Hotaru

He also did one of out and back in just over an hour of game time (although it required something like 6,000 parts), so 20 minutes one-way, without any requirement to brake at the end, should be possible. And since we don't have to bring a kerbal along, it might even be possible with a civilized part count.

I've never had trouble with SAS on a station, at least not in the age of autostruts. I generally keep mine oriented / and then set SAS on my arriving ship the opposite way, that way they automatically stay aligned. Even with a docking port alignment mod that makes life a lot easier. And I'm pretty sure SAS automatically goes into attitude hold mode when two ships dock; I've never seen a ship try to reorient itself after docking that I can recall. As far as spontaneous kraken-induced disassembly goes, don't know if it's due to my habit of autostrut abuse or tendency to build relatively compact stations, but I've yet to have that happen, SAS or no.

@The Minmus Derp As I've said, OPM is one of the possibilities. I'm also considering Snarkiverse (or Snarkiverse + OPM, probably with Plock moved back to its original orbit) and Gameslinx's Planet Overhaul. All this is assuming I decide to do another mission report thread at all, which is not a sure thing. I'm also giving some thought to doing whatever I end up doing in 2.5 scale. For one thing it'll be an extra challenge, having to figure out all the delta-v requirements for going everywhere from scratch. For another, it would give rockets and shuttles a more useful late-game role, whereas in stock it really makes the most gameplay sense to use SSTOs for all but the heaviest payloads.

No worries, it's my own fault for picking an androgynous name.

She. And it is in fact against the rules; while I personally don't mind, that doesn't mean it doesn't bother anybody else, and they're perfectly free to report such posts. PS. Next update soon, today or tomorrow probably, this week for sure.

Made a "successful" SSTO landing after discovering mid-final approach that my joystick wasn't set up.

@The Minmus Derp She. And I'm sorry to say @Lithobrake is correct: HSP will be over soon. I make no promises about what, if anything, will come next--maybe HSP/OPM, maybe another save, maybe something else, maybe nothing at all. At the moment I'm pretty burnt-out and really looking forward to having the HSP project behind me, but I also have a lot of ideas, and it's possible--maybe even likely--that once I've relaxed for a bit I'll be back in the spirit of things. As I always say: we will see. Daring 10 pilot Asrine aboard Daredevil "Gordon" during the descent into the atmosphere of Jool. KS-20, 21 & 22: crew rotations. Daring 10: The atmosphere of Jool.

@DAL59 @The Minmus Derp We will see. I do think an interstellar mission would be interesting to try someday, but I don't anticipate such a thing any time soon. If I start a new save I'll be starting from scratch; even if I continue HSP I'll have the whole of OPM to explore before I start thinking about anything beyond. Daredevil "Gordon," which will make the Space Program's first attempt to return a kerman from the atmosphere of Jool, awaits liftoff on a Vorpal IIID rocket. Daring 9: return from Tylo. Duna ops. Daring 10: objective Jool.

@The Minmus Derp I'm giving thought to three options right now for my next project: Snarkiverse, Gameslinx's Planet Overhaul, and OPM. The first two would be new saves; the third would probably be a continuation of HSP. We're getting pretty close to the end here--only three check marks to go!--so I'll have to decide before too long, but to be honest when I'm done with HSP I'll probably take a break for a bit, mess around in sandbox, try out mods, etc. before I get started on another serious career. @SiriusRocketry No worries, I appreciate having people interested enough in my stuff to badger me for more of it. The OP has a complete log of kermanned missions and a listing of operational spacecraft, although it doesn't include probes, satellites, unkermanned rovers, or expendable vehicles. As for mods, here's a reasonably complete list: Daring 9 commander Burmin and ELC-1 on the surface of Tylo. With Burmin's landing, a kerman has set foot on every known terrestrial world in the kerbolar system; only the atmosphere of Jool itself remains unexplored. Daring 9: liftoff from Tylo. KS-17 & 18: crew rotations. Daredevil "Franklin:" Jool ascent vehicle. Retirements.

@The Minmus Derp I find retiring veteran kerbonauts helps give the save a sense of history, not to mention making room for new hires without having to pay for and keep track of an infinitely-expanding roster. Daring 9 commander Burmin, at the controls of ELC-1, begins his descent to the surface of Tylo. Duna ops. Lucidity 7, Lucidity 8, & Daredevil "Franklin:" exploration of the Jool system. Transience and LLC-4: exploration of Minmus. Daring 7: return from Laythe. Daring 9: Tylo.

