Pecan

Sandbox every time, because you can experiment without risk and do whatever you find interesting while you learn how the game works. I would also say you can structure your development much better in sandbox because you aren't tied to the awful tech-tree. But then I would, wouldn't I. Link in signature. (Once you have a bit of confidence with KSP you can decide for yourself. Sandbox is still great but if you need more direction then career is the way to go.)

Repacked chutes will work with action groups, even after initially being staged. It's the staging itself that only works once so, yeah, it's best to just forget about it and always use an action group. [PS: What's with the 'spare' chutes? You're repacking them, so what do you need spares for?]

NOW you tell me :-( There I was, happily desiging and building for powered landings that are parachute-assisted just to save some dV, because I need the engines anyway and don't want extra chute mass. Anyway, now you've told me I'm doing it 'wrong' I'll change the way I play ^^. Remember folks, there are several criteria you may choose to optimise: mass, cost, part-count, ease of use ... or explosions. (I'm not being entirely serious as I assume you aren't either, which is why you put 'wrong' in quotes).

+1 more for chute-assisted powered landing (I only use two drogues on a 200t SSTO with 100m/s deltaV left after de-orbit). NOTE: Splashdown is a really bad way to go. In KSP the impact tolerance is tested for every part when you land in the water. Land on, er, land and it's only the ground-touching parts that are checked. Girders, if you need them, have a very high impact tolerance so you can safely dustdown at a higher speed - although I still aim for 5-10m/s.

Sandbox, as we have discuseed, partly because I dislike the tech-tree organisation but mostly I'm too busy with sandbox builds anyway. Mods we didn't talk much about. Currently I'm using: Action Groups Extended (AGX) - 250 action groups that can be edited in flight Active Texture Management (ATM) - saves memory, for more mods! Aviation Lights - nav lights, although I'm not sure they're really necessary or useful Bargain Rockets - go to space in a cardboard box! (a funny parts-mod that makes the sorts of ships a kid might build in the garden) Chatterer - Proudly boasts it is "totally useless, totally fun"; it is. Adds meaningless random radio-chatter and beeps that just make things feel more 'alive' **Highly Recommended** Connected Living Space (CLS) - (dependency of SM, below) calculates parts Kerbals can move through - such as docking ports - so they can move between parts without EVA Environmental Visual Enhancements (EVE) - Pretty clouds! Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC) - set reminders for manoeuvre and other events so you don't forget them or time-warp past them. Indispensable when you have several flights in progress. ***Essential*** Kerbin Cup - Footballs, courtesy of Squad. Not that I've ever used them. KerbQuake - would be "totally useless, totally fun" if Chatterer hadn't already grabbed that claim. Adds camera-shake in IVA view for acceleration and atmospheric turbulence. KSI MFD - (dependency of RPM, below) better Multi-Function Displays in IVA view. MechJeb (MJ) - information display and autopilot. ***Essential (or replace with KER/VOID)*** Module Manager (MM) - (dependency of several other mods) a 'behind the scenes' mod that others use NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicator (Get An Abbreviation!) - adds a docking-alignment indicator to the, er, navball. Did you guess? **Highly Recommended (or replace with NavyFish's original)** NavUtils - landing and other navigation instruments, more pretty displays I use in IVA. NRAP - configurable test weight. Saves having to make dummy payloads for test flights. Procedural Fairings (PF) - streamlined fairings, just adds to mass and part-count with stock aerodynamics but still looks good. RasterPropMonitor (RPM) - Wonderful IVA instruments with lots of buttons to click and things to look at and all sorts of add ons and... you get the idea **Highly Recommended** SCANSat - mapping satellites. Great fun but non-intrusive **Highly Recommended** Ship Manifest (SM) - transfer crew and resources (fuel, electricity, etc.) between parts of a ship SH_mk2CockpitInternal - IVA for the stock Mk2 cockpit (having problems getting RPM to work with this at the moment) Toolbar - (dependency of several other mods) a toolbar mod that others use, being replaced (?) by the stock toolbar TT Mk3 IVA - IVA for the stock Mk3 cockpit (having RPM problems with this too) Vessel Viewer (VVRPM) - diagrammatic ship display, in IVA!

