This is an incomplete text walkthrough of BASPM playing the USA Campaign in the hard difficulty mode.

This is still incomplete -- eventually, it will cover a full game, through the lunar landing.

As you read through the walk-through, you'll see a large number of "glitches" after successful launches. Each of these glitches could have been (but wasn't) a catastrophic failure that would have set the program back at least a quarter, and likely much more than that (depending on how long it took to re-fly the failed mission).

This is expected even with highly reliable hardware (~90%), and the reason is basic probability math. For example, as of 1964 Q1, the walk-through shows 5 Mercury missions (1xmanned suborbital, 2xunammend orbital, 2x manned orbital) listed. Each of these missions has 11 steps so (as of the 1Q 1964) there have been 55 Mercury steps attempted. If we assume that the reliability of each of the steps was 95% (and that's grossly optimistic), the odds of 100% (55 success in 55 attempts) success for all of these steps is 0.95^55 = 0.05954 = 5.954 %. The probability of success on one mission (11 steps, 95 % reliability) is 0.95^11 = 0.5688 = 56.88% -- roughly 1 in 2. And these are EASY missions -- a Gemini DA (the simplest lunar landing mission, in terms of steps) has 21 steps, while an Apollo landing has 28 steps. On top of all that, most missions will have a step reliability far below 95% (indeed, ~85% is much more common), so...

In BARIS (the predecessor to this game), that was all there was -- there would be failures, and the consequences of those failures would be catastrophic or not based on a look-up to an internal table. There was nothing that the player could do beyond maximizing hardware reliability and then cross their fingers (max HW reliability in BARIS was 98%, but this was practically impossible to achieve -- most of the time you were required to launch at 86-90%). As you might expect, BARIS had a reputation for being "impossible".

In this game, however, mission control gets a "saving throw" each time a failure occurs -- if they roll low enough, then the failure is a "minor glitch, fixed" or "minor glitch, mission can continue" and all is well. The way this works internally is that 3-4 mission controllers key skills are averaged together with the hardware reliability and astronauts skill (which controllers, which astronauts, which skills, and so forth is determined by the step being performed), and a random number is generated from 1-100. If the number is below the averaged skills, then you have a "minor glitch, resolved". If it is just a little higher, then you get a "minor glitch, mission can continue", and a bit higher than that is "failure, astronauts survive" and finally "catastrophic failure". So the actual chance of failure is best determined by the formula "Hardware reliability" + ("Chance of hardware failure"*"Chance of recovery").

Thus, if you all the relevant mission controllers have a skill of 95%, 95% reliable hardware, and 95% skilled astronauts, the actual (single step) failure risk is 0.95 + (0.05*0.95) = 0.9975 = 99.75%. Taking that number and extending it over 55 steps we end up with 99.75%^55 = 0.87138 = 87.138 % -- that's fairly good odds. However, these are unrealistic numbers -- it is very rare that you'll have 95% reliable hardware, and it will be very, very late in the game before all of your mission controllers have skill levels of 95%.

But even with more reasonable skill / reliability levels, the math still works out well. For example, with 85% for all relevant stats the odds of success on an 11 step mission is: (0.85)+(0.15*0.85) = 0.9775^11 = 77.8 %, which is still pretty good odds.

But if the mission controllers and astronauts are poor (60%) then the odds go down dramatically. 0.85 (HW) + 0.60 (Astronaut) + 0.60 (MC) = 2.05 / 3 = 0.68333 chance to recover, so the step formula is (0.85)+(0.15*0.68) = 0.952, then 0.952^11 = 0.58211 = 58.211% chance of success on an 11 step mission -- which is more or less the same as the odds of success with 95% reliable hardware with no chance to recover. :(

Looking at the MC skill levels when scheduling launches through 1964, you'll see that /some/ of my mission controllers have the desired 95% reliability -- to be exact, the ones that belonged to my first "class" of mission controllers -- but many do not. And the flight director, which is involved in 99.9% of problem resolutions, has only a 77.5 % average rating as of 1964 Q1 (which is what matters, not any single skill), all but guaranteeing that the saving throw target is going to be no better than 85%. And none of the astronauts have any significant skill other than fitness at this point (which is the most important skill by far, especially for Mercury, but Piloting comes into play more with Gemini), so if a step happens to be testing against something other than fitness...

There are two solutions to the "how to get well trained astronauts and mission controllers", of which I pursue a mixture in this walk-through:

• Periodically suspend operations to send astronauts and controllers to intensive training.
  
• Avoid manned missions as long as possible, but hire mission controllers and astronauts aggressively.

The second approach works because never-manned missions require very small mission control staffs (3-5, depending on mission), so if you hire 15 controllers, you can keep 10 of them in training as long as you don't launch a manned mission. The problem is that never-manned missions require an R&D investment for each mission, while manned missions allow you to execute several missions, each rewarding prestige, for a single R&D investment. Thus, at some point you will be required to transition to a manned-mission approach in order to continue hitting your prestige targets (and obviously, to win the game). How late you can make this transition is still an open question, however.

• Plan out activities in 4 year (16 turns / quarters) cycles, corresponding with the budget review sessions.
  
• Identify (but don't open) payloads that you wish to launch in the next cycle, then identify a set of boosters that can handle those payloads
  
  • Be very, very wary of multi-season missions (all interplanatary missions except the Venus flyby) -- these missions will tie up mission controllers for multiple turns, not yield the bulk of their prestige until they complete, and don't pay more than other (single season) missions.
• Always open booster programs before payloads (generally, ~1 year before) -- boosters take longer to R&D than payloads.

The most accurate way to plan out activities for the next budget cycle is to view prospective programs, find out how much prestige a particular launch is worth, then add everything up. If you are going this route, some things to keep in mind:

• The only way to determine how much prestige a program will reward (as of V1.0) requires that you open the program first. So, you'll need to save the game, open programs to view the prestige totals, then restore the game and open the programs according to your plan.
  
• Once you have opened a program, you'll see (in the "Mission Configuration Selection" page -- this is the same screen that you schedule launches from, and you go here immediately after opening a program), under "Mission Summary", "Prestige Earned / Deducted". This is the primary number that should guide your decision making, but...
  
  • This number is the sum of the goals listed in the "Goals Achieved" section at the bottom of the screen plus an additional bonus (discussed) below. The problem is that goals can only be achieved once per side -- so, if you plan on launching both Explorer I and BIoSat, you will only get credit for "Earth Orbiting Satellite" and "Radio Signals Emission from LEO" once, but since BASPM doesn't know your plans it will include points for these goals for both missions. You will need to manually compare the goals achieved section and subtract out points for overlapping goals to get an accurate total.
• In addition to the points awarded for achieving goals, you'll receive additional points based on who (if anyone) else has performed this mission. You'll get the largest bonus if you are the first person to do this mission, a lesser bonus if your opponent has performed the mission but you have not, and a very small bonus if you have already performed this mission. As with mission goals, BASPM calculates this bonus based as if you were going to launch the mission immediately, and this is very unlikely to be accurate.
  
  • The bonuses awarded here are small in comparison to the bonuses awarded for achieving milestones -- the first side to launch the Explorer I satellite will get an extra 247 points for doing so, vs "only" 123 points for coming in second. Given that you get 1400 points for achieving goals, you probably aren't even going to notice the bonus points for being 1st (or their absence).
    
  • If you do wish to add up these points, you'll need to go to the "Mission Configuration" page for the mission in question then click on each step in turn. You'll see a section entitled "Mission Step Information:", followed by "Prestige Points Granted:" -- this shows the points you'll receive for performing that step successfully if you are the 1st in the world, 2nd in the world, or are re-running the mission. These points are assigned on a per step basis, so you'll need to click on each step and add them up to get the total bonus.
    
  • It is unclear (in Version 1.0) whether or not these points are even being rewarded properly -- certainly the total shown in the "Program Information" page doesn't add up the points correctly. This is probably a good area for someone to perform some tests... :)

Going through the above procedure is a real pain, and only worthwhile if you are trying to min-max your way through the game (for example, writing a walk-through... :)). If you are just interesting in having fun, then try the following procedure:

• A never-manned (earth satellite or probe) is worth ~2000 prestige assuming it your first launch for the program.
  
• A unmanned (test) launch of normally manned hardware is worth a negligible amount of prestige (~100-200). You should score these launches as zero.
  
• A manned launch is also worth ~2000, with two exceptions:
  
  • The space plane program in its entirety (3 missions) is worth ~2000 prestige, with 50% of these points coming on the last launch.
    
  • Missions that you have already performed with hardware from another generation (Gemini v. Mercury, for example) are only worth half as much as you expect [e.g. 1000 points] (this most commonly applies to the "Manned Suborbital" and "Manned Orbital", but would also apply to "Duration II" or "EVA" missions).

Please keep in mind that the above system is by no means 100% accurate, but it'll get you in the right ballpark. As you complete launches and open programs during normal play you should periodically check back to refine your estimate.

You should attempt to minimize the number of booster's that you open / R&D / use for two reasons:

• Boosters are much slower to R&D than payloads -- re-using boosters maximizes the return on this investment.
  
• Each time hardware (including boosters) is used on a mission successfully its reliability goes up. By using the same booster on a large number different launches, especially with never-manned hardware, you can increase the reliability far beyond what would be economical with R&D only.

In the walk-through I only develop 4 booster programs in total -- Atlas, Atlas / Centuar, Titan II and the Saturn V. If you are developing more than 5 booster programs of the course of the game, you are very likely to suffer from failures that you could have avoided by maximizing re-use.

To maximize re-use, you'll need to assess the masses of payloads not just in the current budget cycle but also beyond. Some notes when considering which booster to buy:

• If a booster doesn't list a mass for LEO / TLI / TPI, then it is totally incapable of handling these payloads.
  
• An unmanned-only booster ("Rocket") can be used to launch unmanned test flights of normally manned hardware, if you wish (although it would be very rare that this would be useful) if it is within its weight budget.
  
• Joint missions that have an unmanned component (EOR lunar, docking) can use a non-man rated rocket for the unmanned portion.
  
• A man-rated booster ("Man-Rated Rocket") can be used to launch never-manned missions, as long as it is otherwise capable. For example, you can launch an Explorer 1 with a Saturn V. See the discusion on launch planning for more on this.

Once you have determined your plans for the upcoming budget cycle, you will need to open the required programs. There are two simple rules to follow here:

• Always open boosters (manned / unmanned rockets) required for programs at least one year before opening the first program that requires them. Boosters R&D is always more difficult than the payloads that can launch on these vehicles.
  
