viktorserecros

Ditto. My last Jeb killed lost his life upon reentry into Kerbin at too steep of an angle. On my current save, he has been relegated to testing new lifters. No unplanned lithobraking yet.

I had just downloaded the demo because the trailers made the game look awesome. I hastily put a rocket together, not knowing which end should point where. I made it to about 8km when my boosters became WMDs. One lit booster spun around at killed Jeb in his pod. The look on Jeb's face just before death put me into hysterics. I immediately bought the full game.

It depends on how you define "best" when it comes to video games. Some people rate the first game to do something as being better than a later version. Personally, I call this "innovative," not "best." This isn't the best game I've played per se, but it definitely sets a lofty standard for playing time vs cost and overall enjoyment. I've spent sixty dollars on worse games. I really cannot complain at all.

With deadly reentry and life support installed, I hope to complete a round-trip visit to Duna. I'm having issues with lithobraking at the moment (stupid 'chutes keep burning off).

Let's see... 1) My only return trip from Duna required me to use the cheat window. I ran out of dV before my trajectory dropped into Kerbin's atmosphere. I gave myself infinite eva fuel and pushed the capsule back. 2) I've only done one return trip from another planet (see above). I keep planning a grand sandbox mission of depositing a kerbal on every solid body and then returning with a mother ship to pick everybody up. I reset this mission with every update and the furthest I've gotten is construction of the mother ship. 3) I've killed 20+ kerbals at a time in missions. All time best was realizing as the reentry flames appeared that I left a section of a space station packed with kerbals. 4) I've only ever docked with mechjeb. I wish I still had pictures of how I got so far in #2 without docking. 5) I've never been to Eeloo. 6) I've hit Kerbin's atmosphere at 8km/s and still accelerating. Nobody in their right mind would ever offer one of my astronauts a life insurance policy.

I'm not much for career right now. I completed it when it first came out, and it felt like an extended tutorial. It has gotten much better since then, but I feel that there is a certain polish missing to draw me out of sandbox. The grinding nature that several earlier posters brought up does have merit. If you don't exploit the biomes near KSC, you find yourself doing simple missions just to gain a precious resource. I'm not one to be totally turned off by grinding, but it is a benefit of sandbox. It is a little annoying seeing the updates changing the nature of career so much as to render previous attempts moot. (Not to mention the toasting of my computer hard drive in between updates-that's a different post.) Grinding is a necessary evil, without it games run into issues of being too easy due to a lack of resource risk. I know career has come a long, long ways from its initial release. The contracts system greatly improved the career mode. They added what I felt career mode desperately needed, a purpose. I little spit shine, gold sticky star for completing the mode, and a guarantee of not messing with the mode's mechanics is all that is needed, really, to pull me out of sandbox.

I installed deadly reentry and life support. I've nearly doubled my number of killed kerbals. If I don't run out of food, I torch my 'chutes on reentry. If I pack enough food and shields, I find a way to muck something else up (e.g. "Did I just jettison my lander engines?" or "Why in the name of Newton did I not check my struts?") I haven't had this much issue getting to Mun and back in a very long time.

I know it sounds weird, but I found landing on Moho easier than Duna. Now, of course, Duna is an easier intercept, but Duna was a harder landing because I kept wanting parachutes to do more work than possible. Moho's lack of atmosphere forced me to plan for every single m/s. What surprised me about my trip to Moho was pulling it off in career mode without mods (no mod parts, mechjeb, anything useful beyond mainsails and nukes...) I haven't returned in .23 because I'm going through a "why is everything blowing up?" phase with rocket design.

I understand your pain. It took me forever to learn how to land without mods. My issue was poor lander design. As stated already several times: 1) Wider is better. Top heavy tends to cause falling over and general stability issues. 2) Keep your TWR low. A high TWR tends to make steering issues more problematic. Once I started building the initial rocket like a Corvette and the lander like a freight train, landing became easy. 3) Pack extra fuel on the previous stage. Use the previous stage to burn off most of the lateral speed and a significant chunk of vertical. My lander lands with nearly full fuel tanks, which helps with the previous point. 4) Load up a craft from the forums that can achieve the landing. Use it, play with it, and figure out how to do it yourself. Sometimes its helpful starting with something that you know works before tinkering with something you think works. 5) Practice my friend. After several dozen failed landings, everything came together and I landed perfectly on the first attempt. I know that it isn't easy to get right. I read several posts similar to this one and watched a few videos. I resorted to shouting at the computer a few times "Why can't I do this?! Everybody else can!" I was dumbfounded the first perfect landing without quick saving. Everything I had seen and watched came together and I just did it.

