Cpt Kerbalkrunch

Agree. Though I wouldn't rule out more DLC for KSP in the meantime.

I wouldn't be opposed to that, but I think we all know more is coming. Whether it's more updates, DLC, or a sequel, I couldn't say. But T2 didn't buy the title just to declare it finished. At this point, which would you consider more likely: 1.5 or KSP2? Neither would surprise me.

If you think that's something, this'll blow your mind: I can also type without looking at the keyboard. Freakin' crazy, ain't it? Out of curiosity, how exactly does one go about calculating a DV window? Sounds difficult.

When MH was released, I (somewhat jokingly) said in another thread we'd be seeing 1.4.8 at some point. I haven't really seen anything to change my mind but, if I were a betting man, I'd set the over/under at 4. Mostly because, at that point, we'll probably be seeing 1.5 instead.

If you're adept with spaceplanes, Laythe itself can make for a self-sufficient system. Jet engines are high-effiency, so you can overcome the atmospheric losses with comparatively low cost to orbit. As an added bonus, you won't need to travel anywhere. With all that, I still prefer Pol (not a spaceplane guy). To me, Val's gravity negates it's usefulness, as you said. With Pol, on the other hand, you can make your fuel shuttle as large as you want to. And although you'll use a lot of it on the transfer, you'll have plenty to spare. You can also aerocapture at Laythe to save some Delta V. And on the way back, the ship will be much lighter; making the transfer cheaper. And, as you no doubt already know, it costs almost nothing to land on Pol. I like Bop as well, and have an operation there, but my refueling setup on Pol has served me well for a long time. You'll get plenty of opinions on this subject (as with anything else). So it really comes down to personal preference. I think Pol works the best. Others will say somewhere else. About the only thing you won't hear is Tylo. Nobody's that crazy.

Thanks, @MrUnderhill. I had hoped this would be a challenge that would be fun (but also challenging) for experienced and new players alike. The idea was to have a story, and to also get players to maybe do some things they hadn't tried before. I had a pretty good scoring system set up, but the current limits of the Mission Builder made it tough to do. I'm hoping the next update will resolve some of these issues. Thanks again for participating, and congrats on your success.

When I was doing the Mun Arch Challenge, I had never looked for anomalies before, and someone suggested using the Mk2 dronecore. This turned out to be a very good suggestion. It was the only problem I could get to work well. It has a high detection rate, but also a good field of view. If you put one in a polar orbit of Mun, for example, turn on Kerbnet, hit timewarp, and keep hitting the "refresh" button, anomalies will begin popping up all over the surface (there are a good number of them on Mun). Then you just tag them for navigation and land by them one at a time to see what they are. This obviously works anywhere else, as well. It's kinda fun, cuz you never know what it's gonna be until you get close enough to actually see it. I think you'll enjoy finding them. And, if nothing else, they make for good screenshots.

I can make it real simple; just wait for the next update. I'm kidding, of course, but serious at the same time. It's a well known (and very well reported) oversight in the 1.4.2 update. It'll be rectified in the next update; which is surely not far off.

This one works from sea level, as well. Single Kerbal, direct ascent return to Kerbin. Not sure if these newer designs really count as "stock" anymore. I made use of MH parts. Most notably, the engine plate. It really is a fantastic add on to the game; allowing for engine clustering. Still heavy at about 150 tons, but that's pretty light for me. And as I said, it will take you from Eve sea level back home to Kerbin without refueling. And this doesn't matter at all, but I'll mention it anyway cuz it made me kinda proud. For a guy who uses the trial and error method, I actually nailed this in one shot. Second launch, though. First time I forgot to add the Delta Deluxe Winglets on the 2nd stage. As you can imagine, it flipped immediately when I staged it. The tougher part with tall, single-fuselage ships is often the landing. Chutes, drogue chutes, landing engines, and tons of shielding are necessary. Always an adventure. And looking at @velocity's screenshot above me, I am once again overcome with greed and desire upon seeing the KER screen open. I would just about kill to have all that info available. One day, I'm finally going to give in and join the modern world.

The part failure node doesn't seem to work on probecores or command modules. I don't know if this was purposeful or an oversight, but it's a funtionality that I think is missing. I've found a way around it that somewhat accomplishes the same effect but, after doing it more than once in the same mission, it starts to look like exactly what it is; a contrivance. Of course, the Part Fail itself is a contrivance as well but, for storyline purposes during a mission, it works well. Recovery of a Kerbal, or even a ship, seems to be completely disabled for some reason. It says it's been disabled by the mission creator, but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that (or undo it). Since this is an easy way to signal the end of a mission, it definitely hurts not to have the ability. There are ways around this too, of course, but it makes things tougher. EVA's have some issues, as well. An EVA check doesn't seem to register in orbit or when flying. There's also no way to check if a Kerbal has popped his parachute without resorting to other methods. The Take Kerbal node could help, but it doesn't register unless the Kerbal is onboard a ship (Vessel is one of the parameters). This somewhat limits the usefulness of it. Also, although there's an Activate Stage node, there isn't a node to activate a specific part or action group. This would be useful in certain circumstances, so I hope it'll be considered as an added function bat some point. These are some of the issues I've run into and ideas I've had while using the Mission Builder thus far. I'm sure there were others than I'm not thinking of, and so I'll post them if they come to mind. And, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about any of this. For instance, if one of the issues here is just because I'm doing something wrong, it would definitely be helpful to know that.

