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Kerbal Engineer, SCANsat, and Toolbar. I occasionally use HyperEdit, but only in sandbox, never in career. I find that a good way to run "simulations" on a career craft is to copy the craft file over to my sandbox game and then HyperEdit to the destination body. Real-life spacecraft engineers run copious simulations, such as wind tunnel and computer simulations, so this is my KSP equivalent. I would like to try some of the mods that make KSP prettier, but I need to upgrade my computer first.

Here is my first screenshot, from Feb 2014 (my brain seems to remember that was version 0.19?). Somehow I was able to make a planetary rendezvous with Eve back before I learned anything about orbital mechanics. Eve was the first planet I visited, and the thrill of discovery was fantastic! This shot is during an aerobraking maneuver, and the green and purple atmospheric effects paired with the plasma heating around my spacecraft made me feel like I was visiting a truly alien world.

I'm still recovering from my biggest mission failure. I built an aircraft that would glide the Duna skies, landing in different biomes to collect lots of science. It has LFO engines to give the glider a boost now and then, but it has a pretty good unpowered glide. I spent hours in my career game designing the plane. I even ran "simulations" by transferring the craft file to a sandbox game and using HyperEdit to put the craft to Duna orbit. That way I could test entry, lift, maneuverability, and flight range/duration in Duna's atmosphere. After many simulations and design improvements, I was satisfied with how my plane performed. I built a suitable launch vehicle (it's not SSTO--I can't get those to work), which was no small feat as it's a fairly large plane. I selected Valentina as my pilot and Gilina as mission scientist and launched to Duna! My plane performed beautifully on entry and flew magnificently through Duna's atmosphere. I was excited to set her down and start collecting science data, so I selected a landing site and descended. The one thing I forgot to simulate: Landing. I knew that Duna's atmosphere is much thinner than Kerbin's, so my design accounted for it with larger lifting surfaces and more control surfaces, but it didn't occur to me that even with larger wings, my ship needs to be going much faster to maintain the same amount of lift. It's not a big deal flying around through the air, but when I tried to land, I was going much faster than I had anticipated just to keep from falling out of the sky. If I had a really long, flat surface to land on, I could set the plane down no problem. But there were no landing strips in sight. I tried landing it probably 30 times, and each time ended in explosive disaster. I eventually decided to abort the landing, and I had enough fuel to return to orbit. Now Valentina and Gilina are stuck in orbit for a few years awaiting rescue. I've improved the design with copious airbrakes and a pair of Mk-55 Thud retrorockets, and simulations show that I can land it pretty well on Duna's dunes (and take off again). I'm just waiting for the next Duna launch window! The spoiler has a pic of my science glider stuck in orbit: