purpleivan

7/10 For A Nicheling... looks like Le Lynx has already been done.

But

Games developer. A lead artist but I've done various design and producer tasks over the years, plus a little (very) light coding.

Indeed you can... have a few of it littering its way to Eve. I just realised that with a flight time of a little over 5 (Kerbin) days that it was under thrust for a significant amount its journey. Of course "back in the day" was a time before Xenon drives got nerfed.

Just remembered a slightly faster encounter I had with with an atmosphere "back in the day". I was sending Jeb in a little lander in a race to Eve (got there from Kerbin in a little over 5 days) and he hit the atmosphere at about 37,000m/s. Jeb was unperturbed.

I've been playing since 23.5 and there are two main things I remember of playing back then. Pro: you could launch from one atmosphere and then slam into another, any shape of craft that your crazed imagination could think of and it would survive. Something like this perhaps (that thing on top survived a landing on Eve). Con: every other undocking seemed to require a bit of surgery on your gamesave file. Other things I remember. Being able to use a cluster of jets as a first stage of a reasonably sized rocket, for a vertical launch. Stock graphics, as I used very few mods at the time and none were visual, whereas these days I like to jazz up what I'm looking at. Not really part of the game but, Imgur being easy/quick to use for dumping an album of images of my latest crew's adventure into (had to get a gripe in about that).

Finish writing "Lost on Laythe" at some point (I've got the plot laid out to the end, just need to write it) as I've left the crew abandoned there for a year or so now. I should post a new image to "The Truth Can Now Be Told" too. ... but we all know about NY resolutions.

Minutes 1-5: Build ungainly, absolutely impossible to fly contraption, possibly topped by a large collection of assorted wheels, at odd angles. I mean... why not. Minute 6: Wait forthe switch to the pad. Gravity has already been set to 0.01 to avoid your misbalanced tower of absurdity crashing Kerbinward in a fiery cataclysm. Start up Hyperedit and use it to quickly and efficiently (I mean... look a the savings in fuel) pop you "craft" into a neat, perfectly circular orbit of Jool (distance from Mr Green your choice of course). Minutes 7-59: Quickly assemble the ingredients, some made beforehand (it's no more cheaty than the space based shenanigans) and bake a Jeb shaped cake. Minute 60: Enjoy your sweet treat (might need to blow on it first to avoid burns though). Declare victory.

I thought it was common knowledge that their helmets are essentially sugar based. To remove, the wearer inhales rapidly, causing the thing to disappear up their nose/into their mouth. They then dash round in an insane sugar rush. How they put them back on again, now that's the mystery.

Possibly at some point, but pretty busy with work and RL right now.

It's a fine place... these guys liked it. Even if the landing was on the ropey side. In all seriousness, Dres is probably the place I've been to 2nd least, with Moho being topping that list (just 2 or 3 visits). It is rather Mun like in most respects other than it's orbit, but that would be it's point really. Not everywhere needs to be simple to get to, or have some unique feature. I don't hate Dres, don't love it either... it's just there.

I'd say after your first Mun landing and return (as for most people it's their first) an Eve landing is the most special. Especially the ascent and that moment when you know you've made orbit and it's just a short hop to your ride home. Just noticed that it's a probe you put down, which is still an achievement, but now throw some kerbals at it... you know you want to

Today was the first time I fired up KSP in about a month and the first thing I did in this space vehicle simulation... race rover up a mountain. This was an entry to @Pds314 Race to the Sky challenge and featured "The Goat". This survivor of many speed drives across hilly terrain chasing down challenges did not disappoint, making it from the launch pad to an altitude of 3 kilometres in 18:46. Eye's on the road Jeb. There were some spills along the way, but fortunately none that damaged the vehicle. Even one that had Jeb flying backwards. The sweet smell of success.

