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I've landed successfully on both Mun and Minmus. Yay! Now, I want to get as much science as possible from the different surface biomes. What's the most efficient way? I could create a lander with a big gas tank that could "hop" from the first biome to a second and maybe even a third, letting me get 2 or 3 biomes per round trip. I could attempt an Apollo style orbiter / lander separation, and dock with the orbiter between each surface expedition. I could make a rover and, with luck, drive to 1 or 2 nearby biomes. Or I could skip all that and just head to Duna. What's the best way to progress in career mode? In particular, I think I'd measure efficiency in science per hour of play time. But am also interested in science per kerbin dollar.

I have my first contract to put a satellite in orbit in this game, I've done it a bunch in other saves. The contract is for an equatorial orbit around Kerbin, inclination of zero. That means the ascending and descending nodes are undefined. On the contract notes when in space, it says "Longitude of Ascending Node: Undefined" (correct) and "Argument of Periapsis: Nan degrees." And the orbit isn't drawn on the HUD. Is this a known issue with 1.1.2.1260 ? My ap and pe are different (14km and 12km), and I don't know where to put them.

So i started playing career mode and i accepted this mission about placing a satellite in orbit. Everything was going like expected but when i finish with the circularization this happens. http://imgur.com/mZUWzOQ Yeah, the game suddenly ignores me and dont let me finish the mission :/ Any clues of what´s going on?

Welcome to JASA, the JebKeb Aeronautical & Space Administration. We commit a large amount of rocketry and aviation, and we know everyone likes fiery stuff so we are trying to set up a space tourism network. We are also exploring the Kerbol system and are trying to place a permanent settlement on Minimus. I have not posted the early days of the space program because it's boring, but we're now up to about the same level of progress as real life space agencies, so I decided to show you my take on mid career mode.

Hey kerbonouts, I thought it would be fun to start a career with the science, rep and reward slider set to 10 %. Turns Out, it's pretty darn difficult to turn a profit. There is not enough science on kerbin to unlock the necessary the tech nodes to land on minmus or the mun without stranding poor old jeb. and i don't get enough profit to upgrade my platform in order to launch bigger low tech vessels. I currently saved up 64k worth of funds (coming from 10k). Have any of you guys tried this kind of carreer? How did you get out "the low tech valley"?

I understand one of the common (and legitimate in my experience) criticisms of Career mode is that it's grindy - completing random contracts to put useless satellites into useless orbits, or extract 10,000 units of ore from Eve to deliver to Gilly, or build a base with 5,000 units of liquid fuel on Moho... in order to earn enough money to fund missions you actually want to do. I find this is primarily a problem towards the late game, where A. The solar system really opens up and enters "sandbox" mode. Early on your sources of funding (Make orbit, plant a flag on the moon, etc) often coincide with your personal missions, but later on you often want to do things completely different from the contracts offer. B. Your crew roster is large (especially gets out of hand when trying to build permanent colonies and bases) and hiring new crew is prohibitively expensive. C. Rockets and hardware for more ambitious missions become exponentially larger and astronomically expensive. Especially when using things like life support mods that force you to bring much more mass along for long duration missions. The first problem can be at least partially addressed with the various contract packs and mods like Strategia. The second can partially be offset by rescuing Kerbals from contracts. The last can be partially managed by developing reusable launchers. I personally have been tinkering with SpaceY in my latest career, however I am so far unconvinced that this SpaceX style RTLS reusability is particularly viable given the mass fractions of KSP rocketry. For reference, in real life Elon Musk has stated that a Falcon 9 first stage pricetag ranges in the tens of millions of $$$ (I don't remember the exact number but we'll say ca. $50mn), whilst the propellant for the entire stage only runs you about $200k. Thus, notwithstanding the inevitable expenses of recovery and refurbishment, you are recovering nearly all your losses by bringing the first stage back. Now, upfront I admit I'm a pretty terrible rocket designer, but in my career I developed a SpaceY booster capable of sending a 3-Kerbal capsule into LKO (basically an orbital shuttle). It consisted of a RTLS SpaceY 3.75m first stage, and an expendable stock 2.5m second stage. The cost of the first stage alone ended up coming out roughly 70,000 for the hardware, and 25,000 for fuel. And here's the rub: For 25,000 credits, it turns out I could easily have built a barebones 2.5m expendable first stage instead - two orange tanks and a mainsail - capable of imparting more delta-V to the payload. So with that, I solicit the brilliant KSP community for thoughts. Am I just a terrible designer? Is SpaceY not actually balanced with career practicality in mind? Or are there advantages to RTLS reusability that only begin to manifest at larger scales (5m)?

