capi3101

Switched my admin strategy in my second career save from transforming rep to money at 25% to transforming money to rep at 25%. Rescued Nina from Kerbin orbit; managed to plop her down in the Highlands 40 klicks west of KSC, so good recovery funding resulted. Also did a couple of satellite contracts. Managed to unlock a contract to do a Minmus flyby - fortunate that Bob is still en route with eight days to the encounter. I'm still hoping to unlock the full Explore Minmus contract before he arrives. Got a few contracts to rescue Kerbals from Munar orbit and I've got a couple more satellite contracts. Still haven't unlocked enough tech to rescue Val and her tourists from Mun, but plans to do that mission are in the works. Plans are still to upgrade the VAB next, though I'm putting less emphasis on making money at the moment now that my R&D is fully upgraded (I might switch that around again if I can get Explore Minmus to pop up before Bob arrives).

More "stop trying to land on grades greater than ten degrees". Come to think of it, what happened on Minmus was a combination mis-timed suicide burn / poorly-timed quicksave. Still the same end result...

Hmm...a screenie of your rocket design would go a long way towards diagnosing issues. From the sound of it, though, your rocket might not be balanced symmetrically - if it's pulling to one side as you fly, that's likely the cause. Here's a pic of mine from my 0.18 demo days. That's what folks around here call an "onion-staged" rocket; the boosters come off in layers. I used to fly that straight up to 10k, then pitch to 45 degrees on a easterly heading, and hold that until the Ap was at 100k; that's not the best way to fly that craft, even in the demo, but it worked for the early going. These days (i.e. 1.0.x), that same flight profile would be suicidal, of course...

Over the weekend I continued the money grind in my second career save. Decided to try my hand at building a Mun base for a contract, and at the same time land a couple of tourists for contracts, get science data from Mun for a contract and plant a flag for a contract on Mun. Let's just say that this is the last - and I do mean the absolute last - time I'm ever sending Val anywhere with a bunch of tourists ever again...damn thing tipped over on relatively flat terrain. Which is what happened in my first career save when Val had tourists. Granted, this time it was on Mun instead of Minmus...I'm just miffed that I have to do the same type of rescue mission AGAIN... Actually, Saturday was pretty crummy. I'd sent Val to Mun to do a flyby with tourists for contracts; her Stratofortress landed in the Mountains going too fast...lost 21 rep on that one. Not a good thing when you're trying to get the Explore Minmus contract to show up. On the other hand, the money grinding has been quite good. Bob is still nine days out from arriving at Minmus, and I've managed to earn enough to get the R&D fully upgraded. That's four structures fully upgraded - R&D, the Astronaut Complex, Mission Control and the Launchpad; VAB and the Tracking Station are at Level 2, and the other structures are still at Level 1. VAB's on the short list for an upgrade, after which my plan is to begin upgrading my horizontal launch facilities. And I'm hoping the science will flow from Minmus...

I would say that you've got your CoM too far forward of your CoL, but you also say that shifting fuel aft doesn't help (which kinda rules that out). Could be insufficient pitch authority; I know I've had that issue my own self on several occasions. I'm with MockKnizzle - let's take a look at your craft; it'll help us diagnose potential problems far more easily.

Yeah - had one of those just last night... I spent a fair amount of time working on the Bobmobile 7, a lander designed to clean out the ample science fields of Minmus. Could not get the damn thing into orbit for the life of me (I still have Level 2 limits on my Launchpad - which I oughta just go ahead and upgrade to full); wound up just doing a simple re-design of another, more primitive lander I'd already built to put Jeb on the Mun for Science! - I added a service bay with an OKTO probe and two barometers, and slapped eight OX-STAT panels on the sides of the fuel tanks. Launched it to orbit last night with Bob aboard and he's on his way to Minmus now...he'll arrive in 18 days (probably should've handled the transfer a little better). Also launched Jeb into orbit aboard a Loan Call 7 rocket with a single tourist aboard headed for orbit; conducted two Kerbin-orbit rescues and returned to KSC (splashed about 30 klicks off). I don't remember what contracts I selected to replace the three I fulfilled...one of those mornings where the coffee is insufficient......

