Can you guys show off your early career vehicles?

[dpraptor]

I would love to see some of the ingenious ways you all came up with getting the most out of your limited supplies to do the impossible!! I would really love to see the mum landers and any simple rovers that were made. I am just sending my 1st ship to mum, and wonder if this tin-can of a bucket is ever going to make touchdown!! I will post pics once I get there, as well as some of the earlier ships I used.

I think this would prove quite interesting to see!!

[Oddible]

Here's my Mun lander. Got something like 316 science for the trip. (I rushed Fuel Systems with my early science to get asparagus staging going).

[SkyRender]

The other day I built this out of about 600 science worth of parts.

It brought back around 4500 science from Jool. A good investment overall.

[Spatzimaus]

My own Mun/Minmus design:

No fuel lines, no nuclear engines, and it's definitely not pretty. But it made it to Mun with a bit to spare, and easily handled Minmus.

Here's the thing. The early-tech parts aren't any less efficient than the later ones; sure, it might be nice to have one large fuel tank instead of many small ones, or 2.5m engines instead of a set of 1.25s, but you don't actually gain any performance until you unlock things like the LV-N. So a lot of accomplishments can be done with those early parts, even if the final designs look extremely ungainly.

[samstarman5]

Well, if you want to see an early career design, then behold my Coin Toss A2* which got me into suborbit:

*:A1 was a less effective design, which proved to be better at killing Jeb Kerman than getting me any science.

But if you would like to see my current pride and joy, then bear witness to the majesty of the Trinity Ascent A1, which allowed me a munar pass and much science:

Note the three Mk1 Pods nicely arranged, each with its own goo pod and a radial parachute. This design allowed me to go for other techs before my first step into Electrical. It even looks rather utilitarian as opposed to patchwork, to the point I could load up to three kerbals and still bring the entire command module arrangement down safely. Triple the science!

[RocketPilot573]

Meet the Zeus N1 rocket! This is my first career rocket meant to actually land on the Mun, not even a probe has done it. The most advanced part on it is the 3 Kerbal pod (There's no docking ports either). I have not unlocked some decent sized engines yet, so I had to settle on 28 1.25-meter rockets for the first stage. The first stage, by the way, can lift the whole thing well into space before running out of fuel. Unfortunately, this thing has not even gotten to LKO due to some weird control problem (as you can probably tell from the picture). It's as if the 24 trust vectoring engines are not responding to my (and the SAS's) commands...

Also, I have not done a direct assent (no docking) 3 Kerbal Mun mission since like... when docking was implemented... so this will be interesting!

Edited October 19, 2013 by RocketPilot573

[Brotoro]

That's a fascinating rocket you have there, RocketPilot573. I like it.

[Ittiz]

As soon as I started career mode I went to the vehicle assembly building, built this simple SSTO and launched it into orbit. Without studying anything

[Speijker]

How hard can rocket science be anyway:

I don't think Jeb's going to be home in time for dinner...

Edited October 19, 2013 by Speijker

[Sundancer]

This is the rocket that made my first completely unassisted trip to the Mun. It certainly isn't pretty, and it's definitely over-done, but it worked. Lucky I built it the way I did too, as the lander got back to Kerbin with 3 units of fuel left!

Forgot to bring the Goo, and any means of communication though, so it's going back as the Mani III which will feature a more efficient fuel crossfeed system as this one ran out mid circularisation burn. Going from three 215 thrust engines to one 50 screws everything.

Another example of extreme over-engineering is my Fenris design. This series was only intended to lift the science module you see at the top into HKO. It did the job beautifully, but could probably have been done with a lot less.

I hope Whackjob doesn't mind my blatant plagiarism on the science module/lander. I saw one of his posts including a very similar design and it's absolutely amazing. To be used for actual landings it, naturally, needs some form of propulsion and fuel. It's likely that design will require me to learn docking, as it can't fit the amount of fuel I need for a landing and return.

Hoorah for inefficiency!

Edit: Typo.

[SRV Ron]

Early orbital attempt. Boosters overheated and blew off.

Made orbit with fuel to spare but was a bitch to control the first stage. Center engine burned longer then the ring of three.

Made Mun orbit and back

[duncan1297]

Here's mine. its called Space Mk.3

[AmpsterMan]

My Tier 2 and Tier 3 Vehicles

[toric5]

here is my tech one orbiter. the Low Cost Low Orbit Research Vessel (LCLORV)

[r4m0n]

TL0 ship, gets 5 Kerbals to Minmus and back with a Mün flyby, got 710 science on my first try. Could spend some extra time on the Mün to mine some extra low-orbit EVA biome data, but that was good enough (hey, you did say to show off XD)

[Nurph]

Meet the Zeus N1 rocket! This is my first career rocket meant to actually land on the Mun, not even a probe has done it. The most advanced part on it is the 3 Kerbal pod (There's no docking ports either). I have not unlocked some decent sized engines yet, so I had to settle on 28 1.25-meter rockets for the first stage. The first stage, by the way, can lift the whole thing well into space before running out of fuel. Unfortunately, this thing has not even gotten to LKO due to some weird control problem (as you can probably tell from the picture). It's as if the 24 trust vectoring engines are not responding to my (and the SAS's) commands...

