Career contracts too ambitious?

[seadart]

I've been enjoying v0.90 for the last couple of days playing on default Hard mode (except allowing quick save and revert). I've just barely made it past the Tier 3 Science Tree (45 science level) and every contract I have available is something like create a space station orbiting Kerbol, place a satellite in some specific orbit around Minmus, or a build a Mun base. I barely have the tech to be capable to reaching the Mun much less building a base there and I couldn't guess how to place something in a specific orbit without the use of maneuver nodes. Considering that I have never left Kerbin SOI, is there something odd with my contract list or should I be able to complete these contracts?

[ddenis]

I couldn't guess how to place something in a specific orbit without the use of maneuver nodes.

As for me, the problem that the hard mode is too hard in this case. The game lack building price settings. On hard mode you have difference between income scale and spending scale ~1:4. On moderate level it's less and so you can upgrade buildings faster to get maneuver nodes end etc.

[Frank327]

The fix is really easy. Go to the administration building and convert reputation into either science or funds. I did that in my moderate save with 25% commitment. Before I did it I got the mission of launching a satellite with a polar orbit around Duna. After doing it the most difficult satellite missions were equatorial orbit around Mun.

So yeah, reputation determines how highly the game thinks of you in terms of the difficulty of missions you can complete.

[seadart]

I think I figured out why I was getting such hard missions so early on. I have a space station mod from v0.25 installed which has habitation modules and a docking collar early in the tech tree. I believe KSP believed I was at a much higher tech level than I am because of that.

[ddenis]

I think I figured out why I was getting such hard missions so early on. I have a space station mod from v0.25 installed which has habitation modules and a docking collar early in the tech tree. I believe KSP believed I was at a much higher tech level than I am because of that.

It absolutely could be, because, as you said it, contracts depends on researched parts.