Do you run missions in serial or more than one at a time?

[gom jabbarwocky]

I like to keep plenty of irons in the fire. There's always a contract to do, or science to get, so why wait?

[WinkAllKerb'']

Multiple since 1.0 (before i used to run one at time) with KAC of course.

[Eric S]

My approach has already been reflected here. I tend to run single missions until I start going interplanetary, at which point I start stacking them. It's nothing that unusual for my first Duna window to involve six craft leaving Kerbin.

[Norpo]

I'm a sandbox mode player, and I don't really care if it's year 124 and I've just discovered ladders, or Jeb is an old man by the time I rescue him or whatnot, so serial.

[Rithsom]

I used to do only one mission at a time, but that is not the case anymore. I will even do a short mission within the few hours it takes for my landers to go from LKO to the Mun or Minmus.

[ArmchairGravy]

I do multiple missions at a time, especially with interplanetary missions. Science bases on Mun and Minmus, Eve probe, Duna mission, Jool probe, and tourism all going at the same time. Throw in the occasional asteroid capture for giggles. Kerbal Alarm Clock is my 2nd best friend (Engineer being 1st). I make sure to do a named save regularly to foil the Kraken. It doesn't matter if I'm doing sandbox or career I have to keep the launch pad busy.

[Captain Sierra]

It really depends on whether or not I give to craps about my UT clock. If I don't want to burn it like butter, I will run multi-mission. Other times when I want to get crap done, I just throw stuff at the target planet, window after window.

[StrandedonEarth]

I should really get KAC

KAC is the first mod I ever got, because I was tired (annoyed with myself) of warping past nodes.

I run multiple, trying to use transfer windows when they come up. I'll do a Mun mission during a Minmus transit. I did a whole Jool Tour during an Eeloo transit. It seemed to take forever to get those Eeloogans back home, with alarms popping up from Jool, Dres, Duna, Eve, and Moho.

...when I'm returning to a ship that nobody - not even I - remember the purpose for.

My long term missions usually end up getting named things like "Jool Explorer," "Eeloo-Bound" or "HomeBound" so I know where they should be going.

[jedensuscg]

Yes.

For my personal enjoyment, I much prefer having dozens of missions going at the same time, with KAC telling me when each one is ready for my attention. It feels more like I'm running a space program, and not piloting a space ship.

For YouTube, I think I'm going to always just run one thing at a time (though that one mission may have several sub-objectives) because it can get pretty confusing, a month or more later, when I'm returning to a ship that nobody - not even I - remember the purpose for.

The in-game note mod is helpful for this, just wish there was a way to have a journal tied to each craft form a right click standpoint.

[Teutooni]

I use KCT and KAC, but havent yet run parallel missions. Just returned from a mission that did a manned landing on Ike and Duna. Was a couple hundred delta-v short on reenterinng Kerbin so planned a rescue tug for when the lander returned to Kerbin SOI. I could have done lots of tourist/satellite contracts but couldn't be arsed. Now that I have the duna science I will probably set up something reusable for tourists while I wait for the transfer to Eve to complete.

[uglyduckling81]

Play with Kerbal construction time, TAC life support and remote tech. It adds a lot to the game. Long voyages with Kerbals need planning for supplies. You can't just sit in orbit for years waiting for the correct transfer window unless you are supplied for it. Need an urgent rescue mission, your going to have to wait for that rocket to be built. Easier to just collect that science with an unKerbaled ship? You better have a suitable Satellite array set up to maintain communication to that probe.

These 3 mods together really make for an interesting career mode. It makes it feel a lot more like your running a space agency because there is so much more complexity to the planning.

Of course you still need your usual mods, KAC, KER, and any other visual or UI mods you like to use.

It's all only relevant when you launch more than one ship at a time. Having KAC filled with half a dozen alarms is the only way to play IMO.

[panzer1b]

I almost always run one interplanetary burn at a time. I generally drag whatever i want to go to the planet i want to send it to into LKO 1st, and i launch multiple missions/ships at once towards the same goal (all within transfer window). That said, i dont exactly leave much if anything floating around on a interplanetary trajectory. Since i have in the past actually forgotten about missions, i avoid leaving anything that im not trying to destroy in a unstable orbit. It sucks to go back to something you launched a few days ago and see it gone or sent into the sun/kraken territory.

Only time ive actually run parallel things is when i do some battles and say have supply ships set to come into range after some time, and i tend to have multiple craft on such trajectories as to interact with the target in order or so. But when im sending stuff to other planets, i stick to launching them individually and watching them go through the whole trip (the warp to feature is AMAZING, i can actually go grab something while i wait the 1-2 mins to do the time warp transfers. And when you have 3+ ships going to target simultaneously, you just get one stable, then the 2nd, and so on to save planning time (i hate warping forever to get the right transfer angle, best to do it once and blast an entire fleet to it at once, used to use burn together mod to make this even easier, but that broke recently).

Edited May 14, 2015 by panzer1b

[KerikBalm]

Early in carreer, I send out probes on inefficient trajectories to Duna and Eve... and the do the minmus/mun science harvesting when they are on their way.

One can complete those explore contracts pretty cheaply using just a 1 way probe.

I find it nice for RP reasons to have probed a planet before the manned mission gets there - or indeed, has even launched - so that I can plausibly know what I should be designing my ships for