...and I think I was doing good, considering how I hate losing astronauts and train them and the controllers up like crazy, and don't even try to launch until the payload exceeds 91% reliability.
I probably could have landed a couple of years earlier if I'd added a second team of crewed-spacecraft developers to concentrate on the Lunar Module. I had the money to do so by the time I opened the ballistic capsule,
Anybody else care to share?
I'm in the "easy" sandbox.
Got to the Moon in 1975
-
lordshipmayhem
- Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:21 am
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
On Normal difficulty I usually manage a manned lunar landing by 67-69 with the Soviets, I've not played much with the Americans. What follows is an approach focused on reaching the Moon first, without worrying about Venus, Mars, spaceplanes or anything else.
The way I do it is this. I build the 'nauts centre, mission control, and VAB straight away. Then hire 7 'nauts, the 5 MCs, and 2 new SETs (with highish Rockets skill) - to take all buildings up to max capacity). Obviously at this stage they have nothing to launch in - I train them! For the nauts the skills needed early on are leadership, piloting and fitness, you'll be able to train each of those things for a single period at least (3 seasons, so 3x3 = 9 seasons in all). For the MCs, just train one in each of the 5 skills, aiming to get them to 90%. Once the MC has their primary skill at 90+%, train a related skill with them. Crew & payloads goes with Mission Ops. Propulsion goes with Trajectory and Spacecraft Systems.
You'll generally have opened with Explorer/Sputnik. So you put 4 SETs on the probe, the 5th one you put into studying Rockets - because there's no VAB, he can't research anything anyway. By the time he's finished studying (3 seasons) the VAB will be ready, and you can open your first rocket programme and put him on it. The 2 new SETs will have finished basic training by now, too, so you can whack them into the rocket area as well. Generally I'll take 1-2 of the 7 scientists - whichever one has the lowest relevant skill - and train them up. So we might have Anna 65%, Bob 60% and Charlie 55%, I take Charlie and train him, 3 seasons later he's now 62% - so I put him back on research, and take Bob 60% out and train him, 3 seasons later he's now 66%... and so on. At this stage of the game there's no tearing hurry to get things up, and later on the projects will be more complex, and benefit from better SETs - you don't want skill 40-55% guys working on your Saturn V or N-1.
With MCs having primary skills of 80+% by late 57 or early 58, even if the rocket and probe are only 80%, you can be fairly confident that any problems that come up from hardware will be solved by the MCs. So you get the first satellite up, and do it by the end of 1958, chuck up another ordinary satellite or two or extended duration satellite to get you the prestige for maximum budget after the end-of-1958 review.
Now you're ready to open up Vostok/Mercury and the rocket for it. You do that, and you expand MC and the SET Centre.
You hire another 8 MCs, and after their basic training you train them up in rotating fashion. A good guide is - whenever you do a mission and autoassign, whichever MCs are left are the crap ones, whack them in training to boost up their skills. So we've got the 5 specialists with one of the 5 skills 90+%, and then the other 8, I just give them training in whichever skill is the lowest - those guys are the all-rounders.
SET centre can now hold up to 14 guys, usually just another 3 or so is enough, taking it to 10 total. Your 3 best ones go on the capsule, and another 3 best ones on the human-rated rocket. So you've got 4 guys spare.
I take 1 SET and "set continuous training" for EVA suit up to 98% - by the time we need him sometime between 1962 and 1966 he's going to be up in the high 90s%. I take another 1 SET and "set continuous training" for Probes - we'll need him later for the lunar probes which are a prerequisite for manned lunar missions. The other 2 SETs, one will study human-rated rockets and the other crewed spacecraft. And as with the SETs before, I'm constantly rotating the freshly-trained and the worst SET on each project.
