Playing Career: what to do with extra science?

[Tazin]

I am playing my first career game ever. Never played any other modes, I simply installed, played the tutorials, and started a Career on normal difficulty. The thing is, i maxxed out the science tree just by exploring mun, minmus, and duna. At first i didn't even know how to get science . . . i wasnt aware i could do crew reports or thermal reading and such, so i spent a lot of time doing contracts for science. What i mean with this is, i wasn't power gaming or anything like that. I never did any biome hopping to max out a planet. It seems to me it was rather easy. What else do i do now with science, i have about 5k science from moho, gilly, eve, and ike (i think).

Edited July 17, 2015 by Tazin

[Edax]

I am playing my first career game ever. Never played any other modes, I simply installed, played the tutorials, and started a Career on normal difficulty. The thing is, i maxxed out the science tree just by exploring mun, minmus, and duna. At first i didn't even know how to get science . . . i wasnt aware i could do crew reports or thermal reading and such, so i spent a lot of time doing contracts for science. What i mean with this is, i wasn't power gaming or anything like that. I never did any biome hopping to max out a planet. It seems to me it was rather easy. What else do i do now with science, i have about 5k science from moho, gilly, eve, and ike (i think).

Science is it's own reward! But when that's not enough, you can licence it out at the admin building for some serious coin.

[AlexinTokyo]

Well, you have a few options:

• Just use it to keep "score" of how well your missions are doing.
  
• Use administration center strategies to convert it into funds and or reputation, allowing you to do more misisons and get more/higher-value/potentially-more-interesting contracts.
  
• Install a mod (there are many) which introduces higher-value tech-tree nodes.
  
• Start a new career with harder settings.
  

There are probably other options that I missed, as well.

[Snark]

Once I've maxed out the tech tree, I tend to just view science as "achievements" -- i.e. I ignore the science points, just view "get science result X from biome Y on planet/moon Z" as an achievement, and set about trying to collect 'em all.

If you're looking for a mod to add challenge and extend gameplay, RoverDude's UKS is great:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79588

...it greatly extends the tech tree (the most expensive science node is like 2250 science points), but more importantly, it adds a lot of challenge in terms of engineering. "Build a self-sustaining base on Duna" (or wherever) is a grand challenge that takes a lot of play time: not just climbing the tech tree, but also careful mission design, and all the miscellaneous launching/piloting to bring all the pieces together, and surveying for lots of different resource types.

[Streetwind]

FYI - the mod that adds the extended tech tree is not USI Kolonization System... it's Community Tech Tree. UKS is just one of the mods that actually adds content to the extended nodes. There's a bunch of others too.

[ygarl]

Once I've maxed out the tech tree, I tend to just view science as "achievements" -- i.e. I ignore the science points, just view "get science result X from biome Y on planet/moon Z" as an achievement, and set about trying to collect 'em all.

Pokemon meets KSP: Gotta get it all!

[Tazin]

thanks guys. I hope SQUAD keeps adding to the tech tree later on!

[FlyingPete]

The admin building finally becomes useful in the 'late game' phase when you've discovered everything. Convert the extra science into funds and/or reputation as required

[windows_x_seven]

Use it as a seasoning.

Science seasoned steak, kerbals love it.