purpleivan

Circumnavigation by water on Kerbin isn't actually possible as the seas don't connect up in any direction, essentially they're just one big lake stretched around the planet. That was the reason for the "Sorta" being added to my circumnavigation, as I was following the coastline around the mainland. But a point to point race somwhere could be interesting.

Jeb thought that without air time the new recruits would get soft and pudgy (well... pudgier). To fix this problem Jeb had the entire class take to the skies on the wings of the "Breezy Ride" The first takeoff was not without its mishaps, as in complete loss of aircraft and the class scattered along the runway. Fortunately there were no casualties. Before trying again Jeb ordered that as many as possible leave their helmets behind, to reduce mass and drag. Takeoff this time was more successful, but many of the class didn't appreciate the lack of protective headgear, even with social distancing being applied. To cheer them up Jeb took the Breezy Ride down to skim the wave tops. Some enjoyed this... others did not. Hmmm... does this game know something I don't. Now, where to head to... why the runway island of course, silly question. After a long smooth approach landing was a by the numbers affair and the recruits seemed to be relieved to be back on the ground. Before heading back to the KSC Jeb took the class into Hanger 1, for a quick history lesson. Then it was back out onto the runway again. Before heading home.

Getting in straight away with a visitation to @Paaaad's Null Bay. This was last year during the Kerbin Sorta-Circumnavigation, you can see the distinctive mountain in this shot that matches the one in @Paaaad's "East" image. I've got another image with coordinates displayed by KER that show I'm in the area, but I'll send that to @Hotel26 privately, so it doesn't give the location away.

What at first seemed a respectable time of 2:30 now looks like a sleepy tortoise taking it easy.

The one thing that boat is missing though is Bob with an eyepatch, stroking a fluffy white cat.

Val's been getting cabin fever ever since she dropped out of the rotation, after a prank of hers turned into a major conflagration in the R&D Center. So she jumped at the chance to headed skyward once more, with a trip that would take her to @swjr-swis Cape Stinger, in a mini jet. It only has a max speed fully fueled of 185m/s but it's a short trip to the Cape. See ya KSC. Cape Stinger dead ahead. Now to swing around for a landing. Straighten her up and reduce power. Coming in at a nice gentle 35m/s Bounce, crunch ouch! This is not one of Val's proudest moments. But she's ok and glad that she decided to keep her helmet on for this little excursion. Right... back into the seat and fire up the engine and see if this thing can slide towards the water. Unfortunately Val slides out of the seat first. Somehow Val's muscles are a match for the roaring jet and she manages to make it back into the seat. Then it was time for more slide (grinding) towards the ocean. Every bump, every stone, every grain of sand... Val can feel 'em. Then it was one bump too many and she once more slid out of the seat, but this time with the jet at full blast. She stood on the shore for some time watching her ride head out across the waves. Well... better call a cab I suppose.

Well, here's something I made earlier. It was going to be a replacement for the Coastal Cruiser in the Kerbin Sorta-Circumnavigation, as it had 3 time the fuel capacity of the original, so much greter range between fill ups. However I then realised it would take ages to fuel with my fleet of tanker craft and rockets, so it only had the one test run before being mothballed. In adddition to a couple of jet engines and sporty styling, it carried a rover that was similar to the original's but with much greater battery capacity, as well as parachutes for rapid descents of mountains. Drop it off a cliff, release the chutes and sit back which descending at 30m/s. The boat also carried some extra vehicles in the form of two mini jets. as well as a minisub in its belly. However this wasn't entirely stock as I used a mod to give it a tiny ballast tank. Right... time to to do some kayaking.

I tried a quick search but only came up with vehicles that had some but not all of those features. Is there anything else that could help identify it, such as where it flew to?

It also removes those stubborn, difficult to remove stains, or so I hear.

Fairings you say... extremely overpowered you say. I must look into that Certainly for speed the de-planed M-9 Axolotl has the Coastal Cruiser beat, but what about facilities. My kerbals can sit out on deck on fancy garden furniture, watching the sun go down, then the next day take a trip in the buggy. The crew also tells me that there's a pool table and restaurant grade kitchen inside, but I've not seen it.