So now we do the unmanned one-person capsule missions. Late-1959 or early-1961, the capsule and rocket are 80+%. This is plenty with all those 90+% MCs to back them up. A couple of unmanned missions will take the reliability up to 90% or so, now we can do the manned missions. It's now about 1960, and the nauts have been studying for 4 years! They'll be pretty good. Now I just do ALL the one-person capsule missions for the prestige bonus, the duration and rendezvous ones. Remember that the smaller rockets and capsules are quicker to research than the big ones, so even if you have a catastrophic failure it'll be quicker to recover from; better to fail a Vostok Duration I than a Soyuz Duration I, for example. And the missions are cheaper to fly, compare Joint Orbital of Mercury with Joint Orbital of Gemini, for example.
The first manned launch of the one-person capsule, I open the two-man capsule and its rocket programme, and take all the SETs who were working on the one-man and put them on the two-man; the reliability improvements will come from the flights, no need to keep those guys around taking Vostok from 82.3 to 82.6% when a flight will take it from 82.3 to 88%; they could be working on Voshkod taking it from 65 to 72% instead.
From the two-man capsule there are two ways to go to the Moon. There's Apollo/Soyuz and Gemini/UR-700. The former means developing and testing a lot more different bits of equipment (and thus more SETs need to be hired), but the individual bits are relatively cheap, and you can do it with smallish rockets until it's time to go to the Moon; the latter means less equipment (thus less SETs), but the launches are expensive and you have to expand the VAB and MC fairly early on.
While testing the lunar capsules in Earth orbit, I develop the probes for the lunar pass, and send them up on a human-rated rocket (usually Proton-KD for the Soviets).
For the Russians, Soyuz is a bit of a dead end except for a bit of prestige from putting 3 guys up. You don't need to do Soyuz in order to do the Soyuz lunar missions (either preparing in Earth orbit or the actual missions), and the reliability carryover from Soyuz Earth to Soyuz Lunar is only as great as from Voshkod to Soyuz Lunar.
The way I do it is this. I build the 'nauts centre, mission control, and VAB straight away. Then hire 7 'nauts, the 5 MCs, and 2 new SETs (with highish Rockets skill) - to take all buildings up to max capacity). Obviously at this stage they have nothing to launch in - I train them! For the nauts the skills needed early on are leadership, piloting and fitness, you'll be able to train each of those things for a single period at least (3 seasons, so 3x3 = 9 seasons in all). For the MCs, just train one in each of the 5 skills, aiming to get them to 90%. Once the MC has their primary skill at 90+%, train a related skill with them. Crew & payloads goes with Mission Ops. Propulsion goes with Trajectory and Spacecraft Systems.
You'll generally have opened with Explorer/Sputnik. So you put 4 SETs on the probe, the 5th one you put into studying Rockets - because there's no VAB, he can't research anything anyway. By the time he's finished studying (3 seasons) the VAB will be ready, and you can open your first rocket programme and put him on it. The 2 new SETs will have finished basic training by now, too, so you can whack them into the rocket area as well. Generally I'll take 1-2 of the 7 scientists - whichever one has the lowest relevant skill - and train them up. So we might have Anna 65%, Bob 60% and Charlie 55%, I take Charlie and train him, 3 seasons later he's now 62% - so I put him back on research, and take Bob 60% out and train him, 3 seasons later he's now 66%... and so on. At this stage of the game there's no tearing hurry to get things up, and later on the projects will be more complex, and benefit from better SETs - you don't want skill 40-55% guys working on your Saturn V or N-1.
With MCs having primary skills of 80+% by late 57 or early 58, even if the rocket and probe are only 80%, you can be fairly confident that any problems that come up from hardware will be solved by the MCs. So you get the first satellite up, and do it by the end of 1958, chuck up another ordinary satellite or two or extended duration satellite to get you the prestige for maximum budget after the end-of-1958 review.
Now you're ready to open up Vostok/Mercury and the rocket for it. You do that, and you expand MC and the SET Centre.
You hire another 8 MCs, and after their basic training you train them up in rotating fashion. A good guide is - whenever you do a mission and autoassign, whichever MCs are left are the crap ones, whack them in training to boost up their skills. So we've got the 5 specialists with one of the 5 skills 90+%, and then the other 8, I just give them training in whichever skill is the lowest - those guys are the all-rounders.
