My way to optimize costs for my Laythe Shuttle.

[FirstSecondThird]

So, in career mode, you may have seen the error message saying "Insufficient Funds to launch vehicle" or something along those lines. I have seen those words before, and mostly it is with my Laythe Shuttle to transport Kerbals around the Spheroid, outpost to outpost. My one idea on how to allow even more testing of this technology is to make budget cuts on the Recovery Transponders, to allow for less of a recovery factor, whilst allowing testing when on low funds.

So, never use this strategy unless you really need to!

[Aragosnat]

While it does sound nice. Don't think it is really needed as some contracts make having enough funds not a problem. Unless you are wasting your entire budget with every launch.

Would it not be better to let us go negitive instead? As that would also give the instentive to land closer to KSP as well as have ways to return all or the bulk of the parts back. With how much you sacrifice your reputation allows you to go deeper and deeper into det before they shut your program down. With rep loss effecting every contract while the strategy is up.

[John FX]

I`d suggest just increasing your funds return if you run our regularly. I play on 20% and still find it too much...

Can I suggest using a stage recovery mod of some kind?

It really helps with economy, gameplay, and realism...

[numerobis]

Get more funds -- fly test missions. You'll be forced to make "interesting" designs, and you'll make cash.

Recovery transponders are a money suck it turns out. They only save you money in very limited situations; you're better off just learning how to land closer to KSC.

[prophet_01]

Use deadly reentry and FAR. Disable quicksaves. the age of reusability is over

[Deadpangod3]

Use deadly reentry and FAR. Disable quicksaves. the age of reusability is over

tell that to the space shuttle engineers.

[merendel]

Use deadly reentry and FAR. Disable quicksaves. the age of reusability is over

Its still quite possible to have high reuseability with DR and FAR, you just have to go about it more carefuly. Engine bells make amazing heat shields as long as your droping gently from low orbit. The hard part is makeing sure whatever you sent up is aerodynamically stable enough going backwards to not tumble and break up. This is of course for rocket design. Spaceplanes are somewhat easier you just have to be gentle with them and expect a long slow decent.

[Sanguine]

Remove the landing gears - who needs em?

[prophet_01]

Its still quite possible to have high reuseability with DR and FAR, you just have to go about it more carefuly. Engine bells make amazing heat shields as long as your droping gently from low orbit. The hard part is makeing sure whatever you sent up is aerodynamically stable enough going backwards to not tumble and break up. This is of course for rocket design. Spaceplanes are somewhat easier you just have to be gentle with them and expect a long slow decent.

Yep and thats the thing reusable stuff usually gets more expensive, cause you have to do design decision that reducr efficiency. Shuttles are such a decision. It's more or less a reusable upper stage that has a significant amount of extra weight due to aerodynamics. The important part is, that those super heavy ssto rockets are not that easy to build and are less effective. The big dumb booster looks atractive again and of course spaceplanes are still around.

just to be clear I prefer shuttles in my DRE/FAR career for most stuff. They are flexible enough to perform many different tasks so I don't have to design and testflight a new design as often. I'm a hard mode roleplay kind of guy. So all the testing happens (mostly unmaned) in career and I already invested some money into designs that turned out to be useless