Ok, so a kayak eh, one with Whiplashes... how about this fine coffin, er I mean kayak. Kayak shape (kind of) and not one, but two whiplashes, now just to fire her up and... ah... it seems like this boat has a slight stability issue even before firing those two jet fuelled trouble makers. Well, shame to let them go to waste. But no, that was no kayak. Wings... that's what's needed to keep upright and ready to set sail across the briney sea. Ok, this does look like a plane that's ditched, but I assure you it's not, it's a fine ocean going kayak. Weeeeell... until it inevitably explodes once it settles on the surface. In the midst of the chaos, the cockpit, with Jeb in it, seems to be making a bid for orbit. Jeb, as usual, is quietly unconcerned at his current predicament. Ok, not wings then, how about some nice tubes to keep this tub afloat. Ah yes, the smell of the sea air and the burning jet fuel... it's why we get up in the morning, no? But this design too seems to have issues that result in it taking a trip to the scrap yard. The attempt that followed this one, with a slightly modified design ended with KSP crashing with a"Fatal Error", which nicely sums up Jebs experience this evening. So... you know what's a really good boat, the Coastal Cruiser from the Kerbin Sorta-Circumnavigation. So how does that look with some Whiplashes crudely attached. Like this... cool and flamey. Bob up back in the rover is enjoying his new high octane view. But how quick is it... well, it's actually slower than the Coastal Cruiser with its single Wheelsey. So, what if it's stripped down to a single Whiplash, surely that's more kayak than a single Wheesley. The answer to that again is no, by about 2m/s it's still slower than the original boat. So I guess if I'm going for some kayaking, it's back to the original and best.

"canoe, kayak or hollowed out log... up to multiple Whiplashes." that sounds like a challenge

Kayak club is so kayak that it's double kayak

I don't generally bother putting badges in my sig, so this is my first.

Back in the day (2014/15) I entered a few challenges that had the goal of "get to planet X in the shortest time" and as the saying goes, the short distance between two points is a straight line. At least as straight as you can get it with finite fuel. This was my transfer from Kerbin to Eve. But to do that 1. You needed a huge launcher. 2. You're not coming back... not on the same vehicle anyway. This was the first vehicle I lobbed Eve's way. Ah yes, the wonderful (if unrealistic) days of a parachute being able to brake your descent to Eve while hitting at 20km/s. First attempt made it there in 9 days. Not content with that I thought "hmm... how about topping that stack off with a nice big ion drive section" (pre nerf days). You tend to get places quckly at 36km/s Such as to Eve in 5 days. All of this completely impossible in the current game as the moment you touched Eve atmosphere at that kind of speed you'd vaporise. So you'd need to decelerate massively to survive entry to Eve, which means a much bigger vehicle making it to the planet, which in turn means much less velocity on the trip there. However you can still get some pretty spectacular transit times with the current atmospherics and ion drive specs, such as Moho to Eeloo in 228 days. The challenge allowed vehicles to be cheated to Moho, but the transfer to Eeeloo is still done the tried and tested way. Start with a gigantic, massively staged rocket. Point it across the system in something close to a straight line. Wait eons for ions, in this case to do much of the braking. Then touch down and checking your time (started on Y7 D278) But again... Val'sdidn't make it home from this trip.

I think you started then forgot to stop... that thing is huge. Kudos.

The first thing that comes to mind is do you have your manouver node at the point in your orbit to give the right ejection angle. In the Transfer Window Planner GUI, the button to display it (Show Ejection Angles) isn't turned on. If you've not used that info, turn it on and look for the ejection angle display in the map view.

Today I sent a reusable shuttle to Tristar Station as the remaining part of my Space Hotel challenge entry. An usual reusable transport design in that the launcher (a slightly modified Reuso 4) and the shuttle itself land separately.

I've now completed my challenge entry with the flight of a shuttle to and from the station. It was launched on a modified Reuso 4, with just a little extra fuel to lift the higher payload compared with the station parts. Bob went out to checkout the shuttle before returning to the KSC in it. Leaving the station. Came in too steep and fast for a landing direct from orbit, so used the jet to bring the shuttle in for a second attept. I think all criteria of the challenge were met with the shuttle having more the capacity to take more than 1/3 of the total occupancy to the station, even including their pilot, engineer and scientist minders. Plus it had 2k of electrical storage and an antenna.

