How has the new career mode changed how you build?

[pellinor]

Same for me, I was playing with mission controller before. Main difference is that now tanks are much more expensive and pods are much cheaper.

[Godot]

How are you recovering these stages once they've left the 2.5K range of the next stage? Wouldn't they just disappear?

I don´t know if zeke does it this way, but there is a mod out there named "DebRefund" that, before deletion of the part when leaving the 2.5 km radius, calculates the worth of the debris, checks whether it has enough parachutes to get it down safely and then calculates, how much money (if any) you get from the recovered debris.

The mod also is currently featured in the "Modding Mondays" by Harvester

[RuBisCO]

All my rockets are reusable now, usually two stages, first stage goes up to 80 km, second stage finished to orbit, then switch back to the first stage before it hits the atmosphere, land it in the ocean with parachutes and engine breaking: >80% recovery. I can get ~40 tons of cargo with the first stage being 5 mainsails and 10 oranges, the second stage is 1 mainsail and 1 orange tank. The second stage I can land anytime I want (because it is in LKO) using mechjeb I can land it SpaceX style at 0°02'58''S 74°36'58''W right on the landing strip for 100% recovery. This configeration I us for most everything now, orbital fuel depo, etc, but I started out with the smaller rocket parts early in career mode. I do not use planes, I have and I would if they had a cargo bay big enough, but even B9 biggest bays are limited at 2.6 m wide.

[wooaa]

I have started using a LOT more SRBs in order to keep costs down. I am also starting to take a good look at making a working SSTO so I can have a better profit margin.

[Superfluous J]

I'm using more (moar?) solid rocket boosters because they're cheaper.

Other than that, not much.

[Wanderfound]

I have started using a LOT more SRBs in order to keep costs down. I am also starting to take a good look at making a working SSTO so I can have a better profit margin.

Planes are more fun for me, but if you want an instant SSTO, remember that rockets can use turbojets too. Ram intake + engine nacelle + two radial intakes + turbojet, mounted on a radial girder. Think Thunderbirds.

Attach a dozen of these to your favourite circularisation rocket, keep the fireworks off until the fans choke and don't forget to shut the intakes when you turn off the jets. You will go to space today, especially if you put some chunky aero surfaces on it (use delta wings + standard control surfaces for tailfins, maybe some canards on the nose) and go for a low and flat gravity turn to keep the jets going as long as possible.

[RexKramer]

I like the idea of reaching orbit with the first stage, so recovery is possible. Haven't tried that yet, but funds haven't been a problem. I do slim down my designs a bit.

I'm building essentially every vessel from scratch, custom built for each mission. I'm sure that helps the budget to some extent. On the other hand, I'm also launching a lot of untested stuff, so I could perhaps be actually making things worse budget-wise, as I still usually end up with a lot more DV than I really needed.

I've been keeping a rescue ship in LKO, and snap up every rescue mission that comes up. Right now I'm using a small probe, with basically four 1-man pods, each equipped with a parachute and just enough RCS to deorbit. Was extremely cost effective- I came out with a profit after rescuing the first Kerbal, so the remaining 3 escape pods on the vessel are pure profit. The next one I send up will have 8 pods.

I haven't put much effort into recovering near the KSC, but I'll probably start working on that next.

[magnemoe]

Planes are more fun for me, but if you want an instant SSTO, remember that rockets can use turbojets too. Ram intake + engine nacelle + two radial intakes + turbojet, mounted on a radial girder. Think Thunderbirds.

Attach a dozen of these to your favourite circularisation rocket, keep the fireworks off until the fans choke and don't forget to shut the intakes when you turn off the jets. You will go to space today, especially if you put some chunky aero surfaces on it (use delta wings + standard control surfaces for tailfins, maybe some canards on the nose) and go for a low and flat gravity turn to keep the jets going as long as possible.

Planes are far more efficient and I always use them for the kerbal to orbit, orbital tests or rescue missions unless I have lifeboats in orbit.

Downside with planes is launching heavy or bulky stuff,

[Wanderfound]

Planes are far more efficient and I always use them for the kerbal to orbit, orbital tests or rescue missions unless I have lifeboats in orbit.

Downside with planes is launching heavy or bulky stuff,

It can be done, though; my SSTO heavy lift spaceplane is good for at least 40 ton, probably more.

It also looks like something out of the Thunderbirds, however. Nine sets of landing gear on that thing and I still had to strut like crazy to stop them collapsing on the runway.

[McFarnsworth]

- Moar boosters! For some reason most part testing contract require fairly high velocities while still deep in the atmosphere so I can use the extra kick, and they're cheap. I'm not far enough in the techtree yet to build practical recoverable launchers. Jeb is happy.

- Bigger core stage/lander. All the expensive bits go here now. So I try to land as much as possible near KSC.

- Overbuilt stages. In order to accomodate a few part tests at the right altitudes and speeds while doing a mission I need to fire some stages sooner or later than usual or use less efficient engines or whatever so some extra margin for error is welcome.

