I'm definitely no Scott Manley but I'v nearly max out the tech tree, just two left to get and I'v only landed on Minmus and the Mun.

I'v made a couple of attempts at other planets with probes but I'm not too good at interplanetary and have missed both times leaving them both in very high Sun orbits but have still managed to get good Science points by spamming.

Due to the large number of biomes, fifteen I believe, the Mun is by far the best target to farm Science and I'v made eight landing there bringing home five to six hundred science each trip, no spamming.

I,m really enjoying the way career mode forces you to be creative with your rocket designs, I'v build 28 different ones so far but look forward to Gear adding the financial and public opinion aspects to make things a bit tougher. more biomes on the other planets will help to make it worthwhile going further too.

I am having a really hard time getting my probes out of the Kerbin system to head to other planets. Other than that I have been to Minimus and Mun more times than I can count.

Coming to the end of the tree. Still a bit to go.

I like the career mode as it makes you think about what you want to do in game and some wise choices to spend your science on. It also gives extra incentive in getting your Kerbals back home.

So far the only places visited for me is.

Kerbin - yes there is some good science to be had on kerbin and was my first exploration missions - landed
Mun - Landed
Minmus - landed
Duna - Flyby
Dres - oops... Planned for dres but somehow (and with quite a lot of luck) ended up at Jool.....
Jool - Flyby lucky escape. jeb has been sent back to navigation school

With those, its provided enough science to unlock most of the tree.

For me science wise, I have left out most of the space plane technology and concentrated on rocket engines fuel tanks and systems. Big stretch goals for me was the nuclear engine and lastly the Mainsail engine (which I have just unlocked) from here I will focus on station tech and eventually build one. Then I will lauch longer ranged landing missions targeting moons Further out planets and moons.

Really enjoying it so far, but time is limited.

Although I've been with KSP on and off since 0.11, I'm still pretty green. I'm doing career mode entirely manually (no mechjeb, or any other addons come to think of it, which is what I used to do), so having to do maneouvres and rendezvous' in particular manually is rather trying.

I've only been to Minmus (Jeb is currently in orbit), Duna (flyby only) and the Mun, so I'm not a great explorer by any means just yet; I've unlocked a large amount of the tech tree - really only the last column to go, I think, but that's going to take some time.

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I've only made one manned landing on the Mun, and it descended into disaster pretty soon after lifting back off the surface. I screwed up some of the de-orbiting manouevres and spent a lot more fuel than was really necessary to get to the surface, so after lift-off, there was only enough fuel to get into a stable 50km orbit.

A rescue mission was necessary, so I made a derivative rocket with a passenger can in place of the science package, and the plan was to perform a straight-forward launch, Munar transfer, rendezvous and return. Sadly, Rayfred was to lose his life during the first attempt - at separation of the main stage prior to the orbital burn, there was a catastrophic explosion in one of the newly developed nuclear rockets, damaging the rendezvous stage. After a quick EVA to ascertain damage, Rayfred reboarded the passenger can, and preparations were made for re-entry - as the orbit was not established, the remains of the rendezvous stage would simply fall back to Kerbin. Unfortunately, the extent of the damage to the upper stage became apparent when, upon deployment of the parachutes, the passenger can broke away from the command module, with Rayfred falling to his death.

Eventually, the two survivors attempted another rescue mission accompanied by Bob, and managed to get all the way to the Mun. Doing a rendezvous without MechJeb is pretty damned hard - making the rendezvous is easy, but staying with it is a real task, so I decamped the three Kerbalnaughts from the stricken Munar lander one by one and make rather long EVAs to the rescue craft.

Eventually, all six Kerbals successfully made their transfer burn from the dark side of the Mun and returned to Kerbal. After the trials of running out of fuel, losing Rayfred, and finally making the rescue stick, it was a hugely satisfying end to a desperate situation.
</story_mode>

All that time watching Scott Manley has paid off quite well.

Yea I know what you mean about living without MechJeb, I decided not to use it for career mode too and am finally starting to get used to using the default maneuver nodes instead.

I do have the steam gauges installed though as I find the orbital gauge great for hitting my desired AP an lift off without having to keep switching to map mode all the time and the radar altimeter gauge is invaluable for those tricky landings.

I also have the docking gauge installed but haven't used it in career as I haven't tried and docking there yet.

Other than those two I'm running stock ATM.

I wouldn't be too worried about mechjeb guys. IIRC mechjeb is only useable with standard install at end of tech tree anyway.

