Spricigo

I'd say if your concern it's satellite contracts you don't need to worry about proper setup at all. Each satellite you launch will add some coverage, at the time you have a dozen or so blind spots will practically be gone. The inconvenience is to use inefficient launch profiles in the first launches since otherwise you may lose control before reaching orbit.

No, decoupler or nosecones are not necessary. Just direct attach the SRBs and live with the drag. It's not meant to be the most effective way, just to set a parameter to look at the performance of the Thuds.

This is a situation that I Solve with a 1 or 2 SRBs. The rocket is tilted In the VAB (up to 5°), fine tunning the thrust and fuel amount allow for an automatic gravity turn (hit spacebar and let the rocket fly itself most of the way). You need to be sure that the rocket its designed well enough to not flip due drag, which is not difficult. I didn’t calculated it but, given that 2 Thuds costs almost as much as 2 Thumpers, seems that SRBs will be cheaper. The convenience of gimbals and thrust up/down its not enough to convince me.

For me, most engines have regular use, some not so often but still get used. The only engine I have problems finding a use for is the Mk-55 "Thud". Its not even the fact I don’t use, its that I don't find a situation where I may say "the /thud should be good there".

to exemplify lets consider a small craft, intended to do a "put in orbit" contract with a thermometer for the eventual "collect science" contract: Probodobodyne Okto, communotron 16, 2xOX-STAT photovoltaic panels, 2Hot Thermometer, Oscar-B Fuel Tank, 2xengine of choice. Spider version: 430kg and 1779m/s for 2060Funds Twitch version: 550kg and 1285m/s for 2620Funds Around 25% extra deltaV in a 20% light and cheaper package. Sound like a great deal to me.

I also learned something, was under the assumption that a future encounter would prevent the completion. Looks like the game just check if the current trajectory is consistent with the required orbit.

If the orbits are in same direction its just a matter of timing your satellite's orbit to meet Ike. For a retrograde orbit, I consider this a possible case where the random parameters resulted in a contract much more difficult than supposed to be (maybe even impossible?). If that was a contract I got, probably would consider not worth the trouble and cancel/let it expire and consider it a lesson. Other people would instead just match the required orbit as close as possible than complete the contract in the debug menu.

Think this way: The symbol in the battery is the Kerbal Standard Electrical Hazard Symbol, is there to warn kerbals about the risk. The icon In the category on other hand is there to inform the player the parts in the category will provide electricity storage or generation. Neither needs to be equal to the real life International Standard Symbol. In fact is arguable better to not the International Standard Symbol, since the use of a hazard symbol in a different context may cause confusion. (mind you there is a lot or arguing and disagreement about international standards)

I suspect that you already get your answer, while its not what you was hopping for. Basically, in real life spacecraft attitude is important for 3 things: propulsion, communications, sensors, KSP being simpler don’t account for communications and sensor orientation/occlusion. I know there mods for space telescopes, maybe some of those cares about attitude. However I wont hold my breath or neither I have a specific one to suggest.

I also notice this behaviour happening sometimes, and more often the marker also shift when I switch to another vessel(or KSC/TS) and back. My guess its that something is getting recalculated during warp/switching and the marker adjusted accordingly, but no idea why. Its a bit annoying but not really an issue, so I didn’t bother to further investigate.

Actually science its not used in Sandbox, you can still use the scientific instruments but the game don’t keep track of science points. In Career and Science the experiments result in science points that are used to unlock tech. Unlike many people in this thread I don't like Science mod. The reason its that IMO Sandbox gives you freedom while Carrer give you objectives while Science sit in the middle ground and gives you not enough freedom or objectives. But don’t limit yourself by other's opinions, find out what do you prefer.

