Grim... wrote:
Pod wrote:
rather than unlocking the entire tree after 4 flights like you do in stock
Whaaa? I've been doing loads of missions and I'm well away from unlocking everything. What did you do?
Well, I was being a bit facetious about 4 flights. Sure, it's not like doing it in two flights. But you can unlock most, if not all (I think?) of the tech tree without ever leaving the Kerbal system if you so desire by simply visiting every single Biome in the 3 places. In stock Kerbal a good starting point is to make a ship consisting of a single capsule, "launch" it, get the kerbal out to take a surface sample of the launch pad, take an eva report, get back into the pod, take an eva report et viola: 4 nodes unlocked
Which means you can be in orbit by the next launch or so, and then Minmus the launch after that. Where's the rocket science in that?!Here's a post from another place:
Quote:
All this Kerbal talk made me want to go and enjoy it again. I thought I'd 'try out' the normal mods I use to make sure they work for KSP 0.23.5 -- I don't want to recommend them if they don't work. That 'mod trial' turned into starting a new campaign.
Flight 1: just scraping orbit + lots of crew reports
Flight 2: orbit again packed with goo + bays
Flight 3: goo + bays + temperature.
For flight 3 time I took it into high orbit, out to Minmus, did a low orbit trying to get crew + EVA reports over lots of different biomes, landed on the nozzle twice for some samples and data. Then I jettisoned my upper stage business and started the return to Kerbin, planning to do a a fly by of the Mun the way.
Unfortunately the best laid plans.... I hadn't unlocked solar panels yet and I completely forgot that the small engine doesn't generate electricity, so the huge number of batteries I brought quickly drained as I rotated etc on the return trip from Minmus
Thankfully they ran out after Minmus escape on the swoop out to the Mun. To slow down at the Mun to avoid being slingshotted out of the system I basically turned on my engine a tiny bit + held rotate, cut engines and then let it rotate until I was facing the direction I wanted to and them FULL THROTTLE. Slowing down at the Mun to avoid a Kerbal escape, whilst also not being captured by the Mun is really difficult! (Infact the major problem was escaping the Mun only to be immediately recaptured by it 
). I eventually managed to break free of the Mun's shackles with a 40km PE on Kerbin, but that turned to not be enough to properly aerobrake. (Well, I could probably have done 20 passes or something...). Instead I had to have Jeb get out and push to a couple of million miles up from Kerbin. Next time around we landed in the nice sunny see packing about 1000 science. Woot. It's now 2:40am however...
Flight 1: just scraping orbit + lots of crew reports
Flight 2: orbit again packed with goo + bays
Flight 3: goo + bays + temperature.
For flight 3 time I took it into high orbit, out to Minmus, did a low orbit trying to get crew + EVA reports over lots of different biomes, landed on the nozzle twice for some samples and data. Then I jettisoned my upper stage business and started the return to Kerbin, planning to do a a fly by of the Mun the way.
Unfortunately the best laid plans.... I hadn't unlocked solar panels yet and I completely forgot that the small engine doesn't generate electricity, so the huge number of batteries I brought quickly drained as I rotated etc on the return trip from Minmus
Thankfully they ran out after Minmus escape on the swoop out to the Mun. To slow down at the Mun to avoid being slingshotted out of the system I basically turned on my engine a tiny bit + held rotate, cut engines and then let it rotate until I was facing the direction I wanted to and them FULL THROTTLE. Slowing down at the Mun to avoid a Kerbal escape, whilst also not being captured by the Mun is really difficult! (Infact the major problem was escaping the Mun only to be immediately recaptured by it ). I eventually managed to break free of the Mun's shackles with a 40km PE on Kerbin, but that turned to not be enough to properly aerobrake. (Well, I could probably have done 20 passes or something...). Instead I had to have Jeb get out and push to a couple of million miles up from Kerbin. Next time around we landed in the nice sunny see packing about 1000 science. Woot. It's now 2:40am however...100 science from my third flight!
* I sent a probe to sun dive. (After a failed attempt that didn't have enough thrust in it's atmosphere stages).
* I tried a simple ROCKET PLANE for fun, even though I had no wheels. Didn't work out.
* I sent a multi-pack probe to the Mun and landed on almost all of the biomes. (Unfortunately I messed up the design and the 2 Kerbals in the lab had no way to return home)
I don't appear to have any more images so I can't remember what I did. I think I launched a multipack of probes to go to Jool and scan + land on all the moons that I could reach? I think that's what happened. I think I then attempted a Asteroid grab, which was the reason I started playing again, but gave up after I tried to grab a class E with only 2 nuclear engines
I can't remember if that completely unlocked the tree or got me almost most of the way, but it was near enough.
It was fun and all, but there was 0 challenge :/ In stock, once you've got something capable of going to a Mun you've got something capable of going _anywhere_ in Kerbal Space program. Notice how I went from "getting into orbit" to "landing on Minmus and getting huge amounts of science" to "low pass around the sun"! To get from orbit to the sun you simply need a couple more tanks of fuel. And the thing I sent to Jool was the same thing I sent to the Mun, only with more engines under it.
With BTSM you have to think hard about your design. You have to roughly plan out for battery and life support, but doing so means lots of batteries and your design becomes heavy so you have to change it etc etc etc. Plus, some of the experiments are timed, so you can't simply do a Mun flyby on your way back home from Minmus and "scoop up" a bunch of free and easy science. You have to legitimately get there. Most of the experiments can be beamed home for 100%. So you send a gravity probe to the Mun and you get 100%. Some, e.g. the Goo and Science Junior, you get 0% for transmitting. You have to return to get 100%. (There's also no need to repeat the same experiment as in stock Kerbal).
Also, more importantly, you get 0 science from Kerbin's surface. Infact you need to be above 15km just to get any science! (However landing on another planet is a huge reward). BTSM feels like a game with an actuall difficulty curve, rather than simply "do 2 flights and then you can go anywhere".
