stationary explorers?

[Goodle...]

so manned missions are all but common in KSP. does anyone still purposefully do unmanned landers (like phoenix) these days or they are already out?

[Spartwo]

I skip landers and go straight to rovers.They have the same abilities but are mobile.

[pantner]

so manned missions are all but common in KSP. does anyone still purposefully do unmanned landers (like phoenix) these days or they are already out?

I do. Am still learning a lot, have been to Mun, Minmus, Duna and Eve. Only the first 2 have had manned missions.

Will do some more unmanned Duna missions (there and back again) and then will try with a manned mission.

Just don't like the guilt of stranding or killing my brave pilot(s)...

Still working on rovers, can get to the Mun, and land my rover with a sky crane, but can't design a good, stable rover.

[alacrity]

I still use unmanned delivery probes with KAS container cans of replacement parts and emergency fuel. Usually to replace solar panels on unmanned and manned rovers that have flipped over.

ALacrity

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

I always send in a probe before I send a manned craft. Part of my house rules.

[FlamedSteak]

I haven't launched a probe for a while, but I am quite fond of them. The weight saving allows you to be more minimalist with your engineering.

That being said, if I do a rescue mission they are always unmanned. No point stranding even more Kerbals.

[M5000]

Personally, I love the look of probe landers, but it's always such a disappointment when I land. It's like this big, adrenaline rush while landing, then it touches down and it's like "Oh... I guess that's it then..." *snaps screenshots and goes back to tracking station*

Whereas if I land a rover, it's an event..

"Ah.. Okay, we're safe on the ground.. Now.. About that skycrane I was supposed to decouple while still in the air..."

I then proceed to drive around and do science until the monotony of the terrain begins to drive me insane (approx. 4 hours of driving) at which point, I go to the tracking station and pretty much forget that I have a rover wherever I just landed that rover.

[Markus Reese]

I have probes I send down to the surface to better judge my landing area. I can do hover hops until I find a good spot on low G, when I get high G, I use the rover probes. This ensures that the decent landing side from orbit doesn't turn out to be some random 45 degree slope.

[Seret]

does anyone still purposefully do unmanned landers (like phoenix) these days or they are already out?

They rock in career mode. I've thrown heaps of robot landers at the Mun and probes to do flybys of pretty much everything in the early stages of career mode. It's an easy way to pull down tons of science so you can get the bits for better-equipped manned missions and building rovers, spaceplanes and stations.

[magnemoe]

For career probe landers make a lot of sense outside of Mun where rovers has an benefit if you land near biome borders.

[larsmaehlum]

I play with RemoteTech so probes/rovers are a bit tricky. Then again I just stranded a guy on Duna, so I might have to try a rover next.

[Brapness]

I admit to not using probes much anymore. But when I was first learning how to do interplanetary travel, my first missions were with probes. The lower mass and lack of a need for a return made it easier to focus just on the mechanics of the transfers. My first missions to Eve, Duna, Jool and Eeloo were all unmanned. Now that I'm close to landing a Kerbal on every body I'm thinking I may go back to remote craft in order to start building bases.

[Demon_82]

As soon as I started using a life support plugin I started using more and more unmanned probes, I didn' like to leave a trail of corpses

[Geschosskopf]

so manned missions are all but common in KSP. does anyone still purposefully do unmanned landers (like phoenix) these days or they are already out?

I do. In sandbox mode, the only practical reason to accept the rather large mass and bulk penalties that come with sending Kerbals is if you absolutely need the very limited amount of menial labor they can provide (fixing flats, pumping gas, etc.). For just flying rockets, probes are all you need and weigh a lot less.

There's also the issue or bringing Kerbals home. I usually don't because my menial laborers are untrained, expendable galley slaves, but periodically I have to send out high-dollar brain for scientific purposes, which means I have to bring him home. Doing so requires a bigger ship than a 1-way trip, on top of the size penalty for having a Kerbal aboard in the 1st place, plus puts a time limit on the mission.

So, what I usually do is make a flotilla of ships. Almost all of them are probes: stations, landers, Kethane rigs, the works. And somewhere in there will usually be a small, cramped can simply to carry a few Kerbals out to where they can keep the probes operating.

[samstarman5]

I play with RemoteTech so probes/rovers are a bit tricky. Then again I just stranded a guy on Duna, so I might have to try a rover next.

Put a seat on it for the little Robinson Krusoe to cruise around on.

[3mon]

I still do, i love probes One of the missions i do in every save is building a sort of probulator with many small probes attached to it, sending it to Jool and go leaving probes on the moons. Sure you dont get as much science as a manned mission, but its fun and i usually do it when i dont really need the science anyway.

[The Destroyer]

I usually send a probe for the first time, because it's lgiht and easy. Then I send a return-trip manned lander.