Afraid I don't usually go for small and sleek. And since orbital rendezvous around Eve is no fun, I prefer to avoid it whenever possible. This design was for the old Mk1-2. Worked very well in that, but I converted it for a different mission. It now carries the Mk1 Command Module and Service Bay from Eve sea level, on a direct ascent return to Kerbin. I have a little island at sea level I like to test launches from now. The goal is to get from there back to Kerbin without any refueling. This one does it pretty easily. As you can see, it's absurdly heavy, though quite a bit more so on the way down.

It's become one of my favorite methods. Throw a ship in orbit, spin the dial to 10,000, then burn and see what I get. It works pretty well.

Bewing, are you a secret trial & error player? I had no idea. I hear we're in the minority around here.

It is now Val's turn in the pilot rotation. Her mission has been classified Top Secret. Kerbodyne has designed a new ISRU that will speed ore conversion by 300%; without an engineer. She is to travel to the low-g world of Gilly to test the new converter. The mission is straight-forward and confidence is high. Safety risks are minimal. Mission is considered to be routine. The stage is set. Take Val to Gilly, land, drop your drills, and test the new converter. What could possibly go wrong? https://drive.google.com/open?id=1dHFY9n-rVrXEAV7lfJX8DVfIaKPlcEJ7 This is my first mission, and I've been working on it for awhile (mostly testing). Some of the functionality in the Mission Builder is not quite right yet, so I couldn't do everything I wanted; and had to find some workarounds for others. Overall, it turned out pretty well, I think. I used creator-built vessels to help expedite things. The mission is somewhat difficult in a couple of places, so I thought it would help speed things along if you didn't need to spend time in the VAB working on your design. Also, I thought it might be fun to fly somebody else's ship (something I've yet to do; gonna start delving into other people's missions now that mine is complete). Anyway, I hope you guys dig it. Any questions or comments are welcome. And any feedback (either good or bad) would be appreciated. As I said, it's my first mission, so I'm eager to improve however I can. Thanks, Cpt Kerbalcrunch

They look better when they face the other way. You need a longer ship, though, because they need to attach from the top. Usually not a problem for my Eve landers. They tend to get rather large.

I solve this problem by having more heatshields on the top than on the bottom. It makes it very stable and, as an added bonus, makes it look a lot better. In fact, it makes it look like exactly what it is; a lander meant for a dangerous atmosphere. A spaceplane won't have to worry about drag, though. With an inflatable heatshield on the nose, the wings will keep the ship stable throughout the entry. Heat will be the problem. A shallow descent is necessary, or the Big S wings will over heat and explode. I used to use them as stabilizers before I stumbled on to the upper heatshield solution.

When you assign a Kerbal to a ship in the VAB (or SPH), there's a little hanger next to his portrait. Just click it to change suits.

I've been on nothing but the Mission Builder since the release (haven't even gotten to play the game much, except testing), and I've seen a lot of odd behavior. Not sure how many would be bugs and how many are things just...not quite working right. I think we may see a few more updates before it's all nailed down. Anyway, glad you worked it out.

I have a Landed Vessel node that works, but it's set to a certain area rather than an entire body. Do you also have it checked as an objective? Not sure if that would make a difference, but it's worth a shot. Also, I down think a splashdown would count, as there's a specific Splashed Vessel node. If checking it as an objective doesn't help, perhaps you can check the objective box (with an alternate path checking a splashdown as an objective) and then use the Kerbal Recovery node as the end node. It might provide a way around the problem. Again, if nothing else, it's at least worth a shot.

Looks like an available satellite contract. It should be available in Mission Control. This is showing you the orbit you'll have to put your satellite in if you accept the contract. It's always good to look at these before you accept the contract. For instance, the orbit might be retrograde. This would be especially good to know around Jool or the sun.

[snip] By the look of it, and your comment, I'll assume that's part of the rocket equation. I wouldn't know. Unlike you, I don't know the math or the equations or how to use them. I have exactly one tool at my disposal; but it's a good one. I just hit the Spacebar. Like magic, my rocket launches and I see how well it performs. It works extremely well. [snip]

This is entirely possible. I was mostly responding to the tone of "can't be done". I hate seeing it. I feel like if it's said enough, new players won't even try because they've been told it's not possible or "no fun". I would disagree with both of those statements. Also, he mentioned skilled players. I've seen some incredibly skilled players on here. I'm sure you have as well. As I said, there's a difference between difficult and tedious. If he said "transfers without a tool are incredibly tedious and I'm not gonna waste my time", I would not be able to dispute such a thing (and obviously, we all spend our time the way we wish and have to decide for ourselves what a "waste" is).

You're right, of course, and I thought the same thing when I saw it, but it was his first post. I think we can cut him a little slack. Welcome to the forums, @PataSolar. You'll like it here, but it's a rather tumultuous time at the moment.

Most of your argument is opinion based on your own perspective (which is what we all do; project our own play-style onto others), but there's validity to some of that, so I won't dispute it. However, the above comments are just dead wrong. My entire first year I played without a transfer tool (and have still never used a Delta V calculator or spreadsheet of any kind), and I traveled to every planet and landed on every moon. You're confusing difficult with tedious. There's a big difference. And since there are no "unique butterflies" in this game, there are surely plenty of others who play this way as well. I don't understand this example. This is how I always go to Moho. It's not the easiest, but I don't know any other way. How exactly is this an example of "can't be done"?

It was one of the issues fixed in the 1.4.2 update yesterday. So we obviously weren't the only ones seeing this. Glad they knocked it out.