- More Kerbal than NASA. My rockets started to look like actual realistic rockets since the last update. Now they're back to being barrels and pieces of stovepipe duct taped together. Jeb is happy.

- SAS and RCS are overrated. You don't ever really need these, ... right? I'm sure it'll be fine without them, probably.

Edited July 23, 2014 by McFarnsworth

[Norcalplanner]

I've moved away from asparagus staged boosters for routine flights. Now it's mainly a cluster of 8 Rockomax or S1 SRBs around a 1.5 orange tank stack with a mainsail, with the SRBs thrust limited so that the initial TWR is around 1.7 or so. Everything fires at launch, then MechJeb throttles back the mainsail to not exceed terminal velocity. SRBs drop off around 12K, mainsail throttles back up, orange stack drops off close to orbit, and then the first quarter or so of whatever transfer stage is on tap is used to circularize the orbit. I'm finding that I do a lot more landings near KSC. Money hasn't been much of an issue since I tested some big parts in orbit, including the KS-25x4 and the LFB 1x2 - I got 1.6 million funds just for those two tests, and now have around 7 million or so. It doesn't seem fair, as the contract for planting a flag on Eve only has a reward of 170K.

I'm currently in the flight testing stage for a new kethane-powered Jool-5 challenge ship, and I'm sure it's going to be at least 1 million with all the scientific equipment on board. Thankfully, I currently have contracts to explore Jool, Pol, and Bop, so the ship should be just about paid for if everything goes according to plan.

[Oafman]

The update caused me to get the latest KW Rocketry, which has given me 5m tanks and engines, so now I build even bigger!

[Rus-Evo]

The new gameplay provides some interesting quandries. For the first time I am considering using space stations, SSTO and reusable tugs & interplanetaries. My only cost would be fuel and special payloads.

Tugs and space stations are easy and just take development time.

I know decent SSTO planes are possible to fuel the station (but I have not made one yet myself).

What I dont know is what is possible in terms of non-staging reusable interplanetaries (my best idea so far would use a booster tug to push the interplanetary almost out of Kerbins SOI and then returning to the station).

[Ruthgar]

I try to build reliable rockets and if a design proves usuable & profitable under any conditions, I try to stick with it for as long as possible. Also I don't launch any missions unless I can turn at least a 50% profit on it. For example, my current kerbin SOI lander is designed to go land on minimus, return to kerbin with a stop at the mun to land, go into kerbin orbit, and rescue lost kerbins from orbit. Now an optimum mission package would be science in kerbin space, science in minimus space, flag on minimus, mun science, mun flag, and the kerbin rescue. Don't have the exact numbers, but that should be about 500k total, my lander (because of all the science modules and such) usually returns me 65-80k depending on fuel remaining. Total cost of the mission is about 220k, so after the refund, if I can get a full Kerbin SOI mission package (repeatables only), I can make 350k easy. Yes, could I strip down my rocket and lander and save another 40-50k in price, yes I could, however the rocket/lander is also designed for the testing missions as well, and has been proven to be able to haul almost anything to the testing locations (passed on the large rocket engines on the mun surface test). I've also started to include side mountain docking ports on my transfer stages and when they have plenty of fuel left, I rendevous with one already location in mun/minimus orbit, and dump all but a fraction of the fuel left in the transfer stage (leave enough to deorbit the transfer stage to mun/min surface) This way I have plenty of fuel already in orbit for interplanetary missions, just need to attach a drone pod to them, and send it back to high kerbin orbit to fuel up the transfer ship.

[chrise6102]

It's given me more incentive to create weird rockets (mainly for testing). But the best thing is that it makes it Feel more like a space program. Even if you can easily afford a mission, just knowing that you couldn't just stick 5 asparaus stages of SLS fuel onto your ship to launch anything makes it feel more immersive to me.

[Kerano]

I like to complete as many contracts as possible in a single launch (usually 6-7), so my ships in 0.24 typically have a bunch of random parts attached to the top in a hodge-podge manner. Modular Girder Segments and Cubic Octagonal Struts have become my best friends.

I'm at slightly over 6 million funds presently, so I don't worry too much about recovering any lower stages except those with the most expensive engines. Typically for my interplanetary missions I'll have a Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tank attached to a S3 KS-25x4 Engine Cluster as the lower central stage, with a probe core + SAS + batteries, and 6-8 Mk16-XL Parachutes attached via girders to slow the descent enough such that I can do a small burn in the last 100 meters to land at a safe speed.

[prophet_01]

When i started i was all about efficiency. Doing fly bys on free return trajectorys and getting as much science and funds as possible, while returning most expensive stuff. I didnt realy like the test contracts anyway and only did some when it was practically on my way.

Then i realized that I had +500k before I even landed on the mun while my most expensive missions barely reached 20k in costs. I still try to be reasonably efficient but I started to set a lot of rules like not doing test, science or rescue missions and also no asparagus, airhogging or returning anything brsides pods, some science stuff and planes/shuttles. I installed remote tech, der and loking forward to tac ls.

Finally it got a more or less chalanging but the crashes with all those mods are getting tiresome :/ ill hafe to do quite a lot of checking for updates and fixes