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[Lightningfalcon]

I am just now needing to start doing science, and that is because I used up the last bits of it for unlocking nuclear engines.
I also have not had a problem with money.  The only time it was ever close was when I launched a rocket to go to Minimus that cost almost my entire budget, but managed to pay for itself six or seven times over with how much money it made.
Also, a tip- when the contract says you have to land, or get science from the land, it is sufficient, to touch down for one or two seconds and then take off while your rocket slowly tips over.  You don't need an actual stable landing site.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, yesterday I tried adding probe controls and parachutes to all of my discarded stages. It didn't work since they simply disappear as soon as I look at the map, I'm not sure why. But it saddens me, because I'm losing a lot of money in discarded staging...

Scott Manley did a video explaining this - short version, if something is unloaded (ie, 2.5km away from the active ship) and under a certain altitude in the atmosphere, the game deletes it, regardless of whether or not it should have survived. There's already a mod to fix it though - check out DebRefund, it autorecovers stuff when it would otherwise be scuttled, based on parachutes active on it. (technically based on drag, but close enough)

Thanks!

[BigD145]

Also, a tip- when the contract says you have to land, or get science from the land, it is sufficient, to touch down for one or two seconds and then take off while your rocket slowly tips over.  You don't need an actual stable landing site.

True, but you can't recover on Kerbin unless you're stable. I've had a few tall rockets blow up in water after tipping over. You can get your contract finished but you may lose out on some more money.

I'm going to have to do something about my joystick and learn to land properly. The yaw twist is loose and giving extra dead space doesn't help much. I do not really look forward to reusable SSTO's. They are very boring to fly to space.

[miauw62]

Also, I can never seem to land on the Mun properly. I always end up with too much horizontal velocity so the lander tips over and breaks something that prevents me from getting back, if I even had enough fuel to get back.

[MorleyDev]

You want to burn away your horizontal as you fall so that by the time you get to the bottom your going more or less straight. Whilst it's more efficient to burn at an angle to lose the velocity in an arc, you can just suicide your horizontal and fall if you have the delta-v to spare.

The problem I have is with any kind of rendezvous. Cannot get two space craft to deliberately meet...Makes Apollo-style missions tricky

[BigD145]

Maneuver nodes are your friend and active and target vehicles should be close to circular orbits about 20-100km inside/outside of each other.

[Nelia Hawk]

Oh lord, rendezvous...

Despite following all the guides on it, I can't. I just cannot rendezvous at all. The closest I got was thirty km, which had the effect of them whizzing past each other.

if you can get that close maybe try this:
once you are relatively close to your target set it as target if you havent already.
then switch the speed display so it shows your speed relative to your target. (no idea if it switches to that by default when you target something or not... if not click on the speed numbers till you have the right one.)
then forget that you are in space and in orbits and all. its just you and your speed indicator.
so simply stare at your speed indicator and compass and turn around so you can "break" till the speed meter shows around 0 (just get it as low as possible, it will probably be kind of hard under speed 50).
then see where your target actually is and imagine you both are standing still. (as your speed relative to your target is kind of around 0) then how to get to it? well turn towards it and speed up a bit.
and once you are close break to 0 again and then start docking and RCS-ing around to dock.

well totally inefficient with the "break to 0" but maybe it helps a bit the first few tries to learn how to approach another thing. maybe the point of "not thinking about orbits and space and breaking to 0 speed" helps a bit. (that breaking to 0 basically gets your orbit "similar" to your targets orbit)

[Lightningfalcon]

I used to have a problem with that.  I can't remember what I did differently back then that caused it, but I don't have a problem any more with it.  Normally I try to kill all horizontal velocity and tart dropping straight down at least 2500 meters up.  Then I jut make sure that if the ground suddenly comes up that I have a low enough speed that I can decelerate quickly enough to avoid a sudden case of lithobraking, which usually mean below 100 m/s.  My biggest problem is the ground not being flat, and my rocket landing, but since it takes an extra moment or two for one or two of the legs to touch down, the whole thing will start to tip over lowly.  Most of the time taking off, getting up about 1000 meters or so, and then approaching again works.  Putting extra fuel tanks around the lander and then putting legs on thoe helps a lot with the tipping problem, but sometimes rocket design doesn't permit that.

Right now my next objective is going to be getting up a chain of stations.  I plan on getting one refueling and science station up over the Mun, Kerbin, and Minmus.  Once that is done I can get a shuttle that can ferry science and Kerbals around, and hopefuly get an SSTO that can get to orbit and back to the space center.  Chances are that it won't have enough fuel to dock at a station by itself, but i should be able to get a shuttle that can go to it and transfer supplies and kerbals to it.  Doing so should ensure that I won't run out of money, as the only expenses involved after setting it up will be sending up refueling stations (Normally just the big orange tank with some solar panels and docking ports attached).

I tried playing with my flightstick, but I'm still more comfortable with my keyboard.  Even with spaceplanes you don't need that fine of a level of control.  The only really use I have for my Flight stick is mapping my stage activation button to the fire button, which has a cover that I can flip on and off. 

[miauw62]

You want to burn away your horizontal as you fall so that by the time you get to the bottom your going more or less straight. Whilst it's more efficient to burn at an angle to lose the velocity in an arc, you can just suicide your horizontal and fall if you have the delta-v to spare.

That's always what I did, but the moment I reached the surface I would find myself still moving horizontally with a few m/s and usually on the side of a crater, too.

[Graknorke]

You want to burn away your horizontal as you fall so that by the time you get to the bottom your going more or less straight. Whilst it's more efficient to burn at an angle to lose the velocity in an arc, you can just suicide your horizontal and fall if you have the delta-v to spare.

That's always what I did, but the moment I reached the surface I would find myself still moving horizontally with a few m/s and usually on the side of a crater, too.

Did you check that you were killing velocity relative to the surface rather than to the orbit?

[MagmaMcFry]

Also, I can never seem to land on the Mun properly. I always end up with too much horizontal velocity so the lander tips over and breaks something that prevents me from getting back, if I even had enough fuel to get back.

Here's the trick: Don't stop falling. It's better to land with a bit of vertical speed than to brake too hard and end up floating two metres off the ground while moving horizontally. Also you should always make sure your retrograde marker points straight up while landing, and you should constantly adjust it while decelerating (not just once at the end). A tweak in time saves nine, or however you want to memorize it. Also if you're attempting a vertical landing by braking mid-orbit, try lowering the orbit really low first, so you don't have to fall that much.

[dennislp3]

Another surprisingly common mistake is to not turn on the precision controls with caps lock I believe it is?...makes it a bit easier when it comes to making the small changes you need to make under the 50 meter range without over adjusting

[alway]

Huh... some of these missions are like cheaty-level easy to complete repeatedly. Put a space hotel in orbit of kerbin at 90-120km orbit; suddenly all rescues are just a few orbits and a tiny adjustment away. Then have them do crew reports and send those to get the 'research from space around kerbin' missions done. When you start going to the moons, just use a small unmanned craft which can repeatedly send temperature data and take off the 5 meters off the ground to get 'space science' to complete those ones.

[dennislp3]

Yeah being the first iteration there is obviously has its issues...needs more variety and guards against the cheaty level of easy

[Karlito]

Balance seems a bit wonky too. I got over 40,000 funds just for hauling a landing gear up into orbit and testing it, but quite a bit less for contracts that I would consider more difficult, like getting a large SRB to activate midflight.