Between Noob and Intermediate

[donfouts]

I started at 1.9, and from what I have heard and seen there are some big differences between the older versions and this release!

I don't need beginner tutorials - building, designing, game play, etc!

I don't need the first 1 or 2 missions - that is done as well.

I have been playing 2 different games - one in Science mode, and the other in Career, because I am trying to figure out what style is more fun, but I am stuck in both!

I need more science! I feel like I have made my way up to the 3rd tier in the tech tree - where they all become 90 science units....

and I understand where and how to get science points - I am just struggling with getting there in the tech I have.

I have 5 or 6 biomes covered on kirbin I can get to the mun - but either don't have the fuel to get back, or the energy to transmit science back.

• should I be lauching my "almost-orbiter" around in different directions until I find the last few biomes?
  
• on this map - where is the launch pad? I think I know from launches but the globe texture in "m" map mode is not as good of a resolution:
  

The Wiki is good about what EVA/Crew Reports/Surface Samples where to get science but:

• how does this Jr. Science lab get me science points?
  
• In Career mode: Do you get more science for completing a mission during the first attempt?
  

I am playing with no Mods: is there a website or tool that will help you calculate launch windows and headings to get where you want with minimal energy use?

Real Space programs wait for the correct day / time to launch so they don't need major course corrections or orbital holding patterns in their mission.

Lastly - I lost a kerbanaut: took off from the mun but didn't have enough fuel to point back to Kirbin - so he is in a solar orbit,

• How long will it take to be able to create a craft that can recover that pod?
  
• Is that hundreds of gameplay hours from now?
  

It's Jebidiah - and there is like 200 science units in that pod , I don't want to terminate the mission, should I just start over with a new game file?

Thanks guys - First post, but I have been reading a lot from the community!

[ATSinged]

I'm just a little ahead of you in my current career, though I restarted with new mods, I've been playing a while. Here is how I proceeded through this hump.

Right now, I'd be focused on getting batteries at tier 4, and you don't need much to accomplish that in fact the Science Jr. will really help this. Using it is easy, get it in to space, click on it and tell it to observe materials bay, it is a pretty good chunk of science if returned from orbit. It's fragile, use an extra chute or two to bring it down, I think 6m/s or lower to land it successfully.

Suggestions:

Have you done EVA reports from low space (less than 250km) over all of the biomes you know about? I can't remember if you can do the Science Jr over each biome or just once in low space like the goo, I usually get to the Mun and Minimus ASAP.

Have you done a polar orbit to get the biomes that an equatorial orbit won't get you? There are at least 2 more if you haven't (avoiding spoilers in case you care). There are also a couple of biomes that are harder to get, I often wind up with Jeb riding the outside of the capsule a bit waiting to pass over something I don't have yet, for example you have to be pretty quick on the EVA report button to get Mountains.

Crew, EVA and Mystery Goo from high space (more than 250km out)?

That should get you most of, if not all of tech 4 and batteries, which are a game changer. After that, I'll load a capsule up with batteries, goo and a science jr. and start looking at a Free Return mission around the Mun, no orbit, just use the Mun to slingshot you back to Kerban. There are a couple great tutorials on how to do this, I don't do these pure, in the sense that I'll use correction burns to get the most out of them. aim for a low periapsis, say 15km to maximize my time in low space over the Mun. You can pick up a ton of science, I usually EVA over 3 or 4 Mun biomes and with 4 batteries loaded up you can transmit all of that. I won't go orbital until I have solar panels.

[eddiew]

Lastly - I lost a kerbanaut: took off from the mun but didn't have enough fuel to point back to Kirbin - so he is in a solar orbit,

I can't for the life of me work out how you got from Mun to a solar orbit by virtue of having low fuel... sounds more like you had too much!

Retrieving him is possible, but will need an awful lot of timewarp. Basically you need to put another ship into solar orbit, then change its orbit enough that it's out of sync with Jeb, then plot a hohmann transfer. Which could be years of in-game time away.