• Never open a program of any description if you don't have at least one qualified (>70% in the required skill) scientist to immediately assign to research it.
  
  • For programs that have multiple components to R&D (Gemini and Apollo), it is only required that you have one qualified scientists for the "big ticket" item (the manned capsule).

The goal is to never launch hardware with a reliability < 85%, and preferably with ~90%. But... If it was possible to do this all the time then it wouldn't be much of a game, would it? So, compromises need to be made and these are my recommendations.

These missions always carry a hefty prestige penalty (generally ~85-90% of the amount you get if the succeed) for failures, but involve "single use" hardware: once you've launched the probe or satellite you'll probably never launch it again. With no re-use options it simply isn't possible to get 85% reliable hardware for these missions and still remain on track towards meeting prestige goals.

• Know and track the budget review cycle -- your prestige is only checked 59Q1, 63Q1 and 67Q1. There is no advantage in launching a mission in (say) 62Q1 v. 62Q4 -- as long as you can get all of your launches done before the budget review cycle. Therefore, you should try to "backload" as many launches late in the review cycle, to allow the scientists to perform as much R&D as possible.
  
  • Keep in mind, however, that you only have a limited number of scientists, and diminishing returns means that progress slows dramatically as reliability improves. In order to optimize the use of their time, you'll sometimes need to launch a mission with low reliability (~80%) so that you can close the program and free up the scientists to work on other projects.
• The vast majority of the never-manned missions are dominated by the booster -- for example, all of the steps of the lunar flyby mission are "Booster dominated" until after the TLI step. So, if your booster (which is reusable) is highly reliable then an unreliable probe still has a pretty good chance of success.
  
• Never-manned missions require only a skeleton mission control team -- most of the time (always?) you'll need 1xFD and 1x of each of individual skills except "Mission Operations". This means that your mission control team will be more highly skilled (on average) than they would be on potentially manned missions, making up for poor hardware reliability to some degree.

To sum up -- assuming that you can use your "A Team" controllers, you should be willing to launch never-manned missions with reliabilities as low as 70% if it is necessary -- valid reasons include "Need for free up scientists to work on other projects" or "Needed to get a large budget increase".

All manned launches have at least one unmanned option (e.g. "unmanned Mercury suborbital"). These missions have trivial (< 100 prestige) penalties associated with failure, and the loss of reliability (due to failures) is always less than the increases from successes. One would think "Hey, I could run these missions with low hardware reliablity and save some time" -- one would be wrong. Based on an experiement, the loss of reliability that occurs on a failure is inversely proprotional to the current reliablity of the hardware -- if your HW is 85% reliable, then you might only lose 2-5 % reliablity. If, on the other hand, your hardware is 55% reliable, then you lose 25% reliablity! That's... Not a good idea.

This is marginally more realisitc with booster's (coupled with Explorer I for a paylaod), but... I'd judge that you need to be over 75% before it is a reasonable risk, at which point you are ~4 turns away from launching real missions on it, so the gain is marginal, at best.

No manned mission should be launched if the hardware reliability of all major components (rocket & crewed vehicles) is less than 85%. Yes, you can get away with missions with lower reliabilities -- and, if you are willing to save & reload, you can get away with it "consistently". But if you are looking for a strategy that will produce consistent results in "Ironman" mode, missions like this are a good way to kill off astronauts -- and astronauts are incredible expensive (in terms of time) to train.

Given the 85% floor, there are some other factors to consider:

• Don't be afraid of milestone penalties -- yes, 7.5% off every single step is a big deal, but if the hardware is 94% reliable then you are still above the 85% floor. Good candidates for milestone penalties to accept:
  
  • Skipping the uncrewed suborbital prior to crewed suborbital / uncrewed orbital prior to crewed orbital: These flights have a small number of steps (11) and are therefore good candidates, especially if your booster is in good shape.
    
  • Skipping rendezvous prior to docking: Rendezvous missions always require two crewed vehicles, launched separately and are thus expensive in terms of funding and resources. Docking, on the other hand, allows for the use of a cheaper rocket for one of the two missions and only requires one set of astronauts. Skipping the rendezvous mission is a good way to save time and funds.
    
  • Skipping duration missions (e.g. "I" before "II"): These missions very simple (11 steps, +1 per duration step) and are low prestige, making them good candidates to skip due to time pressure.
    
    • On the other hand, you must complete (at least) a duration II prior to a manned lunar pass and a duration III prior to a manned lunar orbital -- the lunar missions are not easy missions, and you don't want a milestone penalty making them harder than they have to be.
• Be very aware of your weakest members of mission control, especially the flight director (FD) / assistant flight director (AFD). These members are almost always involved in problem resolution, and they will generally have the lowest skills on your mission control team. Identify and train at least 2 (4 if you want to support dual manned launches) as soon as possible to minimize this weakness.
  
  • Don't skip milestones if one or more of the mission controllers has a skill < 60 -- you shouldn't fly a manned mission at all if one of the mission controllers has a skill < 50.
• Be aware of your astronauts skill levels as well -- almost always, astronauts will impose a penalty during problem resolution, quite often a significant one.
  
  • Don't fly manned missions with astronauts with fitness scores < 85 -- try to avoid flying complex missions (lunar) with astronauts with piloting scores < 85. EVA and science skills are much less important and can be neglected (if you must).
• Assume that you will have at least two fatal accidents in the course of your program, and there is a good chance of three or four and allow for this in your planning
  
  • This is dealt with in detail in the astronauts section, but the short version is "Hire and train twice as many astronauts as you think you need".

One last comment: Generally speaking, never-manned (satellites and probes) offer prestige bonuses that are on par with a single manned launch, and such launches require much less in the way of infrastructure (mission control & astronauts) to support. Especially in the early game (first two budget cycles), consider designing your program so that ~75% of your prestige comes from never-manned missions -- even though you'll spend more time in R&D (due to the single use hardware of never-manned missions) it will be easier to tolerate failures. Eventually, you'll be obliged to move to manned missions to win the game, but the longer you can delay this the better. :)

The goal at this point is to gain the 5,000 prestige needed for the first large budget increase (available in 59Q1), which requires 2500 total prestige for a $8000 increase. As you might expect, this will require at least two successful missions -- the following combinations will work:

• Explorer 1 (1650) & Biosatellite (1900) = 3550
  
• Explorer 1 (1650) & OFO (1750) = 3400
  
• X-15 Flight Test (250) & X-15 Flight 1 (600) & X-15 Flight 2 (1350) & Explorer 1 (1650) = 3850
  
• Mercury unmanned suborbital test (220) & Mercury manned suborbital (3470) = 3690

This walkthrough uses Explorer 1 & Biosat to get the required prestige. Explorer 1 & OFO is slightly easier (the BioSat includes two extra steps that the OFO does not include), but both are easy enough to do. By using the Atlas booster (man-rated) for both satellites, you will be very well positioned for Mercury. The downside is that it will be a /long/ time before you hire any astronauts, and you'll end up with too many missions and not enough time before the /next/ budget review.

An interesting, but somewhat risky, option is to simply launch the Biosatellite by itself -- as your first mission, it is worth 2750 prestige points (you get credit for 850 points worth of goals that would normally be rewarded via Explorer 1). The downside is that a 7.5% milestone penalty will be assessed on every step, and (at the "Hard" difficulty level) launching both results in a budget surplus at the end (even with Atlas as your booster), so... This might be the best way to go on Buzz-Hard, though.

Trying to launch 4 missions (3x X-15 plus Explorer 1) is a poor choice, in my opinion: Failure is very likely the only option due to lack of time (which will limit training opportunities, especially for astronauts) before the first budget review. It also leaves you positioned very poorly for Mercury, as you'll need to invest in a cheap, non-man rated rocket, to save money (I'd go for at least Juno II, which is capable of launching the first lunar probe rather than Jupiter-C) but you will still need to R&D Atlas to support orbital Mercury.

Bypassing Explorer 1 and going directly for Mercury /seems/ attractive -- you can use the Redstone to launch both flights, and no milestone penalties, but... What next? You'll need to research Atlas for Mercury orbital, and you'll need to launch Explorer 1 to avoid a milestone penalty on the unmanned Mercury orbital, and you'll be paying quarterly overhead on the astronaut center and astronauts throughout. Unlike the X-15 program, though, there are some significant benefits of this route: the Redstone will have good technology carry-over to Atlas (if you can delay opening Atlas long enough), and you'll have the opportunity to send your astronauts to 3-6 seasons of training before launching the manned Mercury orbital.

• [USA Campaign, Hard difficulty]
  
• Allocate scientists to training as follows:
  • Best 3x in human rated rockets to advanced training in human rated rockets
    
  • Best 2x in space probes to advanced training in space probes

Note that the order is significant -- sort the list by best human rated rocket skill first, then assign the top three to advanced training. Then, sort (although it really isn't necessary in this case) by best space probes rating and assign those scientists to space probe training.

If you really want to, feel free to agonize over things like "Well, this scientist is #3 in human rated rockets, but #1 in space probes -- shouldn't I assign him to space probes training instead?", but in practice it won't matter. The starting statistics of staff are all but irrelevant, due to the heavy training load, so my recommendation is to make your life easy and just sort by one stat and ignore other factors.

• Upgrade SET (2 seasons)
  
• Build VAB (2 seasons)
  
• Done!

The extra training for your scientists is much more valuable than the relatively poor research results that they will produce if you open the Explorer 1 & Atlas program immediately -- it also allows you to build up a reserve of cash (by minimizing overhead costs) that you'll need later.

• Done! *** Waiting for upgrades and training to complete ***

• Hire all scientists with learning > 80, but not more than 8 [8x]. Cost $327 / season, net +1,195

[8x] means that's how many I was able to hire, given the criteria -- your mileage may vary. If you end up with less than 8, I would recommend hiring more in 56 Q1 to build up to ~8, although it will make managing training more difficult (because they will be “out of sync”).

Unless noted otherwise, all hiring decisions should be base exclusively on the learning stat -- see the previous comment about how little the initial stats matter. Agonizing over salary amounts (50 v 25, for example) is also wasted effort -- it is more important to get staff into training than it is to delay 4 quarters to save money on salary.

• Done!

• Open Atlas (human-rated rockets), assign 3x to research (62.9, 61.2, 60.8). Cost $xxx / season, net +$695

By using Atlas (massive overkill for orbital satellites) exclusively has three benefits:

• It saves money in the long term (fewer rocket programs to open)
  
• Dramatically accelerates Mercury (since the rocket is already researched)
  
• Simplifies training of scientists (don't need to worry about maximizing the "Rocket" skill yet)

The downside is that the Explorer 1 and BioSat launches will be far more expensive than they would be otherwise -- but that's a fair trade, especially when you realize that's only two launches. Still, it might be worthwhile to use the Juno II instead of Atlas -- if you want to do this, early training should be in "Rockets" (unmanned) rather than “Human-Rated Rockets".

