Career and Contracts

[Joe Kerbal]

I'm a total newbie so I apologize if my question sounds stupid but I'm kinda stucked and both browsing web and using this forum I couldn't figure out a solution.

I probably did some wrong choices in my research path. Anyways I'm not able to build a plane yet, I think it's needed at least "Aviation" research and I can't afford it. Still, most of available contracts are about reporting activity above specific kerbal sites which, I guess, are meant to be done with airplanes. 

At this point there are two options. Either I find/wait for some contracts that would allow me to gain enough research point to get "aviation" (very few and hard) or I try to gain search point differently from contracts (how?) or there's a way I don't know to perform those contracts with a simple rocket. (Sounds quite challenging to find out a ballistic trajectory to get there and land somehow safely)

(sorry for the rough english, it's not my first language)

[bewing]

Yes, those contracts are called "Survey contracts" and are generally made to be done with airplanes. You can do them with rockets, but it's very hard -- I do not recommend it.

Maybe what you need to know is that there is a huge amount of science points laying around the KSC campus. Many buildings, if you touch them and do a science experiment, will give you science points. You can go out in the ocean and get lots of science points. You can go out even further, and get even more science points.

Or you can launch rockets up really high and do experiments there. That will get you a lot of science points too.

So yes, if you want to do survey contracts then I'd say just wander around and gather enough science points to get "Aviation".

But many players don't like building airplanes, and they go straight into space with rockets. You do not need to do survey contracts at all to play the game, if you discover that you don't want to.

[Joe Kerbal]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

Maybe what you need to know is that there is a huge amount of science points laying around the KSC campus. Many buildings, if you touch them and do a science experiment, will give you science points.

Thankyou. I like a lot this career mode and contracts approach so I think I'll just make a little effort to get enough research point to gain aviation. All very clear but I'm not sure what you mean with "touch a building a do a science experiment". I already did some experiments like temperature and so on in various situation gaining some points but I don't understand the "touch building" part. 

THankyou a lot in any case

[bewing]

When you do a science experiment, you either need a kerbal or a vehicle with science equipment on it. To "touch" a building, you gently ram a vehicle or kerbal into the building. But don't do it too hard!

 

[Spricigo]

15 hours ago, Joe Kerbal said:

 I'm not sure what you mean with "touch a building a do a science experiment".

When you run a experiment you will get something like:

"Crew Report while Flying low over Kerbin's Shores"

There is a few variables there: Experiment (Crew Report), Situation(flying Low),  and Biome(Kerbin's Shores).  As a general rule, changing any of those give a new opportunity  to get science.

Thing is: KSC is packed with building sized biomes (and a few more appear once you upgrade the facilities). So you can run some experiment touching (landed at) the Launchpad, tumble your craft a few meters west and run that same experiment touching the Crawlerway, then launch a craft from the runaway or try to do a few short hops to touch a different building* the   Another trick is to do an EVA report landed, store it in the capsule then jump to do an EVA report while "flying low".

*Personally I prefer to get the science to unlock aviation elsewhere (there is several different biomes around KSC: water, grassland, shores, highlands, mountains). Aviation bring the first wheels and jet engines, which allows for a basic science rover. It's a lot simpler to find all the mini biomes on wheels.