AstroBovice

Today I put a station around Minmus for a contract. Likely going to send this same setup to Duna and Eve soon and start farming some science!

A few months ago, I went to Duna for the first time. Ares I and Ares II left about a month apart and arrived at the red planet about 10 days apart. Ares I, a ground sample retrieval and return mission with a small one person lander. Bold for the first interplanetary mission, but KSC decided if we were going, we were going to get our money's worth. Ares II was a much bigger lander, with the main objective of the mission being getting a science lab on the surface. The Ares II crew were going to be the loneliest Kerbals in the solar system until Ares IV came to rescue them 2 years later. They did get a rover in the mail a few months later to ease the boredom, though. Ares III went on the next transfer window and was a similar mission to Ares II with the only difference being this lander would return to orbit for rendezvous with the rescue ship. Album of Ares I & II: http://imgur.com/a/91j3l Which brings me to today! Got back in the game after a lull and decided to rescue my Kerbals and finish off this mission. I built a big transport ship with a smaller return ship that I named the Odin spacecraft. Two pieces assembled in orbit, a habitation and utility module (w/ 2 simple satellites in payload bays,) and a thrust module with 4 nukes and lots of fuel. Here is a photo with the payload bay open showing the satellite. Lander docked to the front. The mission of Ares IV : rendezvous with Ares III in orbit, retrieve Ares II crew with rescue lander, orbit Ike, come home! Also, put one satellite in orbit around Duna and Ike. Wish there was more excitement, but Ares IV was a complete success! The ship had plenty of extra fuel, got into a good orbit, and Ares III rendezvoused without a hitch. Sent the rescue lander down and landed it about 20 km away from the Ares II. A short rover trip later, and after 4+ long years away from Kerbin, the crew made contact with another Kerbal. Though their social skills were a little rusty... Both landers docked to the Odin spacecraft. Relieved crew included Quick Ike visit to drop the payload and then back home! Back home docked to Cascadia Station. Transport home soon! Thanks for reading Full album: http://imgur.com/a/MgTtl

A few months ago, I went to Duna for the first time. Ares I and Ares II left about a month apart and arrived at the red planet about 10 days apart. Ares I, a ground sample retrieval and return mission with a small one person lander. Bold for the first interplanetary mission, but KSC decided if we were going, we were going to get our money's worth. Ares II was a much bigger lander, with the main objective of the mission being getting a science lab on the surface. The Ares II crew were going to be the loneliest Kerbals in the solar system until Ares IV came to rescue them 2 years later. They did get a rover in the mail a few months later to ease the boredom, though. Ares III went on the next transfer window and was a similar mission to Ares II with the only difference being this lander would return to orbit for rendezvous with the rescue ship. Album of Ares I & II: http://imgur.com/a/91j3l Which brings me to today! Got back in the game after a lull and decided to rescue my Kerbals and finish off this mission. I built a big transport ship with a smaller return ship that I named the Odin spacecraft. Two pieces assembled in orbit, a habitation and utility module (w/ 2 simple satellites in payload bays,) and a thrust module with 4 nukes and lots of fuel. Here is a photo with the payload bay open showing the satellite. Lander docked to the front. The mission of Ares IV : rendezvous with Ares III in orbit, retrieve Ares II crew with rescue lander, orbit Ike, come home! Also, put one satellite in orbit around Duna and Ike. Wish there was more excitement, but Ares IV was a complete success! The ship had plenty of extra fuel, got into a good orbit, and Ares III rendezvoused without a hitch. Sent the rescue lander down and landed it about 20 km away from the Ares II. A short rover trip later, and after 4+ long years away from Kerbin, the crew made contact with another Kerbal. Though their social skills were a little rusty... Both landers docked to the Odin spacecraft. Relieved crew included Quick Ike visit to drop the payload and then back home! Back home docked to Cascadia Station. Transport home soon! Thanks for reading Full album: http://imgur.com/a/MgTtl

I would like to do the same, im modded up at the moment! How do I keep my game on this version? Thanks!

I went back to Duna for a rescue mission/ mass science grab. Will update soon. Sleep time.

