Hodari

If you completely ignore the contracts, maybe. And if you do missions ONLY when you have contracts for them, then yeah it will get annoying. There is plenty of middle ground between those two though. You can easily do one mission that you have a contract(or preferably two or three contracts at once) for and then use that to pay for several other missions of whatever you want to do. Just the advance alone on most contracts will pay for the mission needed to complete it.

Hardly. If you can design something with enough dV to land on the Mun and return, you can easily at least send a probe on a one-way mission to Duna or Eve. And even you do still think you need a few more parts unlocked in order to go interplanetary, you can certainly get all the science points you need in order to do so from the Mun and Minmus. And once you've made it to the moons, going to the nearest planets would certainly be logical as a next major step for your space program, even if it is one that might be a little ways off.

Come in at a reasonably shallow angle, not straight down. Set your periapsis to the right height(probably 30-35km is good to start with, adjust as needed for your specific craft) so you slow down reasonably quickly but don't overheat. If you have fuel left over at the end of your mission, do a final burn just before reentry to lower your apoapsis as much as possible as well(retrograde, possibly combined with radial out to keep your Pe from getting too low) before dropping your final engine stage. Keep your reentry stage as light as possible and properly balanced so that the heatshield stays facing forward and protecting everything.

Bordering on overgenocide there

To be fair though, most of the time those deadlines are so long that there's no real rush to do them. Especially since, without certain mods, actually constructing a rocket is instant. You usually get several years to complete a mission that only actually takes a couple days. So unless you're trying to fit multiple interplanetary missions in between when you accept the contract and when you actually do it, you'll easily be able to get it done in time. But on the other hand, yeah career mode isn't perfect but it's hard to figure out exactly what WOULD be the best way to handle that(especially trying to find a solution for both new players and more experienced ones). At some point, you probably will just have to turn to mods for an answer.

Nice! CKAN isn't listing it as compatible yet though, Could you please make sure that gets updated as well?

Looks valid enough to me, though you should probably at least post your own attempt at it. Crewed mission there and back without refueling and that weight limit might be at least a little bit tricky, but should be doable. I might have time to try it later tonight.

The Mk1 Inline cockpit with a shielded docking port in front should also work.

For most of my ships, I don't have much problem with this. Just make sure you do the following and should be fine: 1. Be pointing prograde and not at too steep of an angle if you're still in the lower atmosphere. 2. Just before separating the boosters, make sure you switch SAS to stability assist mode and not 'hold prograde' or anything else. Don't turn the ship AT ALL during this stage. 3. Once you have separated, wait a couple seconds until you've completely cleared those boosters before you start the engine for the next stage. As noted above, you also want to make sure that you have enough struts to ensure that the boosters aren't wobbling at all. If all of the above still aren't enough to keep them from colliding, sepatrons would be the next option to try, but I very rarely find that I need them.

All the posts about Pe height are technically correct, but may not be overly helpful for a brand new player. Obviously, someone who doesn't even know how to reenter safely yet is NOT coming back from an interplanetary mission and it's entirely likely that haven't even reached a full orbit yet, so in that case they won't have a Pe. If this is a suborbital flight that we are talking about here, then there are 3 important things to consider for reentry. 1. Keep the mass of your reentry stage as low as possible. The more massive it is, the harder it will be to slow down in time. Early on, you'll probably want to only bring back the command pod, parachutes, heat shield, and whatever science instruments you can(be careful with the science jr. if you're trying to return that.) You should definitely drop all your engines and fuel tanks before reentry. And make sure you have enough parachutes for whatever craft you are using. I normally find 2 radial mounted chutes will be much better than 1 regular mk16 and will probably be enough for most of my designs(more will be needed if I'm using something like the 2.5m command pod). 2. Even if you're just going suborbital and don't have a Pe, it is still important to come in at a shallow angle. Don't just go straight up and try to come straight back down again. You should be trying to follow a similar ascent path to what you would use if you were going for a full orbital flight. Going more horizontal during the descent means more air to slow you down(also means more time for your ship to be exposed to reentry heating, so at SOME point this becomes a balancing act, but especially if you have a heatshield, this won't be an issue yet. 3. Make sure you keep the blunt end of your craft pointing forwards. Again, you need the air to slow you down as much as possible. If the top of your command pod is pointing forward, it won't slow down nearly enough. Also, keep this in mind when designing your reentry stage in the first place. Try to keep the center of mass of this stage as low as possible, close to the heat shield. This is where the science jr. can be a bit of a risk since having it in between the pod and shield might make things less stable. If your reentry stage is properly balanced, once you start reentry, you can usually turn SAS off altogether and just aerodynamics alone will keep it pointing the right way. Also, if you do lose control of your ship and can't keep it pointing retrograde, the next best option is usually to keep it spinning/tumbling as fast as possible(might not be much fun for the poor kerbals trapped inside, but better than blowing up). You lose the protection of the heatshield this way, but it will at least mean that it's constantly exposing different parts to the heat instead of keeping the same one there long enough to explode. Obviously if you're going fast enough, this won't help much though. Again, the one thing you usually DON'T want is for your craft to end up pointing prograde and getting stuck there since even if you survive the reentry heat, you probably won't slow down quickly enough. And finally, the parachute turning red doesn't mean it's broken or anything. It just means it's not safe to deploy it at that moment. Once you've slowed down enough to safely use it, it will change back, so watch it closely. If you still can't slow down enough in time, that's when drogue chutes might be useful, but you probably won't need those for a while.

