noob questions about contracts and.. death?

[Kodiax]

i must be missing something... the contract gives a window of 150 m/s to 250 m/s spd  and a window of 5k to 9k alt..  I have tried everything i can think of to achieve this silly contract..

what exactly am i supposed to do?  its just opening a chute using proper stage.. and yet, i have not been able to complete any of the steps.

on a side note, im having the pretty much same prob with the flea booster. i just dont seem to be hitting the completion steps somehow.

on another side note, I got into orbit and did my prograde burn just fine.. but when i went to do the retro burn to round out the orbit, i got message that i had no pilot????

any help would be appreciated.

[Dman979]

First, welcome aboard, @Kodiax!

Do you have a picture of the contract?

[Geonovast]

Adjusting the thrust limiter on the SRBs really helps with those picky contracts.

Those contracts are one of the big reasons I don't play career.

[Kerbart]

46 minutes ago, Kodiax said:

i must be missing something... the contract gives a window of 150 m/s to 250 m/s spd  and a window of 5k to 9k alt..  I have tried everything i can think of to achieve this silly contract..

what exactly am i supposed to do?  its just opening a chute using proper stage.. and yet, i have not been able to complete any of the steps.

"a" chute? Did you bring the right parachute? The model matters.

 

46 minutes ago, Kodiax said:

I got into orbit and did my prograde burn just fine.. but when i went to do the retro burn to round out the orbit, i got message that i had no pilot????

any help would be appreciated.

There's not a lot to go by here, so I'm going to guess that it's an unmanned craft. Initially you had radio contact so all would work fine, but now you're on the other side of the planet and without radio contact you cannot remotely operate your craft.

[Superfluous J]

If you're playing on a harder mode (or manually adjusted settings) there can be a pretty big blackout zone just east of KSC, until you get to that big continent on the other side. Even on normal mode's settings, if you're low enough you can still get caught by it.

One trick is to aim correctly as soon as you're out of the atmosphere, and then when it comes time to burn you can hit full throttle (z) and zero throttle (x) to get into orbit.

More advanced probe cores can also aim prograde with SAS on, even with no comms.

[Kodiax]

thanks for the responses guys, I will get back with updates as i continue to reach for the stars

heres screenie of the contract.  what exactly does it want me to do?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1386260138

 

[Kodiax]

ok really baffled. reason i couldnt control that ship was, it had an engineer on board.. I didnt put him there.. he defaulted  i guess.. cuz  barracks say my two pilots are "assigned" to contracts , i have no saved games that show them as in the pod.    with a pilot onboard, im sure now i can achieve orbit.. im starting to wonder if career mode is going to work out for me...

[Vanamonde]

It just takes some getting used to.

[Kodiax]

im being patient and enjoying the game, but im really at a loss where my two pilots are and how to regain access to them.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, Kodiax said:

im being patient and enjoying the game, but im really at a loss where my two pilots are and how to regain access to them.

I think if you click them in the Astronaut Complex it tells you what ship they're on or if they're EVA. Then find them or their ship in the Tracking Station.

I'm on mobile so I can't check to make sure.

[Blasty McBlastblast]

@Kodiax  welcome to the forums 

To beat those early "test at altitude" contracts try the following:

• Make sure you have the correct test part on your ship!
• Pay attention whether the part must be activated by "staging" (space bar) or "run test" (right-click part in flight)
• Use a liquid fuel engine (not an SRB) to give yourself better control,
• Place some stabilising fins nice and low, this will keep things pointed upwards even without pilots or SAS.

During the flight:

• Open the contract window so that you can see the details
  • min & max speed (below i had from 150m/s to 240m/s)
  • min & max altitude (below i had from 8,000m to 11,000m)
• Check yo' staging!
• Take off like normal, then throttle down the engine so that you don't over-speed,
• Gently climb to the testing altitude, reducing thrust to maintain speed,
• Eyeball that contract window, when everything turns green do the test!

Bonus tips:

• Sometimes you will get a contract to test an engine in flight, but this does not mean that you need to haul an extra engine to stage at the right time! While on the launchpad activate the engine via right click (instead of staging) and then throttle up to take off, you can now stage the engine later in the flight to do the test.
• To test SRB in flight you couuld use the tip above, but the easiest way is to empty out all of the heavy solid fuel in the VAB and then use a liquid fuelled engine to haul your payload to the correct height & speed.

 

[Kodiax]

ty for the info :D    ok how do i have contract window open while launching? im assuming now there is a button for that?  second question.  when i launch now i see more than one orbital path. I also have two pilots who are "contracted"  dont have tracking station upgrade yet, how do i retrieve the lost kerbalnauts?  Im betting they are why i cant seem to do these contracts now. still active but....   so many details to learn LOL

[Blasty McBlastblast]

The contract window button is located at the top right of your screen in flight,

In map mode you will be able to see the orbital paths of everything (even planets if you zoom out with the mouse wheel). You can centre your view on other objects by pressing "tab", pressing the tilde (wiggly line ~ above tab) will return focus to your ship. (note: unfortunately you can not tab to stranded ships until after you have approached them)

Rescuing stranded kerbals from orbit is quite a challenge early on, in real life even NASA tried and failed to do this with the Gemini 4 mission! You will need to master getting to space, achieving a specific orbit, arranging the rendezvous, and then space walking or docking to transfer crew. Scott Manley has a nice video tutorial on how to rendezvous (the game version is old, but the method is still the same). Don't feel bad if you need to cancel these contracts for now (you can do this from the Mission Control building) to progress with your career.

Upgrading the tracking station is almost prerequisite to doing rescue contacts as it will allow you to target the stranded vessel and plan your approach, without any targeting you will just have to eyeball it. Possible, but very hard!

[Kodiax]

TYVM for the awesome advice Blasty!    i found the contract button.. wow what a help that is   i found my missing 'nauts floating in orbit. i dont yet have the skillz to recover them, im still working out the details to achieve orbit lol.  so,  i started a new game and made full use of your advice. I have 4 completed contracts now! i installed some mods on the recc of a friend whos played since beta (hes offline or id be pestering him lol)   oddly adding the Procedural mod  removed the vanilla decoupler from the inventory so i cant do that low lev contract.  things are going good overall now,  Up Up and AWAYYY