Liftoff of Daring 9 on a Vorpal III rocket. Daring 7 & ALC-1: rescue from Laythe. Starbus S500: new passenger shuttle. KS-15 & LC-5: Duna crew rotations and new landing craft. Jool Daredevil test series. Daring 9: destination Tylo.

@Lithobrake This post covers most of year 30. @Moss Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! Compiling the entire thread (even just my posts) into a single document would be a bit of a project, but on the other hand I actually wouldn't mind having such a document myself. So no promises, but I'll see what I can do when the time comes. ALC-1 in Laythe orbit. Transience: exploration of Minmus. KS-11, KS-12, KS-13: crew rotations. CS-13: Patience II retrieval. Duna system ops: return to Ike. ELC prototype: Tylo lander testing. ALC-1: Laythe rescue. Retirements.

@RocketMan-Explorer Here you go, with apologies for the delay: Defiance Shuttlepod craft file (Dropbox link) Instructions are in the craft description. I believe I've removed all non-stock parts (should just be the decals) so this should work fine in a stock game. Only tested in 1.2.x but I see no reason it wouldn't work in 1.3 or 1.4 as well. Dauntless 2002 Mortimer's Dream in formation with retired space station Patience II during mission CS-12. CS-11, LLC-4, CS-12: Kerbin system ops and a new flight computer. Duna ops & crew rotations. Daring 7B/ALC-1: Laythe rescue lander. Daredevil "Archibald:" Jool ascent vehicle. Lucidity, Sanity, Clarity: exploration of Tylo. Retirements.

I'm not saying it's easy (that depends mostly on how well-written the existing code is) or even that it's advisable, just that it shouldn't be impossible. I do agree that on the off-chance they were to implement it, they should only do so if they could be sure of not breaking saves. I could go either way here. Fewer is arguably simpler, and having too many more would sort of dilute the importance of each individual one, just by virtue of having a longer list of names to memorize. On the other hand, more would give us more flexibility--like my preference to start with three pilots and no scientists or engineers at all. In any event, if they added two more and one or both of them were girls I'd be more than satisfied. I myself might actually make only one of them a girl (giving 4 boys and 2 girls) just so the original group doesn't feel quite so neatly composed and symmetrical. (In a group of six random people , you're as likely as not to have more of one gender than the other, just like flipping a coin six times isn't always going to yield 3 head and 3 tails.) Not that I'd complain about having 3 of each, mind you. PS. I believe the addition of female kerbals did change the syntax of persistence files by adding a "Gender=" line, which might be what broke saves back then (although why they couldn't just detect the missing line and add "Gender=Male" to every existing kerbal when loading an old save is beyond me).

All they'd have to do would be: -Make all kerbals default to status "Applicant" rather than "Available." -Add a few more preset names and sets of stats that are guaranteed to show up (or remove the existing ones so you get only randoms). -Make the "Veteran" flag always default to "False," switching it to "True" later on based on kerbal experience. -Possibly change hiring costs so that the first few are free. None of the above should have any effect on the syntax of save files. Done with a bit of care, I can't think of a reason why any those changes would break existing saves. Already you can edit your persistence file to not contain Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val and it'll still work fine. I did that in my current career without ill effect: I started with Kerzer, Burmin, and Melxie, all pilots. I didn't make them "Veterans," but I probably could've and it would have registered them correctly as orange suits. Personally, the way I'd go would be to add a few more "preset" kerbals--enough for, say, 3 of each class--and let the user have their first 3 or 4 hires for free. That'd give us plenty of room to sneak in a few more girl characters without stopping anyone who still wants to start with good old Jeb, Bill, and Bob for old times' sake. As far as their names goes--personally I'm not crazy about naming them after real people. While I've certainly gotten attached to Valentina since she was introduced, her name was not the one I'd have picked. And I have to agree that naming them after real people could potentially be much more of a political statement than just including them would be. I'm not really strongly opposed to it either, but if it were me, I'd just pick a few random names that I thought were cute and leave it at that.

I'm a transgender girl. I am well aware of stereotypes and prejudices. I agree it's not clear what the biological sex is of the kerbals in the game (or even if they have one). It is clear, however, that they are identifying as male and female, and are intended to be identified as such by the audience. And that's good enough for me.