The four original crewmembers - Jeb, Bill, Bob and Valentina - may or may not be immortal depending on your game difficulty settings (either "Hard" or a Custom setting). You have to explicitly tell the game to let them die; if you don't, those four will come back to life no matter what calamity befalls them. Whitesuits are toast as a rule no matter what. Only time they resurrect as a rule is when the Kraken strikes, and they're not guaranteed to return...

Slight design change - on the lander itself (S2 in the pic above), I'd recommend replacing one of the FL-T400 tanks with a quad of radially attached FL-T100 tanks, and I'd recommend two or three of the little mini lander legs attached to each FL-T100; this will shorten and widen out the lander's base. If you try to land that design on the Mun as is, it's almost certainly going to tip. You'll have to manually pump fuel from the outer tanks when the center runs out of fuel; that's the main problem with the radial tank idea (and it'd be particularly bad if the center tank ran out of gas during......say, landing). I'd suggest unlocking Fuel Systems (for ducts), but I still think Electrics should be a higher priority.

I'm in the middle of a low-tech run for science my own self at the moment. In addition to your tech tree, where are your buildings at the moment (VAB level, R&D level, etc.)? If I would suggest one to unlock right away, it'd be Electrics. You'd gain the OKTO core and along with it you'd gain the ability to pilot a craft without a Pilot at the helm - and the potential to harvest thousands of data points from Minmus... This topic has been brought up recently. I'll point you to two different posts from the same thread regarding early science strategies: one from Streetwind and the other by Geshosskopf. In your case, pay particular attention to Geschosskopf's advice; he's been kicking butt on the science-gathering front since 0.22 (i.e. the beginning). That low-tech run? I'm following their advice and I can tell you right now their strategies work (I'd only add that you should level up Mission Control prior to step #7 of Streetwind's strategy, and that only because it's necessary to do what he suggests doing...).

More fun and games with my second career save. Earned enough dough to level up Mission Control to Level 3, sent Val up to rescue some folks from orbit, and Jeb fulfilled the "Explore Mun" contract - bringing back 700 points of science, enough to get probe cores, a good array of solar panels, the barometer, Skipper engines...you know, enough to begin a serious science pillaging of Minmus. I only wish some of the folks I was plucking out of orbit had been scientists - so far it's been four engineers and a pilot... Short term goal is to get the R&D maxed; I'm sitting at √860k, roughly the halfway mark - I've got a number of high-paying contracts, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get the remainder raised in short order. I'm not sure where I'll go from there.

^^ This. It will also show you their experience levels. Definitely the easiest way to tell what kind of Kerbals you've got on a specific ship. The Astronaut Complex will show the specific log of each Kerbal - handy information if you want to know which activities they've been credited for (and for planning what you may want them to do to level up further). The Astronaut Complex will also show you what kind of Kerbal you will be picking up if you accept their rescue contract.

Spent the evening in my second career save, largely doing tourist missions for money though I did successfully fulfill a couple of rescue missions before the night was out (same general rocket for both types = good design, IMHO) as well as a couple of relatively high-paying parts test contracts. I discovered that Fundraising Campaign set at 25% is a pretty awesome way of making some extra dough without hobbling my early game too much; I'm two or three game days in at this point and I've got my Level 2 R&D unlocked, with the game already offering me the Explore Duna contract - and this before Jeb has made it into Munar orbit for the first time (and I haven't tried to send anything to Minmus as yet). I've got 73 science; I'm thinking of sending Bob out to do some dumb ground science (of which I've done not a lot - just the Launchpad and Runway) to get that extra oomph I need to unlock another 90 point tier node. Probably Electrics (though I've also considered Space Exploration - which would give me another science instrument). I really probably need to go back to my regular career save at some point - I'm just having a lot of fun with this one...