• Send the remaining [2x] scientists to advanced training on space probes
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 23.6 (+20.6)

• Status: $16,584 on hand, +695 / season
  
• Allocate scientists to training as follows:
  
  • Best 6x in space probes to space probes
    
  • Best 2x in human rated rockets to human rated rockets
• Build mission control (1 season, -$150 / season)
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 40.2 (+16.5)

• Hire 5x mission controllers (-$198 / season, net + $347) using this criteria:
  
  • 4x max learning
    
  • 1x max average skills + learning > 80

These categories may overlap (the best 5x in learning may include the person with the best average skills) which is, of course, ideal.

When looking at average skills, a mission controller with 4 good skills (~60) and one bad skill (~20) is better than one with 5 average skills (~50). This is because training in low skills is worth more than training in medium or high skills, which will allow you to improve the overall average faster. It isn't necessary to add up skill points by hand to find the best "average" mission controller, though -- again, he or she will spend loads of time in training regardless.

• Done!
  
• Atlas: 51.1 (+11.0)

• Open Explorer I (Earth Orbiting Satellites) ($1026.0 Upfront, net + $244), assign 2x sci (73.2, 70.7) to research

Finally :) -- we were waiting for the first batch of scientists to finish their second go around in training. Don't worry, Explorer will be ready in plenty of time, thanks to your skilled scientists (and it is an easy program to research).

Note that you generally shouldn't open a program until you have staff available to start researching it. On the other hand, even one scientist (with the right skill) can make a big difference, so it is sometimes a good idea to open a program when you only have /one/ scientist available to work on it, if more are coming in the next few quarters.

• Done!
  
• Atlas: 59.5 (+8.4)
  
• Explorer: 28.7 (+31.7)

• [Lost 1x scientist for 1 turn]
  
• Clear all research assignments
  
• Assign 4x to Atlas (71.5, 64.0, 62.5, 61.9)
  
• Assign 4x to Explorer (77.3, 77.0, 73.5, 71.4)
  
• Open Biosatellite (Earth Orbiting Satellites) ($2,941 upfront, -295 / season, net -51), assign 4x (71.1, 69.6, 69.4, 55.6) to research
  
• Assign remaining scientists (if any) [1x] to advanced training in Crewed Spacecraft
  
• Sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign top controller to train weakest skill
  

  This person will be your first (of at least 2, and possibly as many as 4) flight directors. Flight directors are critical members of your mission control staff whose value is determined by their average skill across all subject areas.
  
  Thus, what matters is the total number of points that they have, and you gain more points more quickly by training in the weakest current subject area

• Sort by best controller in the following subject area, then send them to advanced training to improve their best skill.
  

  These controllers will be "single-skilled" controllers -- very good in one subject area, but totally hopeless in anything else.
  
  The vast majority of mission controllers are single skilled, but how many and what skills are required to support a mission will evolve over the various manned programs. For example, Mercury requires 3x"Spacecraft Systems" controllers -- but Gemini only requires 2. On the other hand, Mercury requires 1x"Mission Operations" person but Gemini requires 2. Thus, the training recommendations for single skilled controllers will evolve over time as programs are opened and closed.
  
  Right now, the focus is to support never-manned missions -- and these flights require 1 specality controller in the skills except for Mission Operations.

  • 1x propulsion
    
  • 1x guidance & navigation
    
  • 1x spacecraft systems
    
  • 1x crew and payload
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 67.4 (+7.8)
  
• Explorer: 53.1 (+21.4)
  
• BioSat: 31.4 (+17.3)

• Status: $12002, -$51.0 / quarter
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 74.4 (+7.0)
  
• Explorer: 70.5 (+17.4)
  
• BioSat: 47.9 (+16.5)

• Done!
  
• Atlas: 78.1 (+3.7)
  
• Explorer: 80.2 (+9.7)
  
• BioSat: 59.1 (+11.2)

• Sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign top controller to train weakest skill
  
• Sort by best controller in the following subject area:
  
  • 1x propulsion
    
  • 1x guidance & navigation
    
  • 1x spacecraft systems
    
  • 1x crew and payload
• If you have any surplus scientists [1x], reassign them to training in Crewed Spacecraft
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 81.1 (+3.0)
  
• Explorer 84.6 (+4.4)
  
• BioSat: 67.7 (+8.6)

• [+18.7 R&D for 6 seasons]
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 83.4 (+2.3)
  
• Explorer 86.8 (+2.3)
  
• BioSat: 74.0 (+6.3)

• Status: $11,198 on hand, -51 / quarter
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 85.2 (+1.9)
  
• Explorer: 87.9 (+1.1)
  
• BioSat: 78.6 (+4.6)
  

  This is the earliest that you can launch Explorer I with a reasonable chance of success. I don't, for several reasons:
  

  • From a budget point of view, there is no advantage to launching here, rather than a couple of quarters from now.
    
  • Mission Controllers are still in training, and I don't want to pull them out early
    
  • Waiting will result in a slightly safer launch

• [Sputnik may be launched here]
  
• Leave mission controllers idle (needed for upcoming missions)
  
• Assign remaining scientists (if any) [1x] to advanced training in Crewed Spacecraft
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 86.5 (+1.4)
  
• Explorer: 88.6 (+0.7)
  
• BioSat: 81.9 (+3.3)

• [Sputnik may be launched here]
  
• Schedule launch of Explorer 1 (Booster: 79.3, Spacecraft Systems: 80.7, FD: 67.0), -$3835.0
  
• Upgrade SET ($1500 upfront, 2 seasons, -1200 / season)

So you can hire more scientists ASAP when the budget increase comes in.

• Done!
  
• Atlas: 87.7 (+1.0)
  
• Explorer: 88.9 (+0.3)
  
• BioSat: 84.5 (+2.6)
  
• Explorer 1 launch (avg. reliability 88.0, 6 steps, +1225 / -200 prestige):
  
  • Successful (3 "glitches"), +2.1% Atlas, +1.0 Explorer 1, +1.3 Booster, +1.9 Systems

• Close Explorer program
  
• Schedule launch of BioSat (Booster = 80.5, Spacecraft Systems = 82.5, Navigation = 80.1, Experiments = 86.1, FD = 67.7) -$4957
  
• Leave scientists idle (you'll have new stuff for them to research next season)
  
• [Status: $653 on hand, +52 / quarter]
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas: 89.9 (+0.2)
  
• BioSat: 86.1 (+1.6)
  
• BioSat Launch (avg reliability 88.0, 9 steps, +1900 / -375 prestige):
  
  • Successful (0 "glitches"), +2.8 Atlas, +2.1 BioSat, +1.3 Booster, +1.8 Systems, +1.2 Experiments

The goal now is to get the second big budget bonus, which requires 12,500 total prestige. There is a very narrow path to success on hard to this goal – unless you are willing to assume some risk. Due to funding constraints, even with the first big budget increase, simply won't allow you to do everything that you need to do in the time allocated.

The plan followed in this walk-through is:

OFO
+ 1,750
Pioneer 4 (lunar pass)
+ 2,200
Ranger 3 (lunar impactor)
+ 2,800
Mercury manned suborbital
+ 3,470 (includes +220 for unmanned Mercury orbital)
Total
+10,220

Which, combined with the 3,550 we've already earned, gives us 13,770, which is enough.

Note that the X-15 program, in its entirety, is worth 2,200 -- not enough to avoid the need for at least one lunar mission. Available funding won't allow you to do OFO, Pioneer 4, Ranger 3, the X-15 program and an unmanned Mercury suborbital (and the Atlas/C -- but see below!), but this would work -- +9,170 for the missions listed and +3,550 for the missions already completed = 12,720. Even if funding permits, this is likely riskier than the proposed plan, as you won't have a chance to train your astronauts.

This walk-through develops and uses the Atlas / Centaur instead of Atlas / Agena for the lunar mission, which is a mistake... :(

In raw capacity, the Atlas / Agena can boost 366 kg to TLI and 260 kg to TPI, while Atlas / Centaur can handle 1100 kg to TLI and 985 kg to TPI.

In terms of mission capabilities, the Atlas/C can handle the following missions that Atlas/A cannot:

• Surveyor (unmanned lunar landing) (1 season)
  
• Mariner 6 (Mars Flyby) (2 seasons)
  
• Mariner 9 (Mars Orbital) (3 seasons)
  
• Pioneer 12 (Venus Orbital) (6 seasons)
  
• Mariner 10 (Mercury flyby) (2 seasons)
  
• Pioneer 10 (Jupiter flyby) (6 seasons)
  
• Pioneer 11 (Saturn flyby) (21 seasons)

Atlas/A *can* handle the following missions, though:

• Pioneer 4 (lunar flyby) (1 season)
  
• Ranger 3 (lunar impactor) (1 season)
  
• Pioneer 2 (lunar orbiter) (1 season)
  
• Mariner 5 (Venus flyby) (1 season)

In terms of cost:

• Atlas/A costs $4,200 to open and $420 / quarter
  
• Atlas/C costs $5,000 to open and $500 / quarter

But Atlas/C also requires the second VAB upgrade, which is otherwise unnecessary until 63Q1 (in preparation for Titan II) -- $2000 upfront, -400 (extra, over the basic VAB) / quarter.
In short, this walk through has you spends an extra 2800 in upfront costs, plus an extra 400*13 seasons + 80*10 seasons = 5200+800 = 6000 in extra overhead as of 62Q4. That's a total of 8800, roughly two launches, or one launch plus lots of training. All of this to save the cost of running a second rocket program in 63 - 64 (to support Surveyor and Mariner 6). So, yeah, that's a mistake. Oops. :( I'm leaving this intact, though, to show a less than ideal walk through, and because I don't want to redo everything through 63Q4, which is when I did this analysis.

• Status: 5,355 on hand, +4702 / quarter
  
• Close BioSat
  
• Open OFO (Earth Orbital Satellites) [2,363 upfront, -237 / season], assign 4x scientists (80.4, 80.0, 76.8, 74.9)
  
• Upgrade mission control [$900 upfront, 1 season, -$500 / season]
  
• Hire all scientists with learning > 80 (x6, $230 / season)
  
• Assign scientists to training as follows
  
  • 4x scientists with best manned rockets rating to advanced training on Rockets
    
  • 4x scientists with best space probes rating to advanced training on Crewed Spacecraft
    
  • Any extra scientists [1x] should have a high crewed spacecraft rating and be left idle -- they will be assigned to Mercury next quarter.
• Sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign top controller to train weakest skill
  
• Sort by best controller in the following subject area:
  
  • 1x propulsion
    
  • 1x guidance & navigation
    
  • 1x spacecraft systems
    
  • 1x crew and payload
• Done!
  
