TJ_Tas

I wonder if its a difficulty level problem. I'm playing on Moderate too. Its getting pretty frustrating to be honest. The lower tier engines don't have a good power to fuel return now and getting the science to upgrade is too damned hard.

I know all this. I've been playing since the beginning. The point i was making is that this factor is now hitting me harder with the overall reduced science and lots more to buy. What you say about Minimus is true and if I had enough science to make a ship to get there and land I would. I am stuck on tier 2/3 with virtually no science coming in and not enough to buy the big rockets or fuel tanks i need to get there. This to me seems a catch 22 as i'm no longer able to get science from orbit as i've taken it all (which i've never agreed with). The only thing i seem to be able to get science from is farming the biomes on kerbal which is dull.

I'm having precisely the opposite problem personally with this version. I have plenty of money but just can't seem to get enough science to do anything with. I'm getting very few parts contracts nor anything else which gives science. I'm finding now that a previous change which reduced the science available from repeating a science operation is now killing me.

Thanks for the info.

I started a new game expecting to see a very primitive space center at the start of a career but all the buildings are at full upgrade.

I use lights a lot to help me get accurate docking maneuvers. I set up 2 lights 1 each side of a docking port which are conformal to the hull. I have 2 more lights on outriggers 90 degrees to the first 2. On a station i put these facing forwards and backwards. I do the same on the ship I am going to dock with it. Once I have my ship within 1000m of the station I turn on its lights and face the center of the station. I will usually aim for about 3-5m/s closure which will give me around 200-300 seconds to adjust things. Then I switch to the station , go into chase view and rotate the station to face the incoming ship using its lights and the stations lights to get the cardinal line up. Then I switch back to the ship (in chase mode) and use the station lights to orient its rotation to match the station. From here on in its just a case of adjusting the vector of your velocity and your velocity to the center of the station. I can usually achieve single touch docking like this.

Brilliant idea. I would love to see some sort of built in way to calculate these.

OK did not know about the reliability debate. First post edited. THough I have to say Like the second post I think it would be good for Apollo 13 type scenarios to happen. System failure is a reality in space travel.

Whats wrong with what I said about Reliability?

I will probably not be popular here but I really do not like the way the career mode works. Now this may be a mindset thing here, My enjoyment with Kerbal is experimenting with designs and performing tricky maneuvers. In short to me its about the journey not the arrival, but its only the arrival you get a reward for. There is no reward for complex flight planning and test flying. Surely this should be the very basis of science for a space career. I recently performed a probe mission to Duna. I launched from Kerbin, did a sling shot maneuver around mun then a partial aerobraking into Duna orbit. I landed and with 4 experiments (- the transmission cost) I netted about 75-100 science. To me this should have been multiplied by the number of SOI changes in the journey. Think of the scientific impact of the early mars landers this was no trivial achievement. I think a better system would run on 2 levels. Firstly the science level similar to what we have now but with some tweaks and additions. The second level would be efficiency of parts. To start with you would have a basic engine, a basic fuel tank, some basic fins and a gyro stabilizer (think V2). All of their efficiency would be around 50% this would mean they would develop 50% of their maximum power. Every time you use something you a). Get a trickle of science (1 per 10 km traveled or something) distance per point would increase over time, . the efficiency would go up by a random amount which is maxed at say 1/3rd of the gap between current levels and maximum (so you can never actually achieve 100% efficiency). Each time you unlock a new set of parts their efficiency is at 50%. This would change the onus to encourage test flights and unmanned flights to improve your capabilities.

Hi I\'m a bit of a lurker here. Love this game to bits. Here are 3 of my ship designs for Mun missions. Each one of these I have taken successfully to the Mun and made safe return. The upper stage is the same on all 3 and used right is perfectly capable of a Mun landing with enough fuel left to boost the Command module stage out of Mun\'s gravity well. In each of them too the intention is that the last stage before the lander will also have enough fuel to brake out of Mun orbit for the landing. You should then be able to ride that stage down to about 2 - 5km before staging and using the puny lander motor. Archer Ic is a bit of a beast. It does not like to fly straight and pitches left slightly under acceleration. Nothing that can\'t be dealt with. It is a beast though, its first stage (sorry I think the other way round to the KSP) is capable of lift off to TMI all on its own. I even once had enough fuel left in it to do my Munar braking maneuver. It is real brute force and ignorance approach though. To paraphrase Douglas Adams 'Its big and white and hangs in the air in the same way that bricks don\'t'. Archer II is a bit More refined. It flies a lot easier though has a tendency to roll Anti clockwise while maneuvering. It has no where near the lift energy of the Archer Ic so you have to be more accurate with your burns to arrive with enough fuel for the Mun landing. Archer II Heavy is an attempt to redress the short comings of the Archer II. It has an extra 9 fuel tanks for its boost stage and 12 solid rocket boosters to assist in getting it moving. It does work pretty well. It still can\'t match the Archer Ic for pure power but it is a lot easier to control. These are all made with standard parts.