With 67 tonnes at takeoff you're going to want at least five Turbojets for the atmospheric bit and somewhere around 1,000 kN of thrust for the final flight to orbit. You don't have enough thrust. Might also have too much fuel...what are you trying to do with the design, specifically? Last night I didn't do much; still playing in my second career save. Sent up a tourist on a suborbital flight, cleared a contract slot, picked up a Skipper test contract so I'd have access to Skippers, designed a craft capable of sending more than one tourist up at a time...sent three tourists up and the game promptly replaced those tourist contracts with even more tourist contracts... Jeb needs to get to Mun already so I can start getting some variety on the money-making contracts score...

Try Precise Node; it lets you make adjustments in increments as little as .01 m/s along all three axes. It can make adjustments to the time too. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47863-0-90-0-Precise-Node-1-1-2-Precisely-edit-your-maneuver-nodes

Alright, I'll check that out, thanks.

So I put my normal career game on hiatus over the weekend to test out Streetwind's and Geschosskopf's strategies, or rather to see how hard it would be to bridge the two together. Got through Streetwind's strategy, though I did have to add a couple of steps to it, as follows: 6.) Unlock General Rocketry. Accept mission to escape the atmosphere. Accept mission to get into orbit. If you happen to have 45 science left, also unlock Basic Science. 6A.) Upgrade the Astronaut Complex. You'll need the ability to EVA soon. 6B.) Go to the SPH. Attach a Girder Segment to the back end of a pod, attach four Materials Bays to it, then attach four Goo containers to them. If you unlocked Basic Science, attach four thermometers as well. Tip the whole assembly so that the pos is facing upward. Launch, run the experiments and gather a crew report. Recover. 6C.) If you haven't already, grab Basic Science. If you have the science, unlock Advanced Rocketry as well. 7.) Build rocket with a pod, a parachute, two materials bays, and a service bay containing two goo canisters. If you managed to unlock thermometers, take a bevvy of them to the pod (not into the service bay, you don't have action groups yet). I recommend 6. Then a decoupler, and below that, a two-stage liquid fuel rocket capable of getting you into orbit. Yes, it's possible with 18 tons and 30 parts... easily. I run with FAR, and I needed the Advanced Rocketry parts (the FL-T400 and Terrier in particular) to build a ship capable of performing the mission described in steps 7-9. I was able to grab Basic Science at the end of step 5. I did have something like 150 science points after unlocking Stability and Flight Control (leaving Aviation and General Construction available on the 45-point tier); if I wanted to transition to Geschosskopf's strategy from there, what would y'all recommend unlocking next? I ultimately did General Construction (for struts) and then Fuel Systems (for fuel ducts/bigger gas tanks) - though I wonder if either Electrics (for the OKTO probe and solar panels) or Space Exploration (for the barometer) would've been a better choice. Quick question for Geschosskopf: do you still recommend the use of your science bomb lander design from 0.23?

Spent the weekend taking a break from my career save for experimenting with strategies for the early game. I decided I needed some corporate sponsors...

- Posted my original in the wrong thread, my bad - I was going to suggest that you could try building your plane so that it could be refueled; in KSP these days, the amount of delta-V an SSTO spaceplane requires for the final ascent phase (after transition from jets to rockets and circularization) is roughly 1,800 m/s - which, if you were to refuel your plane in orbit, would easily be enough to do a transfer burn to either Mun or Minmus. I did have a successful spaceplane ferry doing that very job not too terribly long ago. Of course, it was hauling passengers...an eighteen tonne payload is going to be a tall order. And there's still the issue of actually getting the payload down to the surface from there. And there remains the fact that what everybody else has said - that it's inefficient as hell - is inescapably true... If you're in stock air, plan for your your plane to have a takeoff mass of around 72 tonnes - it'll require five or six jets and about 1,000-1,200 kN of rocket thrust (so a Mainsail).