However, I don't think you need a lot more delta-v to do this than is required for a Mun landing and return, so it's largely about whether you're comfortable with the time warping required.

[donfouts]

I can't for the life of me work out how you got from Mun to a solar orbit by virtue of having low fuel... sounds more like you had too much!

Retrieving him is possible, but will need an awful lot of timewarp. Basically you need to put another ship into solar orbit, then change its orbit enough that it's out of sync with Jeb, then plot a hohmann transfer. Which could be years of in-game time away.

However, I don't think you need a lot more delta-v to do this than is required for a Mun landing and return, so it's largely about whether you're comfortable with the time warping required.

sorry - not the mun, minimus... and I basically took off from the far side of minimus and tried to get a gravity assist back towards, it was a pretty epic failure!

pretty sure he is not far from minimus, but not under Kirbin influence.

[donfouts]

Thanks ATSigned - good advice.

oh: one other thing:

do you need a ladder to eva in space without falling off? I have reverted missions because I floated away from the hatch and couldn't get back to the hatch.

I am i hitting a key i shouldn't be when I exit to let go - on the surface I stay attached (for the most part)

[Sampa]

you don't necessarily need a ladder to eva...you really just need some practice on how to use your eva jets to move about without being attached to the spacecraft.

[OhioBob]

With Mystery Goo and Science Jr. you collect science as follows:

In Space, High/Low - Global

Flying, High/Low - Global

Surface, Landed/Splashed - by Biome

Kerbin has 9 different planetary biomes, plus the launch pad, runway, and KSC grounds. That gives you 28 experiments you can run without leaving Kerbin. You also have crew reports, EVA reports, and samples. The easiest thing is to just send a pod with Mystery Goo and Science Jr. to the launch pad, run the experiments, do a crew report, get out and do an EVA report and take a sample, and then recover the vessel and crew. You can even do an EVA report while hanging on the ladder and you'll get science points for an EVA "while flying low over launchpad". Do the same thing at the runway. You've now collected some science without costing you a thing. You can now repeat this by doing quick hops to other biomes. Launch up and to the side a short distance and you'll land at KSC, or at Kerbin shores. Do a short hop to the east and you'll splash down in the water and can collect science from there. Do a short hop to the west and you will land in Kerbin grasslands. Eventually you can start expanding out to more distance biomes (be wary of mountains though because you can tumble down a steep slope if you're not careful).

- - - Updated - - -

In Career mode: Do you get more science for completing a mission during the first attempt?

Yes, there is a diminishing margin of return with science. Some science gives you full value the first time (such as crew and EVA reports), thus repeating it gains you no additional science (though it can satisfy the conditions for a "collect science from X" contract.) Other experiments (such as Mystery Goo and Science Jr.) give diminishing science points with each repetition. The reduction is significant, so it is rarely worth doing it more than twice (unless it doesn't cost you anything).

It's Jebidiah - and there is like 200 science units in that pod , I don't want to terminate the mission

That's a problem because you'll never get that same science value again by repeating the mission. You should be able to rescue him but it will take patience. If you can't bring his pod back you can always have him transfer to an empty pod via EVA, but that's going to take some practice. You will also need to make such that Jeb takes the science data from the old pod and transfers it to the new pod, or else you'll bring Jeb back but not the science points.

Edited March 10, 2015 by OhioBob

[ATSinged]

Thanks ATSigned - good advice.

oh: one other thing:

do you need a ladder to eva in space without falling off? I have reverted missions because I floated away from the hatch and couldn't get back to the hatch.

I am i hitting a key i shouldn't be when I exit to let go - on the surface I stay attached (for the most part)

I have some craft that do this, the Kerbal will hang on for a while and eventually drift away, and on some of my craft Jeb hangs on just fine. I can't figure our any rhyme or reason to it, I just learned to keep an eye out for it and got good with EVA thrusters. Back in the past, I sometimes had issues with Jeb taking off out of the hatch like a rocket, sometimes 150-200 meters away by the time I could turn on the rocket pack. Those times were usually because something was just barely clipping the hatch, or even just almost clipping it, usually a parachute. I learned to habitually design around it, I don't even know if it is still a glitch.

