Your 0.24 mistakes

[Renegrade]

Mine was on a rescue mission. Used an Sputnik and a empty command pod... or so i though, rendezvoused with the kerbal... and jeb is sitting in the command pod... He's now sitting in orbit waiting for me to do my manned mun landing.. i'm gunna pick him up on the way

That's.. exactly what I did, only I left Bob in orbit for a looong time and 'rescued' him much, much later.

I'm not the best at making sure rockets have the correct number of crew in 'em.

[RW-1]

Hehehe, mine was saving gamedata before switching to x64, but not the saves folder - all earlier progress, my stations around Kerbin, Mun, Minimus - gone.

I had seen earlier that my saves were in fact converted to the new career mode, but on second launch of the program it was not running, so I wanted to do a fresh install. My bad there.

But all in all so far it's a lot of fun trying the contracts and getting myself up in the tech tree again!

Questions:

Funds and buying parts, not yet implemented? I can unlock nodes, but not yet purchase parts needed but not researched? Or are they placeholders to indicate how much of your available funds will be used if implemented when unlocked?

Declining contracts - I would believe that might impact your status, but can we get clarification on it? IOW, if a contract is declined, how might that affect new contract generation from that company, or in general towards you?

Lastly, I'm noticing that to stage it seems I have to hit spacebar twice, investigating on my end, only mod installed is the enhanced navball. Running the 0.24x64.

[advil]

That's.. exactly what I did, only I left Bob in orbit for a looong time and 'rescued' him much, much later.

I'm not the best at making sure rockets have the correct number of crew in 'em.

Wouldn't it be nice if they made some sort of mini Hitchhiker can that holds one kerbal, is the same diameter as the standard control module and defaults to empty so you could just slap one on under your control module for those "Rescue the kerbal from space" missions? Something just big enough to support a single kerbal.. I've had to do two of these missions so far and both times Jeb tries to come along in the vacant control module under the stayputnik. Some other things that I think might make the mission a little easier would be LIGHTS and RCS, I haven't unlocked either of those yet. First rescue went pretty slick, in the dark.. I managed to get within 12 meters of my target and switched to him to fly to and enter the control module, making sure to do an EVA report and a crew report. Minimal science there at this point but I'll take any scrap I can. The second mission I ended up chasing my target around Kerbin a few times until I was close enough and almost ALMOST ran out of power..

Has anybody else noticed the descriptions on some of these contracts seem to be a bit rambly and confusing? Maybe it's just me but some of the wording starts to get confusing and I find myself wondering "Who the heck is writing this?!"

[Oafman]

My biggest .24 mistake? Installing it.

[firestorm126]

Wouldn't it be nice if they made some sort of mini Hitchhiker can that holds one kerbal, is the same diameter as the standard control module and defaults to empty so you could just slap one on under your control module for those "Rescue the kerbal from space" missions? Something just big enough to support a single kerbal.. I've had to do two of these missions so far and both times Jeb tries to come along in the vacant control module under the stayputnik. Some other things that I think might make the mission a little easier would be LIGHTS and RCS, I haven't unlocked either of those yet. First rescue went pretty slick, in the dark.. I managed to get within 12 meters of my target and switched to him to fly to and enter the control module, making sure to do an EVA report and a crew report. Minimal science there at this point but I'll take any scrap I can. The second mission I ended up chasing my target around Kerbin a few times until I was close enough and almost ALMOST ran out of power..

Has anybody else noticed the descriptions on some of these contracts seem to be a bit rambly and confusing? Maybe it's just me but some of the wording starts to get confusing and I find myself wondering "Who the heck is writing this?!"

The contract wording is procedural, theres a list of all the possible sentences which the main words are then thrown in too, It can get very very random because of this xD

[magnemoe]

Two idiot mistakes however not related to 0.24, first send an rover to Mun with 8 material labs, no goo containers and I forgot to add the antenna, luckily I had an probe who I was supposed to deploy from the rover after landing to do science on Mun surface so I kept it while driving around.

Second was using goo containers instead of monoprop tanks on a kethanen miner, again nice to have lots of docking ports

[corvustech]

In an effort to recycle more parts I strapped chutes to every stage, only to realize that no matter how many tons of parachutes you have, they won't deploy in upper atmosphere....

[Razor235]

Two idiot mistakes however not related to 0.24, first send an rover to Mun with 8 material labs, no goo containers and I forgot to add the antenna, luckily I had an probe who I was supposed to deploy from the rover after landing to do science on Mun surface so I kept it while driving around.

Second was using goo containers instead of monoprop tanks on a kethanen miner, again nice to have lots of docking ports

Glad I'm not the only one to forget crucial science components!

[advil]

In an effort to recycle more parts I strapped chutes to every stage, only to realize that no matter how many tons of parachutes you have, they won't deploy in upper atmosphere....

I have something you can try and I proved it works on my own. Put a remote guidance system on top of the fuel tank for each stage you want to drop and later retrieve. This will allow you to activate the chutes whenever you want. It will also allow you to track the parts quite easily. Best of all, because of the guidance system the part does not get counted as debris and because of this will not suffer the physics dropoff. As long as it doesn't smash up when it reaches the surface you will be able to recover everything that is left. If you set the parachutes to open when you hit your decoupler, they will still open once they get to the appropriate elevation. Provided the game doesn't think it's looking at debris.

[bonyetty]

Jeb Bill and Bob to Duna but no EVA as door obstructed. And everything else worked perfectly.

[Asmayus]

Well, I forgot parachutes on my manned mun land-and-return mission.

And then I sent out a rescue ship, managed to land it within a few km of the first ship, and then realized I'd forgotten to add parachutes to the rescue ship as well.

