Scarecrow88

Are you using any mods, as they can often be the source of problems? Also, if you are running the 64 bit version, I believe that has stability problems.

I never use manoeuvre nodes for rendezvous, so can't really appreciate the problem. Surely all you need to do if you are getting to within 5-10 kms is to use the nav ball in target mode.

I made my space stations modular, so that they could be built to suit purpose. Minimum on most was habitation modules, refuelling ability - fuel and RCS -, solar panels and comms to give it some semblance of feasibility. Foundation of each was a frame that was fitted with senior docking ports that the modules were subsequently attached to. The downside of this approach to building a station is that the parts have to be launched separately and put together in orbit, which requires you to have mastered rendezvous and docking and can be one of the trickiest aspects of the game to master, but also probably one of the most useful. This is the framework on the launch pad. This is the finished station in orbit, after the modules have been attached to the framework.

Manned landing and return from all of them with the exception of Eve. Have put an unmanned lander there, but have yet to build a lander that I have confidence will be good enough to bring a crew back rather than strand them there.

Duna. It's easy to get to and land on and, more importantly, it's a lot easier to return from. Plus it has that mysterious signal that no one appears to have fully deciphered yet, and the 'alien face' rock outcrop. What's not to love?

I haven't messed with the difficulty settings, but I am guessing the 'allow stock vessels' option will give you access to the stock vessels that are available by default. As most of these are rather useless, I'm sure you wouldn't miss them if you turned the option off.

It's all very well saying that some of the bigger parts are overpowered for getting to Kerbin orbit, and perhaps they are, but surely the point of having the bigger engines etc. is so that you can go to place a bit further away than Kerbin.

The last time I went to Duna, I used the lander I had originally built to go to Mun. The only change I made was to add a few chutes, which meant that I used hardly any fuel to land, and had almost full tanks for my return to orbit.

The vanilla game doesn't have warp drive but it does allow you to warp time (i.e. fast forward) so that a trip to one of the outer planets that would take days in real time only takes a couple of minutes when time warped.

What's a level 5 Kerbal?

Congrats on your progress. I've been playing a while now, but still remember what I think are 3 major milestones for any player; getting to Kerbin orbit, first landing on Mun, and the first successful rendezvous and docking. I think those are probably the building blocks for doing pretty much anything in KSP.

Getting an "incompatible mod - toolbar" message on loading screen here.

That yellow thing is not a Lamborghini Countach but a replica, based on who knows what.

Another option that I don't think has been mentioned yet is to mount the nose gear slightly lower down, if possible. This has the effect of raising the nose slightly which will help get your craft off the ground if you can get the leading edge of the wing higher than the trailing edge.

Another entry to keep it going. Strictly speaking, this isn't eligible for the leaderboard, as I used a modded lander can (I can't stand the aesthetics of the stock 2-man can) and no mods are allowed, but that's the only mod I used. Under the scoring system I would have claimed 163 points - all goals achieved except anything to do with a rover or deploying subsidiary satellites.

That's the easiest way to do it, if your satellites are small enough that you can put 4 on a mothership.

The lat/long numbers in this game have always been screwy. Strictly speaking longitude figures shouldn't be higher than 180, but I've seen plenty of examples in the game that don't adhere to this convention, which makes it all rather confusing.

It looks like a Transformer that's only half way through the transforming process. But Kudos for putting it out there.

My last trip to Duna used a ship I originally designed to go to the Mun. The only change I made was to add some chutes to the lander.

Excellent. 2 replies, and each giving conflicting advice. How typically Kerbal.

I refined an old 1-man Munar ship to add a little more functionality and to tweak the aesthetics. Quite pleased with the improvements, even though they are only small tweaks.

As a guide to designing and building your own vehicle to meet your requirements, I would suggest the following. Start with a lander - basic requirements are that it has sufficient dV to de-orbit at the Mun, land and then regain orbit. Include RCS fuel and thrusters so that you can rendezvous with your command ship. Next, design your command ship. At the very minimum, this only needs enough dV to return to Kerbin from the Mun. If you use aerobraking, you don't even need enough fuel to establish orbit at Kerbin on your return. A minimum fuel command ship like this will rely on your lifting stage to get it in to orbit around the Mun though. If you want to have a craft that more closely emulates an Apollo style mission, your command craft will need to have enough dV to do a Munar insertion burn from LKO, and also a Munar orbit burn. Once you have both of these craft, you then just need a launch vehicle. It should only need 2 stages. The first to get it close to orbit at Kerbin. The second will complete the orbit burn. If you have gone with a low dV command module, this second stage will also need to have enough fuel to do the Munar insertion and orbit burns. Have fun.

The ALCOR capsule could be what you are looking for. It's actually a 3 man capsule, but it's much better looking than the stock 2-man lander. And the mod is for the capsule only - you don't need to download a bunch of stuff you don't need just to be able to use it. Thread with more details and download here ; http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54925-WIP-ALCOR-Advanced-Landing-Capsule-for-Orbital-Rendezvous-by-ASET-%28UPD-10-01-2014%29

From that line in your post, it sounds to me that when you do your burn at 70k, you're either burning in the wrong direction or you are burning too long, so that your velocity gets to the point where it is enough to escape Kerbin's influence and putting you in to a solar orbit.

Nope. A lot of us have been asking that as soon as they put it in. Agreed that it is pretty annoying, as no one launches on half throttle.