I saw this challenge and just knew I had to get The Goat out of long term storage. It's raced up K2 from the Inland Space Center and from the coast to the summit of Keverest (that climb in 27 minutes), as well as entering the Dakar 2020. So Jeb slipped on his driving gloves and hit the "road" (full writeup is here), headed for the nearby mountains with a goal of 3000 metres in mind. The Goat is a pretty stable machine, with a nice low center of gravity and plenty of power with 10 driven wheels. But it's a long way to the mountains West of the KSC, so it was a case of thowing some extra batteries (2400 units worth) onto the original Goat design and hoping that they last. Just gotta make it somewhere close to those mountain peaks. Make it The Goat did, but only after a spin out and two tumbles. One of which had him flying backwards at one point, but through sheer blind luck, the thing came through unscathed. At about 1800m the serious business of mountain climbing began. With only 1.5% of power remaining The Goat broke through 3K, finally making it to 3200m before the batteries ran dry.

My entry to @Pds314 Race to the Sky challenge, in which "The Goat" made it to 3000 metres in 18:46. Everry journey has to start somewhere and this one begins on a certain launchpad at 73m. Next stop 3k. Jeb's having a blast at the wheel of the Goat. Val's been the first to jump on board for it's last couple of outings. Actually to be completely honest, this is a slightly modified goat, as an extra 2400units of battery capacity thrown on, just in case. Jeb leaving his worries and the KSC behind. So how we doing Jeb? "Great." What altitude did you start at "73metres." How high are you now. "Errr... 64." But it didn't take long before the climing began. 200 metres 300... In no time Jeb will be at 3k at this rate. Ok... back to 231. Concentrate Jeb... be the goat... be the goat. BE THE GOAT. Some driving later. In other words, lots of grass, not much elevation gain, so no point in more pics for a while. But it was at this point Jeb thought to check the status of the juice that was powering his tear towards that mountain, and he's shocked to fined that it's down to less than 50% remaining and he's only at 566m. Suddenly, coming over a small ridge The Goat goes into a slide and spins round. Fortunately it doesn't roll as it's pretty stable on the flat. But now it not flat and dangers await. Dangers like this. After almost rolling his ride and then spinning it, Jeb wrestles it back under control. Hmmm... strangely when the roll and slide was over, Jeb found that powering forward had The Goat zoom backwards at great velocity. So hitting reverse gear it is then. But at least he's almost at half distance in his race to the sky. Less than a minute and a quarter later Jeb suffers another mishap, a bigger one this time. The Goat goes airbourne and tumbles end over end. I guess flying is within the rules if it's mid accident and the thing's flying backwards. By some miracle it and Jeb survives this, not only that but the strange reversal of the thrust controls is fixed, so it's full speed ahead once more. Ok, things are starting to get steeper and the mountain climb itself is just ahead. But there's less than 12% power left and almost 1200m to climb. But at least the ascent is rapid now, as the angle increases from moderate to, "oh my, that's steep". This is going to be so close. The Goat is scrambling up a slope of about 40 degrees at 27m/s, with a little over 200m of ascent to go, but there's just 3% of the juice left and the gauge is dropping fast. Success!... it's 3K, in a time of 18:46. There's a tiny bit of juice left in the batteries and Jeb wants to know how high he can get. At 3205m the batteries run dry and Jeb puts on the brake. The Goat hangs on to the slope (well... almost, it slowly slides backwards). But there's a fine view to enjoy on the slow slide back down.

I seem to be 2 for 2 now. I suggested that the bold font for headings was too bold and the teeny tiny font size on forum description bullets points was, well... too teeny tiny and both have been fixed. That or I'm imagining things. Probably I'm just spotting things that lots of people are complaining about (directly or indirectly) and then they're getting fixed.

That was confusing, making a comment in this thread yesterday evening, getting quotes of them, followed by the site going down and this morning my post and the ones quoting it were gone. But at least the bold font used for thread titles on thread list pages has been toned down, which was what I commented on, which is nice to see. Still some issues though, including some very small font sizes being used. For example on the main Forums list page, there are some bulleted text under the Technical Support (Playstation 4, Xbox One) section that is tiny. The font sizes used for the forum descriptions and any beneath it heirarchically should go up a couple of point sizes.

