nadreck

Only one death in 1.0.5 so far, but it was one of those avoidable ones and therefor tragic. Eva a short distance above Mun on a suborbital course to determine which Biome the craft was over, one of my rescue Kerbal scientists lost his hold on the Mk 1 capsule's rungs. Rather than jet pack to orbit (which would have been totally doable) he struggled to get back to the craft so as not to abandon all the scientific data and samples stored aboard. As soon as he was back on board a crater rim tried to board his craft too. RIP

Naw, I am versatile enough to make do with 30 part ships up to and including the first landers on Minmus and Mun. After that I need to unlock the R&D centre to the 2nd level so that I can do fuel transfers, I can refuel the 2nd generation landers in orbit around the Mun and Minmus then and send bigger ones with the next few science instruments because they can refuel in Kerbin orbit too. I find I need the big docking rings to make stable craft that are easy to do 2000m/s interplanetary burns that can last as long as 30 minutes. Even with the big docking rings, by my second kermanned interplanetary expedition I am probably sending 3 separate craft that are made up of docked sub craft. 140t for the launch pad is not a problem at all, I can put up almost a half orange tanks worth of fuel in an SSTO tanker that docks with whatever vehicle that needs it then gets 75 to 80% of its initial cost back if I can drop just offshore of the KSC complex.

Well, I chose a hard mode with 50% rewards and 200% penalties and for me the hump (or grindy bit) comes with getting the funds to unlock the R&D center to allow 500 point items. There is still a lot of my tree below that level that has not been researched but I want the large docking ports and the last of the science sensors before I go for lots of the other parts. I find it grindy if I go back to the same biomes on Minmus and Mun and I end up doing that a bit with the first interplanetary expeditions on their way to unlock the things I need for Jool and Eve exploration. My order for upgrading the complexes are astronaut complex to allow EVA first, pad to 140t limit 2nd, 7 contracts 3rd, tracking station to conic sections 4th, R&D complex to allow surface samples, then VAB to allow 255 parts - which is where I am at in my 1.0.5 career with my desire to get the big docking ports (hey anyone want to invent 3.75m docking ports?) and science sensors before I send my first kermanned interplanetary missions (an unmanned one is already on the way to Duna/Ike on a fast orbit using my first nuclear engines), then I will want to remove the 140t weight limit at the launch pad. Oddly enough one of the things that makes early career grindy for me is trying to do things in the least amount of elapsed Kerbal time, so I don't accelerate time as much as I could and rather fill that time with tasks that start to feel a little grindy as they advance my science and funds a little more slowly than just following the interplanetary adventures would. But that is simply a choice of how I like to play the game and not a complaint about the game. I must say the new contracts that ask you to follow up with existing stations, probes, science surveys have helped make it seem less grindy. Also are making me rethink my tech tree unlock priorities to allow for rovers much earlier.

Warzouz, I do career at 50% rewards and 200% penalties and while I could come close to full science without leaving the Kerbin/Minmus/Mun SOI I usually have my first Level 3 Kerbs before I have my last 3 science sensors. As for being grindy, no XP is definitely not grindy, I don't bother with flags for every single Kerb, but I do shuttle out large numbers of Kerbs when needed, I am not there in 1.0.5 yet, but in the previous version I remember a vehicle carrying 20 Kerbs that I filled with rescue Kerbs and took just out of Kerbin SOI then returned, then alternated among those kerbals on catching up on science and contracts on at the Mun and Minmus. By the time I sent my 2nd expedition to a body beyond Kerbin/Mun/Minmus more than half my Kerbals were at 3 stars and I still needed lots of science.

No need to upgrade the tracking centre to fly by and return, and even orbit/land/return can be done without it. I start over from scratch with a career in a slightly harder than hard career mode (50% returns rather than 60%) and play the first session while drinking a bottle of [url=https://bigrockbeer.com/beer/dead-reckoning]Dead Reckoning[/url] in that couple of hours of real world time I have accomplished a flyby, sometimes even orbited the Mun, and I don't tend to upgrade the tracking centre until ready to launch the first Minmus expedition. Usually I get offered (and accept and complete) one or more rescues before I have the funds for the upgrade as I put the priority on upgrading the astronaut complex before I upgrade the tracking section as the science from EVA's is worth more to accelerate the early career than the patched conics. But the tracking centre is 2nd, then the admin building to allow building funds more quickly for the next upgrade, next the R&D centre so I can further accelerate science with surface samples and more science sensors.

