Ideas please...

[maceemiller]

So after reading thesee posts I'm going to 1..persevere with career a bit more and 2..colonise each planet and have a space station around each and build some good rovers to explore with using my wheel....have a proper look around. Should keep me busy for a while is the colonization mod any good?

[Curveball Anders]

28 minutes ago, capt: scarlet said:

Not only that when you fullfill a satalight contract, a bit later in the game they then ask you to move your satalight (by Name no less) to another orbit and add bits to it, which i find amazing and thats tonights misson to dock with more sleeping accomadation + more power.Awoooorrrsummm,  careea mode rocks

I tend to follow my own 'grand plan' but I use the contracts for cash, science and free kerbals.

For instance I launched a station for Kerbin, then I got one contract to expand it and another to launch a station for Mun.

So I launched my 'Mun' station, docked it to the Kerbin one which solved the expand contract. Then refuelled it and shipped it to the Mun, which solved the second one.

Then I did the same with Mun and Minmus

 

[maceemiller]

The thing for me is....do I have to do all the contracts available to me or can I pick and choose? I don't want to test parts at a certain altitude etc.will I miss out or be punished if I refuse a contract ? sorry if I sound daft but as a 100% sandbox player I don't understand career mode...

[septemberWaves]

You don't need to do all the contracts. There's no penalty (well there is a reputation penalty if it was set like that in the difficulty settings, but that shouldn't impact your playing). Decline contracts that don't interest you (like part testing contracts) and eventually you'll see less of them over time. It's good to accept "Explore [celestial body]" contracts, because they have no time limit and they can help to give direction to a career game.

Also I'm not sure what you meant by "the colonization mod" earlier. There are several mods that help with colonizing. Modular Kolonization Systems is a popular one, but its resource system and integration with USI Life Support might be a bit too much to start with, depending on how much time you're willing to spend researching the resource chains and how each module does things. Pathfinder is another one (and I personally prefer it because it doesn't require life support and it's designed to work with KIS/KAS, M.O.L.E. and the Buffalo rover), but it also has complex resource chains and some interesting mechanics.

There are some good parts mods for helping with colonizing places without needing to go through complex resource processing chains on every base you set up. Planetary Base Systems is good for making some incredible-looking surface bases. Stockalike Station Parts (by Nertea) is very good for orbital stations and also for surface bases. Both are stockalike in design, and so should fit in well with stock and with similar mods.

Other mods that are good in general are Nertea's various Near Future mods, SpaceY and SpaceY Expanded, Modular Rocket Systems, and Fuel Tanks Plus (several of which also need Color Coded Canisters for providing fuel tank textures, and one of various fuel switching mods for changing between those textures). All of these will help to vastly improve the appearance of the spacecraft you build.

Also, if you're planning on building colonies far from Kerbin (in the Jool system, for example), one of the best mods you can have is Kerbal Atomics (by Nertea). It changes the standard nuclear engine fuel from liquid fuel to liquid hydrogen, and adds several new (and vastly superior to the stock equivalent) nuclear thermal rocket engines. The liquid hydrogen engines have incredible I_sp, and it becomes far easier to make interplanetary transports with incredibly good range. The cryogenic hydrogen tanks do require power, however, so it's good to use Near Future Electrical in conjunction with it for the nuclear reactors that are available.

[Guest]

launch to spacecraft in orbit but both of them going in opposite directions then crash them together!!!!

[maceemiller]

@WyattNelsonGames I appreciate your comment but would prefer not to crash 2 vessels on purpose. Crashed enough already

[KerikBalm]

15 hours ago, maceemiller said:

The thing for me is....do I have to do all the contracts available to me or can I pick and choose? I don't want to test parts at a certain altitude etc.will I miss out or be punished if I refuse a contract ? sorry if I sound daft but as a 100% sandbox player I don't understand career mode...

You have no obligation to do any of the offered contracts. Depending on your settings, there may be a small "decline" penalty to reputation. Letting the offer expire never has any penalty. The decline penalty is just there to encourage people to accept more diverse contracts instead of just repeatedly declining until they get exactly the one they want.

On normal difficulty, you should have plenty of funds that you shouldn't have to spam so many contracts, and you can afford to launch missions just for your own goals without any contract to fufil - of course if you're sending a mission to gather science on Mun, its nice if you can get some plant flag or science data from surface of mun contracts.

In my contract, I mostly take "worlds first" contracts, rescue contracts, and sat contracts if the sat's orbi is close to something I would want for a relay sat (and if I have unlocked a useful relay antenna to put on a sat in that orbit).

Occasionally I take station contracts if I want to put a station where it asks me to, and if the station is reasonabkle (5 kerbal capacity... sure... 15 I often don't bother).

Ore mining contracts on Mun/Minmus/etc are often easy money too if I already plan to put ISRU bases there.

Part recovery contracts (after you unlock the claw) are also fairly easy, and don't clutter my game with useless craft

[Jonfliesgoats]

Having a science payload ride along when you launch to acheive a particular contract is worthwhile.  Contracts to move tourists or such and such location pair up nicely with contracts to build orbital space stations.