The mods I have is

Mechjeb (not available to me at the moment)
Protractor (which is unlocked about half way through tech tree)
My next mod will be docking camera if that still works with current version of KSP as I like building stations.

Near the end of the tech tree. Have done probe missions to
Minmus
Mun
Eve (failed mission)
Duna
Near Sun

One "manned" mission to Mun and I think Minmus too.

At some point I plan on setting up a base on Mun to get the maximum of science out of it. The failed probe mission was intended to be a glider, got it to the planet, screwed up on entry (it entered too deep on the night side, instead of aerobraking and finally entering fully on the day side) and when it entered the atmosphere it flipped over into an uncontrollable backwards position. After which it disintegrated on landing. Beyond that no dead Kerbals and no other major dramas.

I'm still trying to get my mitts on a basic solar panel, Once I have that, I'll be sending my first probe into outer space! (All that juicy Science that must be out there somewhere!)

I've enjoyed the career mode a lot. It forced me to go back to basics and it was fun. I sent a manned mission to the Mun before I had any solar panel, and as a result I ran out of electricity to send the data back, and I still have got one brave kerbman stuck there. I'm regularly sending an unmanned lander carrying a command pod in the hope of bringing him back, but I've botched half of the landings or landed way too far from him. I guess I'll have to send a rover with a pod and drive around to him, or wait until I unlock more mechjeb modules in order to do a precision landing to his location (lucky that he smuggled lots of kerbspam in his pod).

Well Jeb is currently floating around the Mun, I tried going for a landing but the Fracking Engine stage with the gear on ran out.

I guess I'll bring him back on Thursday.

I've killed Jeb. And stranded Bob and Bill on the Mun. I've since sent a minion kerbinaut to trade out with Bob so that I could at least have one "star" on Kerbin--for Kerbin moral and mine. What a great game! I wish it was on my xbox so I could more easily play it with my daughter.

I'm starting over now that 0.23 is out.
So far I've taken a surface sample and crew and EVA report on the launch pad

Dont worry about Jeb Smokin_Hole, him Bob and Bill always resurrect after a while, its only the minions that are perma-death.

That's good to know, Mark. (The little shrine I build for Jeb in my backyard seems kinda stupid now.)

I've loaded up KSP again with career, and am having loads of fun. I have done a couple of manned trips to the Mun and to Minimus, sent a probe to Duna, a couple of probes to the Mun and Minimus, and sent a rover to the Mun. The rover sadly went a bit fast over a bump, and scattered wheels everywhere.
I'm soon going to research the nuclear rocket and use that for long distance trips.

I still haven't completed an orbit :p

Maybe today is the day!

Just started a new career with the latest version. Only a couple of missions in and only a few techs unlocked. Running a life support mod which makes things a bit trickier.

So I have been to both poles, orbited and my last mission I have had to abort after I realised that battery life is insufficient for a trip to mun. So now I need to get him back safely.

Back to the assembly pad for more batteries once I get him back

I am still learning this thing. But mildly stalled out. To get more SCIENCE, I somehow need to land and retrieve some Kerbal guys from either of the 2 moons. Quite a leap from crashing wonky space craft into various bits of Kerban to get soil samples. Had alot of fun doing such I must say. And I certainly do not have the best things to do this unlocked. But now that I finally got my Hoffman transits orbits mainly down and successfully landed a probe on the mUn. Well I think the science will roll now.

I might be stating the obvious Flasburn. But have you maxed out the science on kerbin?

There are biomes on each planet (areas of different interest for science) and there are altitude requirements as well

Ya did all that. Did fly byes of both moons as well as landing one way probes on them. But tonight after being stalled out FINALLY landed and returned a kerbal to minus. Took many days and many fails. But finally but an end to science being stuck. That mission netted around 450 science points. Was able to unlock everything I need for docking and big rockets. So should be able to land a kerbal on the mUn now and return. Well once I get practice getting a probe undocked, to the suffice and then redocked for a return. Just enough gravity on the mun to make a large vessel landing on the thing highly unlikely to be able to get back to orbit, let alone back to kerbal.

http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/3332973618813451262/4648FFBED445E48564AB4B0844F8B345149F4ACA/

Fired up KSP after a long break, I had only tried the sandox mode before, so time for a career game.

I like the new lease of life it's given the game, forcing me to learn how to do several new things.

So far my biggest triumph is orbiting Minimus and safely returning!