Long time space cadet(geek). Was president of my high school rocketry club. Watched Mercury through Apollo launches, in fact my mother was shocked when she found out my grade school didn't have us watching the launches and kept me home from school for every school day launch! Ended up in IT in the late 70's (though devolved into IR in the energy industry 10 years ago), always looked for a good space game, Orbiter was a great simulator but lacked 'game', KSP fits all my space cadet escapist needs (I have Latin Dance for my social escapist needs )

No need to add parts they are there, and in fact 1.0 just expanded their range! Structural Pylon, Fleas, Hammers, Nose cones on the atmospheric ones. You can have tele-operated ones outside of atmospheres. Collateral damage potential is there too! Anyone who has, in the new atmospheric model used a high powered stack seperator/decoupler when pointed the wrong way on re-entry can attest to that.

Way too big a craft needed for that, remember this has to return the pod as well. Given that it only pays a couple of hundred thousand √ launching a vehicle built from something assembled in LKO at twice that cost doesn't seem effective.

Target biome: polar lowlands; landed: poles; oh well, plane change to station is a lot of margin Jeb can use for a short hop.

So what is the most efficient way to retrieve both the pod and kerbonaut from low Kerbol orbit? Given that this may easily require a total ÃŽâ€V of over 15,000m/s including gravity assist from Moho and/or Eve? What do you see as a more efficient solution?

Ok, my explanation is ( as was pointed out ) that the ÃŽâ€V requirements are pretty high going in close to Kerbol (the sun) not Kerbin the planet. So far I have managed one mission that needed more than 12,000m/s in total and note that I have to retrieve whatever pod it turns out the rescue Kerbal is in as well. So if my vehicle did not have to pick up a Kerbal and his pod it would have more than 18,000 m/s of ÃŽâ€V. As for the economics of ISRU and my mission, if I could launch my recovery craft with empty Xenon tanks and fill it with "Free" ISRU made Xenon it would cost less than half of what it does and the rescue mission would be profitable, as it is it about break even and given the long amortization schedule (300 Kerbin days for low Kerbol orbit). I have another rescue mission out near Jool, that will have a much longer amortization period. But as I wrote in my original post, I am a sucker for a cute rescue Kerbal, especially the way they purr and rub up to you, and eat the snacks right out of your hand.

I seem to be a sucker for rescue Kerbals in expensive (to reach) orbits (ex I currently have 3 waiting rescue, 2 with craft retrieval, around 2M km from Kerbol) my rescue craft for this is a 3 Dawn engine 3 big xenon tank automaton with a claw heat shield and 3 chutes. But they are quite expensive with all that xenon and, if I could manufacture Xenon I could launch them with empty xenon tanks and fuel them at an orbital depot. Given that the ISRU unit can make all the other fuels I feel that this is a little unfair. And if I can't get Xenon, how 'bout a Argon at a 25% ISP penalty?

Particularly when I am starting a new career: https://bigrockbeer.com/beer/dead-reckoning but in terms of solid food, as opposed bread in a mug, I suggest tortilla chips and salsa verde, dim sum dumplings, nuts, sour wine gums as they all seem to qualify to me as the sort of snacks I envisage being referred to on the IVA sticky notes and storage lockers.