I think they should add an optional upgrade to the space centre that allows you to add scientist and pilots to it. Could be called supply command or Virtual command center , but its function could be to have scientist 'compute' trajectories for planets/systems that have already been explored. The level of trajectory accuracy and compute time could be based on the buildings level and scientists level. The other component of this building could be the remote control of ships by pilots. I know in my career game i have multiple ships doing things. if pilots could be used to control ships based on trajectories by scientist this could free up players time for more building rockets and exploring. The player could assign the pilot a ship/probe w/e and then give the planet (orbited/explored) or ship that you want that pilot to dock with and then they do the rest. they can request trajectories off the scientist, may have to wait if there are not enough around. If the trajectory was off somewhat then they can course correct etc. of course comms will be needed, I haven't tried the new comms change but it sounds fun. My idea solves a number of issues: it frees the player up to do more funs things rather than fuel my super rocket that's in space(I do it in stages since career has limitations). gives scientist and pilots a purpose endgame gives the career mode more things to unlock and add to the experience Some of these ideas maybe in mods. I don't use mods for KSP so IDK. But it would be nice in the stock game.

The first video in my KSP 1.1 Career Series. In this part, we launch our first rocket and get to orbit.

Hello all, I've kinda come up against a wall when it comes to precisely setting up a Remotetech 2 network. It's early on in Career Mode, and one of the juicy contracts is to set up a network with 4 sats, and another to Alt Map scan Kerbin (with network). I've upgraded the VAB, tracking Station and Launch pad once and I would've thought I would have access to node placement, but alas and alack, no. I've had quite a few hours put into KSP over the years, and you'd think I could successfully circularise and orbit from launch without using nodes. Nope. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. With node, I can time the burn to 1/2 the Dv burn duration either side of the burn and generally get it bang on the money. Without node placement, I'd wait for Ap. and start my burn there. I look over at my engineer and it says my Apoapsis is holding (give or take), until my Periapsis starts climbing out of negative territory. Then my Ap. starts climbing rapidly. A life spoiled by access to nodes I guess. I've done searches for this, but all search results come up with no reference to Remotetech 2 and the need to remain in contact with ground station. The RT2 contact in question requires each satellite to have an eccentricity of no more than 0.04. How do I achieve this without nodes? BTW, here's a small list of mods I'm running (don't laugh. There are some real crackers in that list I can't Kerbal without)...