SCANSat - led Easter Egg hunt. SCANSat doesn't have the hassle of RT2 but will reveal where all those 'anomalies' are. Then visit them for a photo-opportunity. You can start this at Kerbin; as Rainbowtrout says it's an interesting place, and has a lot of anomalies.

If you can get to Minmus you can build a VTOL - all it takes is ~100m/s deltaV after your de-orbit burn and one or two parachutes (I use 2 drogues on a 300t vehicle). Practicing exactly where to do the burn and how to set your periapsis is the thing. Get it right (or use MJ) and you can hit KSC, if not the launch pad or runway without fuss, the parachutes bleed-off almost all the descent velocity the atmosphere doesn't, leaving just a little kick for the engines to nullify. Helps to have legs made of girders and probably not a good idea for DRE!

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Maybe it's because it's 4am and I'm falling asleep but this gives the burn-out altitude, doesn't it? Peak altitude would need apoapsis including coasting above the indicated heights.

FIFY. Yes, I'm playing around with SSTO rockets now too. Planes are more trouble than they're worth so I'll eat the extra fuel-cost of a VTOL just to get to orbit in 5 minutes reliably and without lots of effort. @wanderfound - I really like your designs though. If only I had the patience to fly them ^^.

OP has a forum join date of March 2012! Yesterday I had call to re-install and play around with the demo version which doesn't even support mods. It was an interesting, and not unrewarding experience but I'd rather have my core mods. Chatterer is still "totally useless, totally fun" (it just adds random, meaningless 'radio chatter' sounds) but makes the whole thing feel more real.

Absolutely, that's why I said in my first post odd requirements might be required in real life. Simple tests can be done in the lab/workshop, it's only the odd ones that will need something more. To that extent it's the 'test a decoupler landed' types that are the odd ones out but even they can be justified by "nah, we don't think there's any point either, but the insurance company insist so it's got to be done". Like I said, anything can be justified. Any scientist (or anyone developing something new) knows tests are mostly tedious repetition with minor, carefully controlled, variations, partly unlikely boundary cases and just occassionally something interesting. You'll have seen that my disappointment is with the illogical tech-tree still but, as I have said elsewhere, I still haven't given career mode a fair test (ha!) yet so it might be more sensible than it looks. So far all I'm doing is test launches verifying old designs and updating cost reports. Now that does sound like real life!

First of all; do you have any mods or anything else we need to know about that might be affecting your ships? Secondly: it always helps if you post pictures of your ships/stations so we can have a look at what the problem might be. Such as... Third: did you actually fit docking ports on the hubmax? As it says in the description text they are "sold separately" so, if not, what you have there is just a box. Fourth: if you have the big, "senior", docking-ports - are they they right way around, it's easy to put them on the wrong way unfortunately, then they don't work. Fifth: rendezvous and docking are two different skills that both take time and practice to learn. If you give-up on the tutorials then install MechJeb (autopilot mod) and let it do the work for you. You can always come back and learn this part of spaceflight later.

Probably a false positive but Chrome is reporting the .zip download as malicious. Let's all be careful out there.

Ah yeah, that. The tech-tree is just ALL wrong, which is why I never played science mode. Contracts seem moderately interesting but career only really tempted me with the cost-effectiveness design challenge. Unfortunately, since you get everything back but the fuel that therefore comes down to "make the most fuel-efficient spaceplane". All that leaves you is "grind for science, with added annoyance". Anyway, it's all meant to be a 'tycoon' game, which is why Squad won't give us the numbers to design properly in stock (deltaV, etc.). Obviously, money, science, tech-tree, et-al arranged non-sensically is more accessible to newbies than "here's a number you don't understand yet" [/sarcasm]. We shall see - I still have hopes for the future iterations, but I've pretty much written-off career as anything interesting or educational.