When I started with KSP back in .21 I found airless body landings and docking difficult and in fairly short order tried MechJeb - I did try a few other mods - but performance and crashes seemed to be an issue, I did learn to land and dock much better, I first stopped doing rendezvous with mech jeb because I could plan them easily enough and figure out how to interlace planned rendezvous with other activities, then I found out I could dock using a small fraction of the RCS that MechJeb used. No other mod seemed essential to me and when career came out in 0.23 I had no reason to install any mods right away and it would have broken my perception of the game experience to install any mods in the middle of my first career. I might try some mods again in the future, but there is no part of the game I need them for. I am one of those players who, 45 years ago, doodled rockets in boring classes at school, but my doodles had exponents of e beside them, my copies of A. C. Clarke's "Promise of Space" and Wiley Leys "Rockets Missiles and Men in Space" were so dog eared, especially around the pages with ISPs of engines, or common fuels, also those pages where orbital mechanics were explained in simple terms. One mod I might go for, or maybe I just find the file and replace it, is the background music, I saw chatterer mentioned here and sometime after the current tech tree is unlocked I might give it a try. However, I am still finding hard mode career and my objectives for doing as much as I can in as little elapsed Kerbal time as possible and keeping kerbals alive as much as possible as I immerse myself in the stock RP a satisfying challenge (note stock RP often has me trying to 'use' the island airport and creating bases with contrived purposes else where in the Kerbol system). When that stops being a challenge (which may never happen with upgrades to both the game play and the RP backstory) then I will probably seek out mods that enhance the elements of challenge I enjoy. Slashy, I never thought of the flight planing drone out Kerbol orbit just ahead of Kerbin, but honestly I can usually cobble together a good launch orbit, though using low acceleration craft I replot it each successive orbit, then correct once out Kerbin's SOI.

Hmm, ever since they put economics in I have been playing career mode in more or less hard mode (1.0 I reduced penalties to 100% from 200%) and I do try to keep my Kerbals alive, and yes I put an inordinate amount of caution around the orange suits so far haven't killed any of them in 1.0.x but have lost 8 other ones. Despite trying to keep the orange suits alive I also religiously try to have them be the first to each new experience level. I take the contracts that suit me, I don't recruit Kerbals, I prioritize getting the science instruments before most other things on the tech tree so that I can get the rest of the tech tree fairly quickly. Hmm, I do tend to anthropomorphize my Kerbals and consider their points of view as I make decisions in the game. Oh and I do like the looks of life from a beach on Laythe with Jool hanging in the air above the water.

The latest change allowing the separated vehicle part in atmosphere to survive up to 20km of separation did change the profile of the recoverable booster I could build in a positive way, however, I do still find that a recoverable booster is not something you can afford to build until you have unlocked the tech tree to a certain point. A 5 orange tank booster with chutes and a probe core works just fine (or as well as it ever did).

Hmm, first landing, well back in .21 Jeb'' (each ' denotes a resurrection) landed more or less ok, ship wobbled, and not knowing enough about the controls I couldn't keep it from toppling over. Next, a vehicle sent to rescue Jeb'' crashed and killed it's lone occupant, the next one landed several kilometers away and didn't even have enough fuel to get back, finally a rescue craft arrived just a couple of kilometers away and Jeb'' made his way to it and returned to fly another day.

A future development would be more than just a pod, capsule, etc, but other bits of ship connected - also if there were reports stored in the occupied part of the vessel. I keep right clicking when my rescue Kerbals leave their original craft, but so far none of them have any data to take.

What they said about walking away, make a sandwich, shake up a marg, water the plants, start putting clothes in the washing machine ... with the guidance unit which allows locking SAS onto the maneuver node indicator on the nav ball long burns are a snap. Sure I have messed up on the, and with something like a Joolian expedition support ship with 10 orange tanks a few landers and probes, it can be a costly mess up, but heck that is what makes it fun in hard mode on career.

I had fooled around with a couple of versions of Orbiter - someone told me about Kerbal Space - I went and had a look at the demo and when I finally got Jeb in orbit with the demo (after a few, um, rapid unscheduled disassemblies) I was hooked and bought 0.21 immediately.