SET centre can now hold up to 14 guys, usually just another 3 or so is enough, taking it to 10 total. Your 3 best ones go on the capsule, and another 3 best ones on the human-rated rocket. So you've got 4 guys spare.
I take 1 SET and "set continuous training" for EVA suit up to 98% - by the time we need him sometime between 1962 and 1966 he's going to be up in the high 90s%. I take another 1 SET and "set continuous training" for Probes - we'll need him later for the lunar probes which are a prerequisite for manned lunar missions. The other 2 SETs, one will study human-rated rockets and the other crewed spacecraft. And as with the SETs before, I'm constantly rotating the freshly-trained and the worst SET on each project.
So now we do the unmanned one-person capsule missions. Late-1959 or early-1961, the capsule and rocket are 80+%. This is plenty with all those 90+% MCs to back them up. A couple of unmanned missions will take the reliability up to 90% or so, now we can do the manned missions. It's now about 1960, and the nauts have been studying for 4 years! They'll be pretty good. Now I just do ALL the one-person capsule missions for the prestige bonus, the duration and rendezvous ones. Remember that the smaller rockets and capsules are quicker to research than the big ones, so even if you have a catastrophic failure it'll be quicker to recover from; better to fail a Vostok Duration I than a Soyuz Duration I, for example. And the missions are cheaper to fly, compare Joint Orbital of Mercury with Joint Orbital of Gemini, for example.
The first manned launch of the one-person capsule, I open the two-man capsule and its rocket programme, and take all the SETs who were working on the one-man and put them on the two-man; the reliability improvements will come from the flights, no need to keep those guys around taking Vostok from 82.3 to 82.6% when a flight will take it from 82.3 to 88%; they could be working on Voshkod taking it from 65 to 72% instead.
From the two-man capsule there are two ways to go to the Moon. There's Apollo/Soyuz and Gemini/UR-700. The former means developing and testing a lot more different bits of equipment (and thus more SETs need to be hired), but the individual bits are relatively cheap, and you can do it with smallish rockets until it's time to go to the Moon; the latter means less equipment (thus less SETs), but the launches are expensive and you have to expand the VAB and MC fairly early on.
While testing the lunar capsules in Earth orbit, I develop the probes for the lunar pass, and send them up on a human-rated rocket (usually Proton-KD for the Soviets).
For the Russians, Soyuz is a bit of a dead end except for a bit of prestige from putting 3 guys up. You don't need to do Soyuz in order to do the Soyuz lunar missions (either preparing in Earth orbit or the actual missions), and the reliability carryover from Soyuz Earth to Soyuz Lunar is only as great as from Voshkod to Soyuz Lunar.
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
Today playing on Normal in the Soviet campaign I tried the same shuffling staff around to keep boosting their skills, and for the chosen programmes this route,
1. sputnik rocket / sputnik satellite - went up in 1957.1
2. vostok rocket / vostok capsule - I flew ALL the possible missions from 1960.1 to 1962.4 (started running out of money so they were spread out)
3. voshkod rocket / voshkod capsule - I flew the uncrewed suborbital and orbital, the orbital and the EVA from 1963.1 to 1963.4
4. UR-700 rocket / LK-700 capsule - Earth orbit - flew uncrewed suborbital and orbital, crewed orbital, then EVA - from 1966.2 to 1967.1
5. UR-700 rocket / lunar probe flyby - in 1967.1
5. UR-700 rocket / LK-700 capsule - lunar landing - in 1967.2
The UR-700/LK-700 Earth missions brought the rocket and craft up to well over 90%, and the Kretchet to just under 90%. As the relevant naut and MC skills were all over 80%, and plenty of them 90%, I was happy with this.
Next came the lunar probe flyby, which let me open manned lunar missions. I went straight to a manned landing with the LK-700, not doing the uncrewed etc missions only gave a 10% penalty - and that only to the craft, not the rocket. We landed on the moon, we were reasonably lucky in that the only failure was on descent back to Earth and this was sorted out by the MCs.
