Landwalker

In my first 0.22 career mode, I decided it was time to go to Minmus and get me some more of that learnin' stuff so that I could unlock another tech or two in preparation for a manned Munar landing. So I loaded up a probe designed to head out to Minmus, collect and transmit all the sciences back to Kerbin, and then (hopefully) return to the planet to be recovered for extra thinkin' points. All was going well... I had plenty of fuel once I was in my stable LKO, and decided I was going to get fancy and execute my first intentional gravity slingshot around the Mun in order to save fuel on the trip to Minmus. Several minutes of tinkering with maneuver points and some short burns later, and I was on my way to Minmus with truckloads of fuel left for the parking orbit burn and even a return to Kerbin. And now, after spending all morning on this (instead of studying for my CPA exam like a good little accountant), I have just entered Minmus's sphere of influence, and fired up my science instruments, and... and... and...... ... and I forgot to give the probe a communications antenna.

Up until the discovery of solar panels, probes return home (because they just don't pack enough battery power to transmit science effectively). After solar panels, probes rarely return home.

The great thing about KSP is that, while it is "early access", it's also been consistently built on and improved for the something-like-year-and-a-half-or-more since I originally bought my "early access" to it. I drift away periodically to play other games, or get caught up with real life, but every time I come back the game is leaps and bounds ahead of where I left it. It has not, and does not seem in any danger of, falling into neglect on the development side, and the development team seems very active in the community. As such, I feel that picking it up now is a pretty low-risk investment, and you'll get access to a terrific game for sub-market price. Short version: If you love the demo, I see no reason to wait until 1.00.

Some would say that the later options offer superior transfer speed... However, they do so at a significantly higher energy cost per Mit of data transferred, and the advantages in speed are pretty nominal. They don't improve the Data-to-Science conversion efficiency, either. Considering that the frequency with which transfer speed rather than electricity consumption is my limiting factor (i.e. almost never), I've come to the point where I see no reason to use anything other than the Communotron 16. (Except for, of course, aesthetics.)

Which raises a question I had when I was cruising the KSP Wiki: Parts have a listed "impact tolerance" (for Science Jr., it's 6 meters per second). However, what exactly does that represent? Based on some of the posts here, it obviously isn't "Will explode if it hits something going faster than this speed"...

My first attempt at a splashdown with a Science Jr. went predictably awry, as I was coming in with a Mk I Command Capsule and a single Mk16 Parachute sitting on top of the Science Jr. and two Goo canisters. They went blazing into the ocean at around 8 m/s, the Science Jr. was lost, but fortunately the destruction didn't spread to the command pod or the goo containers. Since then, I've had success with splashdowns with only one alteration: Slapping a radial Mk2-R parachute on the side of the Science Jr. That seems to both give it enough drag to reach a reasonably slow landing speed, and also causes the landing assembly to tilt slightly, taking some of the vertical weight off the Science Jr. upon impact.

Just wanted to pop in and say that I have really enjoyed these career-mission write-ups. Don't let a paucity of posting get you downâ€â€they're well-written, and as someone coming back to KSP after many months (and had never even been to Duna even before my absence), these early-game missions speak to me far more than things like multi-launch space stations cruising around the Jool system.