TwoThe

So I played KSP today after a long break: - Music randomly starting to play bug - not fixed for like how many versions now? - New feature "Delete all messages" offers me "Do not show this again" - doesn't work. - Game crashes after a while. This was literally my first crash of this game ever. You are getting sloppy with the QA lately...

Staging is fine. I just wanted to rule out builds that have a dedicated low-mass landers on the Mun.

Found it: http://imgur.com/a/WPtuk To Minmus and back for 3762 MU. His rocket won't work for the this challenge as he used EVA to land on Minmus, but it might spark some ideas.

Not sure why this is a challenge, since this is about how you usually fly to the Mun if you play in career mode. But then let's see what crazy ideas people might come up with. Like the guy who landed on Minmus with nothing but a single rocket and a Sepatron.

This. Circularizing by hand means fiddling around with the annoying maneuver tools you have in stock game just to end up with about what you want to have. With MechJeb that's one click. And if you want to fly by yourself or use MJ for that is still up to you.

It really depends on what you have and what you want to do. I for example wanted to grab all science you can get from Minmus, so I had the option to build a gigantic science lander that hops over Minmus without really having the required tech for such a huge ship and I would have to do a blind guess on how much dV might be needed. And that thing needs a lot of dV just to transport the dV it needs on top of all the science equipment and landing stuff. In the end I made three ships: The science ship itself, which had the basic equipment necessary to do all science and about 2k dV in the tank. A refuel ship that was in low orbit around Minmus which had about 6k dV to spend. A minimalistic probe to return the science back to Kerbin. The science ship would then hop from place to place to gather the science, refuel 2 times on the refuel ship, and finally loaded it all up into the probe and sent it back home. Benefits were: if I had miscalculated the dV, I would have just to send the refuel ship back for more dV. Also I could send both ships to the mun afterwards and still have the science back home on Kerbin to use it. Only downside were several docking maneuvers.

That lack of tutorial is another issue. I still don't really know when which numbers apply on the relay net, simply because the very first antenna already has 100% Kerbin SOI coverage so there is nothing to worry about. And then suddenly all my plans to have a Kerbol relay failed, because 150Gm on L3 obviously doesn't mean the communication's range for relays. Lots of things to polish here. ^^

Possible (I've seen the video, really fun!) but would disqualify as the landing pod is missing, also would give the minimum amount of points, as there is no way to have less mass when landing a Kerbal than if you land only the Kerbal itself.

This mod sounds like it was made to be used together with Kerbal R&D mod: get parts through contracts, improve them with science points. I am really excited to try that combination in a career game. =)

Just wanted to say "Thank you!" for this mod! It sounds simple, but it opens up a completely new way of playing the game, that is not only fun but long-term entertaining. Suddenly gathering science past Kerbin SOI becomes relevant, because you can still upgrade that parts. Also parts that were near useless in stock end-game can now be upgraded to provide interesting build alternatives.

We remember: F = m*a, since a is constant (gravity) in free-fall, the impact force is tied solely to the mass of the vehicle. Or in other words: the higher the mass of the vehicle, the more difficult it becomes to land it in free-fall.

The name and title are perfectly fitting this challenge. XD

That is a game design term. It means that players are guided towards a certain goal, and in this case to solve flying around without having a relay net. The consequence is that players afterwards realize that the relay net is basically useless, because it is so easy to circumvent. Now the next time the player is playing he/she will not say "Hey let's try it with a relay net this time" because it has been memorized as useless (at the time it was available). It should however be memorized as an alternate way to play the game, which can be done i.E. by making it available earlier, causing the player to think "How would the game have been if I had gone this path instead of that path?"