The only real downside was doing nothing for 1964-65 as I waited for the 700 pairing to be developed to a decent level. But the USA was just messing about with Gemini at this time and apparently not having much success.
Using 4 different rockets (3 light, 1 heavy), 2 probes (one Earth, one lunar) and 3 capsules (Vostok, Voshkod, LK-700), this is probably the shortest practical route to the Moon for the Soviets. Technically you could go Sputnik -> Lunar probe --> LK-700 (3 rockets, 2 probes, 1 capsule), however due to lack of prestige shots cash would be an issue and you'd have lots of downtime where you launched nothing... this may be prudent, but would be boring.
Suggestion: Just -10% as a reliability penalisation for going straight from lunar probe to manned landing seems.... an underestimate. If I were controlling things in the 1960s, I'd want more than a single probe flying past the Moon off into deep space before I'd send guys up there.
1. sputnik rocket / sputnik satellite - went up in 1957.1
2. vostok rocket / vostok capsule - I flew ALL the possible missions from 1960.1 to 1962.4 (started running out of money so they were spread out)
3. voshkod rocket / voshkod capsule - I flew the uncrewed suborbital and orbital, the orbital and the EVA from 1963.1 to 1963.4
4. UR-700 rocket / LK-700 capsule - Earth orbit - flew uncrewed suborbital and orbital, crewed orbital, then EVA - from 1966.2 to 1967.1
5. UR-700 rocket / lunar probe flyby - in 1967.1
5. UR-700 rocket / LK-700 capsule - lunar landing - in 1967.2
The UR-700/LK-700 Earth missions brought the rocket and craft up to well over 90%, and the Kretchet to just under 90%. As the relevant naut and MC skills were all over 80%, and plenty of them 90%, I was happy with this.
Next came the lunar probe flyby, which let me open manned lunar missions. I went straight to a manned landing with the LK-700, not doing the uncrewed etc missions only gave a 10% penalty - and that only to the craft, not the rocket. We landed on the moon, we were reasonably lucky in that the only failure was on descent back to Earth and this was sorted out by the MCs.
The only real downside was doing nothing for 1964-65 as I waited for the 700 pairing to be developed to a decent level. But the USA was just messing about with Gemini at this time and apparently not having much success.
Using 4 different rockets (3 light, 1 heavy), 2 probes (one Earth, one lunar) and 3 capsules (Vostok, Voshkod, LK-700), this is probably the shortest practical route to the Moon for the Soviets. Technically you could go Sputnik -> Lunar probe --> LK-700 (3 rockets, 2 probes, 1 capsule), however due to lack of prestige shots cash would be an issue and you'd have lots of downtime where you launched nothing... this may be prudent, but would be boring.
Suggestion: Just -10% as a reliability penalisation for going straight from lunar probe to manned landing seems.... an underestimate. If I were controlling things in the 1960s, I'd want more than a single probe flying past the Moon off into deep space before I'd send guys up there.
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
Hello lordshipmayhem,
One of the whole point of the game is "What kind of risks I am ready to take in order to land on the Moon in reasonable delays ?", really. Like in reality, you might have to "skip" some missions to go faster, at the expense of safety penalizations. But it's also where your Mission Controllers will shine : a well trained team will get you out of most situations, provided your hardware is reliable and your flight crew competent.
Also try different strategies, maybe you'll feel more comfortable with some of them.
One of the whole point of the game is "What kind of risks I am ready to take in order to land on the Moon in reasonable delays ?", really. Like in reality, you might have to "skip" some missions to go faster, at the expense of safety penalizations. But it's also where your Mission Controllers will shine : a well trained team will get you out of most situations, provided your hardware is reliable and your flight crew competent.
Also try different strategies, maybe you'll feel more comfortable with some of them.
