There goes my life...

[RizzoTheRat]

Played the demo briefly years ago, but decided to give it another go at the weekend and now have the full version. Loving the new career mode. The science part was a bit of a drag early on but now I'm starting to get contracts that give me a decent amount of science too it's picking up, and the contracts provide a great way of getting in to the game as you need to think about how you'd test each part which gives a fairly good progression.

What I hadn't realised is what a massive time sink this thing is, I've been glued to it for hours the last few evenings

My tentative steps so far:

• Pretty much reached the limit of science I can achieve on Kerbin and in orbit with EVA observations, ground samples, temperature readings and mystery goo, I've been trying to land in different places every time for soil samples but not sure if I've covered everywhere.
  
• Built a vertical launch (no wheels yet) jet plane which has been very useful in performing contracts to test stuff in atmosphere (parachutes, decouplers, engines etc), and with 4 radial chutes I can recover it intact so it doesn't cost me much. Way easier than trying to attain the right height and speed in a rocket
  
• Researched docking collars and RCS thrusters last night so lofted Jeb in to a 100km orbit and then spent a large part of the evening working out how to get Bill's identical ship to dock with him (Bill's first mission so I'm blaming the time taken on him not me ). Definitely a satisfying feeling when I finally managed it. Shame there doesn't seem to be a test docking collars contract though as that seems to be an important step in learning to explore the universe.
  

As I'm running out of low orbit science I think after I've had another few practices at docking I'll go for a Munar orbit and get some science out there, along with getting an idea of how much power I need get there and back, before I go for a landing. I guess I ought to have a go at controlling a lander type craft on Kerbin before I try and land it on the mun though.

By then I should have researched some more parts to make space planes viable, and see if I can manage single stage to orbit, or a reusable 2 stage design.

So a few questions:

• Is there an easy way to check if I've got all available science from the Kerbin habitats, or do I need to go through the list of all the science I've done to work it out?
  
• Does the game allow a SS1/Whiteknight style 2 stage aircraft where both parts are flyable, or if I build something with 2 pilots and separate in flight will one stage just automatically crash?
  
• Why isn't there a Chris Kerbin with big moustache?
  

[JumpsterG]

Welcome to the club! It sounds like you're off to an excellent start! I've been stuck playing since May!

Answers:

- The science building does have an overview tab which will show what you've gotten so far and from where, though it won't outright say what science you haven't gotten.

- Not by default (as of the current version). Craft or debris that are in atmosphere (not on ground or in vacuum) are automatically destroyed about 2 km away from your active vessel. This includes craft on suborbital trajectories that are not in focus. (Note that there is a quirk (bug?) of the game that allows orbits of non-focused craft beyond 2km from active vessel with periapse above 30ish not to be destroyed or encounter aerobraking despite technically being within atmosphere).

At least one mod (I think there's another if you search around) allows recovery of non-focused stages and craft provided they have parachutes and/or fuel and engines capable of landing themselves: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86677

- Squad is adding a few more Kerbal characters in the next update, so hopefully a friendly Chris Kerman will come along some day (along with customizable Kerbals, maybe?): https://www.shacknews.com/article/86391/kerbal-space-program-introducing-administration-building-to-career-mode

[MisterFister]

Pigpiling: StageRecovery, mentioned above, is a very great mod, and it's designed to work hand-in-glove with another mod by the same developer, Kerbal Construction Time. On both of those mods, the learning curve SEEMS a lot steeper than it is. Backup your savefile so you can revert as with any mod, but after a few launches it really does become very intuitive. I can hardly imagine playing without them now.

DebRefund at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/86691-0-24-2-DebRefund-v1-0-13 is another that attempts to accomplish the same thing as StageRecovery but it does so through different calculations (and is therefore not quite as seamless with KCT). If, however, you wanted to actually fly both stages of an aircraft, the closest I've seen is with a mod called FMRS, found at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80292-0-24-2-Flight-Manager-for-Reusable-Stages-(FMRS-v0-2-00). Currently being explored by YouTuber Tyler Raiz, it's a mod that "splits" your quicksave. First you pilot the primary / payload stage to orbit, initially allowing your secondary / spent stage to crash and be destroyed. The mod saves your progress with the payload, reverts back to the stage separation, and you then take control of the spent stage (while your payload crashes.) When you're done, the mod merges the two versions of progress into a new quicksave and loads it, so that your end result is two stages, manually controlled, safe and sound. Quite genius, I think.

[John FX]

The urge wears off after maybe 6 months to a year. If your relationships with those around you last, they will be stronger.

There is a mod called (IIRC) science library/science monitor which will tell you all the science you have not got and what you can research right now with your current craft.

Science alert also does something similar.

Anything with an orbital Pe over 20km will orbit on rails and not decay so if your first stage gets a Pe of 20km+ then you can stage and control it later (I`d advise controlling it at Ap so you have time to do something before the burning and falling)

i`d advise sending unmanned probes to everywhere first, they are cheaper and you can leave them behind without guilt...

There are mods like fineprint and mission control extended to get a wider range of missions.

kerbal Engineer Redux will let you know how much Dv your rockets have if you want to know.

[Pecan]

A reusable SSTO rocket is entirely possible with the T30 tech-0 engine. Drogue parachutes make SSTO rockets a lot easier because they reduce the descent-rate to 40m/s or less before you need to fire the engine for final landing. Just aim for ~4,800m/s deltaV instead of a standard-launch 4,500m/s, so that you have fuel left for de-orbit and landing.

A T30 can't SSTO much of a payload (roughly 1.1t) with the approach above. Better are the Skipper (5t), Mainsail (11t), KR-1x2 (14t), KR-2L (25t) and KS-25x4 (27t). That's not their cost-effectiveness order though ^^.

[RizzoTheRat]

Some excellent info, thanks. Think I need to start with Engineer but FMRS sounds ideal for a 2 stage spaceman.