Needless to say, the lack of female VAB workers or named characters is demoralizing (to some of us) in a very different way than the lack of other features we might wish for. Particularly torture chambers. Not that I don't see the appeal. The point I'm trying to get across is, this really matters to some people. Not having fuel hoses or clouds or decent sized landing legs is annoying, sure, but not having female kerbals is depressing. Unfortunately, there's no way I can convey exactly how depressing it is, or why it's depressing, except to ask you to take my word for it. But depressing it remains. Once again: who would it hurt? You want to hear a reason why we should have more girl characters--I want to hear a reason why not. (I do think more than four orange suits would be a bit much--in fact I think four is already too many. Personally, I like the suggestion to swap Bill for a girl engineer. Another option would be to start with three pilots--Jeb, Val, and one new one--and then get two each of scientists and engineers--Bill, Bob, and two new ones--later on. Or abolish starting orange suits entirely and make them earned like stars. Or have a pool of a dozen or so to pick from. In any case, it's not an insurmountable problem.)

While I agree that "PC for PC's sake" is insufficient reason, what's wrong with "so girls enjoy the game more?" And what does it hurt? Sure, it's promoting an ideology, but it's doing that either way, gender equality or gender disparity. There is no opting out. Declaring the game to be free of gender bias does not make it so: the fact remains that 90% of named characters and 100% of VAB/SPH workers are male. I've spent my entire life as a gamer being frustrated by endless resistance to allowing girl characters anywhere in video games. Playable characters, named NPCs, random background characters, enemies, whatever--whenever you suggest adding a few girls you're met with an infinity of excuses. I wish I could articulate what it's like to be constantly excluded from playing the games you want because you're forced to play them as a boy character and that takes all the fun out of it--or how genuinely exciting it is when you finally get a game that does have decent girl characters! Of course, from the opposite point of view it must seem like an endless barrage of feminist complaints about no female characters, and I can see how people get sick of hearing it. The difference is this: adding female characters doesn't hurt anyone--whereas leaving them out does. Forget about political correctness, feminism, whatever: consider what actual effect this has on people who play the game. Maybe you don't notice that there aren't female VAB workers--but I notice it every time I happen to glance at the floor, and it always makes me a little sad. And again, I'm not saying it has to be exactly fifty-fifty. Just that adding a couple more girl characters in places we don't already have them would go a disproportionately long way toward improving at least one girl's experience of the game. A few female VAB workers would be worth more to me than all the textures and parts and game mechanics in the world--because then every time I happened to look down at the VAB floor, it'd make me happy to see a couple of girls down there.

All I know is, I pretty much only play games where I can play as a girl character. Not on principle or anything like that, just because if I'm stuck playing as a boy I lose interest. Back in 0.90, I looked at KSP and what I saw was a game with only male characters. So I didn't buy it, and I never would have if if I hadn't learned you could use Texture Replacer to (sort of) add female ones. I was seriously excited when the devs added them properly in 1.0. Especially because the design they came up with was really nice and cute, and not a silly caricature with cartoon makeup. Of all the features they've added since I've been playing, girl kerbals are by far the one that I appreciated the most. And that had nothing to do with feminism or political correctness or gender equality or any of that sort of thing--it had to do with me enjoying the game. Right now we have 1 named girl kerbal and (I think) 9 named boy ones. While it's hardly as important as having female kerbals in the game in the first place, adding a couple more girls (or changing one or two of the boys) would nonetheless be appreciated--again, not for political correctness, just for making the game more fun for those of us who care about such things. PS. And I'm not saying the ratio has to be exactly fifty-fifty or you're all horrible misogynists. Just that making things a bit more even would be nice and wouldn't hurt anybody.

