TheFlyingKerman

Juno's are very useful in career / science games. A basic Juno plane can do temperature scans and crew reports flying over several biomes, that gives a lot of early science. The same vessel can also to observation and part test contracts at very low cost. The Juno can even power rovers for moar science. ??? The Ant is sufficient to land a small craft on a small moon -- often at the lowest launch cost / mass possible https://imgpile.com/images/wRgWbC.png I also use the Ant / Spider in place of RCS.

I just have two sets of engine, one facing forward and one backward. I set the RCS hotkey to toggle (disable) main engine and toggle (enable) the forward set, and another hotkey to toggle both sets, and use the throttle to control the burn. IME as long as the docking port is aligned and both crafts are free to rotate to face each other, that is enough to dock.

This https://authors.library.caltech.edu/91580/1/106983S.pdf The JWST have a device for looking at planets in other solar systems.

SSTO don't have to be exotic. I use these for my no contract career challenge These only require level 1 R&D technology and are cheap. I have uploaded the lightest model to Kerbalx https://kerbalx.com/TheFlyingKerman/Simple-reusable-lifter-S-2F It costs about 1000 funds to launch after recovery, and a Kerbin satellite contract normally pays tens of thousands, that is some profit margin .

One of my first attempts at VTOL . I go all electric so there is no need to worry about fuel or ISRU, a particularly big problem for Laythe. https://kerbalx.com/TheFlyingKerman/Electra-2A I try to make the operation semi-automatic, so the action groups are quite complicated. Action groups: Gear: Lower landing gear and flaps, cancel propeller pitch Brake: Brake for landing gearing and slowing down motor, unlock motors Throttle: Motor RPM and torque AG5: Lock hinge and lock motors AG6: Set horizontal reference AG7: Set vertical reference Custom axis1: Hinge tilt and propeller pitch Vertical takeoff: Set vertical reference. Set SAS to radial in. Briefly press brake to unlock landing gear and motor. Throttle up to 60%. When plane is about 200m above ground, set SAS to hold. Set horizontal reference. Set throttle down to 50% (40% on Kerbin), the plane should be going up at low speed. Slowly tilt the rotor (custom axis 1) down while keeping the plane horizontal (it tends to pitch up). The speed should be increasing quite quickly to about 100 m/s when the rotors are horizontal (the hinge is deliberately slow to allow time to accelerate). Retract landing gear. Turn to full throttle and climb at 10 degrees. Vertical landing: Throttle down and slow to about 80 m/s and 200 m above ground. Extend landing gear. Set throttle to 50% (40% on Kerbin). Slowly tilt the rotor (custom axis 1) up while keeping the plane horizontal. When the rotors are vertical, pitch up 10 degrees to cancel the remaining horizontal speed. Set vertical reference. Set SAS to radial in. Set throttle so that the plane is just hovering or slowly accelerating upwards. Tap brake, this slows down the motor temporarily and makes the plane go down at a low, controlled speed. Descend at below 7 m/s, above which the propeller blades stalls, in that case increase throttle to arrest the descend. Hover at 2 m above ground, then throttle down a little for a soft landing. Hit brake and cut engine.

The tutorial is buggy. The parachute deploys when the craft is slow enough for it to open safely. However in newer versions parts have less drag and the craft cannot slow down enough. Setting the deploy pressure back to 0.04 atm and stage at maximum height during the flight should work.

x2. I play career/science because that gives many interesting design challenges as opposed to just put the best parts and moar boosters.

Update 3 and 4 Challenge complete!!!

Update 4 A correction on the last update: I actually made >3.5M and updated R&D to lv 3 as well. The only lv 3 technology I needed was the 88-88 antenna. Because I am lazy I decided to just send a probe to the Jool system, and quit when I made enough to complete the challenge. Challenge complete!!! I reckon the missions cost about 100-150k combined. This shows how ridiculously profitable KSP contracts are.

Update 3 It is time to use admin strategy. Shortly after I arrived at Duna, I upgraded Admin to lv 2, then went all in, setting leadership initiative to 56%, that was all cash / reputation I got. Later when I got more science I also setup 50% science to cash. Duna/Ike mission As Bob was waiting in Duna orbit for the return window, I sent Jeb to Eve. Upgraded tracking station to lv 3 just before the mission. After these two missions, I made > 2.5M funds and 7500 science, upgraded SPH, runway to lv2, Launch Pand and Admin to lv3. I was still about 1.4M short to upgrade everything.

$10800 is the right number. Also got 4800 for first docking and another 4800 for crew transfer for a total of $20400. Update 2

Update 2 Mun mission Made about 250k, upgraded R&D. Duna / Ike next.

Completing an observation contract costs almost nothing, just a few kerbucks on fuel. Building a semi-decent plane (I can fly my Juno powered plane at 1.8 mach at 3x warp with hardly any user input) just requires 1-2 45 pt nodes, and there is no need for maneuver nodes. I'd argue when you have the money for a lv 2 tracking station and tech for a semi-decent rocket to deliver a satellite, money is no longer relevant.

I think it does It is good to know. Imgur won't open, Imgbb allowed me to upload but the link didn't work, Imgpile seems to work for now. Mission report updated

Update More KSC trickery Minmus I made about 430k in this mission and after upgrading the launch pad is sitting on 440k funds. Should be able to upgrade R&D soon.

I have decided to start and other challenge save in normal setting. However the linked images don't seem to work???

How hard can the no contract career challenge be? The challenge The setting: everything normal, except I always enable action groups First launch Before the first space mission I gathered as much fund / science as possible from Kerbin. First orbit More Kerbin science Given the limited payload of the S-2F and lack of mission control I'd not want to risk my astronauts. So I did a Mun flyby first.

The flags and the light parts are truly useless dead weights.

I have been doing an easy version of the challenge. Per the save file I flew many missions concurrently, so I am not sure how to report them (it the entry qualifies)

Finally sent my tilt rotor to Duna and spent an hour flying it around. I must have spent 100 hours building it and it still looks dumb . At least it flies.

These are single stage, up to circularizing the payload. Then the rocket does a retro burn after one or more orbits to return to KSC. I haven't used really big engines, only the Reliant and Skipper (also tried Twin Boar, but that design lost out to a trio of Skippers, mainly due to the 65000 funds part entry cost). I don't have engines blowing up (there are red bars), probably because I use fully movable tailfins deployed as wings during re-entry (although my intention is that of a controlled gliding flight).

There is no need to be so complicated. SSTO rockets are feasible in stock KSP, even with Lv1 R&D parts. These are lifters I use for my no career game.

No Breaking Ground no problem

It is also true IRL that bigger is not always better. Try to do the same thing with a lighter payload.

I tried playing career before, I found that after getting to the point of building my first, simple, atmospheric plane, the game just became grinding money money with observation contracts. This time I follow @Superfluous J's no contract career and instead of just making money upgrading KSC as quick as possible, I am trying to visit all places, and possibly setting up a colony, using that limited income from milestones and selling science. To make the challenge less annoying, I set the building upgrade cost to 20%, and the money and science to 50%, this makes the cost of the ships more relevant. I have also enabled part entry cost, that proves to be expensive (for example a RA-15 relay costs 45k funds, while a level 2 RnD only costs about 110k), and makes researching new tech very relevant. Currently I have landed probes on Duna and Ike, and have sent probes to Gilly and Pol. I never have more than ~200k funds in the bank, so money is finally relevant. I am not sure when I am going to fully upgrade my KSC. I hope my rant can give other players or the game designer an idea how to make a more interesting career game.