Designed a solution to the problems of building a low-tech plane that works with the current wheel/gear issues and tier 1 runway: FLAP!

Having problems with making an airplane using the first tier landing gear? Tired of your pilots getting killed before they can even takeoff? Or needing to taxi OFF of the runway and onto the surrounding grass in order to even have a chance of lifting off safely? Sick of your landing gear blowing up when it hits the ground even on a reasonably soft landing? Well, here's my solution. So simple even a caveman could fly it(the landing gear can be replaced with modular girder segments if you haven't discovered the wheel yet...) The Flea Launch-Assisted Plane: Girder Version:

Basically, yeah. You probably save a lot of funds since you can recover the entire craft(assuming you can land it safely on the runway to get the full 100%value back), but even that savings is probably at least somewhat offset by the fact that you'll be using a lot more fuel to put a payload into orbit that way instead of using a conventional rocket. And by the time you have the tech to build a spaceplane, funds probably aren't much of an issue anyway. They also take a lot more gameplay time for a particular mission, mostly on launch and deorbiting/landing it which may not be especially fun after the first few times. So yeah, they're probably mostly good for novelty or if you're trying to roleplay a somewhat more realistic space program where you don't have virtually unlimited funds and you actually want to be efficient about costs.

Here's my entry for Vanadium level:

ok, thanks. Guess I'll do a completely separate KSP install for this one then and get started Caveman's log: After the first night of this, so far so good. Got about half of the 45 and 90 point tiers unlocked and all of the lower tiers. Mostly on and around Kerbin, though I did manage to send one probe into solar orbit and get a manned Munar flyby and return. Definitely starting to get tougher from here, but still fun. Started today off with a suborbital rocket mission to the north pole to grab the science from there and now flying a plane to the deserts to get that and then will have enough science to unlock Propulsion Systems(got a part test contract for the Spark last night and realized how useful those smaller engines and tanks could be, given the weigh limits of this challenge) Caveman's log 2: Unlocked spark and oscarb fuel tanks...got extremely lucky on my first attempt to land a probe on the Mun. After escaping Kerbin's atmosphere, I was about to do my circularization burn, but then noticed that just as I was approaching Apopasis, the Mun was just rising above the horizon, so was able to do my transfer burn directly instead of needing to enter orbit first. And then that transfer burn just happened to leave me on a collision course Cavemans's log 3: Made it to Minmus! It took a couple reverts and a number of mid-course correction burns(The Mun being in the way didn't help any with this...), but was able to land on Minmus and get temp and pressure readings from a couple biomes there(along with low and high orbit data which also included a couple mystery goos). Only 2 more nodes to go. Caveman's log 4: Aaaaaaannnnnnnd DONE! Will upload screenshots in a few minutes

Orbit Kerbin should show up right away when you first start a new career. However, it also expires after 4 days, so if you didn't accept it by then(or if you decline it), it'll go away. And like all of the world first contracts, once it's gone, it's gone and it won't come up again. Most of the other world first contracts will have certain conditions that have to be met before they can show up(minimum reputation, previous accomplishments, certain tech needed etc) but then once you do have it unlocked, it's still random when it will show up.

I guess I'll have to try this out. Is something like KER allowed or does that fall into the "luxuries" category?

Never had much luck with Moho, so all I can say is that the capture burn will probably take WAY more dV than you think, so be prepared for that.

Yeah, if anything, I'd say the whole point of the game is to try stuff and see if it works. Do it in sandbox mode(even starting a new save altogether if needed) if you don't want to risk messing up an existing game. But in this case, as was mentioned above, even it it DOES work, there are easier ways to get your desired result.

A contract like that would get boring pretty fast since you'd just be doing the same mission over and over again. Especially since it would severely limit your ability to use time warp when doing any other missions

I don't think it was a bad change, but it is certainly one that will take some getting used to.

Of the choices given, I'd go single launch. There is also a third option which I used in my most recent mission(crewed Ike landing and return). Make the first stage with just enough dV to get into orbit, then launch a second craft to refill that nearly empty stage. You can then reuse that first stage to do your transfer and capture burns, so you'll only need the second stage for the final landing and return trip. This approach is probably best if your refueler craft is some sort of reusable SSTO design or if you have an ISRU on Minmus and can get the fuel from there.

I think there is a bit of a difference here though. The problem with participation trophies is when they are completely meaningless because you get them no matter how badly you do. You don't have to actually accomplish anything in order to EARN them. Whereas in this case, just completing the challenge at all is reasonably difficult, so having a badge for it would be fine since it DOES actually mean you achieved something.

It also seems like career mode very rarely, if ever, gives missions to go there. I almost always get Duna first, then Eve or Jool, along with all their moons. I hardly ever see anything for Dres though(or maybe I just usually end up starting over before they come up). I've also never landed on Moho, just because actually getting captured always takes way too much delta-v.

There are probably some mods that will help, but it can still be done without them as well. It's just going to take a LOT of practice. And it's probably going to be a little different for each different craft you're trying to land. Obviously, make sure you're orbiting in the correct plane so you fly directly over your target. Do a quicksave. Then pick a spot to begin your deorbit burn, burn until your periapsis is at the desired height, and see where you land. Assuming you miss your target, just reload and adjust your deorbit point accordingly. And make sure you try to keep the periapsis height and everything else about your re-entry as close to constant as you can. Once you figure out where the correct spot is, remember that for future missions(but again, you might need to adjust it slightly for a different craft.)