• OFO: 58.0 (+15.2)

• [-117.5 to funds on hand]
  
• Open Mercury (One Man Capsules) [$2920 upfront, -293 / season], assign extra scientist(s) [1x] to research (84.7)

If you don’t have any extra scientists available, delay opening Mercury until 59 Q4 (when scientists currently in training complete their training). There is no point in paying the overhead for the program if you aren’t able to perform R&D

• Hire all mission controllers with learning > 80, but at least 6 (x7, $302 / season) [Need 10 to support manned mercury flights]
  
• Done!
  
• OFO: 69.1 (+11.1)
  
• Mercury: 26.1 (+8.5)

• Assign 6x scientists to advanced training:
  
  • 4x Manned Spacecraft
    
  • 2x Rockets
• Upgrade VAB ($2000 upfront, 3 seasons, $650 / season) *** This is a mistake (see above) ***
  
• Build Astronaut Center ($500 upfront, 2 seasons, $175 / season)
  
• Done!
  
• OFO: 76.1 (+7.0)
  
• Mercury: 35.9 (+9.8)

• [Sputnik 2 may be launched here]
  
• [OFO not available for 2 seasons]
  
• Assign mission controllers to training as follows:
  
  • 2x Sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign to train weakest skill
    

    This includes my one extra flight controller that I was able to hire. Training up a second flight director is far more important than anything else. If you weren't able to hire an extra mission controller, that's OK (for now), but you may want to do another round of hiring next year.

  • 1x Propulsion
    
  • 3x guidance and navigation
    
  • 3x Spacecraft systems
    
  • 1x crew and payload
    
  • 1x procedures
    
  • If extras exist, assign to [Required for complex Gemini flights]:
    
    • Spacecraft systems (up to 2 extra)
      
    • Guidance and navigation (up to 1 extra)
      
    • Procedures (up to 1 extra)
• Assign researches with crewed spacecraft > 79 % to Mercury (2x -- this is a judgment call, obviously) (84.7, 80.8, 79.2)
  
• Assign remaining researches as follows:
  
  • Assign with crewed spacecraft specialty not good enough for Mercury to advanced training (crewed spacecraft) [x2]
    
  • 4x scientists with best rockets rating to advanced training (Rockets)
• Done!
  
• OFO: 81.7 (+5.6)
  
• Mercury: 51.9 (+16.0)

• Status: 7614.5 on hand, +3410 / season
  
• Hire 5x astronauts, as follows [5x, $241 / season]:
  
  • 1x highest leadership
    
  • 4x highest learning
• Done!
  
• OFO: 85.0 (+3.3)
  
• Mercury: 62.2 (+10.3)

OFO is good to go at this point -- but I can't launch it yet due to a random event. Also, my mission controllers are in advanced training and there is no point in pulling them out for such a low-priority launch, so...

• Open Atlas / Centaur (rockets (unmanned)), henceforth known as Atlas / C ($5000, $500 / season), assign all scientists with rocket skill > 70 (judgment call) (75.5, 70.0)
  

  This is a mistake -- should open Atlas / A [$4,200 to open and $420 / quarter] at this point instead, but assign the same set of scientists

• Open Pioneer 4 (lunar probes) ($2115, $212 / season), assign researcher with best space probes to research, which will be low (57.0)
  

  This is a minor mistake -- should have pulled the scientists currently working on OFO and put them on Pioneer 4 (I do this next quarter). This has very little pratical impact, though, as Pioneer 4 is highly reliable when it finally launches.

• Clear and reassign researchers on Mercury, looking to get 4x > 79% (85.2, 81.4, 79.8, 79.2)
  
• Assign remaining researches to training as follows:
  
  • Best (unassigned) Rockets skill to Rockets, enough to get Atlas/C to 4x [2x]
    
  • Remainder to EVA [0x]
• Done!
  
• OFO: 87.1 (+2.2)
  
• Mercury: 69.7 (+7.5)
  
• Atlas / C: 50.8 (+6.1)
  
• Pioneer 4: 55.5 (+4.0)

• [14.9 % reduction in fixed costs (overhead) for next 8 seasons]
  
• Clear all R&D assignments (rockets and payloads), reassign as follows:
  
  • 4x to Mercury (85.4, 82.4, 81.7, 80.0)
    
  • 4x to Atlas / C (84.5, 81.9, 75.9, 75.1)
    
  • 4x to Pioneer 4 (81.3, 80.8, 77.6, 75.9)
    
  • 0x to OFO
• Assign remaining [x5] researchers to training as follows:
  
  • 4x best probes to probes
    
  • Remainder [1x] to EVA if initial EVA is > 50, otherwise to human-rated rockets (1x -> EVA)
• Hire researchers to max [x1, 54 / Season, should have 20 total]
  
• Leave flight controllers idle (although it isn't obvious yet, you don't have the money -- you also need them for a mission next quarter)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury 75.4 (+5.7)
  
• Atlas/C 57.7 (+6.9)
  
• Pioneer 4 69.8 (+14.3)

• [New researcher requires another quarter of basic training]
  
• Schedule launch of OFO (Booster 92.5, Spacecraft Systems 91.2, Navigation 93.3, Experiments 94.5, Flight Director 74.4), -$4615
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury 80.3 (+4.9)
  
• Atlas/C 64.3 (+6.6)
  
• Pioneer 4 76.1 (+6.3)
  
• Launch OFO (Avg Reliability 89.0, 6 steps, 1750 / -375 prestige)
  
  • Successful (1 "glitch"), +1.9 Atlas, +2.2 OFO, +0.4 Booster, +0.6 Spacecraft Systems, +0.4 Experiments

• Close OFO
  
• Open Ranger 3 (lunar probes) aka "Lunar Impactor" (2528.0, 253 / season)
  
• Clear all research assignments, and reassign as follows:
  
  • 1x Ranger 3 (81.9)
    
  • 4x Mercury (85.9, 83.0, 82.4, 80.6)
    
  • 2x Pioneer 4 (81.4, 78.4)
    
  • 4x Atlas/C (84.9, 82.5, 76.6, 75.7)
    
  • 1x Pioneer 4 (81.4, 78.4, 76.6)
    
  • If any space probes > 75 % remain, alternate between Ranger 3 and Pioneer 4 [0x]
    
  • Assign remaining researchers to training as follows:
    
    • If space probes > 50%, to space probes [0x]
      
    • If EVA > 50%, and nobody has been assigned to EVA yet, 1x to EVA [0x]
      
    • Otherwise, to human rated rockets [2x]
• Assign astronauts to continuous training as follows
  
  • 1x Best Leadership to training in leadership, with a goal of ~85%
    
  • 4x to continuous training in fitness, with a goal of ~85%

  This turns out to be a minor mistake -- I end up having to pull an astronaut out of training, losing the 100 tuition cost. Note that the extra training will dramatically improve the safety of /all/ Mercury flights, which is why I hired the astronauts early.

• Leave flight controllers idle (due to lack of funds)
  

  If you went with the Atlas/A, send the flight controllers to another round of training (& delay the Pioneer 4 launch until they complete it).

• Done!
  
• Mercury: 83.8 (+3.5)
  
• Atlas/C: 69.5 (+5.2)
  
• Pioneer 4: 80.9 (+4.8)
  
• Ranger 3: 59.0 (+5.2)

[/list]

• Clear all research assignments, and reassign as follows:
  
  • 4x Mercury (86.2, 83.4, 82.6, 80.9)
    
  • 4x Atlas / C (85.3, 82.9, 76.9, 76.9)
    
  • Alternate between Pioneer 4 and Ranger 3, assigning the best researcher for space probes to each, until both have 4 assigned:
    
    • 4x Pioneer 4 (82.2, 78.6, 75.9, 69.0)
      
    • 4x Ranger 3 (81.7, 76.8, 72.9, 62.9)
• Leave remaining researchers [2x] idle (no funds)
  
• Leave Mission controllers idle (x12) idle (no funds, needed for upcoming launch)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury: 86.1 (+2.3)
  
• Atlas/C: 73.6 (+4.0)
  
• Pioneer 4: 84.1 (+3.2)
  
• Ranger 3: 67.8 (+8.7)

• Schedule launch of Pioneer 4 (lunar flyby) (Booster 92.9, Systems 91.8, Navigation 93.7, Experiments 94.9, FD 74.8) -4469
  

  This is a high risk decision forced by the extra overhead incurred by the astronauts and Atlas/C (the motivation behind this decision is to close the Pioneer 4 program next season). The correct (sane) decision is to fly an unmanned Mercury suborbital at this point, then flying this mission when funding permits (likely two seasons from now). If this was anything other than a lunar flyby, this would be an outright mistake, but this mission only has 8 steps in it, but 5 of which heavily depend on the (unreliable) booster... :(
  
  This should be delayed at a quarter if you are using the Atlas/A (to allow MC to finish training, plus an extra turn of research). As mentioned above, you probably should fly your unmanned Mercury suborbital at this point.

• Leave everyone idle (no funds)
  

  It should go without saying, but for the record -- if you are using the Atlas/A, researchers should be assigned to training. Mission controllers, on the other hand, you'll need to support upcoming launches.

• Done!
  
• Mercury 87.5 (+1.4)
  
• Atlas/C 76.5 (+3.0) ***fingers crossed***
  
• Pioneer 4 85.8 (+1.7)
  
• Ranger 3 74.5 (+6.8)
  
• Launch Pioneer 4 (Average Reliability 81.0 [hah!], 2200 / -375, 8 steps)
  
  • Success!! (thank goodness), one glitch, +6.5 Atlas/C, +2.7 Pioneer 4, +0.7 Booster, +0.8 Spacecraft Systems, +0.2 Experiments

• Close Pioneer 4
  

  Schedule and launch Pioneer 4 here if you are using the Atlas/A. Note that the Atlas/A reliability should be higher than the Atlas/C reliability shown here, which should make this a fairly safe launch. It would be nice to defer it further, but you are running out of time.