[Kryxal]

Actually, you WILL get as much science for repeating those experiments/locations, that will then cause the value of what Jeb has to drop.

[AlexinTokyo]

do you need a ladder to eva in space without falling off? I have reverted missions because I floated away from the hatch and couldn't get back to the hatch.

I am i hitting a key i shouldn't be when I exit to let go - on the surface I stay attached (for the most part)

You don't need a ladder (although it can be helpful). Flying off the capsule's ladder when going EVA is a known bug, and you can download a (non-official) patch that fixes it from here.

On the other hand, learning to use the EVA maneuvering pack (jetpack) is well worth it.

[EtherDragon]

Any chance you could send is a picture of your current tech tree? That could help a lot. It sounds like you are high enough to build a reliable Mun / Minmas capable ship that is also able to return to a safe landing on Kerbin. As far as your stranded crew member goes, I would send an updated Minmas capable craft and repeat his mission so you can use that science. Then worry about rescuing him later. Solar orbit isn't 100s of hours away, but it does take a couple successful Minmas missions (usually) to retrieve enough science to be able to reliably go Solar orbit and back.

Edited March 11, 2015 by EtherDragon

[OhioBob]

Actually, you WILL get as much science for repeating those experiments/locations, that will then cause the value of what Jeb has to drop.

Yeah, you're right. I should have realized that. Points are award on the order in which the science is returned to Kerbin, not the order that it is collected. This actually makes real-life sense because the knowledge is gained when the data is analyzed by scientists back on the home world.

- - - Updated - - -

As far as your stranded crew member goes, I would send an updated Minmas capable craft and repeat his mission so you can use that science. Then worry about rescuing him later. Solar orbit isn't 100s of hours away, but it does take a couple successful Minmas missions (usually) to retrieve enough science to be able to reliably go Solar orbit and back.

You can also wait until you've researched the Advanced Grabbing Unit. That would make it easy to grab hold of the stranded pod and bring it back to Kerbin intact.

[donfouts]

so I just did a gravity assist back from the mun - collected 125 science i think... having trouble on my next step in this tech tree.... 136 total to spend right now

[NASAHireMe]

Next step is definitely to build a Minmus-capable ship. Don't worry about the Mun for now. You can get basically all of the science you need to unlock the rest of the Tech Tree from Minmus alone.

You don't even need to build a craft that can land on Minmus. Just one with enough fuel to orbit at about ~12km above the surface, then return back to Kerbin. Then EVA down to the surface, pick up surface samples, and EVA back to the orbiting craft. You may need to get some EVA practice under your belt before you try to do this-- it's definitely feasible, but if you don't have enough practice you can easily get stranded. In my experience, it takes about a 2/3 - 3/4 of a jetpack to de-orbit, land, then re-orbit and rendezvous.

Alternatively, refine your Minmus craft into a Minmus lander. Should be pretty simple since Minmus's gravity is so low. A few landing legs, some extra fuel, and a Mystery Goo and a Materials Science bay should make a pretty decent lander. Maybe even consider a station in Minmus orbit with a Science Lab (to reset the Goo and Mat.Sci. bay, and store lots of science data) and some fuel, if you have the rendezvous and docking skills down <-- Rendezvous and docking is essential to later stages of gameplay, so get good at it now.

Like I said, science from Minmus should be able to unlock most, if not all, of the Tech Tree. In order to go interplanetary (the next stage of your career), you really should: 1) unlock the nuclear engine, 2) perfect your Rendezvous and Docking techniques, 3) get decent at EVAs, 4) understand the concept of Delta-V and use a dV chart, 5) learn how to use an interplanetary calculator like AlexMoon or Olex's, 6) get decent at landing your spacecrafts on other bodies (Minmus and Mun are good practice), 7) master inclination changes. There are plenty of resources and tutorials in the forums for all of the above.

By the time you go interplanetary, you pretty much NEED either MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux, and Kerbal Alarm Clock.

