selecting mods for a restart in career mode

[colin_in_space]

I am contemplating restart my game in full career mode. In order to keep things interesting I would like to add some mods.

My laptop I am using g is not awsome at all. Decent processor, 3 gigs ram, no video card. It will not be upgraded I am actually playing g on my work machine.

I have graphics turned waaaay down. This prevented crashes but recently I added some more mods (satscan and orbital science) and am getting more crashes.

For my new career game on want lots of potential station and science, and ground bases. As such I planned to add msk/osk and station science. Along with tac life support to make things a little more interesting.

I was also contemplating interstellar for some extra later game variety, and methane so I could do some resource e ploitation and refuel at colonies. And maybe the biomes mod to make it worth visiting a planet more than one or exploring a bit.

I am worried it will be too much for my minimal system. I keep the graphics down low but right now I am getting a lot of crashes when I switch screens (like from VBA to space centre, or reverting a launch). As ksp takes a few minutes to load up this is super duper frustrating.

I will also probably want a few system addons like docking mechjeb improver navball and engineer. And .maybe the hooligan labs airships : D

Any thoughts? Would these mods work well together? Would oak/msk plus interstellar be to much. I am knew to mods and want stable set of choices making for a full , expanded game starting from scratch with full career.

[The Mechanic]

At first I would advise you to use Active Texture Management. This might help you to reduce the crashes, especially if you use the "aggressive" version which reduces the textures quite a lot.

There are quite a lot of lightweight mods that are really useful if you want to build space stations. Enhanced Navball and the Navball Dockingport Alignment Indicator for example are both useful and lightweight. I also use Kerbal Engineer and MechJeb and find them both to be very useful.

I must admit I first thought MechJeb isn't for me but I changed my mind after trying it because the automation of some everyday tasks is nice to have. Some of the guidance options (aero-braking nodes, landing guidance) are also quite helpful if you don't want to eye-ball everything.

As for little plugins that help you while flying I can also recommend the Vertical Velocity Control which is basically a cruise control for ascend and descent.

If you want to extend the VAB/SPH toolbox you could use Editor Extensions, Tweakable Everything and Select Root.

About parts I would say that I would at first install all the small stuff I want to use and then check for stability. With my new career in .24.2 I started using MKS/OKS and Karbonite (now bundled with MKS/OKS). I haven't played with it much because I'm not that far into my career but I took a look at them so as for now I would recommend them. Someone else might be able to tell a bit more about them. If you like some additional challenge while building bases and space stations you could use TAC Life Support with is supported by MKS/OKS.

So...that's it for now.

There are too many awesome mods to use in one save anyway.

Edit: You can find a nice overview here.

Edited August 23, 2014 by The Mechanic
Forgot the link