• Reassign researchers to assign the best 4x space probe researchers to Ranger 3 (82.9, 82.2, 79.4, 77.4)
  
• Nothing else to do (no funds)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury: 88.6 (+1.1)
  
• Atlas/C: 84.5 (+1.4)
  
• Ranger 3: 78.9 (+4.3)

• Status: 3879.5 funds on hand, +2199 / season
  
• Nothing to do (no funds)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury: 89.4 (+0.8)
  
• Atlas/C: 85.5 (+1.1)
  
• Ranger 3: 82.3 (+3.4)

To reiterate the math that is shown above (59 Q1):


• Lunar impactor is worth 2800, and currently shows an 83.9% average reliability.
  
• Mercury unmanned suborbital is worth 220 and currently shows a 92.0 % average reliability.


That's 3020 prestige -- not enough. :( But a /manned/ suborbital is worth 3470 for a total of 6270, which /is/ enough. I'll take a 7.5 % reliability penalty to all components (caused by skipping a milestone step), and I'll need to take two astronauts out of training, but... Both Mercury and Atlas are very reliable (even with the penalty, the average reliability is 84.5%), so... Fingers crossed.

Note that getting the big funding boost isn't /essential/ at this point -- you can win the game without it. But it sure is nice, and part of the purpose of this walkthrough is to identify the "best path" through the early game, so... A much, much more sensible plan (given the situation at this point) is to fly an unmanned mercury suborbital (in 62 Q3) and Ranger 3 (in 62 Q4), followed by a manned Mercury suborbital mission in 63 Q1. This will mean giving up the big budget bonus, though. :(

If you are using the Atlas/A, the decision is easy -- launch an unmanned Mercury suborbital this quarter, then follow with the Mercury manned suborbital next quarter. That's what I was planning on doing, but the funds just don't support it. :( Note that you will want to upgrade the VAB to level 2 ASAP (ideally, this quarter), but only if that leaves you with sufficient funds to complete three launches in the next three quarters.

FYI: The prestige associated with the items listed in the "Goals Achieved" section is included in the prestige total shown at the top on the "Mission Configuration" page. However, if you are planning ahead, note that goals achieved only aware their prestige once. So, for example, both the unmanned and manned Mercury suborbital flight includes a goal "Mercury uncrewed suborbital flight test" -- but if you launch both missions, you'll only get awarded these points once.

• Nothing to do (no funds)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury: 90.0 (+0.6)
  
• Atlas/C: 86.5 (+1.0)
  
• Ranger 3: 84.6 (+2.3)

• Pull 2x astronauts from training, if required:
  
  • 1x max leadership
    
  • 1x max fitness
• Schedule a MANNED suborbital Mercury flight (gulp) (Booster 93.6, Surgeon 95.1, Capcom 85.4, Retro 94.0, FIDO 73.9, GUIDO 67.5, Environmental 75.0, Procedures 73.6, FD 75.2, Systems 71.4, Network 58.0 (another gulp!), Astronaut 55.0 / 37.1 / 37.8 /32.8 / 83.3), -$4274
  
• Nothing else to do but light the candle... :)
  
• Done!
  
• Mercury 90.3 (+0.4)
  
• Atlas/C 87.2 (+0.7)
  
• Ranger 3 86.0 (+1.4)
  
• Launch the manned suborbital (Mercury) (avg reliability 84.0, +3470 / -2000, 11 steps)
  
  • SUCCESS! (2 glitches), +0.6 Atlas, +1.6 Mercury, +2.4 Procedures, +3.6 Network, +0.6 Booster, +1.9 Systems, +0.4 Surgeon, +5.5 Astronaut.

• Schedule the Ranger 3 (lunar impactor) launch (Booster 94.2, Spacecraft Systems 92.6, Navigation 94.3, Experiments 95.4, Flight Director 75.6), -4713
  

  Due to a bug in V1.0, you are permitted to have a negative balance when scheduling training classes -- you will be fired at the start of the next season if your balance is still negative. In my book, this isn't a bug, just creative accounting (using bookkeeping tricks to make certain expenses incurred in one quarter appear in a later quarter), but... YMMV. If this is changed, then you won't be able to assign everyone to training due to lack of funding -- just do what you can, making sure to assign in reverse order (worst first within a category) to maximize the gain.
  
  This is definitely a bug -- you'll be fired if you load a game with a negative balance. IMO, this should be changed so it works as described above (you can spend money on little things, like training, even if it results in a negative balance, and you are OK as long as you are positive at the beginning of the next year).
  
  The goal here is to get a head start on Gemini, which is coming up very soon, and will require a new human rated rocket, an Agena target vehicle (uses space probe skill), and, of course, a new capsule. You'll also be researching a new space probe (lunar orbiter) very soon, but those researchers will be reassigned from the Ranger 3 program.

• Assign researchers to training as follows:
  
  • Best 4x spacecraft to spacecraft
    
  • Best 4x human rated rockets to human rated rockets
    
  • Best 4x probes to probes
• Leave 1x astronaut idle (needed for future missions)
  
• Leave mission control idle (needed for future missions)
  
• Done!
  
• Atlas/C: 87.8 (+0.6)
  
• Ranger 3: 87.2 (+1.2)
  
• Launch Ranger 3 (avg. reliability 92.0, 2800 / -450 prestige, 9 steps)
  
  • Success (2 glitches), +2.9 Atlas/C, +1.5 Ranger 3, +0.3 Booster, +0.6 Spacecraft Systems, +0.2 Experiments

The goals for the next increment, with the big budget bonus, is:

• Complete Mercury
  
• Complete Gemini
  
• Complete all lunar probe missions (except the extended lunar orbital, which is multi-season and isn’t worth it)
  
• Complete the Venus flyby
  
• Complete the Mars flyby (2 seasons)

If you didn’t get the big budget bonus, the same goals apply, except that you only plan to complete a manned Gemini orbital by the next budget review.

• [Mission Controller will be quitting! Good thing I hired an extra mission controller, or I would be out of luck for manned Mercury missions]
  
• Status: $15,122.5 cash on hand, $15,233.0 [!] / season
  
• Schedule an unmanned Mercury orbital (94.4% Booster, 94.6% Retro, 69.7% FIDO, 65.4% GUIDO, 76.4% Environmental, 75.9% Procedures, 75.9 % Flight, 73.3 % Systems, 57.9 % Network) -4274
  
• Close the Ranger 3 program
  
• Open the Pioneer 2 program (lunar probes) ($2949 upfront, $296 / season)
  

  Be careful not to open the "Lunar Orbiter" mission instead -- this is a 2 season mission and isn't worth it.

• Open the Titan 2 program (human rated rockets) ($6250 upfront, $625 / season)
  
• Assign researchers as follows:
  
  • 4xPioneer 2 (84.2, 83.9, 81.0, 78.9)
    
  • 4xTitan 2 (74.3, 66.0, 65.5, 35.7)
    

    Yes, you should not assign the 35.7 guy (sending him to training instead), but I don't want to deal with one person being "out of sequence" with everyone else.

• Hire the maximum number of mission controllers allowed [2x, 86.0 / season]
  

  If you received the maximum budget increase, this should be deferred until after you've upgraded mission control the first time. I did it here to ensure that I have 11 controllers available to support manned Mercury flights (due to the random event), but it will delay my ability to hire a full controller "class" until 64 Q1, resulting in ~5-8 controllers losing 2 quarters of training opportunities.

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 69.0 [+6.0]
  
• Titan 2: 47.4 [+7.3]
  
• Launch unmanned orbital (Mercury) (avg reliability 93.0, 300 / -75 prestige, 11 steps)
  
  • Success (0 glitches) Atlas +0.9, Mercury +1.2, Procedures +2.2, Network +4.5, Booster +0.3, Environmental +2.4, Systems +2.8

• Schedule a manned Mercury orbital (94.7% Booster, 95.6% Surgeon, 87.0% CapCom, 95.0% Retro, 72.2% FIDO, 68.1% GUIDO, 78.8% Environmental, 78.1% Procedures, 76.5 % Flight, 76.1% Systems, 62.4% Network, Astronaut 60.5 / 40.9 / 43.9 / 38.5 / 85.4) -4274
  
• Upgrade Mission Control ($1400 upfront, 2 seasons, $900 / season)
  

  This should be deferred (no earlier than the quarter prior to opening Gemini, and perhaps past the 67 Q1 budget review). The goal here is to train up a complete /second/ set of mission controllers, which will require massive numbers of controllers that can spend a large amount of time in training. Without the big budget bonus, you won't be able to afford to fly two missions at once, especially not with the extra overhead, so this is less urgent.
  
  You'll need to upgrade eventually, though, as lunar missions require at least 14 (Gemini) or 16 (Apollo) controllers, and you are currently limited to 13 controllers. Basic (one launch) Gemini orbital flights only require 12, however, so you can start Gemini with what you have now, and train up the extras.

• Upgrade SET Center ($1900 upfront, 3 seasons, $1750 / season)
  

  This should be deferred (at least until 67 Q1, after the next budget review, and perhaps NEVER) if you didn't get the big budget increase in 63 Q1. You'll be researching things in sequence, rather than in parallel, and 20 researchers will be more than sufficient (in fact, you'll have a hard time keeping them all busy!)

• Assign available astronauts (x3) to continuous training Piloting (target ~85.0%)
  
• Hire maximum number of astronauts with highest learning scores (x2, 95 / season)
  
• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 74.8 [+5.8]
  
• Titan 2: 53.8 [+6.4]
  
• Launch manned orbital (Mercury) (avg reliability 94.0, 5450 / -2125 prestige, 11 steps)
  Non-catastrophic failure during ascent, -0.7 Atlas, -0.5 Mercury, +0.3 Booster, +3.5 FIDO, +1.8 Environmental, +1.5 Capcom, +2.2 Procedures, +2.7 Systems, +0.3 Surgeon, +7.2 Astronaut

[/list]

• [R&D boost by 22.4% for next 3 seasons]
  
• Schedule an unmanned Mercury orbital (95.0 Booster, 95.2 Retro, 75.8 FIDO, 70.3 GUIDO, 80.6 Environmental, 80.3 Procedures, 76.9 FD, 78.8 Systems, 64.9 Network) -4274
  

  This is primarily to train mission control, although it also serves to recover the lost reliability from the failed flight earlier. I was really hoping to send everyone to training this quarter, but I want to get the Mercury Manned Orbital out of the way before I do that.
  Note that because I sent all but two of the astronauts to training in 63 Q2, I don't have enough astronauts available to re-run the manned orbital immediately (need two, and due to the "rest season", I only have one). Thanks to the large budget bonus, I judge it more important to leave the astronauts in training than it pull one out just to save a launch opportunity.