As to some of your other questions:

1. Getting to the Mun and Minmus without mods involves understanding and using phase angles. Google or search these forums for an explanation and the appropriate phase angles to reach these targets. Usually Minmus is about 115 degrees, and to get to the Mun, burn when the Mun is rising above the horizon.

2. The Kerbal Space Center is located on the equator, on the east shore of the Africa-shaped continent.

3. It's true that in the real world, launch windows are calculated to minimize fuel expenditure. In Kerbal, this is far less important, since Kerbals can survive in orbit indefinitely. Don't worry about launch windows for now. Launch eastwards and establish a cicular orbit around Kerbin (some people prefer 80km orbital altitude; I prefer 100km). Then let the spacecraft orbit Kerbin as you time-accelerate to the right phase angle and burn point for either Mun or Minmus-- the Kerbonaut inside won't care!

Later on, even in interplanetary missions, you don't really have to worry about launch windows. I tend to launch a craft whenever I finish building it, stick it in a 100km orbit, then time-accelerate until the planets line up for an interplanetary burn.

When you reach advanced gameplay or play with Kerbal Life support or something, then launch windows will matter: for setting up a satellite network, or launching to rendezvous with an asteroid, or something like that. But for now, don't worry about launch windows.

Edited March 12, 2015 by NASAHireMe

[Blondai]

I would say I'm advanced intermediate. But took me 500 hours and lots of Scott Manley to get here. The secret at the start is learning how to stage properly, and making sure you have all the equipment and fuel you need for the mission in hand. I would say leave the career till you get a bit more experience, even seasoned players can struggle with it. And science. Beginners I believe should be in sandbox. At least until you have an intuition for the orbital mechanics, and vehicle construction.

[EtherDragon]

For your tech tree - get that last 45 Science node, it will reduce your part count when making Mun / Minmas capable rockets (which only matters if you are playing Career Mode and haven't yet upgraded the VAB). With all the tier 3 nodes unlocked (I consider the first freebie to be tier-0) you have all the parts required land on and return Science from the surface of the Mun and Minmas.

Now, here's the funny thing - landing on Minmas is actually way easier than the Mun. It takes a little more juice to get there, but a lot less to land and return. Also, it has these huge flat lakes of ice that are level and super easy to land on without falling over. Lastly, if you do happen to fall over, the cockpit SAS is usually strong enough to stand you back up.

Your first science ventures to Mun and Minmas don't need to be surface landings, though. One great way to get a ton of science is to do a whole bunch of EVAs while in low orbit around each one. Do an EVA above every large crater, mountain, flat area, discoloration, whatever seems interesting. Each EVA that is over a different biome will get you more science to bring back to Kerbin. Repeat this for Minmas, too. This is very similar to what Apollo Eight did when it surveyed possible landing spots by orbiting the Moon, getting reports, and taking pictures. In KSP the EVA is how you do this, and surveying a lot of different sites around Mun is worth a lot of science when you get back.

And again, when you orbit Minmas, do the same thing.

Establishing an orbit around Mun and Minmas, and returning safely to Kerbin is well within the scope of what Tier-3 tech can do (again, counting the first free node as Tier-0) and is the essential skill to propel you higher up the tech tree. Once you can reliably orbit and return from Mun / Minmas with Science! in-hand, you'll find those more expensive nodes falling to your Science! onslaught in no time, what-so-ever!

Good luck!

[rcp27]

I definitely find this particular part of the science progression the hardest to get past. Unlocking the landing legs takes a lot of science, and it's hard to land on Mun or Minmus without them. Without landing, science is hard to come by.

• should I be lauching my "almost-orbiter" around in different directions until I find the last few biomes?

Probably, but see later comments on the Science Jr.

• on this map - where is the launch pad? I think I know from launches but the globe texture in "m" map mode is not as good of a resolution:

If you're in low orbit around the equator going in the same direction as Kerbin rotates, you will first pass a bit to the south of the ring shaped mountains (the crater thing), then over the big desert, then an ocean, then some grasslands with a line of mountains in the middle, with some ocean beyond. The KSC is on this last bit of land, on the far side of the mountains, on the coast.

