Hodari

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.

If you haven't heard any more about it for a while, odds are that's because there isn't really any news about it. They're probably still planning on doing it EVENTUALLY, but it's not a priority for them right now. And while it may be important to you, I'd say it shouldn't be a priority either. Right now, they need to fix the bugs and other issues with what is already in the game first. Then some of the stuff like antenna updates that were promised for the last patch, but needed to be pushed back....I'll assume those are at least ALMOST ready to go now, so might as well finish that before another major project like multiplayer. You probably won't hear too much more about that until it's at least close to being ready(or if it does get cancelled, you'll probably hear about that as well.)

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.)

Much easier and probably safer to just use the alt-f12 cheat menu to mark his part of that contract as completed(Not to mention that way you still get the rewards from it).

Also, you could try flying a mission to "high above Kerbin" rather than just near Kerbin, if you haven't already.

No, not really. The whole point of a "sandbox" style of game is that it ALLOWS you to create your own goals. And when I said that those are the 3 options, that isn't really limited just to KSP. It's true for pretty much ANY game. Either you follow the goals that the game itself sets out for you, you add mods made by someone else, or you add in your own challenges. Some people prefer one option or the other, some like to have all of them available, but either way, those are probably the only options that there are. And I'd say overall, KSP does pretty well at giving you all three of those options. Career mode certainly has room for improvement, but it does at least provide an option for people who want the game itself to provide some sort of structure and sense of progression. You could certainly get quite a few hours of gameplay out of just doing the normal career, especially if you're trying to figure out your own designs for all of your crafts and not just copying whatever you saw in someone else's video. And if you're not satisfied with the default gameplay(or, more likely, if you've simply played enough to have done everything that it offers), there are hundreds of mods that will allow you to change the game in almost any way you could want. And for the people who DO want the option of setting their own goals, sandbox or even late career/science mode give that option as well. So if you're not satisfied with any of those 3 options, then what exactly DO you want?

If by "finished product", you mean no bugs at all and everything working absolutely perfectly, I suspect you'd end up never releasing your product at all. And even if you did manage to get that far, the first time you try to add any new features, it's just going to add more bugs along with it. Admittedly, a couple of the bugs in this version are more serious than most and they shouldn't have released it until they were fixed(nor should they have released and then had the whole company go on vacation for almost a month), but it's a bit too late for that now. But reality is that products like this will never be completely finished and sooner or later, they'll be under a huge amount of pressure to release SOMETHING even if it's not perfect. They obviously know that there are things which need to be fixed and they know what those things are, so at this point all we can do is actually give them the time needed to do so. And also worth noting that a lot of times, the people working on bugfixing will be different than the ones working on NEW features, so adding new stuff(especially if it was close to being ready anyway) might not make it take any longer to fix the existing problems. If there IS a conflict between the two, then sure...fix the bugs first. But if it is possible to do both together, then they might as well.

At some point, I think it comes down to you basically having 3 options: 1. Play career/science mode and use the limitations imposed on you by it. 2. Do the above, but add mods. 3. Set your own limitations on yourself. It's up to you which of those options you choose and exactly how you do them, but if you want growth then you have to start off with some sort of arbitrary limitations, whether those are imposed on you by someone else or yourself, and then work to overcome them.

I hear he is on the rocky road to recovery though.

Probably true for the most part. The ones who bought it earlier have also been playing it long enough by now that no matter what happens, they've gotten their money's worth out of the game, so that's another reason they may be more patient. For someone who just got the game recently and hasn't had much time to play it, it's a much bigger deal. As for me though, I only got it a couple months ago during 1.05 and I certainly wouldn't say I'm angry about things. But I also think it's worth pointing out to them that this was a rather bad move and not something that should be repeated. And for me, it's not even the wheels that are the biggest problem so much as the game frequently crashing for no apparent reason, especially in the VAB. But yeah, aside from that and a few other issues, the game overall seems to be in a good place.

I'd agree with this if it was about one or two employees taking a vacation. Having the entire company do so all at once, especially at a critical time like this, was a bad idea though. Especially when they knew there still major issues like the game frequently crashing. At the very least, keep a couple people around who can fix any serious issues like this and let them have their vacation later. And as long as you're being at least somewhat reasonable about it, I think when you buy a product, you DO have a right to complain about things like this if the product is not working the way it's supposed to. You shouldn't be rude about it or expect that every little detail will be EXACTLY the way you personally want it, but when they release a major update like this and then disappear for close to a month, leaving game-breaking issues unresolved, I think you at least have the right to politely say, "Hey, this probably wasn't such a good idea..:" When something has this much of a negative impact on something that we paid money for, yes it DOES become our business. Not to mention that an update like this will be bringing in a lot of new players and I certainly don't think they want THIS to be the first experience those new players have with the game.