Grand Tour. I've done pretty much everything else in the game. All bodies visited and returned from many times, driven a boat around the entire coastline on Kerbin, done the Jool 5 and raced a monstrosity from Moho to Eeloo in 228 days, but that's one trip I've yet to tick of my list. A few times on a Saturday morning I'll catch myself thinking "maybe I should work out what it would take, start designing a vehicle", but then a couple of seconds later a resounding "Stop it!" pops into my head

I'm guessing this kerbal was found with their sticky fingers in Jeb's snacks locker, then not so politely being told they could walk back to Kerbin, by being chucked out of the airlock.

No... he's just wearing the latest in automotive fashion.

Explosions you say... space center in flames you say.

In A Sciencing We Will Go Val arrived at Duna. Before swinging around Ike. Then returned to Duna for a landing and a quick scientific smash and grab. Jeb arrive shortly after in the return ship and admired the view. Val headed up from the surface with as much science as here arms could carry. Before the pair returned to Kerbin. About 2000 science points were earned on the way. Not a bad days work by these two.

I promised you Duna, so Duna it is. First up to leave for the Big Red was Val in the lander. Followed a few hours later by Jeb in the return vehicle. While all this kerballed interplanetary action was going on, the unkerballed division was having its fun as well, with Yay Magnets passing close by Minmus and grabbing a magnetometer reading on the way past. At the encounter with Minmus the probe's engine was fired up to put it on a trajectory for one with Duna. Kerbnet does not extend that far, so the probe will be out of contact during the encounter, but it's the thought that counts, right. Many, many days later (a year and some) Val is the first to arrive in the Duna SOI. She grabs the full set of scientific readings and stashes them in the data storage unit. The lander and it's transfer stage, which still has about half its fuel remaining, encountered the Dunian atmosphere, which slowed the vehicle, but some thrust was required to put it into orbit. As there was more fuel than anticipated in the transfer stage, it was decided to adjust the highly eliptical orbit, to encounter Ike. The lander swung round the back of the little grey spud, some 10km from the surface and Val put the vehicle in an eliptical orbit, before grabbing all the science data here mittened hands could. She swept round Periapsis once more, to get a closer look at the surface in sunlight, plus picking up some more EVA reports. The idea of making a landing was concidered, but there wasn't a lot of fuel left in the transfer stage, so Val pressed on towards the main target instead. Back to the big glowing orangy red ball, Val put the lander in orbit. Then the descent burn was made and the remaining fuel in the transfer stage used at around 15km, to reduce the lander's speed. With some relief the chutes deployed at 3km, bringing the lander down at a sedate 8.5m/s. Just before touchdown Val ticked over the engine to drop that down to just a 2-3m/s. She wasted no time in heading out of the hatch and making for the surface. Val was pretty impressed with the place. Fine dusty red sand, bright sky (really bright) and no-one around from management to tell her to keep her desk tidy, or not to fly so close to the VAB. The flag was raised and EVA and soil samples were grabbed. Now, nothing to do but wait. Wait for this guy... Jeb. He hit the atmosphere at 25km, which did a lot of the work of establishing an orbit. Jeb was similarly impressed with the view. "It sure ain't home". After a burn to circularise the orbit, Jeb and the return vehicle sat in a circular path, almost 200km above the surface. With Jeb waiting in orbit, Val made a last check of the scientific gear, to make sure every reading had been taken, then blasted off from the surface. The detachable descent/touchdown burn tanks were still half full, so they provided fuel for the first few km of the ascent. How Val forgot to take a Mystery Goo reading on the way up, so once of them was dumped unused. With little fuel left Val circularised her orbit at 148km. Now for that rendevous with Jeb, there's precious little fuel left in the tanks, but just about enough for Val not to have to call Jeb for help. She was very insistent on not doing that. Rendezvous was made with just less than 0.1% of fuel remaining. But that still left enough for Val to nudge the lander closer to the Jeb's ship. 193km above the surface, Val exited the lander and retrieved the data from the storage unit, before hopping across to the return vehicle and depositing it there. It's been a while since it left Minmus, but the Yay Magnets showed up 79 days later, passing within a couple hundred km of the return vehicle. Val took a good long look out of the window, but failed to catch sight of it as it shot by. The probe is now in orbit around the sun. After another year or so it was time to leave. The transfer stage provided the first 2/3 of the burn, after which the return vehicle's Spark motor took over. A course correction burn and some conciderable time later, the pair appraoched Kerbin The vehicle still had about half its fuel remaining, so was placed in orbit, before making a relatively sedate re-entry (compared with typical interplanetary ones). The single chute deployed over the ocean. Well... it should be ocean (Scatterer seems to have made off with it at this angle). A short while later the vehicle plopped calmly into the warm ocean... ... with it's rich sciency center ready to be cracked open by eager scientists. What to choose, what to choose. Well I'll have one of those, two of them... ooo... I'll have five of those things. What do you mean I can only have one of each, what kind of shop is this? Oh well, at least now we have nukes