• how does this Jr. Science lab get me science points?

All of the science instruments work in basically the same way. From your current tech tree, you should have the mystery goo container and the science Jr available. What you need to do is put them on a ship and fly it to where you want to get science from. When you're there, right click on them and there is an option to run the experiment. Click on this and you get the dialogue box with some text and the options to "reset" "keep data" or "transmit". You probably want to go with "keep data" for the time being. The Science Jr and the Mystery Goo are once-use items, so once you get one set of data, they can't be re-used (the big science lab changes this, but that's not important right now). The other instruments (thermometer, barometer, seismic accelerometer and gravioli detector) can be used multiple times. If you now just bring the whole ship safely back to land on Kerbin and recover it, you get the science. There is another option, though. Once you have run the experiment and selected "keep data", send your pilot on an EVA, go over to the Science Jr (or Mystery Goo). If you are close enough, when you right click you get the option to "take data". Once you have done that, when you go back to your capsule the data is stored there. This means that you can now dump the actual Science Jr or Mystery Goo container and return with just your capsule, and bring the science with you. This can be useful if you're in Mun or Minmus orbit or on the surface because you can leave the heavy materials bay or goo canister behind and just take the data back with you, so you need less fuel (although some people don't like the space junk that results from this).

• In Career mode: Do you get more science for completing a mission during the first attempt?

The first time you do a particular bit of science, you get maximum science from it. With some stuff you can get a bit more by doing it a second time, and afterwards doing the same science measurement in the same location gets you no more extra science. There is no penalty for "second attempt" in the sense that if you go somewhere and don't do a particular bit of science, you can go back and do the science on a second or subsequent mission for full value.

• How long will it take to be able to create a craft that can recover that pod?

From the way you describe it, I assume what happened is something like this: you tried to escape from an orbit of Mun, so went for a prograde burn, and escaped Mun orbit, and ended up on an orbital trajectory that not only escaped Mun's sphere of influence but also escaped Kerbin's sphere of influence too and now you are in some orbit around the Sun. This happened because you did your burn at the wrong point in the orbit.

When you're orbiting Mun or Minmus in a roughly equatorial orbit, one half of your orbit will be in the same direction as Mun's orbit around Kerbin and the other half is in the opposite direction. If you make your escape burn so that you depart Mun in the same direction as Mun's orbit around Kerbin, you will end up on a much higher orbit and possibly escape Kerbin. You don't want to do this (as you have discovered). You need to time your escape burn so that you come away from Mun in the opposite direction from its orbit around Kerbin. When you escape you will then find you are in an elliptical orbit around Kerbin with quite a low Pe. You need to adjust that orbit to put the Pe inside Kerbin's atmosphere, preferably lower than about 30 km. The atmosphere will then slow you down enough that you come in for a landing. If your Pe is in the atmosphere (below 70 km) but higher, you will likely find you don't lose enough velocity to come down that orbit. When I first came back from Mun, I made this mistake and ended up going around about 20 times, each pass through the atmosphere bleeding off a bit more velocity until eventually my orbit decayed and I landed.

• Is that hundreds of gameplay hours from now?

To recover this unfortunate Kerbal from an orbit of the sun will take quite a lot of time to learn the techniques to do it. Your first step will be to learn how to perform an orbital rendezvous in low Kerbin orbit. To learn to do this, launch a simple rocket into LKO, then go back to the space centre and launch another one to a similar orbit. By playing with manoeuvre nodes you can figure out how to make the two meet in orbit. This is a key skill in KSP, and takes a fair bit of learning to perfect. There are plenty of youtube videos giving tutorials on how to do it.

Once you are confident with orbital rendezvous, you need to build a rescue ship. This will have to have lots of fuel capacity and either a spare seat or "the Klaw" on it. You can then launch this into a Solar orbit, perform a rendezvous with your stranded vessel. If yo have The Klaw, you can dock with the lost vessel and bring it home. Alternatively, just bring your rescue ship near to it and use EVA to bring the pilot across to the rescue ship to bring him home and leave his ship behind.