[View from the sandbox]It's a mode where you start without wheels or wings, have no idea what a satellite is and can't fire so much as a firework but have a big engine for manned missions. The whole reason you do anything is to gain science advances so you have all the tools you need ... to do the things you've just done. You want realism, logic and sense!? "Why on Kerbin would I want to test a big booster at an altitude of 1000m?" because some calculations on its performance seem anomalous and need to be checked. It seems the seams might crack at decreasing pressure while under thrust. "And why would I want to test an engine splashed down?" because you're getting paid *shuddup, shuddup, the idiots don't know they're asking for stupid tests. Just smile and take the money!* You can justify anything if you put your mind to it, especially in fiction and particularly in science fiction. Seriously though, some odd test requirements might be called for in real-life R&D - whether you want to accept such test contracts is a different matter.

Answers above - it comes down to the fact that KSP is written using the Unity engine and Squad and you can only optimise within what that provides.

Sorry, I know this is obvious but I can't resist it: "Moar Boosters" You have the best answer - KAS.

Oh, you might find this NASA site useful, it came up in another discussion: http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/flteqs.html

The contract requires you to "activate" a part by "staging", within other specified parameters. That you are doing this but for reasons outside those specified the part does not function does not indicate failure or breach of the contract. Therefore the plaintiff's case is dismissed and they better bloody well pay up. IANAKL (I Am Now A Kerbal Kerbin (Squad doesn't want us to use that word) Lawyer).

Good luck with that. The easy part is working out your straight-line thrust and acceleration - calculus will let you go straight up and back down, even with gravity and drag. Before you start though you'll need to determine exactly what your throttle setting, control-inputs and heading will be at each (fraction of) a second. That'll affect the accumulated velocity vector, which will determine your energy losses from gravity, steering errors and drag. Unless you fail to fly an exactly duplicated mission each time of course, in which case you'll get different results every time. Oh - and if you stage, jettison anything or reveal/conceal parts that affect your drag you'll have to work everything out independently for each of those events as well. You will time them to the second, with identical AoA, altitude, velocity and other flight characteristics, won't you? TL;DR - straight up and back down can be calculated, but is worthless; you're unlikely to get contracts that specify an altitude without a velocity or other flight characteristics as well. Any more complicated flight through atmosphere can only be calculated within such a broad approximation it's also probably worthless; you're better-off having fun.

Squad doesn't want to give us 'numbers' because then KSP wouldn't be fun. 80%+ of players (in a forum poll a couple of months ago) want the numbers so they have a chance of getting things right! In map mode (press M from flight) you can click the Ap (apoapsis) and Pe (periapsis) markers on your blue orbit line to keep the figures visible, then you'll be able to see when they're getting close to each other. ETA: If you want to find your Kerbin orbit's inclination (angle from the equator) you can click on Mun in map mode and 'set as target'. Mun orbits at 0-degrees so any inclination you have with that is 'true'. KER/MJ/VOID are a lot easier though.

SCANSat's great, because it doesn't make you do anything but provides a lot of information if you do use it. Kethane's a nice mod, but (as I mention in the text) you'll change the way you play when you use it because bases for mining become an important feature. Mostly that's good - bases and rovers are cool and they become useful :-) Be a little bit careful you do Kethane mining for a reason rather than just doing things 'because of Kethane', or it can become a chore you have to do, instead of added fun. If you do decide to use Kethane then KAS (Kerbal Attachment System) is highly recommended too. That lets you add and detach parts, build cranes and things like that, 'in flight' which all make bases much easier and more flexible - you can use fuel lines just like hose pipes to connect a fuel tank to a lander, refuel it, detach again and launch the rocket, etc. etc. "Rocket Builders" - a sub-forum of the Spacecraft Exchange (link in my first reply to you) - might be the place to establish a thread for your 'company', otherwise start a blog. The word you want is just "document", it's used as a verb as well as a noun in English ("I will document my progress in this thread"). Subscribing to threads works as far as I know, look under 'settings' in your profile for notification of threads with unread posts (I don't know about getting notifications by email). I don't have a blog or 'company' because I've never been happy that a set of my vehicles could compete with some of the others - I am a big fan of mhoram, for instance, (although he doesn't like having a 'fan'!); see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/74395-0-23-5-Lopac-Lifter-Family-10-520-ton-V0-9-Low-Partcount-Lifters. I am hoping the SSTO rockets are worth publishing.

Works fine with my SSTO rockets, yes.

Check chapters 7 and 8 of my tutorial (link in signature) for some designs to try. @ Riph - I like yours too :-)