Just came up with this idea when reading the "Why I will not go to space today" thread: what if I completely forgot any landing plans? Let's make that a challenge. The idea: to the Mun and back with free-fall landing. That is: no parachutes, no burning to slow down, just a happy Kerbal doing free fall and crashing into the ground with happy explosions. Is this even possible? Yes it is. All parts absorb a certain impact force when crash-landing till either the impact force is completely absorbed or the vehicle is. Here is a small demonstration that it is very possible when using i.E. girders (80 m/s impact) together with landing gears: The exact rules are: - Only unmodified stock parts. - You must not use any form of assisted landing other than inevitable aero-breaking. No parachutes, no wings, no burning. - Wings can be used for steering and stabilization but not for landing purposes. If you want to make sure to qualify, decouple them at 5 km height latest when landing on Kerbin. - Your vehicle must reach and land on the Mun. The entire vehicle, not just a lander. - Your must do at least 3 km free-fall on the Mun. Burning before that is ok. - You must land the entire vehicle (or what's left of it) on Kerbin afterwards. - No further landing assistance other than inevitable areo forces may be used when below 5 km on Kerbin. It is however perfectly ok to not be aerodynamic. - The final remains of your vehicle must contain at least a command pod or similar (no seats or EVA) Winner is the one dropping the vehicle with the most mass, measured after the final landing on Kerbin. Use a mod like KER to show that mass in the screenshot or video. Note that using girders + landing gear is just an example, you can crash-land on anything you like as long as it is a stock part. Also if you come up with even better ways (like Scott Manley's wheeled landing) that's fine as well. In my testing I found that auto-struts will relay the force right to the what the part is strutted to and therefore might be a problem when crash-landing.

Having milestones would feel stupid to this game. "I'd like a better jet engine please." "Sorry no idea how to do that." "We've been to the mun!" "Great! I just had an idea that we could build a better jet engine." Yeah.... I am not saying that the science system currently is well done or even balanced, but probably that is not even the purpose of the system. As I see it the science system is just there to restrict you on the parts you have available, because otherwise you would never build low-tech rockets, and then it keeps you motivated to go on. And it does a good job on that. Now of course you can complete the tech tree within Kerbin influence, but you could also adjust the slider in the options to make you finish the tech tree on Kerbin alone, or so low that you absolutely need to explore other planets to finish it. Essentially it allows you to decide how you want to play the game. But don't make the mistake and assume that everyone else would like to play the game the same way as you do. On the other hand, even with whatever limitations in place, you can still complete all science without ever leaving Kerbin, by either using a Mobile Processing Lab, or even by just grinding contracts with "Unpaid Science Program" running. So whatever you try to do to the current science system won't work and it will backfire. If you don't like it, try a mod that changes it.

I like the changes to the career mode research, it really spices up the early game and feels fitting. However the new antennas seem randomly placed, especially the relays. The first antenna is already sufficient to cover all of the Kerbin local planets at L2 of the tracking station, so there is no need to ever build a relay except for situations where planetary bodies block communication. Since relays are not available at that point the player is "taught" to play the game without relays, and essentially you never need them if you don't want to. But if you do want to play the game this way, you sadly soon realize that relays are (more of less) pointless, because with the strategies you were forced to use on Minmus/Mun you can work your way through the other planets. I think it would be better to allow the player to develop alternate strategies earlier in the game, for example having relays setup prior to planetary missions, if someone likes to play the game that way. I suggest to add a RA-1 relay antenna with 500Mm range to the "Flight Control" research node. This solves two issues: for once you now have a way to do a early, Kerbin local relay net if you want to. Also that research node gets a bit more attention, as currently it is rather useless for career.

Sounds promising. And thanks for the answers. I would find it better if this would work more like a fixed mobile science lab that generates science over time, because that is what this was used for and it would feel better as a reward then: "You assembled it, pushed the on button, and now you can dismantle everything again". And fixed in terms of that you cannot add more science to it later, so it runs out and becomes mostly useless eventually (except for the "report science from planet" type of contract maybe).

So just that I understand this correctly: you fly this to a planet, place it on the ground, run the science experiment and sent it back home... and then the whole installation becomes practically useless, because you cannot repeat the experiments nor use it for anything else?