I don't need to use them for some stuff but I do anyway. I would note however that when I start a new career I usually have done my first rescue missions before I have upgraded the tracking centre, and in 1.0 had Jeb on a fly by course of the Mün with minimal fuel left counting on upgrading before he got there so that he could do a burn to get back. With plenty of fuel I could have done it without the maneuvering nodes but with just under 7 units left . . . Note I had a bottle of this for my first 3 hour session with KSP 1.0 where I started my current career - it got me through to Jeb's return from the Münar flyby: https://bigrockbeer.com/beer/dead-reckoning

Yes Virginia, there is a fun Kerbal Space Program! Ok, first off, I have been playing Kerbal Space since 0.21 (I tried the 0.18 demo for as long as it took me to put Jeb in LKO and then bought the game). It is more fun just after a new release. I have been playing career ever since careers came out. I sometimes test ideas and designs in simulation mode (the game calls it sandbox ;-P ) but that is rare. Sometimes something gets a little grindy for me BUT I want to point out that it gets grindy precisely because of the choices I made on how to make the game challenging. For me I had a little adapting, but admittedly tons of forewarning just before I flew my first mission in 1.0.0 from the threads here and the preview Twitch'ing, to the aerodynamics. I could use a little more re-entry heat in the model, but applaud the parachute fix in 1.0.2, they are so much more fun now. I also believe that Dean Karman quote of "the hardest fun you will ever have" applies here in spades. Note on basic rocket design in 1.0.2 - I have not needed fins, in fact haven't found them nearly as helpful as flying a profile based on engine gimbal vectoring however in no cases do I start a turn below 10k, with the LV30's I start the turns at 15k and take until 20k before I am down to 67.5° and 25k before 45° (from there it doesn't matter much). With big engines with big gimballing I can afford to start the turn around 11k and turn as much as to when Aerodynamics first start to drag me to the horizon instead of SAS trying to drag me back, so I go to just past that balance point and try to stay there. Starting at about 300m/s at 11k and hitting about 700-900 by 20k I am usually past 45°. Other takeoff guidelines is to stay below 300 m/s below 10k (but try to maintain as close to that as possible for as much of the first 10k as possible). Stay below 1000m/s below 20k. Stay below 1500 m/s below 35k (have had issues with decouplers blowing at 1800m/s in the 30's).

The only thing I find frustrating about tourists is not having them be able to change vehicles! Not all of them want to go downtown, some of them want to transfer to the cross town rocket. Ok letting them Eva would be nice too! They spend all this cash and then they can't even go outside.

Actually the AGU instead of the docking port. Allows fuel and crew transfers too. The fuel duct is also a key one, then concentrating on science capability.

I am only about 10 hours (my time, 20 days kerbal clock) into my first V1.0.x career (luckily have been able to move it to each of the successive release) on my hard mode: standard hard except 50% each funds, rep, science, but only 100% penalties. So in my first non vanilla rescue contract I simply took one of the Mk 1 capsules off my two capsule tourist contract craft that had my recently unlocked OKTO. Given that I had a fair bit of fuel left on it's last flight, I figured that taking off the extra Mk 1 pod would give me all the extra ÃŽâ€V I needed to make it to a 2,000,000 orbit and back after rendezvous and rescue. I managed to launch near the ascending node and get into an orbit that was only 8° off from the derelict, found a course that would take me out to it with the descending node coming up just before a close approach, created a maneuver node about half way out to tweak the rendezvous to about 2.5km then when I got there killed relative velocities while closing in on the target "pushing" the relative velocity vector closer to the anti-target indicator. My rescue Kerbal managed the space walk easily, gets on board, and I know it is going to be tight with about 20 units of fuel and orbital velocity just over 600m/s. So I decide to optimize and wait for the AP and then brake with the remaining fuel only to see the fuel run out with my PE at 91,000. So my rescue Kerbal jumps out of the ship maneuvers to just behind the engine, impacts it ever so gently then pushes with his reaction jets for exactly one unit of fuels worth, checks the orbit and orientation, PE down to 82,000, orientation just outside the retrograde bubble, so after centering in the bubble he approaches and pushes again down to 1.0 units in the back pack and the PE is now mid 50's so back in the craft to refill the jet pack, out and push until the PE is 32,000 and then rider her down to a safe landing in one of the oceans.