Gone to Minmus and Mun, what next?

[Vindaloo]

I am new to KSP, been following Scott Manley's tutorial videos and I feel I am doing pretty good (so far). In order to learn the game I have been playing a Science Sandbox game; I have just completed succesful manned missions to Minmus and Mun. What do you suggest I do next? Try to head to Duna? Start a career mode game? Something else?

Mods I am using: FAR, KER, Deadly Reentry, Kerbal Alarm Clock

Mods I plan on trying next: TAC, RemoteTech, Karbonite (or Kethane) - which is a logical next step?

Edited January 12, 2015 by Vindaloo

[LethalDose]

I'd also recommend Procedural Fairings to use with FAR. It'll make your life easier.

Interplanetary missions to Eve/Gilly and Duna/Ike would be the next logical step, but you may want to try expanding missions on Mun/Minmus/LKO before reaching further out into the system, e.g. building a station in any of those locations may be useful for future missions.

[The Yellow Dart]

Time to start a Career mode with hard settings!! But since you have mods, I don't recommend forsaking the quicksave and revert options to save you from bugs.

[Anquietas314]

But since you have mods, I don't recommend forsaking the quicksave and revert options to save you from bugs.

Bugs happen in stock too .

OP: Go to Duna or Eve and their moons. I would recommend you don't send a manned lander to Eve, at least at first, but since you're using FAR it should be a fair bit easier than stock if/when you do . If you want to make interplanetary missions harder you should probably install TAC first (and experiment with it by going to Minmus and such - Mun's close enough that it hardly matters). Eve/Gilly will probably be easier to go to first if you use TAC, seeing as the round trip will be a fair bit shorter overall .

[Specialist290]

As others have mentioned, Duna tends to be a popular choice for a player's first interplanetary venture, and it's a location I personally rather enjoy visiting. Eve's another possibility, as it's slightly easier to reach (and to return from, provided you don't actually land, as armagheddonsgw mentioned; sending a small lander probe to the surface should be perfectly feasible, though).

Another possibility you may want to consider that I haven't seen mentioned already: Send out a ship to visit, capture, and return with a small asteroid. It's an interesting challenge in its own right, as it basically involves rendezvousing with a small object with no gravity of its own in interplanetary space.

Speaking of, if you haven't polished up on your rendezvous and docking skills, you may want to practice them in and around Kerbin's orbit and moons, as it's an especially useful skill to have for interplanetary missions, particularly if you want to have a dedicated lander and a separate return craft and not just land the whole thing on the planet's surface.

As usual, feel free to ask about any specific issues that may come up as you make your way through future missions

[Wanderfound]

I'd recommend giving career a go for now; play for too long in Sandbox and you'll never learn how to build small and efficient. Going to the Mun with infinite mass and money is one thing; doing it on the cheap within a 30pt/18t limit with no manoeuvre nodes is a whole 'nother thing.

Or learn to build spaceplanes.

[Anquietas314]

play for too long in Sandbox and you'll never learn how to build small and efficient.

Y'know, we only had sandbox at one point. We (older players) turned out fine, mostly

[cantab]

I suggest a one-way mission to Eve. It's about the easiest place to land on, though DRE will add some extra challenge then once your speed is down simply deploy chutes. Just be sure to build sturdy, the gravity's stronger than even Kerbin so no big ships on flimsy legs.

If you want to run a return mission Ike is a good choice. Most if not all Mun landers can do Ike as well, the delta-V requirements are about the same. Aerocapture at Duna would be usual but with FAR you will need to either use trial and error or install the Trajectories mod. You can just do a powered capture, it takes around 350 m/s of extra delta-V which isn't an awful lot.

Another option is to capture with an Ike gravity assist into an orbit as similar to Ike's as you can get, then you do a few orbits before encountering Ike again and getting into Ike orbit. To arrange such a gravity assist, set up a mid-course correction on your way from Kerbin to Duna and use a combination of then green pro/retrograde and the blue radial/anti-radial components, which lets you change your arrival time at Duna and thus where Ike is when you arrive. The same technique works to avoid Ike when you don't want an encounter! I strongly recommend the PreciseNode mod for any sort of gravity assist work, it makes it easy to adjust manoeuvres to 1 m/s or better precision.

[Vindaloo]

OK, thanks for all the advice. I set myself two new goals: 1) build, fly and land planes; 2) Land a probe on Eve. Once I do those two things I will probably start a career mode game.

[eddiew]

With career, I strongly recommend turning science gain down in the setup options, to 30% or less; prevents maxing out the tech tree within Kerbin SOI and forces you to head out to other places to get your fancy gear (You can get to Eve/Duna on 909s, no need for nuclear rockets or anything advanced.)

Eve is an easy target for probes; the thick atmosphere means you don't need a big chute to land, but don't expect to come back from it easily. Anything that lands is there until it starves or rusts

Duna is the obvious target for crewed return missions; smaller than Kerbin, enough atmosphere to brake most of your inbound speed, but not so much that it's hard to get off again. Load chutes so that at Kerbin you'd be falling around 3m/s and you'll only need a little tap of the engines before touchdown. I actually spec my Mun landers with more delta-v than my Duna lander, excluding inter-planetary fuel

[LethalDose]

With career, I strongly recommend turning science gain down in the setup options, to 30% or less

Not sure if that's the best advice for someone's first career game...

[Anquietas314]

Not sure if that's the best advice for someone's first career game...

Agreed; you have to either spam satellite(/similar) contracts or try pretty hard to max out science within Kerbin's SoI. Mind you, given how much those contracts pay in terms of funds that may be worthwhile, if a bit repetitive. Plus, having the full tech tree before you go to other planets properly does make it a bit easier .

[cantab]

The thing is that just because you can max out the tech tree in Kerbin's SOI doesn't mean you should. Decide which you'd rather do - yet another Minmus landing, or a first visit to Ike?

[Vindaloo]

The thing is that just because you can max out the tech tree in Kerbin's SOI doesn't mean you should. Decide which you'd rather do - yet another Minmus landing, or a first visit to Ike?

Currently my science sandbox game is in hard difficulty (60% science iirc), and I am discovering the science tree for the first time so I never really know what to go for (definitely makes it interesting). I just unlocked Ion engines, up next is supersonic flight.

[FlyingPete]

Give career a go. There's then a new challenge early on in how to build craft that are small and efficient.

[MacroNova]

You get science a lot more easily in a full career game, because so many of the contracts give big heaps of science (I have a contract to test a splashed-down part that gives 100 science! That's an outlier, but still...). Even so, I think turning the gain down to 30% is overkill. Just don't use the Admin Strategy that turns money into science. It's completely broken, balance-wise.

Cantab is 100% correct. There is a ton of science available in the Kerbin system, but it involves exploiting all the various biomes on Kerbin, Mun and Minmus. After your first couple of orbital stations and outposts, you'll be ready to go interplanetary. The first thing you should do is send out a probe to Moho, since I believe it has the first transfer window after you start a new game, assuming you have the spare cash, since you probably won't have a contract for it. Otherwise, everyone else's advice about Duna, Ike, Eve and Gilly is spot on.

As for mods, those are basically the ones I use. I second the motion for procedural fairings in combination with FAR. TAC Life Support and Remote Tech are sweet. The flight computer from Remote Tech is better than the advanced probe cores in stock!

[LethalDose]

Just don't use the Admin Strategy that turns money into science. It's completely broken, balance-wise.

Another excellent point.

[maceemiller]

I have also been to the Mun and Minmus and made it back from both. At the moment I'm practicing docking to make a space station as such. Docking, for me though is the most elegent experience I've had yet in the game. Its a beautiful ride!