Experience System

[Vladthemad]

Ok, tell me if I have this right. According to the wiki and posts and my own experimentation, I only gain experience for each step in sphere of influence if I don't skip any steps, per kerbal? Meaning, if I take a new kerbal and shoot him all the way up and plant a flag on Mun, he won't gain any of the experience for orbiting Kerbin, orbiting Mun, landing on Mun, and anything in between? BUT....if I make all the intermediate stops I get the xp for each step?

Edited February 9, 2015 by Vladthemad

[UmbralRaptor]

The intermediate steps don't get you extra XP. If you do a suborbital mission, than an orbital one, the kerbal gets 1 XP and then another and levels. If you skip directly to orbit, then on recovery the kerbal gets 2 XP and levels.

[magnemoe]

Yes, flying give 1, orbit 2. Maximum is 2.

Landing on mun give 5, planting flag gives 5 however 5 is max fom mun so you dont get extra from planting flag.

Duna or harder give 1-2 extra points for flag planting.

You also need to retun and recover to get the bonus

[The Yellow Dart]

To try and say it simply, you get a single xp point value per sphere of influence. So without leaving the Kerbin system, you can get one point value for Kerbin, one for the Mun, and one for Minmus. For Kerbin, the highest value is orbiting, for the Mun and Minmus, the highest is landing. So if you send a new kerbal from Kerbin orbit to a Moho landing and back, you will get points for orbiting Kerbin, orbiting the Sun to get there, and landing on Moho when you get back to Kerbin.

Edit: As another player in the forums pointed out, the best way to level up Kerbals in a single mission is to get a trip together that takes them from Kerbin orbit to Mun orbit to a landing on Minmus, then from Minmus, burn out to briefly exit Kerbin's sphere of influence and enter Solar orbit, before returning to Kerbin. This method will level all Kerbals up to the highest level that actually does anything. Higher levels exist but as of now have no benefits or bonuses to the Kerbal.

Edited January 8, 2015 by The Yellow Dart

[bdito]

You'll get all of the intermediate step experience for going straight to the mun.

[Geschosskopf]

Ok, tell me if I have this right. According to the wiki and posts and my own experimentation, I only gain experience for each step in sphere of influence if I don't skip any steps, per kerbal? Meaning, if I take a new kerbal and shoot him all the way up and plant a flag on Mun, he won't gain any of the experience for orbiting Kerbin, orbiting Mun, landing on Mun, and anything in between? BUT....if I make all the intermediate stops I get the xp for each step?

The maximum experience a Kerbal can gain at any single planet/moon is the value of the single highest award for doing 1 thing there. You do NOT get the sum of all the different things you can do there. So like at Kerbin, the highest single award is 2 points for orbit, which is the most you can get at Kerbin. Everywhere else (except Kerbol and Jool), the highest award is for planting a flag (like 5 points at Mun). That's the most you can get at any of those places.

So, a Kerbal on his 1st trip to Mun who lands and plants a flag directly from the transfer trajectory without stopping in a Munar orbit first, will get 5 points. A Kerbal who goes to Mun, stops in orbit, then lands and plants a flag will get 5 points. A Kerbal who does a Munar flyby on his 1st trip, an orbit on his 2nd trip, and a flag plant on his 3 trip will get a total of 5 points in the end, NOT the 10 that each of these add up to separately.

Because of this rules, the maximum KXP a Kerbal can get within the Kerbin system is 13 (2 for Kerbin orbit, 5 for flag on Mun, 6 for flag on Minmus). If you go outside of Kerbin's SOI, you get 6 more for being in Kerbol orbit. So that's a max of 19 you can have prior to going on an interplanetary trip.

I wrote a tutorial on this subject you can find here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/104239-Leveling-Up-Kerbals-The-Training-Program

[Vladthemad]

Alright, got it, the way the wiki read was a bit confusing. Thanks for clearing it up