Lozor and Tribro joined the team in search of scientific goodies, in my science game. Lozor asked this thing if it had any scientific info to pass on... it wasn't talkative. Tribro headed out in the Lil' Sciencer in search of Boabob. This time it was the equipment that let the team down. But at least she had some fun on the way home.

Well, when I said that a trip to Duna would be next, that wasn't quite accurate, but trips to Duna are coming... coming soon. But first there was a little bit of local distraction. Our chief scientific rumourologist had heard of a strange plant called a Boabob tree right here on Kerbin, that is just packed with scientific goodies. So, with that incontrovertible evidence in hand, Lozor Kerman was dispatched in something looking remarkably like the Mun Rover, in search of one. First though, he decided to take a look at that big strange looking thing in that corner of the KSC no-one talks about. What!... wha'dya mean I can't science this thing, I mean look at it, it's begging to be scienced. Ok, on with the Boabob hunt then, so where first. Mountains... trees love mountains, it's a scientific fact. Hmm... no trees of any kind up here. Well that was a waste of time. Better head back home and try a different tactic. Planes! That's what this search for the elusive Boabob needs, so Tribro Kerman strapped into the Lil' Sciencer and headed skyward. To say that this plane is not the best would be a bit of an understatement. It's takeoffs are on the nerve-racking side and once in the air, it threatens to lung downward if given a funny look. Still... Tribro decided she was confident enough in her flying skills to head off to the North East in search of the Boabob. As the flight left at sunset, landing was a bit on the underlit side. We'll see how this all ended up in the light of day. Hmm... nose in the dirt, that's how it ended up. Tribro inspected her plane, to see what could be done to rectify this and resume the hunt. Ok, gonna have to think about this. Aha!... standing on the wing always does the trick. Well, except when it doesn't How about gunning the jet on just one side, that's sure to do something. One F9 get out of jail free card later, it was decided that this was not the best course of action. Ah... it was so obvious. Just tuck away that landing gear. Ok gunner Tribro, do you have the Boabob in your sights. Oh yes... yes I do. Prepare to be scienced you wascely twee you. Hmm, that didn't work, the scanning arm just kind of shrugged and went home. Let's try from this side. Nope, just a message about the vehicle having moved. Ok, let's put this thing down on the ground and take the wheels out of the "am I moving or not equation". Again, it is a frustating no from the robot arm. Tribro is not amused. In the end she gives up on the attempt and grabs an EVA report in grasslands for 2 (count 'em 2) whole science points, before taking to the skies once more. Could have sworn I picked up that kind of low hanging fruit much earlier. Oh well... points are points. On the way back Tribro decides to have a little fun with the Lil' Sciencer. Approach to the runway went fine, but the landing was very bouncy, with this bird taking to the air half a dozen times before hitting the ground for the final time. This kind of final time. At least Tribro was unscathed, although feeling a little sheepish. Remember when I said that flights to Duna were coming... coming soon. Well, the time has come. But to be honest, this first vehicle probably wasn't worth the wait, I mean look at it. Jeb however would beg to differ, saying that the return vehicle he's piloting is a fine example of cutting edge aerospace technology, even if it does look a bit dated. You see, this Duna flight's been coming for a while. I launched Jeb and Val (she'll be along shortly) in a pair of vehicles sometime ago, some way back in the tech tree. That would have been around the time Bob headed to the Mun to start up the science base. The pair of them have been sitting in Kerbin orbit, while the wheel of scientific discovery and rocketry research, advanced apace on the planet below them. Now Jeb and Val are sitting in their respective rides, waiting for the clock to tick down to their departure for the red world. So watch this space.