Nicolas Escats
Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager Contributor
Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager Contributor
-
lordshipmayhem
- Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:21 am
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
One of the things I've realized (after going broke a few times) is the need to accomplish one major goal by Q4 1958. And more accomplishments won't get you more money with the 4-year review. You can't fall into too big a deficit, or you'll run out of money before the start of 1959.
I start 1955 Q1 with construction;
- Mission Control - begin
- VAB - begin
- SET centre - enlarge
- Because there are no rockets to research until the VAB is built in two sessions, send my best human rated rocket specialist(s) to training for 3 seasons
- Because I'll end up fully researching the probes before any rocket to launch them is ready, and have to use scarce resources to open another while keeping the first one open (costing maintenance $), I send probe specialist(s) to training for 3 seasons
1955 Q2:
- Hire no more than 4 controllers. (Ever notice that when you go to hire anyone, you get one superstar in the mix, two to three good ones with only a couple of under-50% efficiency ratings, and the rest largely garbage? I have the time at this stage of the game to hire the best and have an aces group of controllers and astronauts by the time the missions they'll be needed for are ready.)
1955 Q3:
- The expansion to the SET Centre is done, and now I can get more than seven researchers. Hire as many over-40% SET employees as I can to get to try for 4 probe specialists and 4 human-rated rocket specialists. If I have to, I'll wait two seasons to 1956 Q1.
1955 Q4:
- The first batch of SET researchers are finished their Advanced training. Open a satellite program and the human-rated rocket large enough to handle your first ballistic capsule. It'll cost a bit more, but the development time seems to be the same as for one of the smaller rockets of either type.
1956 Q1:
- in the SET Centre, start hiring a couple or more human-crewed capsule researchers. When they come out of training, it's time to start the space plane program.
I start growing the headquarters to handle more projects in 1958 Q2. I start the astronaut centre in 1957 Q2, hiring my first astronauts, at most 3, when it's finished. They should all have over 50% in Leadership, Piloting and Fitness, screw the spacewalk and science scores - if you've noticed, they'll often rise with the number of missions and training sessions the astronauts go on. If you only hire one or two, that's OK because a season later you can choose that class' Alpha Astronaut, and again at the start of 1959.
I do the same with Mission Control, only sooner. After I'm nudging 4 controllers, I enlarge it to the 2nd level and start hiring ace controllers a few a year at a time. This guarantees that (1) I can afford them and (2) I don't need to worry about auto-assigning going to some turkey with a rating of a 20% or something equally inadequate to do a control position.
By the time I hit 1958, I usually have about 8 controllers, the Atlas human-rated rocket almost at 90%, the first orbital probe at or approaching that rate, astronauts in training simply to keep them busy and safer, and the rocket plane well on its way. I'm running a small deficit, but as long as I can get at the very least the first satellite in orbit before the end of that year, I've got the prestige points to get the full increase - and then things start expanding rapidly, so I'll need a larger mission control again, and a larger SET, and a larger headquarters, and a larger VAB. I try to time their completion so that they're finished in 1959 Q1 so none of the maintenance costs is in the first four years.
One thing that frustrates me about the game is that there's a huge difference between human-rated and unmanned rocket researchers. You'd think that in the real world, the only difference between the two is in the research needed in the rocket program, not the researchers' skill set. It would be great to be able to take two teams of rocket researchers and 'leapfrog" them from a human-rated rocket research program to an unmanned one and vice versa.
I start 1955 Q1 with construction;
- Mission Control - begin
- VAB - begin
- SET centre - enlarge
- Because there are no rockets to research until the VAB is built in two sessions, send my best human rated rocket specialist(s) to training for 3 seasons
- Because I'll end up fully researching the probes before any rocket to launch them is ready, and have to use scarce resources to open another while keeping the first one open (costing maintenance $), I send probe specialist(s) to training for 3 seasons
1955 Q2:
- Hire no more than 4 controllers. (Ever notice that when you go to hire anyone, you get one superstar in the mix, two to three good ones with only a couple of under-50% efficiency ratings, and the rest largely garbage? I have the time at this stage of the game to hire the best and have an aces group of controllers and astronauts by the time the missions they'll be needed for are ready.)
