Please Help me to launch in Career Mode v0.22

[davidr]

I cannot for the life of me understand how to launch the first basic rocket in V0.22 career mode.

I have parachute , command module , 2 liquid fuel boosters and an engine.

However these are all in 1 stage and on the launch pad I increase the throttle and then press space bar to activate the rocket. What happens then is that the engine fires up and lift off occurs but also the parachute deploys resulting in my vehicle somersaulting over the launch pad and exploding every time.

What am I doing wrong please?

DavidR

[sal_vager]

If you mouse over the stage list in the editor, you'll see small + and - icons, use these to add stages manually and then drag parts in the stage list into the stage you want them to be in.

I suggest the SRB's in the lowest stages, engine in the stages above that, and chute in the last stage with the pod

I understand this is unintuitive, and better behaviour of the stage list is required, but it's all we have for now.

[DanimalXIII]

If you do a EVA / report on the launch pad that will give you some science points to unlock the next tier in the R&D

[iBeej]

Another little trick you can do to make efficient use of staging without interstage decouplers is by stacking SRB's and putting each engine in its own stage. Then during flight, you wait until the fuel of the burning SRB is down to 10% and you STAGE (ignite) the SRB above it, intentionally and effectively exploding the nearly depleted SRB below.

Then just make sure you put the parachute in the last stage and you're set!!

Hope this helps and good luck!

[davidr]

Thanks all,

I have successfully launched a rocket assembly , gained space science points and had the rocket splash down safely in the Ocean. One thing now - how do you recover the rocket and more importantly the astronaut. I ended the flight and when making arrangements for the 2nd flight I found that Jebediah was still shown as being in the first command pod - presumably bobbing on the waves - how do I recover him?

DavidR

[Tortoise]

Well you have to make seperate stages. You have the parachute, engines, and everything else all in one stage therefore its deploying in one stage.

[davidr]

OK thanks for the info.

I found out that I could rescue my Kerbal from the Tracking Station. I will now attempt to further my Space exploration.

DavidR

[KSK]

OK thanks for the info.

I found out that I could rescue my Kerbal from the Tracking Station. I will now attempt to further my Space exploration.

DavidR

It's not immediately obvious but also look for a small green light above your altimeter at the top of the screen. You can click on that to recover landed spacecraft or kerbals on EVA on Kerbin.

[CaptainArchmage]

You can build a Single Stage to Orbit using the basic parts. You need the capsule, a parachute, an antenna, the LV-30 engine, and 16 of the liquid fuel tanks available at start. That is all you need. Getting back is risky, though.

[SRV Ron]

Well you have to make seperate stages. You have the parachute, engines, and everything else all in one stage therefore its deploying in one stage.

In the VAB, on the right hand side, you will see the staging order. What is happening is when you built your first rocket, the parachute, capsule, and engine all ended up together. That caused the parachute to deploy when you launched. To fix, click on the + marker when you mouse over to the staging bar and drag the engine to the new place below the capsule and parachute. Stay with sub orbital for your first launches and steer subsequent launches to land on different areas of Kerbal to get soil samples for science points. Then, with the next tier unlocked, build your orbiter and go for orbit.

Here is my orbiter built from the unlocked first tier. It made Mun orbit and back for a sizable chunk of science points. Check out how the staging icons are set up.

Carefully manage power use so you don't end up stranded.

[Oddible]

A few suggestions. First, you can recover without going to the tracking station by just hovering over the altimeter at the top of the screen and clicking the pop-up Recover button. Second, do all the science you can on each trip. Collect science on the launch pad (EVA and get a soil sample and an EVA report), recover. When you land, do an EVA and get a soil sample (even from the water). Keep doing these over and over until you're getting almost nothing from the samples.

[knotbeer]

OK thanks for the info.

I found out that I could rescue my Kerbal from the Tracking Station. I will now attempt to further my Space exploration.

DavidR

davidr,

I too had some difficulty my first Career mode. After I got science rolling and unlocked a few levels, I noticed that I could not simply get more science and level up, so I had to figure out where there were more vast amounts of science waiting for me.

On Kerbin, you can land in Highlands, Lowlands, Mountains, etc. and gather soil samples during EVA then enter your ship and recover.

On other bodies, you must return to Kerbin to deliver a full amount of science. I do not recommend transmitting your soil samples... Unless however you realize you need more science to develop a rescue mission or you are going to terminate that mission in question. If you terminate a mission, try to transmit your science back and if you only have limited battery, then make sure you only focus on the most valuable science. The biggest reason I stress this is because you cannot ever get that value back. Not with another mission on the same career anyway. And if you transmit soil samples, you will in fact lose a % of data and/or value (I think just data) that you can also never regain.

Of course, in KSP I think you can earn way more science than the tree requires for completion, which means you can just do other things, but I'm finding it hard to either accomplish those "other things" or I'm just not being imaginative enough to gather more so once I've found myself in a situation that i did not want to redo a 1 1/2 hour mission and can't return home, I just send as much or the most valuable as I can and just go start a new mission.

Starting a new career can also be a bit of fun once you've got the basics down. It just sucks if you feel like you've botched your current one so much that you just flat out should start a new career. lol

[kurja]

davidr,

On other bodies, you must return to Kerbin to deliver a full amount of science. I do not recommend transmitting your soil samples... Unless however you realize you need more science to develop a rescue mission or you are going to terminate that mission in question. If you terminate a mission, try to transmit your science back and if you only have limited battery, then make sure you only focus on the most valuable science. The biggest reason I stress this is because you cannot ever get that value back. Not with another mission on the same career anyway. And if you transmit soil samples, you will in fact lose a % of data and/or value (I think just data) that you can also never regain.

Not true, science is never "lost", you'll end up with the same total amount if you transmit a bunch of times or make multiple recoveries or any combination thereof. Transmitting X times to get all science points is rather tedious though... I've done a few return trips to other bodies so far, what I've done is transmit a couple times and then return, and yes, this will net more points than just returning without transmitting. You could also just transmit and get the same amount without returning but you need to transmit *many* times which is really tedious and not fun at all imo.

[knotbeer]

Not true, science is never "lost", you'll end up with the same total amount if you transmit a bunch of times or make multiple recoveries or any combination thereof. Transmitting X times to get all science points is rather tedious though... I've done a few return trips to other bodies so far, what I've done is transmit a couple times and then return, and yes, this will net more points than just returning without transmitting. You could also just transmit and get the same amount without returning but you need to transmit *many* times which is really tedious and not fun at all imo.

Oh yeah you're totally right... I was trying to keep it basic and didn't really use the right verbiage but it's close to what i meant. As in if you just botch your mission and just want "some" science, you can't get the same amount of points in a 2nd mission from the same biome.