Maneuver nodes are immensely helpful. I had only managed to intercept Eve once in 0.17, which involved about a ten year chase on an orbit slightly inside Eve's, and the rest of the planets (save the Mun and Minmus) not at all. Playing around in the wee hours of the morning, after the 0.18 release, my first interplanetary rocket got to Duna, orbited Ike a few times and then returned to Kerbin, with a final gravity assist from Ike on the way out. The only reason I didn't touch down on either body was because the ship was designed to land on Minmus, where it would be light enough to land on the engine without knocking it off.
Upon return, I dropped the command capsule 30km west of the space center, upon completion of the nearly one-year mission. With the capsule that close to base, I decided to make a rescue rover, using one of the probe modules and the large shuttle cockpit. The pilots are now sitting comfortably outside the VAB, where they can watch further launches from a safe distance or join further missions, if I make some obnoxiously huge, multi-capsule vessel.
Methinks an orbital fuel depot is in order, so that subsequent interplanetary missions don't require the same massive, unwieldy rockets, unless I just happen to feel like derping around with a giant bomb that might happen to fly.
