nadreck

Hmm, I see a reason for triple experiment redundancy: 1 to transmit 1 to process in the lab 1 to return to Kerbin So I need a 2 capsule/can lander to gather and transmit science and it puts one of every experiment in the lab and the other gets shipped back to Kerbin.

.21 in mid 2013, played with the demo for about 30 minutes then said: "I gotta get more of this!" as soon as I had made it to orbit.

I just posted this on another thread

Hmm, I had read the comments about the heat shield before I had a chance to play KSP 1.0 at all. So rather than jumping right in with career I played with Mk1 re-entry in sandbox until I was comfortable with it (3 suborbitals and 2 orbitals) then sat down with a career set to 50% for each of the reward sliders but 100% for the penalty ones (so quite close to vanilla Hard). 1st 'flight' was capsule on the pad with goo and Jeb getting out for eva report "flying above" and on the pad (also counted as first flight). That gave me enough for first level of the tree. 2nd flight was Val orbiting using the Reliant in two stages. Had to go back to space centre while in suborbital just above 70km to accept the contract to orbit Kerbin. Unlocked next level, upgraded the astronaut complex and orbited Jeb while trying to build to a Mun rocket. No fatalities but had a couple mishaps with design until I came up with one using the first gimballed engine on a pair of side boosters, with something like my 1st orbital rocket (with the 1 ton tanks now though to keep the parts count down to 30). By the time I had finished a bottle of Dead Reckoning that I opened as I started my career mode Jeb was onboard Salsa Shine 1 flying on an orbit that will probably take him through the Munar SOI. The Kerbal calendar was just under 3 hours into the first day. Plans for my next session are to upgrade mission control and have Valentina fly enough contract missions (combining as many contracts as possible) to build up the funds to upgrade the tracking station so Jeb can plan his Munar Flyby with a tracking node as he only has about 300m/s of DV left according to my calculations and I don't think that by dead reckoning (even if I drink two bottles of it) I can bring him back to an atmospheric entry course on that slim a budget. If I can accomplish that all in a 2 - 3 hour session of game play I will have everything I need to do a first Minmus mission with landing. The minmus landing and hopefully enough lucrative contracts to afford upgrading the VAB and R&D center in the 3rd session, and enough science to bring me up against the wall of what I can do before upgrading the R&D centre and VAB, but then that step gives me surface samples and more complex vehicles. To me that seems reasonable progression for my level, obviously someone new to the game would not be getting there that fast the first time, but all the necessary steps to get there would have that new space capsule smell. So I don't think game progression is broken, nor, to me is the tech tree. A newb, encouraged to play around in sandbox and maybe with tutorials, should be able to, on vanilla 'normal' career, make progress without having to create new careers over and over or get frustrated.

Another thing about chutes, regular ones really should be destroyed when fully deployed in the trans-sonic range (>300 m/s) and initial deploy say around 500m/s and the most specialized high speed drogues should fail by about 1km/s. I would like to see that fixed at the same time as the heatshield is.

I still don't see the site as up, can someone send me the IP address in case the name server updates are lagging in my area?

Cool must be with SpaceX then working on the Turkmensat launch, I will be watching the launch (from work) while downloading KSP into my drop box so that when I get home I can run it up for a couple of minutes before I head to 2 hours of dance practice for a couple of Salsa Teams I am on. When I get home from that I have a bottle of Big Rock "Dead Reckoning Imperial IPA" that I picked up a while back planing to use the next time I started a new Career (presumed it would be when 1.0 came out) and had to fly for a while without the controls and instrumentation to which I had become accustomed.

I answered the poll "Stock and Rockets" but I have a class of wingless vehicle that either uses turbo jets or Rapiers (depending where I am in career mode). This vehicle is for point to point travel on Kerbin and Laythe as well as orbital shuttles.

I try to recover all my larger booster stages so I design in probe cores and parachutes. When a craft that was fullfilling a satellite contract or station contract is done its job and if I seen no future use for it, I get rid of it either by crashing if possible or by removing it in the tracking station. Any flags that are not the primary biome identifier (ie contract or experience flags) get deleted from there as well. Occasionally I delete something I didn't mean to in tracking station (parked craft on Kerbin usually).

I use a 5 orange tank booster that parachutes back to recover about 70% of its value (before the booster falls below the 23k physics limit the 2nd stage gets to orbit or at least above 70km on a course that keeps it below apogee while I recover the booster stage), so I could easily use a Stayputnik on that, alternatively, before you earn the Okto it is possible to use it to fly a rescue craft equiped with a capsule and use the capsule's torque. Flying with a non pilot or a non SAS probe core is tricky, but I did manage a rescue a Kerbal mission with a scientist at the helm a couple of times. Landing on an airless body would be quite tricky though.

