First Successful Career Mode

[Sig]

Howdy folks

Just thought I'd share my experience with this game and my first successful missions I've recently had.

Back when I first got KSP (maybe a bit less than a year ago, I think it was .21? Whatever was before career mode came out), all I was able to do then, and for many months after career mode came out, was play in sandbox. Even then I struggled building things that had enough juice and stability to get me to the Mun and Minmus (don't even think about other planets!)

After having used Mechjeb a few times, I had a really good idea what needed to happen to get me to the Mun, and land there and such but I struggled a lot with insufficient builds and/or insufficient piloting skills.

I would play in Career mode but it would only last a few hours before I would not be able to progress any further.

Two weeks ago or so I started watching Scott Manley's Interstellar Quest series and paying a whole lot more attention to what he was doing as he was doing it and all the sudden things clicked. I started a new Career save.

As of last night I have now launched (w/o Mechjeb!) successful missions to both the Mun (1 manned, 1 probe) and Minmus (twice manned, 1 probe), have launched a 'satellite' on a polar orbit around Kerbin and another around the Mun... I even built my first successful (though a little unstable) plane, that I actually flew and was able to land.

And finally, have started to assemble a space station at roughly 500km. So far I have two launches to it, one to put my 'habitation' module in orbit and a second run with the 3 person pod to deliver Jeb to his new temporary home and to try my hands at an unassisted rendezvous and docking. It took me a long time to meet with and dock the pod to the station, but I got it done!

Next up are some escape pods, a science processing module and fueling stations.

I am using Kerbal Engineer, Chatterer, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Vanguard Parachute, Procedural Fairings and one of the Atmosphere enhancement mods to make Kerbin look better (Forget the name off hand)

[aman608]

Nice, it only gets better from here

i used to use mechjeb but i have been able to master a hohmann transfer to the mun without using maneuvering nodes so ive actually moved far away from mechjeb and uninstalled it i'm trying to learn how to do everything stock so i have to calculate the Delta-V myself (for me its more fun because its more of a challenge)

Edited June 11, 2014 by aman608
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[Space Peanut]

nice!

I must have started around the same time as you, amusingly I have been to many of the planets but still have never successfully docked!!!

reccommend a trip to Duna or Eve. They not too hard to get to - espescially with the new big rockets available. Eve has a thick atmosphere so you can parachute down, although is very hard to get back up again!