Good old Community Tech Tree is the way to go. Almost all of the big part packs add all of their stuff to the CTT automatically. And it also straightens a few things out, and gives you more to work on. With Space Stations it is so easy to max out the regular tech tree. This is much better! And since this is much more fun to do then actual work, here is a quick write up on my favorite mod picks:
A list of mostly sane Kerbal Mods that work well together, don’t take forever to load and don’t add a ton of garbage you don’t need:
QOL Must Have mods
- Kerbal Engineering Redux - Reveals important statistics about your ship and its orbit during building and flight
- Kerbal Alarm Clock
- Mechjeb 2 - After your 67th satellite launch, I feel like Kerbals have learned to automate this by now, so why can’t you? Mechjeb does just that. Makes things like Taking off, landing, orbiting, hitting a specific orbit all automatic.
- Precise Maneuver - When aiming for a planet that is 3 Kerbin years away, you need to get that vector node as perfect as possible….
- Trajectories - So helpful in seeing how the next few orbits pan out or where you will actually wind up once you quit thrusting.
- Transfer Window Planner - Lets you find the perfect time to launch for Duna, or any other planet and integrates with Alarm Clock
- [x] Science! - Tracks and lets you know which biomes you still need to do your experiments in.
- Better Burn Time - A more accurate countdown timer to match your node with when to fire rockets
Graphics Updates (If any gropu of mods is going to make stuff crash. it is this one. You can leave them off =)
- Engine Lighting
- Environment Visual Enhancements’
- Stock Visual Enhancements
- PlanetShine
- Real Plume
- Scatterer
- Smoke Screen
- Texture replacer - I mainly use this to give my Kerbals new skins and new suits.
Flavor Mods
- Final Frontier - Awesome little mod that gives ribbons and medals to your Kerbals as they perform various feats!
- Hullcam VDS - Put cameras all over your ship that you can record video from, show on cockpit monitors, etc.
- Indicator lights
- Kerbal Stats - Keeps track of extra stats on all of your Kerbals. Used with some other mods as well.
- Alternate Resource panel - A better visual representation of how much fuel/air/food you have left in your rocket.
Gameplay Mods
- Extraplanetary Launchpads - You can construct this on other planets and make rockets… ON OTHER PLANETS =)
- KAS/KIS - Adds a lot of fidgetability to KSP. I don’t use it a ton, but it’s fun to put your Kerbals to work on the surface once in awhile, and very handy on engineering mishaps!
- Raster Prop Monitor - Add working monitors, gadgets and computers in your cockpit. With this you can literally fly a rocket from inside the capsule.
- SCANsat - adds satellite scanners that are so much cooler than the builtin ones!
- Snacks - My current life support system of choice. It’s less fidgety than some of the others,and the snacks/mulch concept works for me.
- Surface experiments pack - Add surface experiments that your Kerbals assemble once landed. (needs KIS/KAS)
- Strategia - Makes the admin building useful for once!
- Waypoint Manager - Allows you to create your own custom waypoints in flight.
- CapCom - Mission control on the go! Manage your missions from any screen.
- Community Tech Tree - Install this and all your parts mods will place their parts in the correct places. All the listed parts mod work into the Community Resource Pack perfectly.
- Deep Freeze - Put your Kerbals on ice for those long hauls! Adds cute little cryogen tubes for your Kerbals in space! Cheaper than hauling literally tons of snacks to
- Contract Packs - The more the merrier! I like Stations, historic missions and tourist packs myself.
More Parts!
- Fuel Tanks Plus - Adds fueled nose cones, longer fuel tanks,etc that all match with the built in fuel tanks
- Kerbal Planetary Base Systems - This is a space station part mod. Adds very cool looking space station parts to play with. Some people may prefer Roverdude’s MKS system over this, but this is the one I’m using atm.
- Malemute Rover - Everyone needs at least one Rover mod, right?
- Near Future mod packs from Nertea - Includes packs with Electrical, IVA Props, Solar Arrays, Propulsion, like 8 mod packs in total. I chose this instead of a dozen other mod part packs because they are all written by the same guy, and tend to work together well. Really my only rocket parts mod I add besides the fuel tanks.
There are some popular mods that are not on my list and that is usually because either (I used them before and am trying something new (Roverdude parts) or they tend to make things unstable ( FARAM)
And this is what bad mod addiction can look like over time… But I swear it is such a blast to play like this =)
Ckan File for anyone who wants to bold go and all that, Here is my ckan import file.