[baijuncheng]

I spent around half a million on a space station. Got it to orbit but ran out of fuel during the circularization burn. I built another rocket to go up and dock with it and complete the burn. Unfortunately, the docking port I wanted to use was on backwards so I couldn't dock. Instead I ploughed my rocket into it at max thrust, destroying the station, my rocket, and also leaving loads of bits of crap floating around Kerbin.

[advil]

Well, I forgot parachutes on my manned mun land-and-return mission.

And then I sent out a rescue ship, managed to land it within a few km of the first ship, and then realized I'd forgotten to add parachutes to the rescue ship as well.

Not enough remaining fuel for a powered landing?

[FatboyTim]

Jebediah is now beginning an extended visit to the Mun...

He got his lander down OK, but he does not have quite enough DeltaV to get back into orbit as it was originally designed for a mission to Minmus.

[jwenting]

Downloading it was the biggest mistake. I lack the time to play it, and now it's nagging me to start it all the time...

[gbleck]

Contract to explore duna combo with the plant flag on duna mission. Two can lander two stage lander with a nuke stage in orbit. I got distracted by my cat launching back to the nuke tug and had to reload the save. Loaded back and burned back to the nuke and docked. Then I realized none of my science was full and the land on duna part of the contract was not finished. I had loaded a save point just before landing and gotten almost to the surface and gone back out of the atmosphere never actually touched down. Luckily my nuke pusher had way more dV then it needed and I refueled and landed again. Forgot to plant the flag this time though so I have to finish that contract on my second duna mission. I'm testing a giant 4 engine culster on the surface of duna and planting the flag.

[Tortoise]

I spent around half a million on a space station. Got it to orbit but ran out of fuel during the circularization burn. I built another rocket to go up and dock with it and complete the burn. Unfortunately, the docking port I wanted to use was on backwards so I couldn't dock. Instead I ploughed my rocket into it at max thrust, destroying the station, my rocket, and also leaving loads of bits of crap floating around Kerbin.

Build it piece by piece lul.

[CalculusWarrior]

I didn't realize I lacked the fuel to slow down a suborbital Minmus hop until after I'd quicksaved at apoapsis. As such, Samster Kerman had to frantically grab the science out of the command pod and is now waiting for a rescue ship. My poor, poor budget...

[Wanderfound]

What's odd to me is that re-usable spacecraft play no purpose as of yet. Maybe they will, I don't know, but so far I've stuck 2 little probes in orbit with no intention of bringing them back down, and have only returned the top stage of my rockets.

I've got an SSTO spaceplane that can haul 30 tons into orbit (two turbojets, four RAPIERs, all stock parts). Since it lands on the runway, the only cost of the launch is the tiny amount of fuel it uses in the few seconds between Mach 5 and orbit. Profits are over 90%.

I'm using it to build orbital infrastructure; there's already a refuelling station and a tug. The SSTO can lift a full Rockomax Red, so keeping the station full isn't a problem. Now, anything that I want to send interplanetary can be lifted empty, saving most of the launch weight.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Wanderfound

[FleetAdmiralJ]

Mine was trying to test the small SRB in orbit w/o emptying it first. I probably had 3 or 4 rockets flip on me on launch due to being top heavy before I figured out that it didn't need to actually be fueled to run the test

[TheBrisbyMouse]

First mission to Eve, suicide of course. It used only Kerbals I'd rescued from orbit. Did everything perfectly, at first. But once I got my landing zone finalized, I realized I had no decoupler between my final stage and my science lab. I opened Whack-A-Kerbal and frantically spammed middle click, but nothing happened >. Landed, toppled over, broke the rockomax adapter connecting my lab and capsule and knocking off my antenna.

[PixelClef]

Less to do with .24, but since it happened there ...

First Minmus flyby. Gathered high orbit science (let's hear it for the "science bomb!"). Ready for your EVA, Jeb? As soon as he exited, he let go. Dude! Why? I spend 30 frustrating minutes learning to use suit RCS. Never got really proficient, but managed to get him plenty close, yet he wouldn't get back in. I never get the bleeping [F] Grab prompt, even though he's hugging the hatch. Mashed F anyway, no joy.

Turns out that a light over the hatch will not obstruct an EVA, but will shove your little Kerbal off immediately. Additionally, the position of the light will prevent your little green friend from getting close enough to the hatch. I suspected the first part, then confirmed it with a pad launch. Always test your EVA from the pad when trying new part configuration on the capsule.

[RocketPilot573]

I just made my first mistake in my .24 career (its hardcore, no revert/quickload)

Jeb was supposed to land on the Mun, instead, when the last pair of SRBs decoupled, well, lets just say it was not a clean separation. Then the remaining part of the destroyed core stage awkwardly continued pushing the upper stage, giving Jeb at least a sub orbital trip. I actually did complete one contract, which was to test the 909 in the atmosphere, but that wasn't enough to pay for the 40000 Fund rocket.

[Master Tao]

I tried to combine an SRB (Landed) test with an LV-1R (Splashed Down) test. Built a probe rover out of the SRB, tweaked the SRB to minimum. Still not enough to prevent it from shaking itself apart on the far side of the runway.

[advil]

I've got an SSTO spaceplane that can haul 30 tons into orbit (two turbojets, four RAPIERs, all stock parts). Since it lands on the runway, the only cost of the launch is the tiny amount of fuel it uses in the few seconds between Mach 5 and orbit. Profits are over 90%.

I'm using it to build orbital infrastructure; there's already a refuelling station and a tug. The SSTO can lift a full Rockomax Red, so keeping the station full isn't a problem. Now, anything that I want to send interplanetary can be lifted empty, saving most of the launch weight.

Do you mind sharing your design? I've not had much luck or experience with space planes and this intrigues me.