I would tend to agree with Sharpy - you want to leave your station's orientation as is; the tanker is the piece that should be moving. If you're not adverse to them, two mods I would recommend are RCS Build Aid and Docking Port Alignment Indicator. The first helps you construct your designs to minimize the amount of adverse torque you produce from RCS thrust (and as a bonus is incredibly helpful when it comes to spaceplane construction), the second helps with aligning your docking ports - use it correctly and you don't need any other instrumentation to dock; docking almost becomes a trivial process. I would highly recommend grabbing both mods, especially if (like me) you plan on using space stations as waypoints/fuel depots a lot.

Unless the lab's data buffer is full, of course; its maximum capacity is 500 units at a time. To empty it, you have to have scientists performing research, converting that data into science points (and then that has a maximum of 500 points at a time as well). Would you mind right clicking on the lab and taking a screenie, please?

The problem I always used to have with using the brakes is that they too had a tendency to flip the rover, particularly if you were travelling at speeds much over 20 m/s (45 mph - what happens when you slam on the brakes?). It's another rationale for providing some kind of down-force producing mechanism. Ions and RCS are the two methods I've encountered over the years that folks recommend for that job. Ion thrusters have two advantages: one, an ion-based system can be set to run by opening up the throttle (instead of having to hold down a key to keep the RCS going - I haven't heard of anybody using an O-10 engine for this same purpose but I imagine it would work) and two: longevity - assuming you're deploying the rover on a world without an atmosphere, you get that awesome Isp. RCS's advantages - they come down lower in the tech tree, the parts are less expensive as a rule, and the power requirements are much lower. It's noteworthy that a linear RCS port and an ion-thruster output the same amount of thrust; the RCS port has less mass, another advantage.

1) Build it low. Or rather, build it so that the center of gravity is as low to the ground as you can get it. This makes the rover less likely to flip. 2) Build it wide. A vehicle with a wide axle track is less likely to flip. 3) Include SAS. Your options for bonafide SAS (i.e. something that will help the thing hold its orientation) aren't as wide as they used to be; once upon a time there was at least a reaction wheel in every successful rover I built. 4) Encase the critical bits in high-impact resistant parts (girder segments and structural panels). In the event of a flip, this makes those bits less likely to 'splode and kill your rover. That's as general a set of guidelines as I can give. Other than that, a "good" rover is one that does what you want it to do. There are a few tricks I've learned over the years that I'd be willing to share (such as using ion thrusters to improve the grip of the tires, including an RCS braking system, or the "cheat" of including a Wheesley engine to lower the CoM), but I don't know if they'd suit what you wanted to do or not. I leave you with this, an oldie (for sure) but a goodie:

Read a couple of posts on the board yesterday about how to get how of the grindy part of the game quickly. Decided to try that out for my own self, so I fired up a new career save with normal difficulty and off I went. Had a pretty enjoyable evening; got a couple of buildings up to Level 2 and I'm already reasonably close to hitting the Level 1 R&D limit. Tonight it'll probably be back to the slog in my regular career save.

Just a quick note here - I started a new career last night specifically to work through your list of things to do in a new save; during this flight I did need a Flea to get up to 18,000. On the other hand, I use FAR so that might've had something to do with it. Might need to mention a thrust setting for the Flea; I left it on full myself and Val pulled some pretty serious gees as a result...

Nothing really new to add - use the Claw if you're going to stay stock, KIS and KAS if you're not adverse to mods. I myself stranded a quad of tourists on Minmus due to a badly timed suicide burn and unfortunate quick-save timing; I have the two mods I mentioned installed so I sent Bill out to Minmus, had him attach a connector port to the stranded vehicle, had him attach a winch to his own vehicle and plugged the winch cable into the connector port in docked mode - game counted the two craft as docked so I was able to "beam" the tourists out over the cable...