• Open the Gemini program ($14,680 [!!!] upfront, 1469 / season)
  

  This is why it was important to get the big budget bonus -- if you didn't, you'll have to defer starting the Gemini program for several years [late in Mercury], leaving you with an R&D gap (it isn't worthwhile to train any skill beyond ~90%, so you'll end up with many dual / triple skilled researchers that won't be any more effective at researching Gemini than they are today).
  
  Again, it is still possible to beat the soviets to the moon, even with the lesser budget bonus in 63 Q1. Following this walk-through in general, but you'll need to do things in sequence while I do them in parallel, and you'll need to spend quite a bit of extra time training scientists (due to lack of anything else for them to work on). You should target first manned orbital flight of Gemini no later than 66 Q4 (before the next budget review). The good news is that Gemini won't take long to research at all (the initial reliability will start at ~57.6, and you should have 4x 90%+ researchers to assign to it), so as long as you can open it by 64Q2-65Q1 you should be in good shape.

• Unassigned all researchers and assign researchers with skill > 75 as follows:
  
  • 4x to Titan 2 (86.4, 85.6, 77.3, 76.8)
    
  • 4x to the Pioneer 2 (86.6, 84.7, 84.3, 81.6)
    
  • 1x to the Agena Target Vehicle (79.9)
    
  • 1x to Gemini EVA suits (77.0)
    
  • 4x to Gemini itself (92.0, 89.1, 89.1, 87.4)
    
  • Alternate between Gemini EVA and Agena, until the best available candidate is less than 75.
    
    • 1x Gemini EVA (77.0)
      
    • 2x Agena (79.9, 79.6)

  Obviously, if you didn't get the big budget boost and therefore didn't open Gemini, you won't be able to follow the above instructions. You should still un-assign and re-assign scientists, but with only two active programs (Titan 2 & Pioneer 2) you'll have lots of surplus researchers.
  
  The extra scientists should, of course, be assigned to training, with the following general guidelines:
  

  • If their primary skill < 90, assign them to improve their primary skill
    
  • Otherwise, start developing a new skill, either human rated rockets or manned spacecraft (looking for a ~50% split between the two).

  
  Note that you need no more than two (and, more likely, only one) researcher with a reasonably high (~75%) EVA score, and you need no more than 8 scientists with a high space probes score, both of which you likely have. If you don't, you should train appropriately.

• Assign remaining scientists to training to close the gaps in Gemini, based on their current best skill. In my case, that's:
  
  • 1x to EVA training
    
  • 1x to space probes training

  As long as you have at least one person assigned to the EVA and Agena, they will be ready in plenty of time (you'll have to launch 4xGemini missions before you could even /potentially/ need them). But as long as you have extra researchers (& nothing better for them to do), why not hurry matters up a bit? :)

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 78.3 (+3.5)
  
• Titan 2: 60.3 (+6.4)
  
• Gemini: 66.6 (+9.0)
  
• EVA: 33.9 (+13.2)
  
• Agena: 34.0 (+17.6)
  
• Launch unmanned orbital test (Mercury) (avg reliability 93.0, 75/-75 prestige)
  
  • Successful (0 glitches), Atlas +0.8, Mercury +1.0, Procedures +1.3, Network +4.3, Booster +0.3, Environmental +1.4, Systems +1.5
63 Q4
• Schedule a manned orbital (Mercury) (95.4 Booster, 95.8 Surgeon, 88.5 Capcom, 95.6 Retro, 78.7 FIDO, 73.9 GUIDO, 82.0 Environmental, 81.6 Procedures, 77.5 FD, 80.3 Systems, 69.2 Network, Astronaut 67.7 / 52.3 / 47.3 / 44.5 / 86.5)
  
• Upgrade Mission Control (again) [$1800, 2 seasons, $1300 / season] *** This obviously only applies if you did the first upgrade ***
  
• Upgrade Headquarters ($500 upfront, 2 seasons, $400 / season)
  

  You should do this upgrade whether you received the budget bonus or not -- it is inexpensive, and you'll be opening up a large number of unmanned programs fairly soon

• Pioneer 2: 81.1 (+2.8)
  
• Titan 2: 66.4 (+6.1)
  
• Gemini 2: 73.6 (+7.1)
  
• Gemini EVA: 46.6 (+12.6)
  
• Agena: 46.8 (+12.7)
  
• Launch manned orbital (Mercury) (avg reliability 94.0, 5450 / -2125 prestige)
  
  • Successful (1 glitch), Atlas +0.4, Mercury +1.1, Procedures +2.3, Network +3.9, Booster +0.2, Systems +2.0, Surgeon +0.2, Astronaut +1.7

• Assign mission controllers to training as follows:
  
  • 4x (4x assigned) sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign to train weakest skill
    

    Only identify and train 2 if you did not get the big budget bonus (no mission requires more than two flight directors).

    Try to avoid assigning your existing specialists to FD training -- use "surplus" (didn't work the last mission) controllers instead. This is easy this time around, as the ones that supported your last Mercury flight will have the skills that they exercised highlighted. In the second round of training, though, this won't work (the highlighted skills will be the ones you are sending them to training for this time), but it isn't hard to skip the ones with skills > 90%. :)
    
    This applies to all the specialties listed below as well -- it is possible that the controller with the second highest propulsion skill was assigned to work G&N on the previous flight. In this case, skip to the third / fourth / fifth and so forth.
    
    Assigning 4x flight controllers will probably consume all of your extra controllers (ones that haven't been working on Mercury flights) -- if so, the following list is irrelevant, because you'll assign everyone to improve their existing specialty. But in case you have extras... :)
    
    Note that this will end up training more flight controllers than is strictly required -- Gemini flight controller requirements are not (quite) a superset of the Mercury controllers, and the same is true of Apollo. If you want to dig into the details and work out which controllers can be safely "dual skilled" without the risk of impacting operations, feel free to do so, and let me know and I'll update the guide. As it is, following these recommendations will result in you having a few (2-3) flight controllers that aren't used often, if at all.

  • 1x [1x assigned] Propulsion
    
  • 3x [3x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 3x [3x assigned] Spacecraft Systems
    
  • 1x [1x assigned] Crew and Payload
    
  • 1x [1x assigned] Mission Operations
    

    Satisfies all Mercury flights

  • 1x [0x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 1x [0x assigned] Procedures
    

    Satisfies all "basic" Earth orbital Gemini flights, including the dual launch missions

  • 1x [0x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 2x [0x assigned] Crew and Payload
    

    Satisfies Apollo lunar landing flights

    If you reach the end of the list, but still have flight controllers to assign to training, go back to the beginning of the list and repeat. This group of controllers will be, eventually, your "B Team".

    You have probably realized that the existing single skill controllers are gaining almost nothing from their training. It is, of course, possible to assign them to develop a secondary skill -- but given the number of controllers that will be active the primary impact of this will be to make it more difficult to separate out controllers by specialty.
    
    The alternative is to simply not train them at all -- but doing so hurts morale, and forces you to remember to keep skipping them each time you assign controllers to training. Next time around this team (the "A" team) will be working an unmanned mission, which will keep most of the highest skilled individuals busy, mitigating this problem to some degree.

• Hire all available mission controllers with learning > 80 (x7, 310 / quarter)
  
• Hire all available scientists with learning > 80 (x7, 314 / quarter)
  
• Assign the 1 available astronaut to Leadership training, unless his skill is already > 90 -- in which case, assign him to Fitness training (1x -> Leadership)
  

  Arguably, you should upgrade the astronaut center once and target a total of 13 astronauts (enough for primary and backup 3 man crews, plus two capcoms) in order to support two simultaneous Apollo missions while being able to tolerate a single failure.
  
  I don't, because the odds of you ever needing to run dual Apollo missions is low enough that it isn't worth the hassle. Still, you have the money... :)

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 83.2 (+2.0)
  
• Titan 2: 71.7 (+5.3)
  
• Gemini: 78.3 (+4.6)
  
• Gemini EVA: 55.0 (+8.4)
  
• Agena: 57.6 (+10.8)

• Assign scientists...
  
  • To training in their specialty if < 90, but not rockets or space probes [2x -> Human-rated Rockets],
    
  • Assign to R&D Gemini programs that don't have the maximum number of researchers (if relevant skill is > 85) [0x]
    
  • Assign to replace existing scientists on full projects, if better than the existing staff [0x]
    
  • Assign to training to fill gaps in Gemini R&D [0x]
    
  • Assign to research in the following areas, trying to maintain an even balance:
    
    • Human-rated Rockets [0x]
      
    • Crewed Spacecraft [0x]
• Assign astronauts to continuous training:
  
  • [2x]In Fitness (target 85) if Fitness < 85.
    
  • [1x]In Piloting (target 85) if Piloting < 85.
    
  • In Leadership (target 85) if Leadership < 85
    
  • In EVA (target 75) if EVA < 75
    
  • In Science (target 75) if Science < 75
    
  • To improve their weakest skill, whatever they may be, by 50% (if the current weakest skill is 85, then the target should be 100-85 = 15 / 2 = 7.5)

  These targets will persists for the remainder of the game -- when I need to reassign astronauts to training, I'll reproduce this list, but due to the nature of "Continuous Training" it is likely that you'll have astronauts idle in quarters where I do not, so you'll need to keep track of it yourself.

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 85.1 (+1.9)
  
• Titan 2: 75.9 (+4.2)
  
• Gemini: 81.6 (+3.3)
  
• Gemini EVA: 61.9 (+6.9)
  
• Agena: 66.2 (+8.7)

• Assign flight controllers to training as follows, based on their best skill:
  

  This assumes that these are all new hires -- if, due to how advanced training schedules works out, you have experienced flight controllers in the mix, they should be assigned as outlined in the 64 Q1 training schedule.
  
  This also assumes that you have 4 flight director candidates identified and in training -- otherwise, identifying these candidates takes priority.

  • 1x [1x already in training] [1x assigned] Propulsion
    
  • 3x [3x already in training] [1x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 3x [3x already in training] Spacecraft Systems
    
  • 1x [1x already in training] Crew and Payload
    
  • 1x [1x already in training] Mission Operations
    

    Satisfies all Mercury flights

  • 1x [1x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 1x [1x assigned] Mission Operations
    

    Satisfies all "basic" Earth orbital Gemini flights, including the dual launch missions

  • 1x [1x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 2x [2x assigned] Crew and Payload
    

    Satisfies Apollo lunar landing flights

    If you reach the end of the list, but still have flight controllers to assign to training, go back to the beginning of the list and repeat. This group of controllers will be, eventually, your "B Team".

• Assign scientists to training as follows
  

  This assumes that these are all new hires -- if, due to how advanced training schedules works out, you have experienced scientists in the mix, they should be assigned as outlined in the 64 Q2 training schedule.