1955 Q3:
- The expansion to the SET Centre is done, and now I can get more than seven researchers. Hire as many over-40% SET employees as I can to get to try for 4 probe specialists and 4 human-rated rocket specialists. If I have to, I'll wait two seasons to 1956 Q1.
1955 Q4:
- The first batch of SET researchers are finished their Advanced training. Open a satellite program and the human-rated rocket large enough to handle your first ballistic capsule. It'll cost a bit more, but the development time seems to be the same as for one of the smaller rockets of either type.
1956 Q1:
- in the SET Centre, start hiring a couple or more human-crewed capsule researchers. When they come out of training, it's time to start the space plane program.
I start growing the headquarters to handle more projects in 1958 Q2. I start the astronaut centre in 1957 Q2, hiring my first astronauts, at most 3, when it's finished. They should all have over 50% in Leadership, Piloting and Fitness, screw the spacewalk and science scores - if you've noticed, they'll often rise with the number of missions and training sessions the astronauts go on. If you only hire one or two, that's OK because a season later you can choose that class' Alpha Astronaut, and again at the start of 1959.
I do the same with Mission Control, only sooner. After I'm nudging 4 controllers, I enlarge it to the 2nd level and start hiring ace controllers a few a year at a time. This guarantees that (1) I can afford them and (2) I don't need to worry about auto-assigning going to some turkey with a rating of a 20% or something equally inadequate to do a control position.
By the time I hit 1958, I usually have about 8 controllers, the Atlas human-rated rocket almost at 90%, the first orbital probe at or approaching that rate, astronauts in training simply to keep them busy and safer, and the rocket plane well on its way. I'm running a small deficit, but as long as I can get at the very least the first satellite in orbit before the end of that year, I've got the prestige points to get the full increase - and then things start expanding rapidly, so I'll need a larger mission control again, and a larger SET, and a larger headquarters, and a larger VAB. I try to time their completion so that they're finished in 1959 Q1 so none of the maintenance costs is in the first four years.
One thing that frustrates me about the game is that there's a huge difference between human-rated and unmanned rocket researchers. You'd think that in the real world, the only difference between the two is in the research needed in the rocket program, not the researchers' skill set. It would be great to be able to take two teams of rocket researchers and 'leapfrog" them from a human-rated rocket research program to an unmanned one and vice versa.
-
lordshipmayhem
- Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:21 am
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
BTW, I've reached to Q3 1974 for first manned landing. I'm getting better. The slowdown always seems to be with the rocket for the 2-man capsule. I may try to either go straight from Mercury to Apollo (or the Soviet alternatives), or use one of the Gemini moon landing alternatives.
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
Expand SET turn one is generally a waste of maintenance. You want to hire the 2 SETs on turn 1, which means you can't hire again in the year. It takes 2 seasons to expand SET, therefore expand on Season 3 of year1.
Are you people playing on easy (called normal here)? Going Astronaut AND MC on turn 1 is expensive, although there is an argument for MC finishing on q4 year1 so you can hire the best, then rehire next turn. I usually complete Astronauts and MC for year2 season 1, and seriously am considering AStronauts for year3 season1, because it is often hard to have money to constantly train nauts, and not training them means morale drops, so you would need a lot of launches or a lot more money later to keep them from (your best) from burning out.
Are you people playing on easy (called normal here)? Going Astronaut AND MC on turn 1 is expensive, although there is an argument for MC finishing on q4 year1 so you can hire the best, then rehire next turn. I usually complete Astronauts and MC for year2 season 1, and seriously am considering AStronauts for year3 season1, because it is often hard to have money to constantly train nauts, and not training them means morale drops, so you would need a lot of launches or a lot more money later to keep them from (your best) from burning out.
Re: Got to the Moon in 1975
I had decent results upgrading the SET only in 1958, to have it operational for the first 1959 (new budget review) season. The thing is that 2 scientists by project is usually enough for early programs.