So in .25 I had decided that playing in my Hard Mode (standard Hard Mode with rewards reduced from 60% to 50%) that I should also only allow the use of "rescue Kerbals". Now in .90 I am doing that again and it is even more interesting than in 0.25 since I have know idea what the next rescued Kerbal's role is going to be. So far I haven't had to pink slip any Kerbonauts because I had too many rescue ones, I hit 5 just before I was ready to upgrade the Astronaut complex, so as long as I don't get more than 9 rescue Kerbals before I am ready for the next upgrade all is good. I am curious how many other players have any self imposed recruitment rules for Kerbals? Or maybe retirement rules?

I am doing the vanilla hard mode in .90 (in .25 I was going with 50% on the science, rep and funds but otherwise all the defaults) this is definitely more challenging, particularly when I come across things that I just expected to work. For example my first lander that was going to rely on fuel transfer - OOPS. Or when I didn't expect the pilot to tip my second lander over because I choose hold prograde while on the surface of the Mun. I like the challenges so far, not sure if I am going to try to do Minmus before up upgrade my tracking station. I may just to see if I can. Note, is there any way predict/control what role 'rescue' Kerbals have? I plan on only using 'rescue' Kerbals and the original 3 in my missions (how I played 0.25), but so far have only got engineers (2). Contracts are interesting, haven't done any of the visual surveys yet. Waiting on tech tree.

Another exploit is to use the aggressive negotiations and then recover your ships from the pad, cost your reputation into serious negatives but you are getting to sell the ship back at full price even though you only paid the discounted price.

I think they put the right thought into balancing this for an early access game: leave it to the players to balance it. They gave us a great set of tools in 0.25 to do just that. I am a few hours of play time in, I set my game as I intended to at 50% each for funds, science and reputation rewards, 100% funds penalties and 200% reputation penalties, and all the hard mode toggle options. I have so far tried one strategy which is the 50% commitment towards aggressive negotiations, I intend to go 50% in on enhancing recovery stuff once I get the parts for reusable big boost stages. My personal strategy in 0.25 is one of slightly more caution than usual(though I have already destroyed the launch pad once at a 64,000 funds cost) and so far have not done as many simultaneous flights as in previous versions and am letting the Kerbal clock move forward faster than usual. I am finding funds easy to acquire still, but also want to make sure I have a buffer against some accident that wipes out a more expensive facility. I was surprised how easy it was to destroy the launch pad (a staging error that had me drop a 1.25meter parts first stage that had un-ignited boosters from about 20 meters). I am also aiming in my strategy to not have to hire any Kerbals (I have two rescued recruits so far and hope to have enough Kerbals to do simultaneous interplanetary flights in the not too distant future). Oh and while I have got a sandbox game set up, that I intended to try new designs in, I am thinking that as long as I have sufficient funds I may try to play with development activity in the career game as an extra level of difficulty.

For the first time in a couple of version I will create a sandbox game to run "simulations" of new ship designs (and there definitely will be new ones with the new parts!!!) and yes I will cheat by copying new designs to the career game once developed and tested in Sandbox. In fact for a later version, they might consider giving us a "simulator system" in Career mode that costs us a very moderate amount money, science and rep to do this sort of testing within the context of the game. I will make my first career out of the following custom settings and try to make headway against any undue difficulty by using the new "strategies". Allow Revert Flights: OFF Allow Quick Load: OFF Missing Crews Respawn: OFF Auto-Hire Crewmembers before Flight: OFF No Entry Purchase Required on Research: OFF Indestructible Facilities: OFF Allow Stock Vessels: OFF Starting Funds: 10,000 Starting Science: 0 Starting Reputation: 0 Science Rewards: 50% Funds Rewards: 50% Reputation Rewards: 50% Funds Penalties: 100% Reputation Penalties: 200%

1. Like many here have jet-packed down or to orbit from a ballistic arc on a broken/fueless space ship on a low gravity body. Note that 1st important thing to make this work is EVA before things get to close to ground. Most interesting situation here was hitting a crater rim on take off going more than 100m/s and having Bill bail and land on RCS. 2. Toppled vehicle trick: if torque or RCS is not enough to right the vehicle on its own and you are on a slope (one of two main reasons for toppling - the other is to high a lateral vector on landing) retract your gear, point nose up the slope use retro RCS to build up speed going backwards downhill, extend gear (for one vehicle on the Mun the magic speed was about 2.5m/s) the gear catches and the vehicle topples upwards, enable SAS and leave RCS on and use attitude controls to find the right stable up attitude or thrust with main engines and take off. 3. Moving fuel/oxidizer in equal proportions or equal balances for landers. Make sure you have a small tank that you can use for this purpose where filling it provides a minimum useful amount. It is generally a 45/55 fuel tank. Also usefull for returning enough fuel to an orange tank or larger tanker to allow it to return to Kerbin.

