New 1.1.3 Career with Mods

[Gilph]

Hi,

Looking to start a new, heavily modded career mode in 1.1.3. In my very first career mode, starting about a year ago, I really only did basic stuff with hardly any mods.  No rovers, no surface bases, etc.  Got to $65 million from contracts and 400,000 science from distributed MPLs, and relied very heavily on @Cupcake..., and @Rune to get me to other planets.

Now, looking to try some harder things and decided to try life support, surface bases, and using other Science mods.  Any input would be appreciated. Note that I am not looking to use any of the Roverdude USI mods, as he has announced that a large rewrite is incoming for 1.2 and legacy parts will be gone. Will absolutely look forward to make a separate 1.2 career using the USI suite.

1. KAS/KIS - required for anything complicated from the base building perspective. May need a separate sandbox instance to practice on Mun or Minmus
2. TAC LS - Seems to be the most basic choice and appears to have 1.1.3 support. Looks like it consists of things to consume, and things to generate.
3. Kerbal Planetary Base Systems - Very excited to try. It also looks like it needs less involvement from KAS/KIS, as many of the modules look like they have wheels to position instead of needing rovers and cranes. Also, this seems to need integration with TAC LS because both mods generate resources and consume resources, but in a different way using different modules. I would guess that ships/space stations use TAC LS modules to generate resources for the station and docked ships, and the surface base uses KPBS to generate resource for the base and ships on the surface.  And, each can supply commonly needed resources like Oxygen for Kerbals to use, just using 2 different methods. Seems also capable of building complete self sustaining bases on certain bodies.
4. Station Science - Another interesting mod, but no "official" 1.1.3 support yet and only really used around Kerbin.
5. Contract Configuration Packages - I used this later ingame on my first career, but looking to use it as a better progression experience.  Not looking for BSTM, which is not very compatible, but cant really find a better choice that doesn't force a large change in gameplay.

From a science perspective, it looks like if I use the stock science method of running experiments locally to the biome and returning them to Kerbin, using Station Science around Kerbin, and science generated in KPBS on the surface, this might be enough.  It does leave a bit of a hole regarding science generation from space stations other than Kerbin. Is it possible to have a science lander that has all of the science instruments, executes experiments, and stores the data in a storage container that can return to Kerbin? Similar to the way that Kerbals can store/take data in pods for EVA/surface samples, etc.?

Anybody see any issues with this?

Many Thanks

[Kar]

I think I never played KSP without mods! I just load stock KSP directly from steam when I want to check some pure stock stuff, otherwise I have a separate modded install.

I do like to add "reality" to my ksp. My career games are hard since I have to struggle with money, science and other stuff.

Here are some mods I play (not all):

- Remote Tech; It is hard to send probes just to get science without a proper network comms relay. This adds up the difficulty by some degree.

- Tac LS - Kerbals need food and O2 too.

- Kerbal Joint Reinforcement - Just because I do not like rockets looking like spider webs and helps physics too.

- StageRecover - Every bit of parts recovered is money saved - No matter how good you are switching ships and recover them manually, I find recovering of boosters and other parts lacking in KSP.

- Station Science - Space Stations need a purpose more then be a refuel depo.

Control & Info Scanning - because even the space shuttle has computers.....

- MechJeb, Kerbal Engineer - Protractor - ScanSat - Kerbal Science Foundation (Nav Instruments - hey, airplanes have a nav hud to land! - basic ILS for airplanes)

For looks and more options with parts:

- Near Future Technologies - (Constuction , solar, Electrical, Spacecraft)

- KW Rocketry - Just using it for the less time - still getting accustomed but looks promising.

- Stockbugfixes - Well, KSP still has bugs no matter what

- Heat Control - More radiators, but efficient because not all space is that cold

- Tac Fuel Balancer - just what the name says

- VenStockRevamp - Stock alike parts with more options then stock parts and they look cool!!!!

- KSP-AVC - to keep thing in check

- Infernal Robotics from MagicSmokeIndustries - Because I play with KIS/KAS and USI kolony mods and I like to build stuff that can move around. Also useful to make landers that can move their own engines up/down to land big heavy landders and other stuff like mining, Rover deploy, etc.

Also I use some mods for visual looks too, like reflections, textures and stuff.

At the moment I have around 45 mods installed - Long Live x64 !

 

Edited August 13, 2016 by Kar
Found a Typo? Oh well, sorry about that but Im not English