In KSP, Science is acquired by performing experiments while "landed," "in flight," "splashed down," or "in space high/low." You get different results based on which biome you are in, so you would get two completely new results by just walking ten meters across a biome border. Not only is this unrealistic, but it also encourages grinding different biomes for science, performing the same experiments over and over again when you would not expect to actually learn anything from them in real life. Long story short, the "biome" science system isn't really suited to anything but surface samples My proposal is for each science experiment to be dependant on things like altitude and latitude, as well as biomes. Zones Zones are areas that differentiate where experiments will have new results. Latitude Zones Latitude zones change every 20 degrees of latitude. For example, if you took a temperature reading at 0 degrees (the equator) you would get a different result than if you took one at 20 degrees. Latitude zones affect: Temperature experiments (2Hot Thermometer) Seismic readings (Double-C Seismic Accelerometer) Altitude Zones Altitude zones only apply to atmospheric bodies. A new altitude zone begins every 10 km above sea level while in flight, and every 500 m while landed. Altitude zones affect: Temperature experiments (2Hot Therometer) Seismic readings (Double-C Seismic Accelerometer) Pressure readings (PressMat Barometer) Weather readings (PressMat Barometer) Biomes Biomes are the same, except perhaps a few more could be added. (biomes for large craters on various bodies, islands on Laythe, etc.) Biomes affect: Surface samples (EVA) Core samples (Drill-O-Matic Junior) EVA reports (EVA) Crew reports (Kerbed flights) Solar Zones This is a new Biome-like system that would apply to Kerbol. You would get different Science Reports for doing experiments over Kerbol's Poles, for example, or by flying extremely far from Kerbol. New Experiments Weather readings: Weather readings would be an experiment that you could set a probe core to measure if the probe has a thermometer and a barometer. They work over a period of time, slowly gathering science. After a few days, a science message would pop up with something like "Recorded dust storm on Duna" or "Data acquired from hurricane on Laythe" Magnetometer: The magnetometer would be a new part that would measure the magnetic fields of planets/moons/Kerbol. It would only work in "in space high" or "in space low." Core samples: The Drill-O-Matic Junior could also be used as a sample drill, making surface samples possible for probes. They return 1.5 times the science of an ordinary surface sample. Scanners New scanning/mapping parts that give science based on how much of the surface has been mapped. This is basically just ScanSat. Science Changes -Crew reports and EVA reports would give much less science (How much can you learn by looking out the window?) -Transmitting EVA reports, Crew reports, temperature readings, pressure readings, weather readings, and seismic data would give you 100% of the science, although you get much less science than now (They're just numbers, which can be easily transmitted). -Surface/core samples can be used in the MPL for analysis, and this would take much less time. This gives the same amount of science as recovering the samples. -The MPL can be used for long term study of weather, seismic data, and magnetic fields if the necessary parts are on the ship (Temperature and pressure readings are combined for long-term study). The longer the study, the more science you get, although after 30 days the science increase slows down significantly. -Mystery Goo and the Science Jr. now only give different results if they have a significant temperature and/or pressure difference than previously conducted experiments. (No more biome-grinding) -The Gravioli detector should be replaced with a gravity mapping part that is used long-term on a probe while in orbit to gain science and map the gravitational differences on the surface -Thermometers and barometers are available at the second tech tree node. -Only Surface Samples, Mystery Goo observations, Science Jr. observations and weather readings could be studied in the MPL to avoid science farming and to add realism. What do you think about these changes? Suggestions and feedback welcome! Laythe

I updated KSP to V1.1 and installed FAR, because I always used it in the past. So now I started a new carrer and I have a big problem there: I can't even get my first basic rocket safely back to the ground. It's just a capsule with the starter SRB underneath, three small wings and two goo containers for science. I reduced the SRBs power to get a 1.2 TWR on liftoff and have a nose chute attached at the only available attachment point. I can get up to about 8k meters with this setup. My chute opens at 5000 m, but is not able to slow my vessel down in the slightest. When it reaches 350 m/s in free fall, the chute burns up and I crash. I did not play without FAR yet in 1.1, so I don't know whats with vanilla behavior. But did someone else have this problems with FAR in 1.1? Any tips on how to get that rocket back to the ground in one piece?

Most of the time when I play KSP on career the furthest I go will be Duna before losing interest (due to being too grindy) and playing sandbox feels cheatsy to be making a rocket that can go to the mun or anywhere else without taking effort to first make small rockets, now I have downloaded Realism Overhaul and I need to make the decision: Should I choose Career or Sandbox (or even science mode: Kind of takes away the grindy parts of career mode)?