I see alot of fuel lines on that lower stage, you probably got some fuel imbalances.

[Jarin]

Meet the overengineered mess that is the Stack'o'boosters Mk.2:

Note the ring of thrust-vectoring engines strapped to the solid fuel boosters. Those are left over from the Mk1 design, which was the only way I could keep the damn thing stable, lacking reaction control rings. And once I DID have them, I saw no reason to change the setup. This unit makes mun and minmus landings with plenty of fuel for wasteful return burns. It also makes a dandy one-way "extended deployment" trip outsystem to fly past Duna.

The duna flyby netted finally netted me enough science to unlock the LV-N, though, so the Mk.3 is on its way!

[Supernovy]

This is a Tech level 2-3 manned orbital launcher. It barely makes orbit, it may not be even capable of polar orbit. Next to it is a similar tech-level science probe.

The only TL3 parts in the launcher/orbiter are the batteries, transmitters and winglets.

The probe went from Minmus orbit, to its surface, and back to Kerbin. Again, barely. There seems to be a trend with my low-tech ships...

Edited October 19, 2013 by Supernovy

[Oxytropis]

SPOILER Didn't take any screenshots of my first few vehicles, the very first one consisted of just the capsule and a couple of goo containers though

The next was taking it on to the grass, then mountains, desert ect. building it up slowly to reach each one.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Oxytropis
Makeshift spoiler alert

[1greywind]

Early Eve lander mission - got around 1500 science points with it.

[Lanzecki]

Not got solar panels or Aspargus staging yet. Landed this on the Mun and Minmus with this. Spending more time with no power then with it, but it's amazing how little gear is needed to get to places. I got these home with loads of Science. Gz to Squad for inventing a new verb. "I was sciencing last night".

Since .22 came out I've stopped making massive monsters that lag out and only just drag themselves from Kerbal's grav well. Small and simple is quicker easier to control and quite frankly more fun.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Lanzecki

[Wjolcz]

Maybe not so early but not so advanced as well. Went to Duna and Ike and got back to Kerbin. I had to improvise a lot to make it work. Gathered about 3000 points of science in one trip.

[ccik]

I just did a manned trip with 1 Kerbal to Duna and returned.

I tried some new stuff with this vessel. For example i ditched one of the Engines used for the initial ascend as soon as i was in orbit, but kept the full fuel tanks, and just used the slightly more efficient lander engines for interplanetary travel. As soon as these tanks were empty, i got rid of them. It is hard to see in the images, but basically i used a normal asparagus staging for the middle stages. As soon as the last to "siderows" of tanks was empty, i decoupled them together with the eninge underneat the central fuel stack, and just kept the tanks to "pull" them with the lander. Later i separated these as well. I also had to rely heavily on aerobraking at Duna and back on Kerbin. But in the end i just got back with barely enough fuel to fire up the engines shortly before touch-down to soften the landing a litte bit.

Unfortunally i didn't do any screenshots while the mission was underway.

Here is the ship in the VAB:

It is build with this advancement in the tech tree:

And got me back 847 Science from the Mission, not including a couple of experiments i relayed back.:

Edited October 19, 2013 by ccik

[antbin]

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About 735 science from a Tier 1 Mun landing return (at the Arch, by coincidence!). The ship could be bigger, but it gets fugly with multiple command pods.

Even without fuel lines, radial mount fuel tanks on the command module stage are good for stable landing. You just have to manually transfer fuel to the center tank between burns.

The biomes are key to getting lots of EVA report science. Land on the rim of a crater and scoot about with your jetpack to get multiple soil samples.

I'm loving this Career mode! Hopefully for the full version they will have simpler / fancier spacesuits. Having full spacesuit RCS is a little overpowered at the start, when your craft doesn't even have landing legs.

[Rune]

I'll take some more screenies for you guys tomorrow of the low-tier builds I came up with, but first... I've just built my first jet, and without wheels! I think it turned out pretty good, and it flies like a dream. All you need is to unlock the first set of plane parts . Here's also the first orbiter I built (straight copy from Yargnit, why bother redesigning a very simple and effective orbiter with tier 0 parts), and my first munar mission once I mastered the technology of putting batteries on (it has a very cute parallel staged design booster, a bit like soyuz but with two different sizes of boosters so it's like 1.5+.5 stages to orbit, but I'm lacking a screenshot right now):

Rune. Next, low tech boosters! I love building without fuel lines.