Research Advice

[BentRim]

I have accumulated 341 Science points and am wondering what is the best pathway to choose to spend them on R&D.  I know this is a pretty opened ended question and hard to answer but I'd like to hear your guys thoughts on the best way to proceed and some possible goals for my career.

As always,  thanks again. Here is an image of where I am at so far.

EDIT: So far I have done lots of Kerbin rescue contracts, a few Mun contracts and I have Jeb stranded on Minimus in a lander with enough fuel to get back into orbit but probably not enough to get back to Kerbin.  

Edited February 1, 2017 by BentRim

[Gaarst]

Buy science parts, explore Mun and Minmus, unlock rest of the tech tree, do missions you actually want to do.

[Jarin]

This, of course, depends heavily on your preferred playstyle and design philosophy. Let's break it down a bit-

Since you bought everything at the 45 tier except Aviation, I'll assume you're not particularly concerned with aircraft right now. If that changes, I highly recommend picking up Landing shortly thereafter, as the retractable landing gear makes life much easier.

Other than that, let's start from the top:

Heavy Rocketry also requires Fuel Systems to be useful, as you don't have any 2.5m tanks to go with those engines otherwise. The reverse is not true, as Fuel Systems has the FL-T800 and the fuel line, although with crossfeed changes in 1.2, those are far less necessary than they once were. Regardless, combining the two is a solid 180pt choice for building larger rockets to loft bigger payloads if that's the way you want to go first.

Propulsion Systems goes the other direction, giving you lightweight probe engines, letting you get more use out of less payload weight. This is a good first choice if you have a favorite mk1 rocket that you like using to launch satellites and the like, and don't want to retire the design yet.

Advanced Construction's primary benefit is opening up your first faring. Enclosing your payloads in a aerodynamic shell both protects them and lets you build more efficient and less draggy rockets. Important for a more satellite-focused career, and a good complement to Propulsion Systems.

Aerodynamics can be safely ignored for now if you're not building planes. In fact, all you're going to find down that entire line is some control surfaces to help with controlling larger rockets, and the best one there is probably the standard canard at the 160 level. It can wait.

Landing gets you nothing you need at the moment unless you're making much heavier landers. 

Advanced Flight Control gives you RCS and the ever-useful advanced inline stabilizer, along with the excellent Mk1 lander can, which has the distinction of being the lightest kerballed control pod. Pick this up when you want to focus on living space exploration over satellites. 

Space Exploration gets you... nothing much aside from your first ladder and a light rover wheel. Not terrible, but of questionable necessity.

Miniaturization - pass.

You already have Electrics, so let's look at Advanced Electrics at the 160 tier. While very useful, this would eat almost half your available science points right now. It can wait.

341 points lets you buy three 90pt nodes, so let's look at options.

Heavy Rocketry + Fuel Systems for larger rockets. Pair with Advanced Flight Control for the best results in putting kerbals on Mun and Minmus. 

To focus on probes, go with Propulsion Systems for lightweight engines and fuel, and Advanced Construction for a fairing to keep your fragile probes intact on top of your rockets. From there, you can buy the less-useful Miniaturization to start moving towards lighter probe cores and better antennas further down the tree. 

Any questions?

Edited February 1, 2017 by Jarin

[Cubfan]

31 minutes ago, Jarin said:

Heavy Rocketry + Fuel Systems for larger rockets. Pair with Advanced Flight Control for the best results in putting kerbals on Mun and Minmus.

Agreed. I'd go this way, as well. In fact I went that direction pretty much throughout the tech tree. I've found that most problems can be solved with more power and more fuel. And the lander can is extremely useful.

[DD_bwest]

I go propulsion systems first every time,   you can still make due with the small rocket engines to get into orbit, and the spark is by far my favorite engine.   its super light and with 320 ISP its perfect for moon missions.   infact im using it on a lander right now that im flying around Mun in.

you dont need to go big right away,  going small once in space can get you a LONG way.   Getting Propulsion systems ASAP is my key to finishing the tech tree in 4 launches.  You can get it by the 3rd launch, which can send you to Mun, Minmus and solar SOI in a single launch,  which can set you up to finish things in your 4th launch after.

[Cubfan]

5 hours ago, DD_bwest said:

the spark is by far my favorite engine.

