What to do now - ??

[Good_Cat]

OK where to begin.

I'm relatively new to KSP only played 0.90 but managed to plough a lot of hours into it already, in well planned badly executed mun landings, plenty of fail planes and International Space Station 5fps (the ISS 5fps )

I gone through the careers upto a stage and restarted a few times usually because i've installed a few mods and wanted to start again fresh through the tech tree.

At the minute i've got Intersteller along with FAR, kethane, KW Rocketry, Infernal Robotics and a few more tweaks - can't get B9 to work crashes at the menu, it is either B9 or Better Atmospheres.

So far this career i've got my Mun base the start of a Space Station but i've realised i've never gone further out than Minmus minus a few probes ( and they weren't intentional, didn't realise at some point one of these mods changed the fact the engines no longer produce electrickery and promptly ran out without enough power to even open the solar panels, i really need to remember to open then once i reach a space like altitude).

My Q is where do i go next out of the planets available.

P.S. OMG i hate Rotomax decouplers, an additional HOME3 habitat and 1Man return pod punched in orbit to add to my HOME3 habitat already on the Mun. Contract said wheels i thought bonus i can land it wheel it into position and dock the two together and blow the wheels off as they are mounted on radial decouplers. So i Retograde onto landing vector and suicide burn most of the dV needed for landed and decoupled the transfer stage from the bottom of the habitat module and a soft 500m landing from existing base - Sweet. Power up the wheel motors and.......... FAIL that Rotomax decoupler that dumped the transfer stage was the wrong way round its attached to the base Habitat module so my wheels are spinning uselessly in the air, i'm going no where.

The silver lining at least this time i managed to open the solar panels so i didn't run out of electric on the way to the mun and blow past the orbit interception burn like attempt 1 - i'm now 2 for 2 in failed attempts on this one contract and minus 400k odd.

Hate you Rotomax.

Edit Bolded the Q, in amongst the spam and failure.

[LordFjord]

Usually, once you have visited Mun and Minmus, it's either a Duna/Ike mission (with possible return) or you head to Eve/Gilly (oneway ticket only, sorry. The return ticket is reserved only for a few).

Both are relatively easy to reach once you understand interplanetary transfers - you can practice first by trying to go to Mun after visiting Minmus as that is a very similar transfer.

edit: welcome to the forums!

[yorshee]

It pretty much depends on whatever planet is soonest going to be aligned for an optimal transfer window. Even if it happens to be Eeloo! (of course, you should find other things to do while you're travelling that distance 'cause it takes years to get there)

The Kerbal Alarm Clock mod lets you keep track of your transfer windows.

The easiest planet to land on (and get back to Kerbin again), in my opinion, is Duna though, so I reckon Duna is a good destination for your first interplanetary voyage.

[Bill Phil]

Where next? Your decision. I would say Eve, because it's close by, easy to get to, and it has a big SOI. You can aerobrake, and you can learn about interplanetary transfers in the mean time.

Why Eve over Duna? Because of Duna's small SOI, small atmosphere, and Ike. It's small SOI makes it hard to "hit", so to speak. It's atmosphere almost completely rules out aerocapture (not breaking). And Ike almost constantly gets in the way. But Eve is almost the complete opposite. It's easier to "hit" in space, you can most certainly aerocapture, and Gilly is hard to get to because of its tiny SOI.

Unless you mean landings, in which case, go for Duna. But Gilly is quite a challlenge...

[cantab]

I suggest chucking a probe at Eve. Or a Kerbal if you don't mind leaving him there.

As far as landings and return go, consider Ike, once you're there it's just like a Mun landing.

[Good_Cat]

So probes for Eve and Gilly and Kerbal landings maybe/? for Duna and Ike unless i crash into Eve or Giily on the way to Duna and Ike.

Thank you

[KerBlammo]

For me the next step was a small probe to Eve, then larger orbiters and a lander to Duna. I'm working on a Duna station to support an eventual crewed landing there, and if my Kerbals are lucky, a trip back home!

[ddenis]

Install BahamutoD's Armory with missiles and guns. And go into interplanetary war. Or, at least, try this wonderful mod with automatical turrets which would fire into your plaine and missiles tricked by countermeasure flares.

Edited March 6, 2015 by ddenis

[Good_Cat]

Install BahamutoD's Armory with missiles and guns. And go into interplanetary war. Or, at least, try this wonderful mod with automatical turrets which would fire into your plaine and missiles tricked by countermeasure flares.

Yeah that's mod is fun made a Space Station from HX parts and took bits up 3000tonnes at a time 8 Goalkeepers 4 Abrams turrets and 20 Airborne Lasers. Looked badass but was amazing useless a pain to build and a nightmare trying to dock.

[jarmund]

So probes for Eve and Gilly and Kerbal landings maybe/? for Duna and Ike unless i crash into Eve or Giily on the way to Duna and Ike.

Thank you

That'd be the natural next step, yes.

A note on Eve: You can do a crewed flyby. Just slightly dip inside the atmesphere to get the science. At the same time, you'll be aerobraking for an orbital insertion so that you can send a kerballed expedition to Gilly. The requirements for visiting Eve aren't that different from Duna, so if you're OK with having multiple expeditions at once, go for it. Just make sure you're not aerobraking too deep into Eve, as that will surely make it a one-way trip.

[Pecan]

Have a look at 'Exploring The System' in my signature - the PDF download version, appendix 2: Summary Of Mission deltaV, list the requirements to fly to and orbit each body, that plus landing or landing only (for when you're using a station/lander configuration).

Note that the problems with Eve are the huge gravity (+12,000m/s dV required to re-orbit) and the rarity of transfer-windows. Oddly enough, although the transfer windows naturally apply to Gilly too, the gravity issue there is the exact opposite; staying down is more of a problem than re-orbitting. There you can even land/re-orbit a Kerbal just using the EVA RCS pack.

[Renegrade]

Note that the problems with Eve are the huge gravity (+12,000m/s dV required to re-orbit) and the rarity of transfer-windows. Oddly enough, although the transfer windows naturally apply to Gilly too, the gravity issue there is the exact opposite; staying down is more of a problem than re-orbitting. There you can even land/re-orbit a Kerbal just using the EVA RCS pack.

Eve's problem is mostly the atmosphere, actually (especially in stock). If it were an airless rock, your cost to orbit would be ~3,637.2 from 0m launch to 100km² orbit, using perfect instant transfers (it's not too hard to approach that sort of theoretical number in practice on airless rocks).

Also EVA packs are useful on rocks a lot bigger than Gilly; I used to train my kerbals by landing a ship on Minmus with them aboard... now I just EVA them down to the surface and back (when I don't have ISRU, that is. With something like Kethane or Karbonite, it's more convenient to land the whole ship and refuel). Heck, if you stationed a command pod on Dres, you could EVA them down, refuel at the pod unlimitedly, and return to orbit.. (EVA packs have upwards of 624m/s delta-v, depending on how much is wasted on turning)