  • 4x [4x assigned] to Human-Rated Rockets
    
  • 4x [3x assigned] to Crewed Spacecraft
    
  • 4x to Space Probes
    
  • 4x to Rockets
    
  • Any remainder should be assigned to their best current skill that is less than 90.
    

    Everything beyond "4x Crewed Spacecraft" is "extra" -- it is highly unlikely that you'll ever use them for anything. But if the funds are there...

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 86.1 (+1.1)
  
• Titan 2: 79.1 (+3.2)
  
• Gemini: 84.4 (+2.8)
  
• Gemini EVA: 67.8 (+5.9)
  
• Agena: 72.5 (+6.3)

• Assign astronauts to continuous training:
  
  • [1x]In Fitness (target 85) if Fitness < 85.
    
  • [0x]In Piloting (target 85) if Piloting < 85.
    
  • [1x]In Leadership (target 85) if Leadership < 85
    
  • In EVA (target 75) if EVA < 75
    
  • In Science (target 75) if Science < 75
    
  • To improve their weakest skill, whatever they may be, by 50% (if the current weakest skill is 85, then the target should be 100-85 = 15 / 2 = 7.5)
• Assign mission controllers to training as follows:
  
  • 4x (4x assigned) sort mission control by average skill (last button), assign to train weakest skill
    

    Only 2 for the small budget

  • 1x [1x assigned] Propulsion
    
  • 3x [3x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 3x [3x assigned] Spacecraft Systems
    
  • 1x [1x assigned] Crew and Payload
    
  • 1x [1x assigned] Mission Operations
    

    Satisfies all Mercury flights

  • 1x [0x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 1x [0x assigned] Procedures
    

    Satisfies all "basic" Earth orbital Gemini flights, including the dual launch missions

  • 1x [0x assigned] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • 2x [0x assigned] Crew and Payload
    

    Satisfies Apollo lunar landing flights

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 87.0 (+0.8)
  
• Titan 2: 81.5 (+2.4)
  
• Gemini: 86.2 (+1.8)
  
• Gemini EVA: 71.8 (+4.0)
  
• Agena: 77.0 (+4.5)

• Status: $58,154.5 on hand, $10,691.0 / quarter
  
• Upgrade VAB (3500 upfront, 3 seasons, 1300 / quarter)
  
• Unassigned all researchers and assign researchers with skill > 75 as follows:
  
  • 4x to Titan 2 (88.1, 87.4, 83.5, 79.1)
    
  • 1x to the Agena Target Vehicle (88.3)
    
  • 1x to Gemini EVA suits (79.0)
    
  • 4x to Gemini itself (93.9, 90.8, 90.8, 89.2)
    
  • 4x to the Pioneer 2 (86.6, 86.0, 83.3, 81.7)
    
  • Alternate between Gemini EVA and Agena, until the best available candidate is less than 75.
    
    • 1x Gemini EVA (79.0)
      
    • 2x Agena (88.3, 81.2)
• Leave any remaining [5x] scientists idle
  

  This is simply to consolidate the training schedule for the scientists, so that you only have to worry about them once every three quarters.

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 87.6 (0.6)
  
• Titan 2: 83.5 (2.0)
  
• Gemini: 87.6 (1.4)
  
• Gemini EVA: 73.9 (2.1)
  
• Agena: 79.9 (2.9)

• [R&D +23.2 for next 3 seasons]
  
• Unassigned all researchers and assign researchers with skill > 75 as follows:
  
  • 4x to Titan 2 (88.4, 88.7, 83.9, 79.3)
    
  • 4x to the Agena Target Vehicle (88.5, 86.9, 86.3, 83.6)
    
  • 1x to Gemini EVA suits (79.3)
    
  • 4x to Gemini itself (94.1, 91.2, 91.2, 89.6)
    
  • Up to 3x [0x] to Gemini EVA (79.3)
    
  • Up to 4x [2x] to the Pioneer 2 (82.1, 81.5)
• Assign all scientists to training in their best current skill, ignoring EVA -- for me, this results in:
  
  • [3x] Rockets
    
  • [5x] Human-rated Rockets
    
  • [1x] Space Probes
    
  • [3x] Crewed Spacecraft
• Leave mission controllers [x7] idle
  

  To consolidate training schedules.

• Done!
  
• Pioneer 2: 87.9 (0.3)
  
• Titan 2: 85.3 (1.8)
  
• Gemini: 88.7 (1.1)
  
• Gemini EVA: 75.2 (1.3)
  
• Agena: 83.2 (+3.3)

• Schedule launch of Pioneer 2 (Booster 97.2, Spacecraft Systems 94.2, Navigation 97.3, Experiments 97.1, Flight Director 82.8)
  
• Schedule launch of Orbital Flight, Duration II (Mercury) (Booster 67.4, Surgeon 74.2, Capcom 42.6, Retro 82.7, FIDO 72.3, GUIDO 69.3, Environmental 93.7, Procedures 94.2, Flight 67.2, Systems 87.7, Network 57.0, Astronaut 40.2 / 87.8 / 55.0 / 33.3 / 86.6)
  
• Open Surveyor (lunar probes) program
  
• Clear all scientists assigned to Agena and Pioneer 2 and reassign as follows
  
• Up to 4x [4x assigned] to Surveyor
  
• Up to 4x [2x assigned] to Agena
  
• Up to 4x [0x assigned] to ]Pioneer 2
  
• Leave remaining [x5] controllers idle
  
• Done!
  
• Titan II: 86.7 (+1.4)
  
• Gemini: 89.6 (+0.9)
  
• Gemini EVA: 76.8 (+1.7)
  
• Agena: 84.9 (+1.7)
  
• Surveyor: 59.9 (+7.3)
  
• Launch Pioneer 2 (avg reliability: 89.0, 2850 / -488 prestige)
  
  • Success (1 glitch) Atlas/C +1.4, +1.4, Booster +0.1, Spacecraft Systems 0.4, Experiments +0.1
• Launch Orbital Flight, Duration II (Mercury) (avg reliablity: 95.0, 2000 / -2250 prestige)
  
  • Success (1 glitch)Atlas +0.3, Mercury +0.7, Procedures 0.4, Network +3.4, Booster 2.3, Systems 0.9, Surgeon 3.3, Astronaut +7.4

The Pioneer 2 program should be closed here -- I simply forgot to do so. I end up doing it in 66 Q1.

On the other hand, I'm leaving the Mercury and Atlas programs open deliberately -- given the limited flight controllers, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to fit in a join manned mission before budget review

• Ensure that you have a total of 3 astronauts available, pulling the most qualified from training if need be.
  
• Schedule a Gemini unmanned suborbital flight, but do not assign flight controllers yet (say "Assemble Later" when prompted).
  
• Schedule a Gemini manned suboribtal flight, but do not assign flight controllers yet (say "Assemble Later" when prompted).
  
• Go to the VAB and assemble the Gemini manned suborbital (Booster 97.3, Retro 97.4, FIDO 84.8, GUIDO 74.3, Surgeon 97.2, EECOM 94.6, CAPCOM 69.4, Network 94.1, Procedures 94.6, FAO 76.9, AFD 67.5, FD 83.1, Commander 56.4 / 48.6 / 59.0 / 48.5 / Fitness 86.3, Pilot 48.5 / 89.2 / 34.8 / 53.4 / 90.4)
  
• In the VAB, assemble the Gemini unmanned suborbital (Booster 69.6, Retro 68.1, FIDO 55.9, GUIDO 49.8, EECOM 88.6, Network 55.0, Procedures 39.1, AFD 54.6, FD 60.0)
  

  The purpose of doing it this way is to ensure that the unmanned suborbital launches first, but that the best flight controllers are on the manned (2nd) flight. If something goes wrong with the first, you'll have the option to cancel the second flight, although I won't be exercising that option.
  
  Note that if the first flight is successful, there will be no milestone penalty assessed on the second flight

• Done!
  
• Titan: 87.7 (+1.1)
  
• Gemini: 90.2 (+0.6)
  
• Gemini EVA: 78.1 (+1.3)
  
• Agena: 86.3 (+1.3)
  
• Surveyor: 65.4 (+6.4)
  
• Launch unmanned suborbital flight (Gemini) (avg reliability 88.0, +340 / -100 prestige)
  
  • Success (0 glitches) Titan 2 +3.4, Gemini +2.8, Procedures +3.6, Network +5.5, Booster 1.9, EECOM 1.1
• Launch manned suborbital flight (Gemini) (avg reliability 92.0, +3450 / -3750 prestige)
  
  • Success (1 glitch) Titan II +2.2, Gemini +1.1, Procedures +0.2, Network +0.5, Booster +0.1, EECOM +0.4, Surgeon +0.1

• Close the Pioneer 2 program
  
• Open the Saturn V program ($12,500 to open, xxx / season) and assign x4 scientists to research it (89.3, 88.7, 88.4, 87.8)
  

  In version 1.0, the Saturn C3-B booster and the Saturn 1B booster are identical in all respects -- I suspect this is a bug.
  
  In any case, I moved directly to the Saturn V program -- far more expensive (both per season and per launch) and harder to research, but I have plenty of time to research it before Apollo is ready to go, and I have the budget to burn.
  
  If you didn't get the big budget bonus, you should obviously go for the Saturn 1B (when you can afford it, which won't be until after the next budget review).

• Ensure that 3 astronauts are available, pulling the most qualified from training if required.
  
• Schedule a Gemini unmanned orbital flight, but don't assemble it yet
  
• Schedule a Gemini manned orbital flight, but don't assemble it yet
  
• In the VAB, assemble the Gemini manned orbital flight (Booster 97.4, Retro 97.5, FIDO 85.9, GUIDO 76.6, Surgeon 97.3, EECOM 95.0, CAPCOM 72.2, Network 94.6, Procedures 94.9, FAO 78.1, AFD 68.3, FD 83.3, Commander 70.3 / 85.1 / 40.5 / 46.5 / 87.0, Pilot 47.6 / 88.7 / 60.4 / 40.7 / Fitness 88.5)
  
• In the VAB, assemble the Gemini unmanned orbital flight (Booster 71.6, Retro 70.6, FIDO 61.5, GUIDO 55.7, EECOM 89.7, Network 60.5, Procedures 42.7, AFD 55.3, Flight 60.8)
  
• Done!
  
