boomerdog2000

I like the current tech tree. It actually encouraged me to go back to the Mun and look for new areas to do science, and got me to do my first stock Duna mission.

Next time try turning the ship so the ladder is more accessible first, coming in underneath the ladder can lead to some weird physics.

Are you using Mechjeb for the ascent? And if so are you using its ascent mode or the SASS?

On the concept of EVA reports being physical, I think it makes sense. When the game talks about not being able to store more than one EVA report per biome it uses the word experiment. This got me thinking maybe they have some sort of science kit that they use on EVA in those different areas. This way it would make sense that it needs to be recovered. Also on the Science Bay idea should it be able to generate a small amount of science over time as well? As long as the part is far up the tech tree, heavy and expensive it should work. Otherwise your ground bases would become useless fairly quickly, unless you're willing to drive for hours to get to new biomes.

Currently recovering from a year long Duna mission that he volunteered for even after being stranded in Munar orbit for a week.

I just find a 6 hour eve online soundtrack piece on youtube and have that run in the background.

I believe the bigger/better ones transmit the data in bigger chunks thereby using less power? Not 100% sure but that seems to be what the info in the VAB was leaning towards.

Considering many of their parts are from Jeb's scrapyard, they just might.

Ah yes that's completely different, sorry.

New career mode actually got me to do a stock Duna mission which I have never done before. Always have mechjeb helping with the aiming and the landing. All the crew made it home safely and I got 2000 science!

For probe sized science you can probably use those smaller science parts (thermometer, accelerometer, gravioli detector and barometer).

If you go into the settings.cfg you can change the conic that it shows to one that I think is much more useful by changing the value to 1. I don't really know how to explain it but it saved my Duna expedition.

It's not a bug if you didn't save.

Agreed. Probes only seem necessary for interplanetary missions since even if you have to send a rescue mission to Minmus it's still in Kerbin's SOI and thus much easier to get to.

For the EVA report I think it mentions "only 1 experiment per area," so maybe they have some sort of science kit that they get out on EVA?

Managed my first stock Duna landing and return. They were guiding the mothership in for a landing at Kerbin with the landers RCS but they got her home safe. 3 safe kerbals, and a cool 2000 science. I call that a win.

I don't think it does. If you look in the config, the parts don't have a tech node set.

Actually you can store multiple EVA reports as long as they are from different areas/biomes, same with surface samples. And you can transmit whatever crew report you have for full points so the only restriction is the lab equipment, which makes sense.

Managed to land Jebediah on the Mun manually which I haven't done in a long time. Then had just enough fuel to put him in a 5km circular orbit. The resulting rescue mission should be interesting.

It does that already doesn't it? blue for current orbit, yellow for next SOI, purple for SOI after that.

The lab would obviously be expensive, heavy, require lots of power and be further down the tech tree. This way once you manage to start sampling the Jool system if you take this part with you on the mothership you won't have to try and land it back on Kerbin. It's a late game technology, designed to aid interplanetary sciencing.

Then you might have to pay too much for engine tests. Maybe you can only get a certain number of EEP from engine tests. Something like Block A can be unlocked using any method, including on pad engine tests. Block B can only be unlocked from returning the craft from orbit and more advanced methods (no on pad engine tests) Block C can only be unlocked from landing on another planet/ moon or more advanced methods (no engine tests or just from flying in Kerbin's SOI) Similar to the diminishing returns from the current science design.

Maybe we could have a few emergency funding mission to try and get the program back on track if it's going bankrupt but not an infinite number of them. A sort of "all right you've had funding problems, but if you can pull this off we'll give you a ton of money." It would have to be fairly difficult to warrant the return from debt. Also it does seem like there should be a definite game over. Were our first cities, civilizations, theme parks, what-have-you, completely successful right off the bat in other games? No, we screwed up, we probably screwed up a lot. But then when you did get it to work wasn't that feeling so much sweeter because of it?

Alright so we've determined we probably can't stop people from farming EEP, but we can think about ways to discourage that.

What if you could only accept a certain amount of missions? This would encourage you to go do those missions as quickly as possible to go start more. I don't like the idea of a time limit because that doesn't seem to take into account interplanetary transfer windows. It's not your fault you couldn't do the mission if Jool was in the wrong place the whole time.