PlayMp1

Therein lies the problem. Anything available at tier 0/starting parts would then be required to be an SSTO (and beyond). Those exploding SRBs are exploding for a purpose, man.

It's also the actual plural of dwarf in the dictionary. "Dwarves" is purely a Tolkien creation - try typing "dwarves" in a message box in Chrome, Firefox or Word. You'll get a red squiggly telling you that you misspelled it, unless you've already added it to your dictionary. Spikeyhat, are you describing something like anglerfish?

This only applies until you have some form of consistent power generation, at which point you can just transmit repeatedly (because the only limit becomes electricity) and get the same number of science points as doing full returns. It takes a lot of clicking, but people have already charted out how long it takes for the diminishing returns to approach 0. Think of it like a 1/x plot.

You could downgrade from 4 to 3 engines and use a simple tricoupler for additional stability instead of the jury-rigged quadcoupler using multiple bicouplers. Alternatively, get the Kerbal Stock Parts Expansion mod and use the quadcoupler from that. The KSPX mod is practically indistinguishable from the real thing (some of its parts are actually stock parts now, including the cupola, MK1 Landercan, and the Skipper engine).

Ever wondered why the Kerbals are only about a meter tall, or even less? It's because their planet is far, far smaller than ours, meaning the gravity is less, resulting in lighter, smaller creatures evolving on it. If you don't need a big, meaty set of legs to keep yourself upright, why bother? Natural selection would slowly weed out the variations that survive to reproduce less often.