Contents 1. Meet Gilly Superstation 2. The trip to Eve (+1 Stowaway) 3. Reaching Gilly (and Traumatizing Bob) 4. Visiting Gilly (Orbital Drop Kerbals) 5. Bonus Missions (Scans, Flags and Rescues) 6. Back to Kerbin (with Explosions!) 7: Epilogue: Meet Excalbur (tiny resupply ship) 8: Epilogue 2 (Epilogue Harder) ------ Sequel Mission: Duna Ultrabase 1 ------ Just had to show this off... Have you noticed how, as you reach the higher tiers of career mode, your ships inevitably end up looking more and more awesome? This is my current career mode mission: the contract was to put a 12 Kerbal station carrying 6000 liquid fuel and a research lab into an orbit around Gilly. I call it the Gilly Superstation, because I'm not very good with names. That's it in the middle: the thing that looks like a cross between a station and a giant space shuttle. I'm not sure why I went for that cockpit, but I don't regret it for a moment. The whole mothership is going to be trying to achieve three other missions while it's there: * the little Xenon Probe at the very front will be aiming for a specific contract orbit, also around Gilly. * the winged return module will be bringing 5 of 7 Kerbals home after they've planted a flag on Gilly for experience. The other 2, both scientists, will be staying at Gilly Station 1 to continue their research. * The Gilly Superstation itself, after achieving the contract, will use some of that spare fuel to put itself into a polar orbit about Gilly and do a surface scan. Further down the track, once work out how mining bases work, Gilly Station 1 will be the primary refueling base for all Eve missions. I spent about 80% of my funds on this monster, so it had better work. It's got some odd phantom forces coming from the return module and trying to make it pitch gently, but it's quite stable so long as SAS is left on.

Another space agency documentation. Major Goal: Unlock all Technologies and create meanwhile an solar exploiting Society. Always in thought of financial/possible aspects and secure travelling. Starts from the beginning, is well structured and documented (not every tiny Mission is posted here). Standard boundary conditions & mods (list available) to play realistically. Agency Structure: Kerbin Aeronautics and Space Administration - KASA division tag description Kerbal Exploration and Operations Directorate - KEO Space Launch Systems SLS lifter development Advanced Spacecraft Systems ASS spacecraft prototype developing & demonstrating Space Communication and Navigation SCaN communication systems Space Life and Physical Sciences Research SLPSR scientific research in support of manned space flight Launch Services LS support for other directorates & commercial sector Science Mission Directorate - SMD Research Technology RT technology development Kerbin Science KSCI research-observation related to Kerbin Planetary Science PSCI planets exploration Astrophysics ASTRO discover the universe Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate - ARMD Advanced Air Transport Technology AATT aircraft development Leading Edge Aero Research LEAR aircraft-concepts development - VTOL's - UAV's Airspace Technology Demonstrations ATD technology developing & demonstration Flight Demonstrations and Capabilities FDC support for other directorates & commercial sector Each Division supports Programs to receive an allocation of income and expenses. Programs consist of several Missions to achieve their goals. Programs and Missions will be partially skipped (apart major goals). As long as up to a status, as the current progress is achieved. ... to be continued (multiple mods are not updated so far)

It's HERE!!! I started playing KSP over a year ago and have been through 3 fresh start Careers. With the release of 1.1 I want to start again with all the new bells and whistles. However, I want to embark on as unique an experience as possible with mods. With the exception of MechJeb and Engineer Redux I have not done much with part or career mods. I am looking for some ideas to what would give me a completely new gameplay. In the past I have maxed out the tech tree just after landing and returning from Duna and TBH that's where the gameplay tapers off for me; when I feel a lack of "progress" towards some research goal. I have my eye on KSP Interstellar but would like some feedback before jumping in; does it enhance the game? should I max out the stock career before adding it? I'd like to hear ideas from people before I embark on yet another awesome journey into space!