With the new economics I am trying to always build a 1st stage that is pretty close to SSTO for the payload so that I can be sure of recovering it and getting at least 50% of the costs back. So the full vehicle weight ratio to the empty weight of 1st stage plus subsequent stages is generally between 4 and 5. Also I am a huge proponent of assembling expeditions into 1 or 2 vehicles for the interplanetary transfer so, about 9 out of every 10 launches is bringing up the parts for something or fuel. Every part that I might separate into its own unit is equipped with a automatic control pod. This makes eventual docking and re-integrating much more convenient. Almost everything gets sent up without crew too. The most senior kerbonauts (Bill, Bob, and Jeb) are quite busy and take more junior staff with them, but they get the first choice at the best missions, but they don't hang around while the expedition is being put together. I would like the ability to upgrade some of the other kerbonauts to that elite, orange uniform, status.

Administration building function maybe, I can't imagine administration that doesn't come with a lot of bean counters. FWIW I have just over 5M funds and at a guestimate have spent about that developing my past missions and current space assets: Current Assets (As at Day 9 Hour 2 Kerbin 24 hour clock): Interplanetary course: Jeb aboard a Duna/Ike mission that will leave nuke transfer stage & tanks in orbit, land on Duna, land on Ike then return to Kerbin probably discarding the transfer stage in interplanetary orbit. Discarded orange tank & Poodle engine with no fuel but a little RCS and controls on a highly elliptical orbit left behind the Duna/Ike Lander Low Munar Orbit: 3 nuke landers and a fuel train currently around Mun (a fuel train that are two orange tanks, rcs, and automated control which has been "pulled" back and forth from LKO to LMO 3 times so far by one of the nuke landers along with science modules) 1 nuke tug from the 2nd Munar expedition haven't decided to salvage it yet. It is in a nearly opposite polar orbit to the other assets. Highly eliptical orbit around Kerbin 1 outbound Minmus contracts fulfilling vehicle with Bob aboard (he was on the previous Minmus mission as well) 2 inbound Minmus vehicles on autopilot from the previous Minmus mission (note they came in on a 3 day orbit, while Bob had made it from Minmus back to Kerbin in less than 24h) Low Kerbin Orbit: 70% refueled EVE Lander (it used up all its fuel launching to LKO as an SSTO and not using staging) 1 Eve Rover in LKO 1 Tylo Lander (fully fueled and waiting for the rest of a Joolian expedition to get assembled once the Eve Expedition launches) 1 10 orange tank station and a kerbal can, docking system, rcs tanks, framework, about 30% full of fuel 1 S3-14400 tank based 6 LV-N interplanetary stage for the EVE lander (90% full of fuel) 1 S3-14400 tanker heading for the Eve lander (about 60% full of fuel) 1 5 orange tank based boost stage (either puts an almost full orange tank, nuke lander, or other 30t load in orbit as a recoverable booster) or for light payloads like rovers it is SSTO. And I would disagree that unbuilt ships have no value. Both my Eve Lander and Tylo lander were tested iteratively (and with some cost where tests failed - as Elon Musk says "rockets are tricky") on Kerbin starting with gentle hops to sub-orbital arcs to test landing, structure, etc. So to me, having spent say 500,000 testing the Eve Lander and at least 100,000 on the Tylo one I can now build one of those with the assurance they will work. My reusable rockets had their teething pains too and I figure that the unbuilt versions are still worth something.

My stations have hitchhiker modules, my interplanetary flights are generally combinations of excursion modules (Landers, rovers, atmospheric craft) and interplanetary craft, if I were planning on leaving an orbital station behind it would definitely include a hitchhiker module. Interplanetary expeditions do involve more crew carrying capacity than needed, whether for rescue capability, intended disposition (my current Eve Lander return concept craft has a four stage ascent system - and leaves a Mk2 lander can and essentially a base behind while returning a Mk1 lander can which is essentially useless and will be left in Eve orbit after rendezvous and retrieval of the Kerbal pilot and its stored science), mission flexibility. I do use the Mk2 lander can in my interplanetary craft. Most interplanetary expeditions might leave Kerbin with 2 or 3 Kerbals, but have space for 5 or 6. Then return with just enough space for the Kerbals returning.