I still prefer power to get me where I wanna go, but I'm a huge fan of the Spark/Oscar B combo. Together, they can get you surprisingly far. You'd probably still wanna combine it with the lander can if you're trying to take ad vantage of its light-weight ability.

[BentRim]

@Jarin

Thank you for taking the time to break that all down for me. I can't say that I have a particular style or philosophy that I can articulate or define, but your observation that I'm not particularly interested in aircraft is on point.  I'm about 150 hours into KSP at this point and have spent the majority of my time becoming proficient at performing rescue missions from Kerbin orbit,  especially in regards to timing my launch and intersects.  I no longer struggle with EVA like had been.   

My primary reason for this post was that I felt like I am beginning to struggle to accumulate science to unlock further tiers so I had began saving it up, not being able to make a decision what to unlock next.  I can see now that I need to spend more time on the Mun and Minimus to gather more science there before moving on.  

My game is stock with the exception of Mechjeb (Which I installed, but have not used) and Precise Manuver ( because I found the stock node system to be cumbersome and frustrating).  I'm not opposed to mods, but would rather they enhance the game and help me learn instead of just making something easy.  

Thanks to everyone who responded and I appreciate the advice.

 

[DD_bwest]

1 hour ago, Cubfan said:

I still prefer power to get me where I wanna go, but I'm a huge fan of the Spark/Oscar B combo. Together, they can get you surprisingly far. You'd probably still wanna combine it with the lander can if you're trying to take ad vantage of its light-weight ability.

to fully take advantage the Lcan helps,  but you can also make very simple, very easy to control and land vessels for single trips to the Mun or Minmus that dont involve docking.  Plus with the spark being so small, your lander can sit very low to help avoid any tipping over that newer players might struggle with.

[DD_bwest]

1 hour ago, BentRim said:

@Jarin

Thank you for taking the time to break that all down for me. I can't say that I have a particular style or philosophy that I can articulate or define, but your observation that I'm not particularly interested in aircraft is on point.  I'm about 150 hours into KSP at this point and have spent the majority of my time becoming proficient at performing rescue missions from Kerbin orbit,  especially in regards to timing my launch and intersects.  I no longer struggle with EVA like had been.   

My primary reason for this post was that I felt like I am beginning to struggle to accumulate science to unlock further tiers so I had began saving it up, not being able to make a decision what to unlock next.  I can see now that I need to spend more time on the Mun and Minimus to gather more science there before moving on.  

My game is stock with the exception of Mechjeb (Which I installed, but have not used) and Precise Manuver ( because I found the stock node system to be cumbersome and frustrating).  I'm not opposed to mods, but would rather they enhance the game and help me learn instead of just making something easy.  

Thanks to everyone who responded and I appreciate the advice.

 

if you decide to start using MJ but dont want it to "cheat" for you by using its autopilot, using it for data readouts can help a TON.   not just for delta V,  but there is something that you can get it to tell you if you set up a custom window.   Your Current Biome. it helps for things like grabbing all the EVA in lower orbit reports,   there are 17 in total around mun, and 9 for minmus, which can amount a lot once you add it all up.     Putting yourself in a polar orbit around either will let you get all of them.

I also helps a ton for landing in the right biomes, once you get to that point.   I did that until i got to a point i could confidently land in any biome from basic maps.  For landing, not only will it show what biome your over, but if you pull up the landing autopilot, its landing point selection says the name of the biome, so you can choose a landing spot knowing what biome it is, then try to land as close to that point as you can by yourself.

[BentRim]

13 minutes ago, DD_bwest said:

if you decide to start using MJ but dont want it to "cheat" for you by using its autopilot, using it for data readouts can help a TON.   not just for delta V,  but there is something that you can get it to tell you if you set up a custom window.   Your Current Biome. it helps for things like grabbing all the EVA in lower orbit reports,   there are 17 in total around mun, and 9 for minmus, which can amount a lot once you add it all up.     Putting yourself in a polar orbit around either will let you get all of them.

I also helps a ton for landing in the right biomes, once you get to that point.   I did that until i got to a point i could confidently land in any biome from basic maps.  For landing, not only will it show what biome your over, but if you pull up the landing autopilot, its landing point selection says the name of the biome, so you can choose a landing spot knowing what biome it is, then try to land as close to that point as you can by yourself.