"Why is that engine/fuel tank/wing/srb moving faster than the rest of the rocket?" "Parachute full deploy in 3...2...1... (unintelligible sounds as parachutes rip rocket apart)" "Kill engines for landing in 3...2...1...0. Ah, beauti-why are you tipping? Stop tipping! *sob" And the all time biggest cue for disaster and reason why I don't have many screenshots: "I'm doing this mission for the forums. I'm going to take a bunch of screen shots and come up with a cool story."

Two events in particular: 1) I tried to asparagus stage a rocket on the demo version. At about 20km, I had a severe structural failure and I had to trigger my escape sequence. Physics was not with my that day as my still burning engines quickly caught up. Jeb was my first pilot killed. I laughed all the way to the steam store to buy a copy. 2) Ran out of dV on my first manned Duna round trip mission. I got out and pushed the rocket on EVA back into Kerbin's atmosphere.

Laythe was my first (outside Kerbin, of course). My goal was to orbit Jool first, but while I was dropping the PE, I found I had a great intercept with Laythe. I also learned that if you drop below 10km, return to space is not likely without dV spending.

1) If a stage must be jettisoned before hitting empty, press x then space bar. 2) The black end of the sepratron does not point in the direction it sends spent stages. 3) You cannot pack enough parachutes to stop an 8km/s vertical descent into Kerbin.

MinMun Lander Science MKI I tend to regularly redesign rockets and I like knowing what my previous designs were in case of catastrophic issues. I'd quickly forget what each rocket was for if I used more creative names.

True, but I have a nasty habit of hitting space bar and walking away as parachutes deploy. There is some sort of disconnect in my brain that cannot handle the idea that Duna needs more than the "moar chutes" attitude.

I've made Moho by the barest of margins (ran out of dV way too early due to poor planning). I do Eve one-way trips when I'm bored. It may be hard to get off of, but getting down is easy. Duna drives me bonkers as I can never remember that parachutes are worthless. I made it to Dres once. I always seem to just miss the window. Jool and Laythe are my current exploration targets. I haven't grown bored with Laythe yet, so I skip over the other moons. I haven't done Eeloo yet. I will go when I get bored of Jool. Entering the SOI isn't really the hard part. Landing and returning home is.

I've given up on Moho for now. I've gotten distracted by kethane and my last Moho attempt ran out of dV just as I established orbit.

I have a nasty habit of quick saving just before I realize a fatal flaw in my planning. One time, I hit Laythe's atmosphere at 8.5 km/s, quick saved, and then realized that my velocity was fast enough to shoot me out of the SOI of Jool. I had just separated from my interplanetary boosters, and only had the small amount of fuel required for the lander's operation. I have yet to send a rescue mission. I judge how long I'll play KSP for the day based on how quickly one of these moments strike.

Duna isn't really scary in and of itself, but it's thin atmosphere has caused a lot of heartache. I keep forgetting how useless parachutes are and forget to enter shallow enough to bleed off speed to save fuel. Laythe and its oceans get me as I keep missing land and dropping my kerbals into a watery grave.

I built a launcher that could launch vertically to Jool. Why no gravity turn? It was so poorly balanced that gravity turns were fireballs. Had I properly strutted the dang thing and fixed the symmetry issues, it might have very well have made Eeloo a breeze. I lost it when my save file got corrupted.

I play with the nodes until I get an intercept. I only start calculating for the really odd orbits (i.e. Dres). Most of my launchers are overbuilt, so careful calculations are an annoyance.

It would have to be sending up a large space station and running out of gas just before getting the PE to a sufficient altitude. In the spirit of realism, I decided not to revert. I had planned ahead and had attached an emergency pod on the rear of the space station. All I had to do was transfer 3 kerbals to the escape pod. I had issues finding the escape hatch on the first EVA. I dropped from 100 km to 40 km during this time. Poor Raybus was about halfway down when I had to bail the escape pod. My first two recorded Kerbal K.I.A.'s.

Synchronized swimming KSP style. Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I had a successful Minimus rocket test. Then decided to double the size of the launch end of the rocket (Hey, I had Jeb, Bill, and Bob in one rocket.) This, of course, resulted in my first manned Jool flyby.

Welcome to KSP. We all begin as addicts. I was hooked the first time an engine swatted my poor kerbals out of the sky. I haven't tried docking yet, I've got too many rescue missions in planning at the moment to add another set of missions.