This is true for performing science contracts , part test contracts sometimes may require "between min and max altitude" where min and max can be anything. Also I'm pretty sure I had done in flight part tests while suborbital, so Ap out of atmosphere should not be a problem. But been awhile ago, so don’t quote me. BTW depending on typical design and launch profile, conditions like "speed between 1240m/s and 1320m/s" &"altitude between 61800m and 62400m" lead to some, if not difficult, very inconvenient contracts. So attention to the details of the contracts before accepting is advised.

In both cases the rocket is overbuilt in the sense that a smaller more balanced, light and cheap craft would do the job. However KSP is forgiving enough that both can be made efficient(ish). Also there is the matter of which parameter we choose to determine efficiency, different people will make different compromises.

Well, you can tweak the fuel amount and thrust limit. (usefull if you standardize Launch Vehicles and Payloads. Otherwise will require a different setting for each launch, so probably more trouble than its worth). But agreed that often SRBs gives more Bang for Bucks (specialy because it tends to do the same job in less time, a more important currency than funds) Another point is that usually is easier to deal with the problem of a overpowered booster(debris in orbit) than the problem of a underpowered booster(spaceship not in space). Also a overengineered first stage don’t cause the domino effect of a overengineered upper stage. So if you will have "too much rocket" somewhere, better to be in the first stage.

W=m*g F=m*a If F=W then a=g

For Oberth the optimal altitude is at sea level, unfortunately the drag will destroy the vehicle before anyone have a chance to think about cosine loses. @Blaarkies Oberth already made some sense to me before, but mostly "because the math say so". Your example, talking about how much time the gravity have to steal the speed back made it crystal clear.

Maybe for you, for me its more about orbital mechanics. The question is: what the game is about for the OP? I mean, he want to complete the collection or just get some science? {x]Science, Kerbal Engineer and MechJeb among other mods will tell you in each biome you are in. With those (and the KerbNet) you can go around and look for unexplored biomes). allow for creating custom waypoints, and someone shared a file wayponts for kerbin biomes. and allow for the creation of biome maps.

For some odd reason the experiment storage and the command pod can transport a bunch of rocks, but not a pen drive (or similar). To make thing a bit less logical most experiments are just data (crew report, Mystery Goo Observation, Atmosphere Analysis). The point is, the game don’t need to follow real life logic as long as it make sense in the game.

another option: Actually I tried ScienceAlert, [x]Science and ExperimentTracker... and my reason to remain with ET is simple: tested it last.

KSP's reaction wheel work accordingly to physics of Roadrunner Exactly the same principle. No reaction, opposite in direction and equal in intensity, in the fan or in the reaction wheel, just the action in the vehicle and nothing else.

I had the same issue, no autostrust used. Actualy no struts at all.

I suppose "stick it into a station because a contract ask to" don’t count as using. So my answer is neither. The strange thing its that I feel that Lab are Overpowered and Worthless at the same time. Overpowered because it generate so much science so easily. Worthless because the rewards are already high enough without taking it in account.

a quick search at kerbalx resulted in those examples of much lighter and cheaper crafts able to do missions in kerbin SOI: https://kerbalx.com/MadaRook/PT-Series-Munsplorer-V1 https://kerbalx.com/KSPBrasil/Emperion---Turismo-Orbital-3k https://kerbalx.com/KSPBrasil/SSR-v11---Satellite-Signal-Relay https://kerbalx.com/CompoundKhan/Orbiter-Mk-II https://kerbalx.com/MRMac/MK1-Mun-Pod https://kerbalx.com/madmerlyn/Lunar-ComSats Try building something along that lines and tell us what difficulties you fund.

So you had "put in orbit" and "maintain for 10s" but "be in control of the satellite" was missing. Its interesting to notice that maybe just waiting a bit more for decoupling would complete the contract.

oh well..it really don’t matter if there are reasons for a behemoth able to transport the entire astronaut roster (and also ground crew) to Moho and back in a single stage. The point is: there will be consequences. Also there can be any number of reason ...but none was stated. @Foxster advice was really reasonable with the info available. It just don't helps the OP because reasons.