After a bit of investigation, here's what I've worked out: LC-4 had 3600 m/s of vacuum delta-v whereas the map says 2900 m/s is required, so it should have made orbit with 700 m/s remaining--yet in fact it came up 400 m/s short, so somewhere we're losing 1100 m/s. It looks like the angled engines cost a little over 100 m/s, which isn't nothing but still leaves 1000 m/s unaccounted for. Its sea-level TWR on Laythe is 1.31, which is a bit low but still within what I normally consider acceptable for a launch vehicle. Obviously this will result in some gravity losses, but one would think that 2900 m/s would already be taking into account normal gravity losses, so only the difference between LC-4 and a higher-TWR vehicle should matter. I'm skeptical that this alone could account for the remaining 1000 m/s of "missing" delta-v, but without more testing I can't prove it for sure. A third possibility occurs to me: that LC-4 is suffering from aerodynamic losses. It certainly looks aerodynamic--and I've made sure that each part is connected to a same-sized part above it (there's a Rockomax flat adapter clipped in between the top of the lander can and the upper fuel tank, for instance)--but it does have the two angled nacelles producing extra drag, and I imagine the flat bottom and associated exposed 3.75m node aren't helping either. Again, I question whether this could account for a full kilometer per second, but between aero and gravity losses I suppose it's possible. It's either that or the delta-v map figure is just plain wrong, at least for a vertical-launch vehicle like LC-4. For the rescue lander, I'm just going to overdesign it to the point where it can make orbit on Kerbin--I figure that should be good enough to orbit Laythe as well, and never mind the delta-v map. We'll see what happens.

Well, I've hardly been back to KSP a week and I'm already getting severely tired of stupid stock limitations. So I'm going to compromise and start using KIS (for minor tasks like removing the solar arrays on Patience II) and MechJeb (mostly for automating routine maneuvers). The former is in this update, the latter is not but will be in the next one. I still don't have KAS, so no game-changing stuff like struts or fuel hoses, and I'll probably hold off using MechJeb for fancy stuff like automatic landings and transfer burns, so I don't expect either of these things to actually change the way I play much--but hopefully they will help maintain my sanity in the face of the bazillionth identical circularization burn. Vertine and Chadgan pose with LC-4 and the mission flag on the surface of Laythe. Daring 7: Liftoff from Laythe. KS-9: crew rotation. Aqualung 23: Kerbin orbit cleanup operations. Daring 8 and KS-10: return from Eve and Patience II disassembly work.

Daring 7 approaches Laythe. Crew rotations and Kerbin system ops. Daring 8: departure from Eve. Daring 7: arrival at Laythe.

Here we go: New Jeb: fully reusable, 10,517 funds (10,058 vehicle, 459 fuel). Craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/npim6ewbuxy2gu3/New Jeb.craft?dl=0

And we're back, yet again. This may be it: with Daring 7 on its way to Laythe and Daring 8 waiting for the window back from Eve, the only destinations left are Tylo and Jool before my original goal for this save will be--finally!--done. After that, I'm not sure--maybe I'll keep playing this save, maybe install OPM and explore that, maybe I'll start another project. We will see. Boring mod stuff: TL;DR still in 1.2.2, added KS3P. @RocketMan-Explorer I was also sad to see the end of Defiance--which as I've said before is one of my favorite designs I've ever built--and I probably would've kept using it were it not for the time factor. Although each individual Defiance mission was pretty easy, with six stations to keep up with, they added up to the point where I was spending most of my time on crew rotations. The Dauntless can do five of those missions all at once, which is a serious time-saver. Boring financial stuff (Dauntless SSTO vs. Defiance mini-shuttle): TL;DR: Dauntless is cheaper, but not by much. Cargo shuttle Dauntless 2002 returns to Kerbin at the end of mission CS-9, carrying a solar array retrieved from space station Patience II. Dauntless CS-8, 9, and 10: Patience II disassembly. Lucidity 6, Sanity 5, Clarity 1: Tylo probes. S400 Resolute test series: a new utility shuttle. Crew rotations and Kerbin system ops. Perception and Beamish I: comsats and a new launch vehicle.

@RocketMan-Explorer It's not dead, just idle. I tend to play a game obsessively for a few months, then get kind of tired of it and go play something else. (Right now I'm playing XCOM.) But with a game I like as much as KSP, something or other will always get me thinking about it and I'll get back in the mood and come back and play it again. So, barring unforeseen events, I will be back eventually, I just don't know when. There's no direct successor to the Defiance in the sense of a small (4-6 kerman) shuttlecraft--in operational service it was replaced by the Dauntless, which carries 20 passengers so it can effectively complete 5 Defiance missions in one go. For some reason I haven't had much luck with smaller SSTOs in the latest versions of KSP (no idea why, everybody else still seems to be able to get them to work) and it pretty much always makes more sense to send a fully-reusable Dauntless instead of several mostly-expendable Defiances.