Having not really explored MJ at all I really have no idea all of the things it can do.  The functionality you described was something I wondered if was somewhere within stock KSP and I had just missed it.  I have very little understanding of the science system at this point, other than I just try to find it where ever I may be at the time.  I can embrace using a mod for this if that's the way its done.   

One of the things I have been working on is anticipating where I need to begin my retrograde burn in order to land as close to the space center as possible.  I'm getting better at trying to land on a specific area.

I have a lot to learn.  Each time I play I try to set a goal and then figure out how to accomplish it.  When I get stuck I search google and watch youtube.....  

For me this game is one big mental puzzle... much more than a game.  

Thanks for the tips.

[DD_bwest]

1 hour ago, BentRim said:

Having not really explored MJ at all I really have no idea all of the things it can do.  The functionality you described was something I wondered if was somewhere within stock KSP and I had just missed it.  I have very little understanding of the science system at this point, other than I just try to find it where ever I may be at the time.  I can embrace using a mod for this if that's the way its done.   

One of the things I have been working on is anticipating where I need to begin my retrograde burn in order to land as close to the space center as possible.  I'm getting better at trying to land on a specific area.

I have a lot to learn.  Each time I play I try to set a goal and then figure out how to accomplish it.  When I get stuck I search google and watch youtube.....  

For me this game is one big mental puzzle... much more than a game.  

Thanks for the tips.

np,  also i just noticed your edit in the OP.    If he is in a return pod with a heat shield, you can return to kerbin safely by getting a PE of 30km around kerbin,  so its only a couple hundred M/s from low minmus orbit.    one thing you can do if you are familiar with the good old delta V calculation, is load that ship in the vab, disconnect everything already staged off, and then adjust the amount of fuel it has to as close as you can get it to your ship on minmus.   you can then get your ships weight, empty the fuel and get the dry weight, and you can calc how much delta v you have left.

but if he happens to stay stuck there until after you upgrade your research center, he will gain the ability to collect surface samples, like magic lol he doesnt need to come back first, so thats a bunch of science

edit:  infact your close enough to the edge of that flats biome that you could hop over to the lowlands close by it and grab another one lol  its like 125 each if i remember right

Edited February 2, 2017 by DD_bwest

[BentRim]

3 hours ago, DD_bwest said:

np,  also i just noticed your edit in the OP.    If he is in a return pod with a heat shield, you can return to kerbin safely by getting a PE of 30km around kerbin,  so its only a couple hundred M/s from low minmus orbit.    one thing you can do if you are familiar with the good old delta V calculation, is load that ship in the vab, disconnect everything already staged off, and then adjust the amount of fuel it has to as close as you can get it to your ship on minmus.   you can then get your ships weight, empty the fuel and get the dry weight, and you can calc how much delta v you have left.

but if he happens to stay stuck there until after you upgrade your research center, he will gain the ability to collect surface samples, like magic lol he doesnt need to come back first, so thats a bunch of science

edit:  infact your close enough to the edge of that flats biome that you could hop over to the lowlands close by it and grab another one lol  its like 125 each if i remember right

This was incredibly valuable advice.  I upgraded Research and hopped Jeb around Minimus taking surface samples.  I had enough fuel left in the lander to leave Minimu and burn to a Kerbin orbit and lowered my PE to 30km.  Hit a water splashdown and nearly doubled my Science points to 608.  

I know what dV is but not how to calculate it.  I just created a save point and went for it.  

I now have more options to unlock.  

Thanks for the help. Jeb is back home and earned his second star (whatever that means...)

Edited February 2, 2017 by BentRim

[DD_bwest]

41 minutes ago, BentRim said:

This was incredibly valuable advice.  I upgraded Research and hopped Jeb around Minimus taking surface samples.  I had enough fuel left in the lander to leave Minimu and burn to a Kerbin orbit and lowered my PE to 30km.  Hit a water splashdown and nearly doubled my Science points to 608.  

I know what dV is but not how to calculate it.  I just created a save point and went for it.  

I now have more options to unlock.  

Thanks for the help. Jeb is back home and earned his second star (whatever that means...)

 

 

the stars represent his level,   he will gain new SAS abilities for the first 3 levels,   you may have noticed at after his first star he gained the ability to lock onto prograde and retrograde himself,   at level 2 he can lock onto normal/anti normal, as well as radial in and out.  Level 3 lets him lock onto a target and the maneuver node, which are both incredibly useful.

