engines are ideal since the only limiting factor is how patient you are(too low of a TWR can mean a burn of 20+ minutes). 2. Never seen it mentioned or used anywhere, but it's effectively going to be the same as TWR as long as you're always talking about the TWR with respect to the same planet. 4. It's probably because with subassemblies at least(not sure about merging) you can only connect it by the "root part". This will usually be the first part you added, but you can change it to whatever part you want. Make sure that before saving your subassembly, you change the root part to whichever part you want to use to attach it to your main craft.

I'm playing the RSS version of this, along with SMURFF. So far, it's been a lot of fun, but I have noticed a few problems, mostly related to the altitude requirements not being properly adjusted for RSS. In the worst case, a few missions require "situation: sub-orbital flight" and "altitude 70-140km" or something similar, which are impossible to have both at the same time since space doesn't START until 10km.

*facepalm*

This is FAR from just a "tutorial" though. That would imply something that you go through in a short time to learn the very bare minimum you need in order to play the game(which is what the actual tutorials in the game at least attempt to do). Career mode is something that will easily take weeks or even months for a new player to get through and is something that you can play through multiple times before you've really exhausted all of the possibilities of it, learned how to do everything efficiently, and really start feeling the need for something more.

Fair enough then

Honestly, this all makes it sound like you want to just jump straight to all the top tier tech without having to go through any of the stuff in the middle...which goes against the whole point of a career mode. You don't just go straight from Sputnik to the ISS without going through a bunch of smaller steps in between. Having some more options on exactly how you do that might be nice, but if you want complete freedom to only do the parts you actually want, Sandbox mode might be a better option. Maybe it would even be good if they added a new mode which keeps the funding/contracts but has the whole tech tree unlocked(though you can simulate this already anyway using the debug menu). If you really want to, you can even roleplay your own career in Sanbox mode and just limit yourself to using whatever parts you feel like you "should" have available at that stage. And I'm not saying the current tree is perfect, but it's going to be pretty much impossible to get one which satisfies EVERYONE from the brand new players all the way to people who have been playing since the first public version and have done everything hundreds of times now. It makes some sense to have the default tech tree be something designed for the newer players so they have a good experience with the game and then can move on to mods or other options later on. It makes sense that they would want new players to be able to at least get something into space fairly quickly, even if more experienced players would want that to be a bigger milestone that takes some effort to get to.