Hello guys, I have updated to 1.1 the day it came out and waited for the mod devs to update their mods for 1.1 full release then I went to play in career mode. I was playing fine for the past 2 days but this morning, it said my career file was incompatible with this version of KSP... what do I do? I don't want to restart another one so is there any way I can fix this? I have a few mods installed and all of them except for kerbal engineer are up to date. Actually, Kerbal engineer is bugged because I downloaded the 1.1 update for it 3 times and installed it and when I launch the game it still says that I need to use 1.0.5 with this mode because I have an older version. Can I don anything to fix this? And will my career file be re-enabled in the game afterwards? If you need to tinker with it just tell me ad I'll attach it here. Thanks in advance, Cheers I have to mention that only my career file got "corrupted" and not my sandbox file which is really liquiding me off. It may be due to the 20 or so vessels in flight in career whereas I have none in-flight in Sandbox but still, this is making me lose the motivation to play KSP now...

"To Boldly Go.." - A 'Strategia' Career This thread will be a play through of KSP in Career 'Hard' mode' (allowing reverts) using the mod Strategia by @nightingale along with several other science and visual mods. Complete mod list: Throughout this career, I'll post the major decisions made in Strategia, tech tree choices, and major missions and milestones achieved. Hopefully the career will be interesting to follow for those who are interested in playing a modded career or are considering trying out one or more of these mods. The trained eye will recognize that there are no engineering mods on the list! This is intentional and is how I've always played. While I have nothing against KER/MJ, I've never played with them and will be building all vessels with only my own sense for Δv needs Because of that, there will be close-calls, there will be mistakes and there will probably be some lost kerbals as I always play with crewed missions and a life support mod (TAC in this case). As this is the first time I've ever played with TAC, chances of lost kerbals have increased greatly.. sorry in advance Jeb. Let's get on with it...! The first five launches were enough to get into orbit and open up the first five tech tree nodes: At the end of the fifth launch, I made the decision to activate the 'Pilot Focus 1' to help increase funds for Tourism contracts. Was that a particularly 'bold' choice? Nah, not really. But as I mentioned earlier, I don't use engineering mods so some missions may well have to be flown more than once. Summary of first five launches: The first was a basic rocket with 5 'Flea' engines with the thrust turned way down and staged ignition. Got some decent altitude and recovered the entire vessel. The following launches completed some 'landed' test contracts including an LV-T45 test contract on the final launch making it reasonably easy to get into orbit with its thrust vectoring goodness. Next time.. There are some 'Field Science' contracts around KSC area, so I've unlocked the first 'Aviation' node so we can cruise around Kerbin's surface. Also will be kicking off the 'Tourism' contracts and possibly a flyby of Mun. This thread will run at least until the first landings of a Kerbal on one of Jool's moons.. I hope to make it interesting and possibly even informative.

Hi I have been playing KSP for a while now, but never gone further than the Mun or Minmus. This is version 1.05 Moderate difficulty career mode. I had a short break from KSP before attempting this..... I think I was a bit rusty! Please feel free to comment on the Kerbaling as well as the Lets play style! Thanks for watching!

I've been puzzled by this omission and wonder if there's a mod that adds it. We have Sandbox mode, where you have full access to everything. You have career mode, where both science and funds are limited. And there is science mode, where you start off with fully upgraded facilities and money is no object. Why isn't there a fourth option, where the whole tech tree is unlocked, but you start off with a shoestring budget, the most basic facilities, and no rep, and have to build economical rockets or increase re-use, to gradually upgrade facilities, build out your space infrastructure and start putting Kerbals further and further afield. Would reward smart vehicle design and use of SSTOs or just partially re-usable vehicles, rather than putting you in the position of say NASA at the start of the space race, with no tech but huge resources, it would be like a present day or near future scenario where a smaller nation that formerly had no space program decides to start exploration?