The math behind calculating delta V isnt to bad, its pretty much put the values in a formula and punch equals, but there is an even easier way i stumbled upon a while back for basic calculations with a single engine type.

http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/

you just need 3 values,   weight with fuel tanks full, weight with them empty, and then the engine ISP number which you can get in the VAB by right clicking on the part on the list.

 

Edited February 2, 2017 by DD_bwest

[Foxster]

You can max the science tree now with what you have already. You don't need bigger rockets to do this, they are just lazy anyway. 

Remember to always take along the minimum payload for the mission in hand (why does your craft have a crew of three?). Take a scientist to reset experiments and you only need one of each experiment. Dump the experiments (and landing gear etc) before heading home to save dV.

Put all your science points into unlocking the rest of the experiments as the only priority. 

Then do flyby low and high orbit missions. Mun, Minmus, Sun (high only), Eve, Gilly ,Duna and Ike. Do all the experiments in low and high orbit.  

The only mod you need is something to show your dV and TWR. Once you understand what these mean and how much you need for each part of a mission then you suddenly find that behemoth craft are totally unnecessary and you can build any of the missions above with mostly 1.25m parts. 

Edited February 2, 2017 by Foxster

[BentRim]

6 hours ago, Foxster said:

You can max the science tree now with what you have already. You don't need bigger rockets to do this, they are just lazy anyway. 

Remember to always take along the minimum payload for the mission in hand (why does your craft have a crew of three?). Take a scientist to reset experiments and you only need one of each experiment. Dump the experiments (and landing gear etc) before heading home to save dV.

Put all your science points into unlocking the rest of the experiments as the only priority. 

Then do flyby low and high orbit missions. Mun, Minmus, Sun (high only), Eve, Gilly ,Duna and Ike. Do all the experiments in low and high orbit.  

The only mod you need is something to show your dV and TWR. Once you understand what these mean and how much you need for each part of a mission then you suddenly find that behemoth craft are totally unnecessary and you can build any of the missions above with mostly 1.25m parts. 

@Foxster

Thank you for your reply.   This particular craft I built was intended to try to accomplish multiple rescues in one launch which is why I added the extra cabin.  Being a total novice and likely having some fundamental lack of common sense I built it with multiple sciences attached only because in my brain symmetry seemed to make sense.  I hadn't considered the mass of the parts.  Jeb ended up on Minimus because I lack focus and changed my plan after launch not really thinking of the consequences.  Fortunately I was able to get him home.

I had not considered the option to not worry so much about completing contracts and simply focusing on gathering science.  I guess I figured that completing contracts would lead me in the direction of unlocking the tech tree.  

I will do some reading and try to gain a better understanding on how to figure out how much dV I need and try to build more efficient ships.  The designs I have used so far come from copying things I have seen in the Wiki and just attempting to learn.  Now that I am confident in my ability to control the ship and make it go where I want (which was a big part of my primary goal) I can now plan some further missions as you suggested.  

Again thanks for your thoughts.

 

7 hours ago, DD_bwest said:

the stars represent his level,   he will gain new SAS abilities for the first 3 levels,   you may have noticed at after his first star he gained the ability to lock onto prograde and retrograde himself,   at level 2 he can lock onto normal/anti normal, as well as radial in and out.  Level 3 lets him lock onto a target and the maneuver node, which are both incredibly useful.

The math behind calculating delta V isnt to bad, its pretty much put the values in a formula and punch equals, but there is an even easier way i stumbled upon a while back for basic calculations with a single engine type.

http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/

you just need 3 values,   weight with fuel tanks full, weight with them empty, and then the engine ISP number which you can get in the VAB by right clicking on the part on the list.

 

@DD_bwest

I did notice that as I have used different pilots that sometime SAS did not always have the same options but I didn't know what was causing it to change.  The number of stars now make sense and that is helpful information.  It follows that rather than using different pilots, I should likely just focus on one to increase the number of stars and get more SAS options.

I will take a look at the calculator as I proceed and as I stated above start trying to build original ships of my own design that are more efficient.

Again,  it seems as though I need to focus on Science and going to places to gather it rather than just completing contracts in the same locations over and over.  Just doing rescue missions from Kerbin orbit has built my skills, and I have become  efficient at timing my intercepts and using EVA to get the victim in the rescue craft... but I am no longer getting any science in those areas.  