My biggest routine booster stage costs about 300,000 and I usually get 200,000 back on it when I recover it, however before it was my routine booster stage I lost it to bad course, improper staging, and a number of other issues leading to the loss of all 300,000 even though My current design has its chutes open on staging and I need to be careful that the orbital stage gets to 70,000 in time and with enough time to Apoapsis for me to return control before the boost stage goes below the critical altitude of 23,000M and stay with it to landing. I have fine tuned it to an Apoapsis of about 110,000M. So far in 0.24.2 my most expensive craft has been my "Eve Lander Concept 2" (designed to return a Kerbal to orbit) which at launch cost over 500,000 and it shed extra parts worth 70,000 too early in flight be able to recovered. ELC2 also needed to be completely refueled in orbit, and my heavy fuel tender based on the boost stage mentioned above and an S3-14400 tank going to orbit, will cost about 450,000 to refuel it under optimal recovery operations. Also a nuclear interplanetary stage will be added with an effective price tag after booster recovery of approximately 200,000 and the expedition featuring this ship will likely feature two of the landers plus 2 rovers, a Gilly craft (though I might just use a rover), and fuel tender based on the interplanetary stage for the landers. I expect the expedition to come in around 2,000,000 in cost. Since I have one rover, one interplanetary stage, one lander 2/3rds refuelled already in orbit and 5,000,000 in funds I am sure I can easily afford the full out version of this and building an extensive Joolian expedition while this one is underway. I will keep nibbling at contracts too. My Duna craft is well on its way. Oh and I probably spend 500,000 on test launches and recoveries of my Eve lander as I made about 8 flights with it, 5 of which landed successively further and further from KSC.

Rather than change my poll, I will leave it as it stands and encourage people to explain their variations on my theme as a few of you have already.

Ever since my second career mode iteration (.23) I have been playing with trying to complete the tree in a minimal amount of elapsed Kerbal calendar time and trying to get around the Kerbollar system to plant a flag everywhere plantable in a minimal amount of time. So given that I max the tech tree in less than 2 weeks on the Kallendar I can make any type of ship I want and that means fast multi LV-N propelled expedition fleets that can use >5 km/s dV as they leave LKO. How many of you eschew optimal launch windows and go for that nuke fueled high resource orbit or hyperbolic trajectory?

I (actually Bob, Bill, Jeb etc) have had a few hairy moments, but one of the hairiest that was survived recently was on take off from near the rim in East Farside crater. Things happened way too quickly for there to be a good photo op, but Bill had a concern about low fuel and was trying for a most efficient launch into polar orbit and was not perfectly careful about where he was going. The craft had four small tanks and engines around at Mk 1 lander can core with a science package on top and legs attached to the tanks. A great wide base, but at about 160m/s he clipped on tank leg and engine clean off on the crater rim and the remaining craft was spinning badly (engines were off at the time waiting for the top of the arc for an orbital burn). Bill immediately opted for EVA and managed to slow down and land safely from that speed with nearly 2 units of EVA fuel left. That actually made me wonder if he couldn't have actually made orbit!

I will still try to go for the extra from a Kerbol Graze, LV-N and the smaller payload ;-) seeing what the fastest speed out of the Kerbol system I can get.

Cantab and Lheim are right, but the reason most people don't do a direct to the anywhere course is because the planning (maneuver node) can't be set up from the launch pad. Now there may be a mod to do this somewhere, but you would want to launch in such a way as to be able to pitch over at the optimum time and the maneuvre node planers don't allow this either. If you were flying in a hyperbolic trajectory (not trying for most efficient fuel use etc) you still have no real tools set up to allow for this. I do plot hyperbolic (or at least orbits of much higher eccentricity than a Hohmann transfer orbit) for most of my flights beyond the Mun. As far as the Oberth Effect/hyperbolic velocity goes, I do want to send a prob on a course to Eve or Jool, use gravity assist to adjust the orbit to a Kerbol graze then at Kerbol PE empty an orange tank with a LV-N to get to Kerbol escape velocity and beyond (then maybe even use a ion thruster post that to see just how fast I can get a light probe going out of the Kerbol System).