Any advice for the new career mode?

[kevinsrednal]

Hi! This is my first time posting on the forums. I bought the game a few months ago, got the hang of the basics of construction and flight, and put a few unmanned satellites into orbit. I then got distracted by some other game releases, but I'm back now. Anyways, with the new update, I wanted to try the new career mode, because I'm not great at setting goals for myself, so contracts seemed like a good way to start out simple and slowly grow into the more advanced aspects of the game. Help keep me interested in learning new things instead of just getting stuck with "What do I do next?" I also felt like managing the whole program would be overall more fun for me than just a space flight sim. Anyways, my attempts to start a new career mode left me stumped, with what to do first.

I looked but couldn't find any beginner tutorials for the new career mode (all I found were ones for the old career now science mode), so I have some questions about getting started.

--Do I need to hire kerbals at first? If not now, when should I worry about this?

--Should I focus on earning science, money, rep or something else at first?

--Some of the buildings make sense, but others I have no idea what they are for? Should I leave them alone for now?

--How concerned do I need to be about running out of money or other resources early in the career?

--How careful do I need to be with my kerbals? I'm always worried about doing manned flights, especially early because I don't want to just blow them all up...

--Should I just take contracts and not worry about any of this?

--Any other tips (or tutorials I missed) for a very inexperienced player trying to start career mode?

Thanks,

kevinsrednal

[sal_vager]

Welcome to the community Kevin

It all really depends on how adventurous you are feeling, it's possible to take a bunch of contracts that sort of overlap and do them all in one flight, such as test a part in a sub-orbital flight, gather science from Kerbin orbit and place a flag on the Mun.

Lets have a look at your questions...

--Do I need to hire kerbals at first? If not now, when should I worry about this?

Unless playing on hard or custom, Kerbals will be hired automatically.

--Should I focus on earning science, money, rep or something else at first?

Money is tighter at higher difficulty settings, science gets you new parts sooner though so most players go for that, rep kinda sorts itself out but you do need high rep for the better contract offers.

--Some of the buildings make sense, but others I have no idea what they are for? Should I leave them alone for now?

Click them all! They won't explode (unless you drop things on them), the Hangar won't be much use early on without plane parts but other than that just explore

--How concerned do I need to be about running out of money or other resources early in the career?

Don't be too concerned, money could be a problem if your craft always fail, but science is just spent on unlocking the tech tree, and rep isn't really spent anywhere outside of the administration building.

--How careful do I need to be with my kerbals? I'm always worried about doing manned flights, especially early because I don't want to just blow them all up...

Fit parachutes, research decouplers, set an abort mode in the action groups, and get ready with the backspace key!

And there's always more Kerbals willing to give spaceflight a go.

--Should I just take contracts and not worry about any of this?

Not too many at a time, and yeah, don't worry, learning from mistakes is part of the fun.

--Any other tips (or tutorials I missed) for a very inexperienced player trying to start career mode?

There's no one best way to play career, experiment and have fun, just like you did in sandbox

[Pecan]

My tip would be to get to know the game in sandbox mode before trying a career. That way you can start with small, unmanned ships and expand your missions in a logical manner, at your own pace (eg; tutorial in my signature). In science/career mode you are tied to the insanity of the tech-tree and have to start with big, manned vehicles.

Buildings: VAB=Build ships for launchpad (usually vertical) launch. SPH=Build ships for runway (usually horizontal) launch. Launchpad/runway=pick a ship to launch without going into the VAB/SPH first. Tracking Centre=See all your ships and other things currently 'in flight' and recover, terminate or fly them. Astronaut Complex=hire crew. R&D=tech-tree. Mission Control=contracts. Admin Building='strategies'. As of 0.25 you can right-click them to see a description. The only one that might be difficult is the new admin building, but there should be some notes about those around (not that I've seen them ...)

Science is usually the bottleneck for new players as, unless you're crashing all the time money is easy to get (especially 'test part X landed at Kerbin' contracts) and, as sal_vager said, reputation sort of looks after itself. About the only thing you can do to damage reputation is kill Kerbals so, yes try not to! Oh - and don't blow up your buildings or that'll cost a lot to repair.