My ode to Space X. The Raven Heavy w/ Recoverable Boosters. Heaviest payload to date is 53.7 tons

Ares II, the second mission to Duna was meant to be a stand alone science lab, so I intended on leaving it there. Unfortunately I grossly underestimated the amount of power it would take to transmit the data back. So now I have a lander with 500 science but not enough power/ power generation to sent it back to Kerbin. Of course couldn't leave my crew of scientists there, so (before I got KAS) I sent a modified Crater Crawler, landed it 50 km away (woo!) and picked up the crew to be taken home by another mission soon. Eventually I will retrieve the science, but it will be a for-fun mission in the future. As for now, Ares II Lander remains abandoned.

Just recently built the Shenron II Space Station! 7 launches to date, all the pieces named after Z-Fighters for example, the second to last flight was the Bulma Science Lab, shown with Inflatable habitat deflated. Pretty proud of this, although after putting the screenshots together i realized the...uh...Kerbals missed a docking port on one of the multi-port structures, how embarrassing! The plan now is to put abbreviated versions of these into orbit around the Moons of Kerbin,or at least Minmus and then to Ike and Eve. May put another level on the end with the multi-port, but for now the plan was just to have the main docking station away from the solar panels. Felt like putting this post up because I recently de-orbited my first station, Shenron I, and it was one of those moments that made me realize how far I've come with this game and how rewarding it can be. Thanks for reading! Shenron I: Shenron II:

Yea, done a bunch more research on this and pretty confident there is no un-modded way around this. This is what I ended up going with, thanks! For anyone interested, it saves a point in time when you stage and the "main mission" keeps going. When I get my main ship in orbit I time warp back to the separation and land the boosters, then I click "return to main mission" and I return to my ship in orbit and the boosters are in the water. Cool mod, and I had a ton of fun making recoverable boosters. Saves me about 60k a launch for the ship seen in video Thanks for the replies,all. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem!

Built a new space station, no name yet. 4 launches so far: habitation module w/ cupola, hab module w/ multi port, hab module w/ communications system, and both solar arrays went up on one rocket. Next up is science lab on the docking port facing down in the picture. Also, recovered almost 200k in boosters from these launches! *edit* added science lab with blow up habitat attached

Went from to Looks like ill either have to design it for them to drop off earlier or way later. They are dropping at about 16-17 km altitude with a apoapsis of ~35k on the rocket. I put a probe core on and still destroyed after a certain distance away. Unless I'm missing something, doesn't appear to be a way around it.

So its recognizes them as probes, but still are destroyed. Did a little more research and apparently anything that gets 20km away from your ship is destroyed, so looks I just need to do some redesign. Definitely changes a lot. but i've got the main concept of what I want to do and now know how to approach this next time. Again, really appreciate the responses! Cheers!

That sound awesome though! I just picture a hundred satellites lined up, moving in unison haha. Well as seen in the video, they stay pretty close to each other on the way down, maybe its just needing them to be on the screen. Its 100% automated so thought would be sweet to see all the boosters floating around after a series of launches. This sounds like a fun challenge to tackle though, i really appreciate the responses! will that make the game recognize it as non debris and not destroy it?

Thanks, I figured it was as simple as just needing be in command.. Yes, it is a mod as I stated in the post called Smart Parts I believe. They are set to deploy at 1000m above the ground, with the altitude decreasing. Guess it will just be a little more work, but it does save a lot of money. It is interesting tho because its twin boosters, and when i control one, the other works fine.

Hello all, I recently designed a ship with recoverable 1st stage liquid boosters, but im having trouble with one thing. During testing for these I would send an unmanned ship in Sandbox mode, and I would focus on one of the boosters after decoupling to make sure it was doing what I wanted. So I did this about 10 times, had 10 sets of boosters landed in the water and I felt like I was ready to take this into my career mode to start building my new space station. Now to the problem, when I dont focus on the boosters, they disappear. They decouple, I can see the AIRBRAKES deploy, and then i follow them on the map and they just disappear. And during a career mode test flight, I followed a booster to splashdown and everything worked perfectly. Im using the Smart Parts mod that allows me to put triggers for actions groups. AIRBRAKES are set to deploy at 500 m/s decreasing speed, and they usually pop right when they decouple, no problem with that. Parachutes are set to deploy on 1000m with altitude decreasing. Just seems like I have to have them on the screen for the action groups to work, which makes this whole thing pointless. Anything I can do about this or anything I am missing? Will attach a video of a successful recovery. Thanks!