And now... TRANSPORT SHIP. With Tristar Station in a nice 155km orbit it was time to focus on how to get those payinh customers up to it. This important work would be taken care of by the Tristar Shuttle. As with the parts for the station, this was launched on top of a Reuso 4, although slightly modified to give it extra fuel for the trip up to the orbit of the station with a slightly higher payload. The rendezvous was very accurate, with the shuttle stack comng to a stop about 100m from Tristar Station. Then it was time to push in a little closer before dropping off the shuttle to go dock with the station. The approach was overcooked a bit, requiring some martial arts movie style ducking underneath the station as it cruised by at about 2m/s, narrowly avoiding disaster. Having shot past the stating theshuttle stack was brough to a halt and the shuttle detached. Much more manouverable than the Reuso stack, the shuttle was soon approaching Tristar. Ok... from here on a lot of the pics are just eye candy. Almost there, just a little nudging with the RCS to straighten up. Finally, the shuttle docks with the station ready to offload its paying customers... if it had any, as this was a dry run. As Bob was needed back on Kerbin, he'd be taking the shuttle back on its maiden landing. So he was sure to check that the engines he was promised would allow that to happen were actually attached to the thing. Bob went off to get a full view of Tristar. Before checking that there was the requisite 2k of electrical stroage and antenna (just in front of the mono tank on the right) onboard the shuttle, which indeed there was. A couple more pics before splitting this arrangement up. At last it was time to depart, so Bob settle back in his seat and tried to get comfortable. Last nights Mosh Pit Madness hour had been a bit bruising (looking at you Val). Bob got a final look at the station before the shuttle was turned around to move on to its decent orbit. See ya Tristar. Once away from the station the shuttle moved down to a 75km orbit, from which it would make its descent to the KSC. Coming in over the desert the nose was lifted to start bleeding off some speed. Yeah, it's bleeding off now alright. But the descent trajectory was a little too steep, so some turns were put in to try and lose some speed and altitude. This is looking too steep for a landing and the shuttle was moving at over 200m/s, but a landing was attempted anyway. Ok... that landing wasn't going to happen, time to throttle up the jet and go around. Finally after a quick trip out over the sea the shuttle returned to a smooth landing, hitting the tarmac at about 45m/s. Well... that's that. Bob was happy to be back at the KSC again and the Tristar shuttle proved to be a fine vehicle, with nice landing characteristics.

Today was a day for orbital assembly, plus some fun with a little 1 kerbal runabout taking a lucky customer on a trip around the Mun. Tristar Station was made as part of an entry to the Space Hotel challenge, with all parts launched on the reusable Reuso 4.

As an entry to the Space Hotel Challenge Station Tristar was launched and assemed in orbit. Comprised of four sections, the first to be launched was the core on top of the Reuso 4 rocket from my No Contracts career challenge. After delivering the core section the Reuso 4 returned to the KSC. Well... as close as makes no difference. Next up was the first of 3 arm sections that would dock with the core. Here seen matching it's orbit with the core. Docking was done in my now pretty much standard RCS-less style. One down, two to go. Here goes arm number 2. Beginning to take shape now. Last by no means least, arm number 4 took to the skies... then that blackish stuff above it. These first paying guests can't wait. They're getting the chance to checkout the station before the main contingent of tourists arrive later on the shuttle. With the docking of the third arm the station was complete. Tristar Station has more 11660 electrical storage capacity, as well as 6 gigantors to feed it. Each arm has capacity for 16 tourists, for a total of 48 and the core accomdation for 10 pilots, engineers and scientist to keep them feed and entertained, more than the 8 to 1 ratio the challenge rules require. Talking of entertainment, each arm houses a runabout, for those well heeled tourists who spring the cash for the all inclusive package. Tidwell here can be seen taking a look at the station before departing on a trip into the great dark beyond. But first he takes a tour of Tristar Station's facilities. First up is the impressive communications array, that makes available every TV channel know to kerbalkind, plus a few that aren't. Here he is seen inspecting the docking facilities of the station. Ok... time for some tourist excursioning, with a trip around the moon, then out towards the orbit of Minmus, then back arounnd the Mun again, before returning to the station. The high point of this traveller little jaunt... literally. Coming back towards Kerbin, our friend here gets a second pass around the mun before heading back towards Kerbin and a big braking burn. Tourist: "Tech support, the guage says I don't have quite enough fuel to make it back to the station, I was told this package was all inclusive and you guys have cut corners on my fuel supply... I am not a happy camper". Tech Support Agent #27: "No problem sir, just check the panel on the left arm of your suit, then look for a button labelled F12, do you see that sir". Tourist: "I sure do... it has an almost magical glow around it". Tech Support Agent #27: "That's the one sir, now just press that and choose the option on the display to cheat the universe blind on fuel". Tourist: "Err... err... ok, I see it now, the fuel gauge has stopped going down, plus I'm experiencing a pleasant sense of calm, but also a certain amount of shame and self loathing". Tech Support Agent #27: "That's fine sir, that's to be expected". Here are tourist friend is seen approaching Tristar Station. Ok... just squeeze that thing in, it came out of there after all, it must be able to fit back in. Left a bit. Right a bit. Up a bit... no the other up. Capture... nicely done Mr Tourist, now feel free to return to the station via the hatch of your choice. Ah Arm 2... a fine choice sir, currently the cocktail bar is playing classic jazz, but at 9 o'clock things get hectic with the Mosh Pit Madness Hour Time to turn SAS to maximum. Coming soon... transport ship.

I prefer the way that KER provides dV info compared with stock in the VAB, additionally it provides a lot of info while in flight that can be very useful, that the stock game doesn't provide.

For me it would be Kerbal Engineering Redux (KER), Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC), Hyperedit (for testing), Vessel Mover (again for testing... honest). Beyond that if you're interested in visual mods then Stock Visual Enhancements, Scatterer, Planetshine and KS3P are a great set.

"Ok... who don't I like today" he says while looking at the roster.