Thanks again for the information you have shared as well.

[bewing]

One thing to note: once a pilot has gone somewhere once, he doesn't get any more stars for going there again. (Same with engineers and scientists.) So it actually makes sense to use a different pilot (and scientist and engineer) each time.

[Spricigo]

13 hours ago, BentRim said:

  One of the things I have been working on is anticipating where I need to begin my retrograde burn in order to land as close to the space center as possible.  I'm getting better at trying to land on a specific area.

Notice that how close you land depends a lot on vessel design and flight attitude. Also small deviations will add up to big difference difference in results.  Nonetheless it is an example of something you can expect to get better with experience. 

 

15 hours ago, BentRim said:

My primary reason for this post was that I felt like I am beginning to struggle to accumulate science to unlock further tiers so I had began saving it up, not being able to make a decision what to unlock next.  I can see now that I need to spend more time on the Mun and Minimus to gather more science there before moving on.  

There are different ways to advance. You may also send unkerbaled missions to the orbit of Duna and Eve (even further) . Or set the strategy that turn funds rewards into science.  

32 minutes ago, BentRim said:

I will do some reading and try to gain a better understanding on how to figure out how much dV I need and try to build more efficient ships. 

DeltaV comes from the rocket equation :

DeltaV = standard gravity x Isp x ln(total mass/dry mass) 

If you are interested in the maths of ship design:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/122722-how-to-mathematically-design-stages/

[Jarin]

2 hours ago, BentRim said:

I will do some reading and try to gain a better understanding on how to figure out how much dV I need and try to build more efficient ships.  The designs I have used so far come from copying things I have seen in the Wiki and just attempting to learn.  Now that I am confident in my ability to control the ship and make it go where I want (which was a big part of my primary goal) I can now plan some further missions as you suggested.  

 

It's always good to learn how dV works, and understand the calculations, but once you understand it, I find actually manually calculating it all the time to be tedious rather than interesting. MechJeb has been mentioned previously, but Kerbal Engineer is another good informational mod without as many fiddly bits if you want something simpler. It lacks MJ's navigational features, which is either a negative or a positive depending on who you talk to.

[BentRim]

11 minutes ago, Jarin said:

It's always good to learn how dV works, and understand the calculations, but once you understand it, I find actually manually calculating it all the time to be tedious rather than interesting. MechJeb has been mentioned previously, but Kerbal Engineer is another good informational mod without as many fiddly bits if you want something simpler. It lacks MJ's navigational features, which is either a negative or a positive depending on who you talk to.

While I don't intend to use MJ's autopilot features at this time,  I could see how after a while it would be useful to perform some of the routine tasks I have mastered to simply move forward quicker.  

I like to learn new things that are outside of my normal day to day job,  especially thing that challenge my brain.  I've always had an interest in physics, astronomy and chemistry, but my career ended up being in healthcare.  

Being 100% honest I am normally a console gamer as decades ago I found it cost prohibitive to keep my computer upgraded and lost interest as life happened.  A couple of years ago I purchased a gaming laptop to play some RPG games on when I travel for work and I learned about Steam.  About six months ago the KSP demo popped up on my radar and I downloaded it.  I fired it up, took a perusal look at the game and found it to be non-intuitive and frankly just didn't get what it was about.  Then over the Christmas season I was looking at Steam and KSP popped up again on a great sale.  I started reading the reviews and was puzzled why it got such high ratings that I figured there must be something I missed on my initial look.

My 12 year old was looking over my shoulder and she mentioned that she had heard about KSP at school from one of her teachers and was somewhat familiar with it.  She informed me that it was all over Youtube...  ( which is also a thing I never think of ) so I watched a couple of videos, stayed up an entire night,  and have been hooked ever since.  

In any event, while I feel I have come a long way from that first orbit around Kerbin,  I am beginning to realize that I have just scratched the surface and have a long way to go.  I will check out Kerbal Engineer as well.  I don't know that I have the desire to start manually calculating things, but certainly want to gain an understanding of how it all goes together.  

Thanks again for the comments.

[bewing]

Another note: you don't need to do any math at all to get your deltaV number. You can get an extremely accurate number just by using SetOrbit to jump your ship to someplace where the gravity is low (high orbit around any CB). Note your starting velocity. Light all the engines, let them burn. Once they are all done, Note you ending velocity and subtract.