64 bit users have long been plagued by the fact that in career mode the facilities show as fully upgraded and can't be upgraded. This mod addresses that issue by resetting the facilities to appear as the level they are actually supposed to be. It's been over a year since upgradable facilities were introduced in version 0.90, and with KSP version 1.1 coming soon(tm), this mod is both overdue and soon to be outdated, but here it is anyway. Download: http://spacedock.info/mod/44/Facility%20Reset%20for%2064bit%20KSP (moved to SpaceDock) Warning: This mod and Kerbal Construction Time (KCT) do not play nice together, so don't use this if you want to use KCT. Warning addendum: Actually, you can use this with KCT just fine if you unselect "KSC Upgrade Times" from the Features section of the KCT Settings. As they say "no pics, no clicks", so here's the mod in action in version 0.90:

Hi guys, I've been playing KSP since 0.9 and I truly love it. One of the only games in my life I can say that about. Theres been a couple of occasions I've left the game for a while, but I've always came back with the same original excitement. When 1.1 PreRelease was released I came back after a few months (6-7) away and I'm in love all over again...except the contracts system STILL sucks sweaty balls. My main issue is that theres no depth, no substance. No POINT (other than science) to do missions. They don't feel like they're PART of my Space Program, more like little add-ons. What I want is the "Space Program" part of "Kerbal Space Program". There are some mods which attempt to address this and most do a decent job, but its still only surface deep. The closest mod to creating a true space program I feel is Strategia. This is a step towards making a realistic space program in game. At the moment the contracts seem totally random, unstructured events - and I'm sure thats because, they are! In real life, when Kennedy said the USA was going to the Moon, the NASA Space Program became ALL ABOUT the moon. Every thing they did was geared towards this goal (generally, I'm sure they did other things, although I'm not sure testing a parachute while splashed down was one of them). In Strategia, you get to CHOOSE a goal for your space program. For example, "Plant Flag on Mun" - this gives more incentive to land on the Mun, while penalising any other planets / moons you land on while this goal is active. This is kind of a start, not ideal but a start. What I suggest is implemented, and I don't think this would be too much work as its just a rejig of the current system: 1) We choose our Space Programs Goal (lets say landing on the Mun). From that point ALL contracts are geared towards that goal. Lifter tests, Kerbin Orbits in the proposed Lander etc. 2) We can have a few different categories of Space Program Goals - Exploration, Probing, Terrestrial for example - Exploration is our chosen goal to explore somewhere, The Mun for example (as in point 1). Probing is our goal to send a probe somewhere (maybe unlocking that location for a possible Exploration goal once complete) like Duna. Terrestrial goal would be getting data from and around Kerbin. 3) While science is great for unlocking the tech tree, I would like to see it linked to unlocking future goals also. For example, we can't choose Duna as an Exploration goal unless we have enough science from Kerbin, or the Mun etc. In practice this is how I see it working: Beginning of the game, we can only choose a Terrestrial Goal: Get to Orbit. This will give us contracts like, test Lifter, test Launches, Test Launch Escape System, Leave Atmosphere, Get to Orbit. GOAL COMPLETE. Now we're in space we can choose an Exploration Goal and a Probe Goal. Exploration Goal would be Land On Mun. Contracts then appear like, Build Lander, Test Lander in Kerbin Orbit, Fly By Mun, Orbit Mun, Land on Mun. At the same time our Probe goal is active which would be to build a probe to get to Duna with contracts such as Design Probe, Test Probe around Kerbin, Test Prove around Mun, Put Probe into Orbit around Duna. Im sure you get the idea, but overall id LOVE to see this or something similar implemented for Career mode because all it feels like now is a Grind for Science without any real targets. Yes we can create self imposed goals, but we can do that in Sandbox. Anyway, thanks for reading this far!

Hi all, I'm starting playing Kerbal Space Program now and I'm loving it! However, I'm failing miserably to achieve some of the contracts. So, that why I have the question: what is lost reverting a flight in career mode? Reputation? Money? Thanks, Davi

Hey, i have a core module of a Minmus base but i am never offered a contract to add a new module to it. I'm pretty sure that in 1.0 or 1.0.5 the contract system was overhauled, so that you would receive a contract to add a new module to your station or outpost. Should i just be patient or there is something wrong?

This is a tip for players in early carreer mode. If you don't have the mainsail engine already, but you want to use 2.5m parts do this: Use a skipper and 4 thud engines, works great for me.

I was wondering if there is some way to play career mode without the science part? So you have all the parts unlocked but you need to do contracts and earn Money to keep on building rockets.