There’s a new update for KSP, and it features the introduction of the Career mode. Now you can perform science experiments to get science points, which you then use to unlock new modules.
Care to share the design you used to fire Murphy, and what kind of orbit he attained? 
This thread really fell off after that big update to the physics. I know my playing decreased dramatically.
This update is just the thing I need to distract me from my real-world science! Fruit fly cell cultures just aren’t as entertaining when things go horribly wrong.
Last time I played much was back in 18.4, and I basically got to the point of building a few space stations and sending a kerbal’d mission to Duna [del]and back[/del]. I’ve been watching the development since, waiting for something big enough to get me back in. Now I’ll have ROVERS! and ALL NEW TERRAIN! and a SHINY NEW SPACE CENTER! and a whole host of little improvements and, most of all, SCIENCE!
I plan to spend a good chunk of this weekend doing as much kerbal science as I can in career mode. Then, I’ll load up on the mods and start all over again: the KW parts pack, some realism mods I haven’t tried yet like FAR and deadly re-entry, kerbal OS, etc. Plus there are all sorts of handy tools now available to calculate gravity assists. I think the science content will be just enough to keep me interested in going to new places and trying new things.
I’m excited about the new stuff, but it’ll be a few more days before I have the time to try it.
How do you keep the science points you gain? I did some science and got more than 5 points but then I exited from that mission to go back to my research center and there were no science points. So, what might I have done wrong?
So far, I’ve seen two methods. One is that you install an antenna and transmit the science points back. The other is that you land safely and recover the capsule via the tracking center. Make sure that you end the mission properly (the “space center” button should be gray, not orange–your engines have to be throttled down for this to work).
I saw that there’s also a hidden “recover vessel” option in-game. When you land, put your cursor near the altitude indicator, just a bit above it. The top panel will come down and expose the green “recover vessel” option.
Thanks for the tip! That is very handy.
I’m up to 120 or so science points. It’s pretty tough going back to the early stock parts! I flew a Munar flyby by hand, but I dunno how I’m going to land. I think I’ll save up for an automated probe so that I can make an attempt without risking the lives of any Kerbins…
How are you guys handling electricity? It seems like there’s no source before the 5th-tier upgrades, and no batteries until 4th-tier. Transmission takes most of a full control module worth of electricity, so I’m permanently screwed. I’m seriously hating career mode, purely because of electricity shortages.
You don’t need electricity if you bring the rocket back in one piece. And you can get quite a bit of Science just by landing on various points on the globe, getting out and doing studies.
So far my first career has ended miserably, because I screwed something up setting up an xbox controller, and Jeb was lost during his first EVA because one of his pack thrusters was stuck on.
(there is SCIENCE to be done
on the Kerbals who are… still alive!)
Anyways, basically you want to recover all of your missions from the surface of Kerbin. That was your goal with any manned mission… right? Right? Otherwise yeah, you have one shot to transmit per mission. Basically that lets you transmit one crew report, and recover a second for each mission.
"Dear Mrs. Kerman,
It is with great sorrow that we must regretfully inform you of the noble sacrifice of your husband who was killed in a crash/stranded forever due to an unfortunate act of gross recklessness/criminal negligence/incompetent planning/yolo lols. Thanks to him, we got some science points which will one day allow us to carry many batteries and solar panels so that others may live."
I recall descriptions of the (real) manned space flight as riding on top of a bomb that is exploding very carefully.
Whelp, I managed to make orbit with only the starting parts! Thisgot me into a 70x75 km orbit with about 60 units of fuel remaining. It requires, ah, explosive staging, for lack of a better term. Basically you use SRBs, and then when the bottom of your stack is out of fuel and nearly overheating, you fire off the next stage to destroy the previous stage. It requires very careful timing so that you squeeze the most out of each stage before destroying it. Also, somehow, a SRB won’t necessarily destroy an empty SRB right beneath it. You have to get the nearly spent SRB hot enough to nearly explode.
(In the process of applied research into explosive staging, I accumulated enough Science through crew reports to unlock the entire next two teirs. But I had to try! Of course, some far more talented kerbonaut is probably going to find a way to the Mun with just the starting parts)
I have put into motion a cunning plan to collect a massive amount of Science! I recruited the stupidest, most cowardly Kerbal in the academy, put him in a rocket loaded with solar panels, and sent him on a gravity slingshot around the Mun, heading out into the solar system. He will report back on his findings, netting me a ton of Science! Then I will use that Science! to develop a spaceship capable of picking him up for when he returns.
Hot damn! 2700 science points in one mission. Did a Jool flyby and then landed a rover onto Laythe. Carried about 7 instruments. I’m not quite ready yet for a sample return mission, but with a few improvements I think it’s doable.
Electricity is the major bottleneck. A pair of Gigantor XL panels isn’t nearly enough to power the high gain dish continuously. I probably have another 1000 points from the rover, but it’s a little boring waiting for the batteries to recharge. Next mission, I’m going to plaster every surface with panels…
I, too, love KSP.
I’ve filled out all of the 300-point techs just by using unmanned probes, more or less. (I got a Kerb up to Mun, but haven’t yet gotten him back…) The trick is that there’s a fixed amount of science for each experiment in each zone, so the easiest way to ‘spam’ it, for a better word, is to just shoot a probe into each area carrying all the experiments you have.
Here’s my recipe! I’ll just describe it here.
1x Stayputnik, w/
- 4x of those long, spindly antennae
- 1x of each ‘box’ science device (thermometer, etc) that you have)
1x RCS tank, medium, w/ 4x RCS thrusters
3x rectangular girder-sections, whatever they’re called, to make a tower. - top one has two solar panels (1x6) and two Z-400 batteries
- middle one has two Mystery Goos and two Z-400s. You need 2 to make it balance; the Mystery Goo is quite heavy.
- bottom one is the same as the top one
1x Materials Bay
1x of the base-level liquid fuel tanks
4x landing legs, the basic kind.
1x 909 liquid fuel engine
1x decoupler
Now, stick that thing on a rocket with at least 7500 delta-v, and send it all kinds of places - I’ve sent them so far to Mun, Minmus (high orbit, low orbit, landing), the sun (high orbit), and Eve (high and low orbit). The materials bay, at the very least, has a base catch of 120 for each new zone encountered.
Also - do not be afraid of peak science, and do not feel like you have to go chasing after / be stingy with every last point. There’s way more science in the game than is necessary to fill out the tech tree.
Also - like Kerbin, Mun has biomes, so if you need more science, just land in different places there.
Does adding extra antennae do anything?
It enables you to show that you know how to pluralize English words which come from Latin.
Aside from that, I don’t think so.
Oh, I just remembered: Some of my landings have been unkind to the equipment I attached to my ship. Having antennae on different sides can allow you to keep transmitting data even after losing bits.
Also, symmetry looks pretty.