On this note: it seriously helps to bring things together man, and makes the difference between launching something to attain orbit, and making something recoverable quite distinct.Larmantine wrote: Although I am a little afraid of the Deadly Reentry. But so too I was afraid of Hardcore Buckets. Fear turned into joy. Hope that this will be the same case here.
I usually launch them now as entirely separate missions, say for example a probe at tech 4 to obtain a polar orbit with a Gravioli Detector and a transmitter loaded with batteries, then another one with a couple of goo canisters like pictured above that I design to have a lightweight core that can survive reentry. This serves to increase gameplay diversity in presenting you with differing design challenges depending on the mission. It's similar to what I said in a previous post about the early manned missions with crappy cockpits, and plays nicely off of it as you can launch a manned flight with canisters first to cover the lower and upper atmosphere, then launch a recoverable probe to do low and high orbit with another two. All told, that turns what might have previously been a single rocket design and mission at tech level 4, into 3 distinct design challenges with diverse gameplay in each.
I find it also presents some real choices as to how to proceed. Do I try to make a recoverable core, or do I start scouting out the Mun to progress? Both are somewhat challenging tasks for different reasons, and I've left enough wiggle room in the science values so that you could go either route.
Anways, don't be too afraid of it man. Yes, it's a bit rough to get used to if you've played a lot of KSP in the past without having to worry about such things, but IMO it results in a much MUCH richer gameplay experience.