I suggest you leave this poor chap where he is and get on with learning the game. Once you have managed a successful Duna orbit and return mission, you will have sufficient experience to know what you need to do to rescue this guy. Think of it as a long-term objective. I'd say 100 hours gameplay is a realistic time frame depending on how easily you get the hang of things.

As a general strategy, I would make the following suggestions.

1) if you haven't already done it, use the Mystery Goo and Science Jr to get extra science from places you have already been to.

2) send missions to orbit Mun and Minmus, with the Science Jr and Mystery Goo, and get science from orbit of those, as well as crew reports and EVA reports. All the planets and moons have Biomes on them just like Kerbin, so you can get lots of science.

With the science you get from these missions, your first target will be to unlock the basic solar panels and batteries. This will let you transmit crew reports and EVA reports and make life easier. Your next target will be to unlock the thermometer (the 90 point node with the "man in space suit" symbol". This lets you get more science from biomes, and you can take it to the places you have already been. Once you have that, your target should be "landing" (the 90 point node with the undercarriage wheel on it) and then "advanced landing" (the next one along, 160 points, with the rocket on legs). These give you landing legs, which will give you the parts you need to actually land on Mun and Minmus. You get lots of science from landing on (and running experiments on the surface of) various biomes on these two moons. At this point, you should be getting loads of science to get much of the middle part of the tech tree unlocked, and you can probably figure it out yourself from there.

Edit: I've not seen it suggested before, but I think it might be easier to learn to perform orbital rendezvous in orbit of Minmus rather than LKO. The smaller size/gravity makes the whole process much easier to perform. Once you have the technique figured out, it can be done anywhere.

- - - Updated - - -

And science. Beginners I believe should be in sandbox. At least until you have an intuition for the orbital mechanics, and vehicle construction.

I disagree: I think Science mode is the place for beginners to start. When I started with sandbox, I found the whole thing confusing because there were too many parts and I didn't really know what they did, and when to use one part instead of another. By starting in science mode, you slowly unlock the parts in a somewhat rational progression, so that each part is introduced as you need it. It flattens out the learning curve a bit.

Edited March 12, 2015 by rcp27

[OhioBob]

Unlocking the landing legs takes a lot of science, and it's hard to land on Mun or Minmus without them. Without landing, science is hard to come by.

You can always do something like below. It doesn't have much grip on a steep slope, but for landing on the flats of Minmus it should work just fine.

- - - Updated - - -

By the time you go interplanetary, you pretty much NEED either MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer Redux, and Kerbal Alarm Clock.

Those are conveniences but I don't think you NEED any of them. I've never used MechJeb and I've done plenty of interplanetary stuff. I've just recently started using Kerbal Alarm Clock. It's a very nice feature but it's certainly not needed. The mod I've used the longest, and the one I find most useful, is Kerbal Engineer Redux (KER). The best thing about it is that it computes the ∆v of your rockets and spacecraft. Computing ∆v is doable by hand (and it's a good idea to learn how to do it), but after a while it's convenient to have KER do it for you. KER also gives orbital information, which is nice, but it's definitely possible to get to other planets without it. One of the other things about KER that I really like is that it tells what biome you're currently flying over. That's really nice when biome matters in the science you're trying to collect, such as EVA reports.

Edited March 15, 2015 by OhioBob

[michaelhester07]

If you're in a career mode focus on getting the research unlocks from the screenshot with 8 and 4 on it. These unlock the Probodobodyne Octo which has basic SAS and the OX-STAT solar panel, which will power your probe.

These techs will enable you to do satellite launch contracts. Satellite launch contracts are probably the highest profit margin in the game for the ship it takes to fulfill them. A satellite can easily have 3000+ deltaV with Tier 4 tech and be light enough to launch on a LV-T30 with some boosters. That's enough deltaV to fill any kerbin SOI satellite contract.