MaverickSawyer

I have a bad feeling about this... Sorry, couldn't Resistance... Okay, I'll stop now. On a more on-topic note... launched the second vehicle to my Minmus station... Gotta love BDB. Also, tested a tilt-rotor design made of Airplanes Plus parts in an attempt to meet the requirements for the Kerbal Express Airlines "Hopper" class... Those darn KT-6 tilt rotors are horribly inefficient AND cannot get above 130 m/s to save their lives. There is NO way I can use them in a viable entry into that class... I lack both the speed and the range to meet required performance figures.

If you need help with the mirroring, talk to blackheart612, who made and continues to add to the Airplanes Plus! pack, which makes heavy use of that feature.

It's the fact that the manner in which you made them that is demanding and aggressive, rather than "hey, any chance you could add X, Y, and/or Z to the pack down the road?" Please keep in mind that Cobalt (and all the other mod makers, for that matter) are making these fantastic packs free of charge, which means that they owe us nothing. It doesn't take much to make them feel unwanted, and then there's no more new parts. I'm sure that all the old-timers around here can name multiple examples of this. You've not been around nearly as long, so I'll let the attitude slide this time. Also, nothing says you have to use the pack as-is. One of the best aspects of KSP is just how easy it is to mod things... Just open the .cfg file in Notepad and start tinkering to your heart's content. If you don't like the fuel mix used by an engine, nothing is stopping you from changing it.

Uhm... Wow. That's needlessly harsh, dude.

Not much to report... Successfully inserted the Minmus mapper into orbit, and it's now doing its thing from 760 km above datum. Launched a space station to Minmus. Successfully inserted it into orbit. Brought home the Soyuz that had been docked to the Salyut aft port following the deorbit of the Progress yesterday. Another 1-star crew, ready for action! Launched TKS-ER-1 to Minmus on a somewhat hotter trajectory than my unmanned missions... ~3.5 days rather than the usual 8.5. Val, Maucal, and Stelgun Kerman aren't arguing about the speed of the flight, though... They're quite looking forward to gathering some minty science over the next few weeks.

Aaaand field test of the MH suits with the helmet lights is... less promising. They're kinda clipping through the helmet.

I'm thinking more of something that I can toggle as I cross the terminator, though.

Damn. Right as my test on secondary control surfaces and helicopter aerodynamics begins. Yes, you read that right. That isn't the weirdest combination of topics I've faced in the last two years.

If you have the Jumbo 64 tank and Skipper unlocked, you can get pretty much ANYTHING to orbit. Think "Delta IV Heavy", and you're on the right track. Also, HIGHLY recommend using CorrectCOL and RCSBuildAid. They make designing anything much easier.

Can also confirm it works properly in 1.6.1... I'll be testing the helmet interior lights on the MH suits tomorrow. Any chance of getting a tinted helmet visor, instead of just the sunglasses? Don't get me wrong, the shades are awesome (Bill certainly loves 'em), but it just feels a little... off... when doing orbital EVA while wearing sunglasses.

Couple of noteworthy goings-on today... First, after 81 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes, and 7 seconds... Explorer 1's mission came to a glorious, fiery end at an altitude of 44,250 meters. This was the FIRST orbital launch I made in this save, and it went out to Minmus's orbit. Huzzah for BDB solid motors and compact solar batteries! Moments before destruction... Explorer 1 wound up making three complete orbits uninterrupted before performing a bank shot off Minmus about 60ish days in. Minmus proceeded to redirect the hardy little probe onto a path towards the Mun, who put the final touches on the end of mission dive. All told, for such an early and inexpensive little probe, it served a long and notable life. Its passing was mourned by the team who built, launched, and monitored it. Rest in pieces, Explorer 1. In happier news, the mandatory safety standdown has ended, and missions have begun to pick up in tempo again. A high-resolution mapping probe was dispatched to Minmus, where it will provide Synthetic Aperture Radar scans and resource concentration monitoring, as well as providing secondary comms relay capacity. Also, the Salyut 1 station was finally activated on orbit, after more than a month's delay imposed by the prioritization of the THAAD mission. It will be used more as a testing ground for new ships, modules, and technologies than as an active science lab, but it will nonetheless see much use. Case in point: a Progress resupply ship arrived with new docking rings to replace the older probe-and-drogue setups it launched with, and a crewed Soyuz II craft flew up to make the swap and prepare the station to receive its first experimental visitor... the TKS-Lite, carrying the Three Brothers. TKS-Lite will be my primary long-haul crew shuttle, as it has much more space than a Soyuz, but is cheaper, smaller, less complicated, and lighter than the BDB Apollo. Speaking of testing, Bill was tasked with testing some new EVA gear while TKS-Lite was docked at Salyut 1... Helmet interior lights, microphone and earpiece headset, and extra work light. Sunglasses? Check. Bill was quite fond of the Omni-Tool's offhand mode, and the headset was found to reduce random helmet noise by nearly 70%, significantly improving communications. All future EVA missions will be making use of these new tools. The sunglasses have also been found to be quite helpful during dayside operations, but they are somewhat difficult to quickly remove or replace upon crossing the terminator. They'll absolutely be useful for surface ops, but they are not suitable for orbital work. RFPs for alternate solutions are being written up now. The helmet interior lights and the work light received "meh." ratings from Bill, but the PR team loves the helmet lights. They are likely to become standard issue for press-worthy missions unless serious issues emerge. The work light may be used for Kerbin engineering teams, but otherwise, helmet lights seem to be superior, as they take up less inventory space.

Agreed. You'll notice that North Korea has not performed any orbital launches since they got their ICBM program to a point they are happy with... I'd say that the only real debate is over what exactly the response to this will be.

Didn't do much today... ran around the KSC with an Akita Rover loaded with science parts, doing experiments and refreshing my memory of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of said rover. I then set up a prototype fuel silo for monopropellant (the Akita's fuel of choice for range extension) near the KSC, and deployed a small camper van (also based off the Akita) with two engineers aboard near the runway for future missions and operations.

Okay, bit of a technical question... is there any reason why the winches CAN'T have the resource transfer system? Because now that said system is around... Stuff like this just got a whole lot more practical if I can run fuel through the winch and into that drogue, which is undocked from the winch head.

Oooh, looks fancy. I must try this.