Nicolas Escats
Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager Contributor
Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager Contributor
-
lordshipmayhem
- Corporal - 5 cm Pak 38
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:21 am
Re: Got to the Moon in 1972
I've now gotten to the Moon in the third quarter of 1972, and if I'd had a second team of specialist researchers on human-crewed spaceships and taken some more chances, I might have gotten there in the last season of 1970 or first of 1971. But I'm allergic to losing points by taking foolhardy chances with the lives of others, even virtual lives. At least I'm now in the same ballpark as the original space program, getting to the Moon when the real-life Apollo program landed.
I did so by first concentrating on getting a probe into orbit, training one cheap researcher in rockets and another cheap researcher on human-crewed ships (and 3 astronauts and four controllers) during the first four years. I timed the VAB assembly completion for Season 3 of 1957 (skipping Season 1) to throw my human-rated rocket researchers into one 3-season session of advanced training and not waste maintenance funds on a building I don't yet need. Season 1 also saw the start of the Astronaut/Cosmonaut Centre and Mission Control. I ended up by the end of Season 3 with four human-rated rocket researchers, four probe researchers, five controllers in advanced training and three astronauts in basic, and with a small quarterly surplus. I managed to get my controllers through three training sessions before I tried to launch, and immediately threw the two controllers I didn't need into training. The second four years I managed to get 2 biology-research satellite programs (including extended missions) and the rocket plane done.
I also timed the expansion of the Naut Centre, SET Centre and Mission Control to finish in the 4th season of 1958, and then immediately hired three more rocket researchers and three more human-crewed spacecraft researchers. At the start of the next year, I went for another team of probe researchers, and gradually built up a team of EVA researchers (training the bejeezus out of them until they were all hovering around 90% before I opened the two-man crew capsule program) and a second, and later a third, team of probe researchers.
Looking back at it, I'd probably try the same in the first eight years, but I might try for a second crew of human-crewed-spacecraft researchers, to see to it that I was able to bring the Lunar Module into the mix sooner, and a second crew of EVA experts to start working on the Apollo suits the season that I started that program. I can always repurpose the least capable EVA researchers to probe researchers (or fire anyone in that team with an under-50% score and hire a replacement) after I'm down to just the Moon Buggy.
I did so by first concentrating on getting a probe into orbit, training one cheap researcher in rockets and another cheap researcher on human-crewed ships (and 3 astronauts and four controllers) during the first four years. I timed the VAB assembly completion for Season 3 of 1957 (skipping Season 1) to throw my human-rated rocket researchers into one 3-season session of advanced training and not waste maintenance funds on a building I don't yet need. Season 1 also saw the start of the Astronaut/Cosmonaut Centre and Mission Control. I ended up by the end of Season 3 with four human-rated rocket researchers, four probe researchers, five controllers in advanced training and three astronauts in basic, and with a small quarterly surplus. I managed to get my controllers through three training sessions before I tried to launch, and immediately threw the two controllers I didn't need into training. The second four years I managed to get 2 biology-research satellite programs (including extended missions) and the rocket plane done.
I also timed the expansion of the Naut Centre, SET Centre and Mission Control to finish in the 4th season of 1958, and then immediately hired three more rocket researchers and three more human-crewed spacecraft researchers. At the start of the next year, I went for another team of probe researchers, and gradually built up a team of EVA researchers (training the bejeezus out of them until they were all hovering around 90% before I opened the two-man crew capsule program) and a second, and later a third, team of probe researchers.
Looking back at it, I'd probably try the same in the first eight years, but I might try for a second crew of human-crewed-spacecraft researchers, to see to it that I was able to bring the Lunar Module into the mix sooner, and a second crew of EVA experts to start working on the Apollo suits the season that I started that program. I can always repurpose the least capable EVA researchers to probe researchers (or fire anyone in that team with an under-50% score and hire a replacement) after I'm down to just the Moon Buggy.