• Gemini EVA: 79.3 (+1.1)
  
• Agena: 87.2 (+0.9)
  
• Surveyor: 70.2 (+4.8)
  
• Saturn V: 33.0 (+6.7)
  
• Launch unmanned orbital test (Gemini) (avg reliability 93.0, +450 / - 125 prestige)
  
  • Failed (during launch preparations) Titan II -1.9, Gemini -0.9, Procedures +6.2, Network +2.4, Booster +3.3, EECOM +1.1
    

    This totally failed to surprise me -- the B team, in a word, "sucks"... :( The chance to resolve the glitch was all of 55 %, and to my total lack of surprise procedures was involved in its (attempted) resolution.
    
    The wise course at this point would be to cancel the follow up mission and retry the pair next turn, but... I'm confident that my "A Team" can handle the milestone penalty and keep the program on track. Sure hope I'm right.
    
    The technical term for this behavior is "Go-Fever", if you didn't already know. :)

• Launch manned orbital test (Gemini) (avg reliability 87.0 [includes milestone penalty], +3350 / 3875)
  
  • Success Titan II +2.0, Gemini +1.1, Surgeon +0.1, Procedures +0.4, Network +0.3, Booster +0.1, EECOM +0.3, Commander +2.5, Pilot +4.2

• Schedule a Joint launch (Mercury) but don't assemble it yet.
  

  I used Titan 2 as the launch vehicle for both portions -- R&D on the Atlas does me zero good at this point, so by using the Titan 2 I pick up some reliability points.

• Schedule a Surveyor launch, but don't assemble it yet.
  

  This is a somewhat dubious decision. I'll have my "A Team" on this mission, which helps, but the reliability of the Surveyor probe is bad (70.2). I'd rather fly a Gemini docking mission this turn, but I don't (and will never have) enough controllers to do this -- need 21, and only have 20.
  
  I expect this to fail, and if it does I'm not too concerned.

• In the VAB, assemble the Surveyor launch (Booster 97.4, Spacecraft Systems 95.3, Navigation 97.5, Experiments 97.3, FD 83.5) -5688.0
  
• In the VAB, assemble the Joint launch (Booster 74.9, Surgeon 77.5, Capcom 92.3, Retro 86.9, FIDO 79.3, GUIDO 73.0, Environmental 94.9, Procedures 95.2, Flight 69.1, Systems 90.8, Network 62.9, Astronaut A 74.1 / 83.5 / 55.8 / 48.7 / 88.6, Astronaut B 59.2 / 53.1 / 63.8 / 52.7 / 88.4) -10,174
  
• Done!
  
• Open the Mariner 5 Venus Flyby program (2530 upfront, 253 / quarter) and assign 4x scientists to research (73.7, 72.4, 72.2, 72.0)
  

  This probably should have been opened last quarter, but I got fixated on trying to open Apollo, and didn't realize that I had a number of scientists with good space probe skills idle.
  
  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to open Apollo next quarter, which is why I'm not opening the Mariner 6 (Mars Flyby) yet -- Apollo should consume most, if not all, of my idle scientists, and "don't open a program if you can't research it" still applies.

• Done!
  
• Gemini EVA: 80.3 (+1.0)
  
• Agena: 87.9 (+0.7)
  
• Surveyor: 74.1 (+3.9)
  
• Saturn V: 39.6 (+6.6)
  
• Mariner 5: 59.0 (+10.2)
  
• Launch the "Join Launch and Orbital Flight" (Mercury) mission (avg reliability 94.0, prestige +2375 / -2375)
  
  • Catastrophic failure (on the "Joint Orbital Flight" step, so both astronauts died), Titan II +1.6, Mercury -0.6, Procedures +0.3, Network +4.8, Booster +2.6, Environmental +0.3, Systems +0.7
    

    Um, not what I expected at all. And because I didn't run this mission in interactive mode, I can't even tell what my chance was to resolve the issue. I can see that "Environmental", "FIDO", "GUIDO", "Network", "Procedures", and "Systems" were involved in the troubleshooting and network was / is pretty bad (62.9), so that's who I'm going to blame. :)

• Launch the Surveyor (Lunar Lander) mission (avg reliability 83.0 [hah!], prestige +4900 / -1050)
  
  • Successful (0 glitches)Atlas-C +1.5, Surveyor +5.7, Booster +0.1, Spacecraft Systems +0.2, Experiments +0.1
    

    No comment... *mutter**mutter**bleeping random number generator*

• Hire astronauts to bring us back to the maximum -- x2 in my case. (64 / season)
  
• Schedule a Gemini Docking mission and assemble it (Booster 97.5, Retro 97.5, FIDO, 87.8, GUIDO 80.8, Surgeon 97.4, EECOM 95.5, CAPCOM 93.0, Network 95.2, Agena I 75.8, Agena II 91.5, Procedures 95.5, FAO 80.4, AFD 69.5, FD 83.7, Commander 72.8 / 86.0 / 46.5 / 51.7 / 89.1, Pilot 54.9 / 90.1 / 41.8 / 61.9 / 91.3) - 12,904
  

  This comes with a helpful 7.5% milestone penalty to boot -- for a missing rendezvous, of course...
  
  In my book, this is a bug -- NASA intended to do this mission before the Gemini 6/7[en.wikipedia.org] rendezvous mission, and, in fact, never planned to do the Gemini 6/7 mission at all. The only reason that the mission was flown was because the Gemini 6 Agena target vehicle malfunctioned and NASA was looking for a mission to fill the gap that would otherwise be created in the Gemini program.

• Close the Surveyor program
  
• Close the Atlas program
  
• Close the Mercury program
  

  No, thank you, I'm not going to re-run the failed mission.

• Open the Mariner 6 program (2530 upfront / 253 per quarter) and assign 4x scientists to it (90.0, 88.3, 87.8, 85.1)
  

  I give up -- it is clear that I'm not going to be able to open the Apollo program before the budget review (need 40k, and I'm down to 9.5k / turn). Opening up the Saturn V program doesn't seem like all that great of an idea now, does it?

• Send all idle flight controllers to training, to whatever skill they used on the last mission that they participated in. In my case, that is:
  • [1x] FD (->Propulsion)
    
  • [1x] Propulsion
    
  • [3x] Trajectory & GNC
    
  • [1x] Spacecraft Systems
    
  • [1x] Crew and Payloads
    
  • [0x] Mission Operations
    

    I won't be able to run another dual mission until I have an unmanned program ready to go, so might as well get some training in while I can. :)

  • Don't assign astronauts to training unless you have more than 2x idle.
    
  • Done!
    
  • Gemini EVA: 81.0 (+0.7)
    
  • Agena: 88.5 (+0.6)
    
  • Saturn V: 45.4 (+5.8)
    
  • Mariner 5: 67.2 (+8.2)
    
  • Mariner 6: 71.9 (+8.9)
    
  • Launch Docking (Gemini) mission (avg reliablity 90.0 [includes milestone penalty], +9250 / -4250 prestige)
    
    • Successful (0 glitches)Titan 2 +0.6, Agena +3.3, Gemini +1.1, Surgeon +0.1, Procedures +0.2, Network +0.2, Booster +0.0, EECOM +0.3

• Schedule an EVA and Docking, Duration Level II mission (Gemini) and assemble it (Booster 97.6, Retro 97.6, FIDO 88.9, GUIDO 82.6, Surgeon 97.5, EECOM 95.8, CAPCOM 93.4, Network 95.4, Agena I 78.8, Agena II 92.2, Procedures 95.7, FAO 82.6, AFD 69.9, FD 84.1 Commander 37.5 / 48.5 / 43.7 / 46.7 / 90.1, Pilot 51.9 / 89.8 / 62.7 / 45.0 / 89.4) -14,367
  

  I overrode the default astronaut assignments -- if the game is properly implemented, the Pilot should be the only one whose skill is checked for the EVA portion. On the other hand, the Commander should be the only one involved in the docking (v. Piloting), so it is something of a wash.
  
  The docking is purely for Mission Control / astronaut training purposes -- in BASPM, there is no reason to do multiple docking missions (in BARIS, you had to complete 3 or suffer a penalty on all docking steps during the lunar mission).
  
  If the mission existed, I would run this as a duration III mission (accepting the milestone penalty) -- but there no such mission, so I might as well run this one (with no milestone penalty), followed by a Duration III mission after the budget review. That means that I failed to achieve the goal of completing the Gemini program, much less the Venus / Mars flybys -- the root cause being the 6 season long stand-down for training.
  
  I'm going to make the prestige goal for the big budget increase with lots of room to spare -- I currently have 43,242 prestige, and I only need 35000 prestige (for +$35,000 in funds).

• Open the Mariner 9 (Mars orbiter) mission (3395 upfront, 340 / season) and assign 4x scientists to research it (83.7, 83.1, 64.7, 63.6)
  

  I wasn't planning on running this mission at all, but I have surplus mission controllers, scientists, and funds. This will be ultra low priority, though, compared to Apollo. The problem is that this is a 3 season mission, although it is eventually worth 7800 prestige it is hard to justify taking mission controllers out of rotation for that long.
  
  This is another mission that requires the Atlas/C, by the way.

• Done!
  
• Gemini EVA: 81.9 (+0.9)
  
• Saturn V: 49.7 (+4.3)
  
• Mariner 5: 73.4 (+6.2)
  
• Mariner 6: 77.6 (+5.8)
  
• Mariner 9: 69.0 (+6.0)
  
• Launch EVA and Docking, Duration II (Gemini) mission (avg reliability 92.0, +7625 / -5375)
  
  • Catastrophic Failure (2 glitches, failed on the EVA) Titan II +0.8, Agena -0.5, Gemini -0.3, Agena -0.5, Gemini EVA -5.7, Surgeon +0.0, Procedures +0.3, Network +0.3, Booster +0.0, EECOM +0.3
    

    Another V1.0 bug rears its ugly head: No, not the failure itself -- although it strains credibility, the RNG is cruel mistress, and things like this happen -- but the consequences of that failure:
    

    • The Agena docking target wasn't involved, at all, in the step that failed (EVA). Not only should its reliability not have gone down, it should have gone up, as it performed perfectly fine up until the point that the mission was aborted.
      
    • I can't imagine a failure mode on an EVA that results in both astronauts dying. The correct result from this failure should have been that the Pilot died, but the Commander survived.

    
    In any case.... Well, guess it is time to stand down while training up astronauts... :( The good news is that the USSR is so far behind it isn't funny. Even with the stand-down, I may land on the moon by 1970, although it seems unlikely without skipping a number of Apollo missions.
    
    If you are wondering, it looks like FAO, GUIDO, or FIDO are to blame for the accident -- why any of them were involved in an EVA step I'm not quite certain, but they are the ones with the lowest skill that were involved in the EVA step.

[/list]