2 years is a bit much, especially for something like this. It's almost certain that the original poster has either figured out the answer LONG ago and/or stopped playing.

"Relax," said Jeb Kerman, "Kerbol is programmed to receive. You can escape any time you like, but you can never leave..."

For the most part, something that can make it to Minmus and return should be able to do the same for the Mun. Delta-V requirements are about the same, so it's just a matter of the landings being a bit trickier. Gravity is stronger on the Mun and it's harder to find a nice flat place to land. But that should definitely be your next target. Practice on Minmus until you're comfortable landing there(and try to grab a few different biomes for science while you're at it), then move on to the Mun. And the other good news is once you can land on both of those, the game really starts to open up from there, giving you a LOT more options. The delta-v needed to get to either of the moons and back will also probably be enough to send a probe on at least a one-way journey almost anywhere else, so you can get science from a lot of different places and easily fill out the rest of the tech tree, unlocking all the parts you need to make it even easier to get to the rest of the planets. I'd say once you've mastered landing on both Minmus and the Mun, the next step(and one of the tougher ones in the game, but also one of the most valuable skills) will be learning to do orbital rendezvous and docking. Start by taking all that science you got from the moons and use it to unlock the Actuators node so you get the Klaw. Then try all of the orbital rescue missions you can get. Not only do they give decent amounts of money and reputation, but you get free Kerbals, which you'll need a lot of if you're going to be building stations everywhere later on. Docking will also mean that you can refuel your spacecrafts. Rather than just throwing away that big Rockomax tank as soon as you get to orbit, if you can send another ship up to refuel, you can then have another 3-4k delta-V from that stage again to do your transfer burn to another planet. Or you can even build a larger ship in orbit instead of launching all at once. And meanwhile, start sending probes to Duna, Eve, and their moons and fill out the rest of your tech tree. Priorities should probably be the nuclear engines and the Gravioli detector. Fom there, head to Jool and all of its moons and finish off your tech tree if you haven't already. And then don't forget about Dres. And spaceplanes. And if you're really ambitious, go for Moho. And then whatever else you can think of.

It's not easy, especially landing at the moment, but definitely possible to do. Try something like this: http://imgur.com/exGmdE6 or https://imgur.com/vmB6f7e

With enough boosters, you can

I always have this problem with larger SRB's as well. It seems to be because their thrust is strong enough to cause the connection between them and the rest of the ship to flex slightly which means they are no longer firing in line with center of mass and thus producing some torque. My usual solution is to add a couple struts to the top(and possibly the bottom as well) of each booster, either connecting to the ship itself for 2 way symmetry, or to the adjacent boosters if I'm using 4 way instead. This is enough to hold everything in place.

Aside from the frequent VAB crashes, I've noticed one other bug since updating to 1.1.x. Seems to be a problem with radially attached parts Version 1.1.2.1260 x64 Mods: currently using KER, RSS, SMURFF, KSCswitcher, though I noticed the same issue before when not using these mods. Craft file of my vessel : http://pastebin.com/8Y1M7i7S While building it, I removed and reattached some of the parts, including the boosters and radial decouplers a few times which may or may not have been part of what caused the problems. Both while building the craft initially and when viewing it in the VAB after reverting, everything looks normal enough: However when I actually try to launch it, notice the staging diagram: Instead of just the 3 boosters like it should be, it shows a cluster of 3...and then another cluster of 2 AND a single one. Also(possibly related, or possibly just due to not having struts yet), the ship seems to constantly want to roll in one direction, even with SAS on. Also note that in the VAB, KER correctly shows the part count as being 30. The load vessel dialogue box also shows this and in fact I still haven't upgraded the VAB, so I couldn't actually have more than 30 parts as would be the case if those "extra" boosters and decouplers were actually there.

And they thought losing a multi-billion dollar mission due to confusing metric and imperial units was embarrassing... "What happened? "Uh sorry boss....I kinda accidentally used the delta v map for Duna instead..."

Apparently it's some sort of Kerbal extortion operation. On the other hand, usually if I DO hire them, they die anyway.

Ok, thanks. I'll try to look at those log files again the next time it crashes and see if I notice any other errors. And guess I'll have to live without KER, at least until an updated version is released. I'm sure you've heard it before, but it'd be really nice if you can at least get the delta-V/TWR info added into the stock game at some point For now, are there any other compatible mods which provide this info?