michal.don

We're building massive winged contraptions here and flying them to Mun and Minmus... I don't think practicality is the name of the game here

I'll leave that up to you, you can pick one of the screenshots from the mission, or take a new one just for this purpose - as long as the picture is pretty and has Minmus in it

Oh, I don't know how I could miss that... Sorry about that, your entry is hereby promoted to the commander level! Michal.don EDIT: And you get to choose a screenshot to be shown in the mission profile in the OP, which one would you like there?

So, after a long time, I'm back to reviewing your entries. Let's get to it Glad to see you managed to resolve your reentry difficulties and got the shuttle safely to the ground! The aesthetics are properly mad, for example the curved-glued-together ET, and your machine seems to have lots of excess d-V to go pretty much anywhere it pleases, I'm curious how far you'll be able to get in the missions before a redesign is neccessary. The d-V numbers from the screenshots are a bit weird, but I suppose that's caused by the jet engines. So, congratulations, here's your first badge: Good job, pilot! Not surprised you are the one coming to claim the badge first Very nice rover design, and it seems the universe was kind to you, placing quite a sweet ore spot in the plains. I love the rover design, and the pinpoint KSC landing, as is usual on your part. One small question though - you emited the additional CommSat release around Minmus - was that intentional, or did you just miss that part in the mission requirements? In any case, here's the first Minmus badge awarded: Congratulations! I did not have the chance to play with the new robotics stuff too much, so I'm not really sure how impressive this is, but my guess is "very" This is exactly what I was hoping would appear here, very nice! Michal.don

That's what I call "perfect timing", check the OP in the challenge thread Keep up the great work, your new design is looking really great!

Aaand since I'm back, there is a new mission for you guys, We're going to Minmus! The Minmus missions will not be as difficult as the Duna/Eve/Jool ones, by far, so I expect you to impress me with great designs of the payloads I know I promised the new missions a long, long time ago, but hopefully, there will be a few of them in a much more reasonable timeframe than usual And we're slowly, but steadily approaching "The big thing" we've been building towards the whole time. So, send my regards to the little moon, and have fun, the mission is in the OP right under the Eve mission. Michal.don

First of all - big thanks to you for taking over the challenge for a while, you did a great job here. I really, really appreciate it I'd like to welcome all the new pilots that came here while I was off - I was watching what's going on around here, but I didn't post too much, so I feel an official "welcome" is only proper I hope you all had, and will have a great time designing and flying shuttles in this challenge! So I guess we're back to the usual, you keep building and flying all these awesome shuttles, while I review the entries and award you the badges. I'm looking forward to it, it's good to be back Michal.don

In these particular missions (STS-1a and STS-2b), I chose to allow their completion in the same flight with other missions. In most cases, it was the 1a+1b combination, since it's test flight + cargo, which sounds reasonable to me. Most folks completed the 2b mission solo, since pretty much all the following missions require some sort of cargo bay modification which would interfere with the cargo pod. But if somebody, let's say, recovered the pod after releasing the CommSats for STS-2a, I woudln't object. Since you're the one running the challenge now, I'm not going to tell you how to decide in these cases, I just thought I'd share how I decided if such a thing occured. Nevertheless, I think your decision in this particular case was the best one you could take - point out the rules, but allow the attempt, since this particular shuttle is a nice piece of engineering and surely is capable to do both thing solo... Michal.don

Yeah, that could be confusing to newcomers... I deleted the "minor thread announcement" thing, and rather mentioned you in the OP as the boss for now Carry on, nothing to see here

Welcome back, it's really nice to see you around again I haven't been very involved on the forums (and in KSP, in general ) lately either, but I'm always watching what's going on here. For the time being, @4x4cheesecake has agreed to take care of the challenge (and he's doing a wonderful job). But worry not, the challenge is still going, even if the number of new entries is a bit low at the moment. I guess everybody is playing with the new robotics stuff, it looks pretty awesome Great to see you shuttling again, Michal.don

I don't have the solution for the missing contracts, but for getting new kerbals I use the "create kerbal" option in the cheat menu, without feeling like cheating at all. I also like the random name generator and always shuffle through the names until I get one that's funny/cool/whatever... Yes, the new kerbals come for free that way, but I always disliked the stock approach, where you need to decide if you want to upgrade two KSC facilities or hire one lvl 0 kerbal for the same amount of funds... Michal.don

I'll give it a shot, when I have a bit of time, I always had a soft spot in my heart for shuttle stuff.... Michal.don

Found one on my first Minmus crewed landing in the playthrough. Went looking for it on the greater flats, since there are no scatters, and got it about two kilometres from my lander (noticed it from about 700 m distance). Maybe I just got terribly lucky, but they do indeed exist... Michal.don

Well, I'm on sort of a "KSP holiday" at the moment, haven't started the game for a few months to be honest, but I'm really looking forward to this - finally my shuttles will have proper robotic arms... And I have to say - I'm a bit surprised by the amount of negative reactions here. There have been more free updates (and substatntial ones, too!) in the last few months than most of us expected, and a lot of people are very angry about a DLC that adds a lot of additional content and possibilities to the game, for what I feel is a very reasonable price (even in my part of the world, there's not much you can buy for 15 dollars). What does it take to make people happy nowadays? Michal.don

Alright guys, a small announcement regarding this thread. Since my time has really become a problem for the challenge, I'll take a bit of a break. Don't worry, the challenge will continue, It just won't be me doing the reviewing for the time being. I asked @4x4cheesecake (if you've been here for a while you surely know him ), if he would be willing to take over the thread for a while and I'm very glad that he accepted - the challenge will be in very good hands. It's not a reboot just yet - I intend to come back in a while, when (and if) my time issues get sorted out a bit. So, be nice to @4x4cheesecake, keep building and flying awesome stuff, I'll be watching Michal.don

Alright, the "day-or-two" took me a week again... I should really reevaluate my time estimates This mission was a bit for you - I guess the aerospike-vector combination is not the easiest to handle in different atmospheric conditions. And watching the munar surface ballet with the external tank was really amusing Other that that, I'd like to say I like the base design and the compact cargo-packing as well. Very nice mission, and a well earned badge for you: Sure, your shuttles are always very welcome here no worries, take all the time you need Hey there I must admit, I do not have as much time as I would like, so I can't promise anything about creating this new mission any time soon. But don't wory, I have not forgotten your robo-arm design! Michal.don

As usually, the definition is quite vague, to not limit creativity - so a rocket-powered rover is fine by me Yes, any means of transportation to Kerbin is fine, including a mini shuttle. I don't have the time to check your entry right now, I should be able to get to it in a day or two. Looking forward to seeing the next one too, though! Michal.don

Well, it's a bit against the whole "reusability" thing, but let's call them a part of the LV instead of the orbiter then

Ok, time for another round of reviews. The delays are becoming quite customary, and I'm sorry about that. Good job on finishing the last "Kerbin" mission! The "nuke pod" idea is really neat, nice piece of engineering on your part. And by upsizing the LV a bit you got a really powerful machine with a lot of potential, and still room for more upgrades. I'm getting curious how you will perform in the next missions. Here's your badge, congratulations! One scheduled Hubble mission, and one to cover up for serious mess-up, where have I seen this? The MMUs are really cute, and the missions are both very well flown, so another bagde, for you, too: We have another newcomer here, welcome to the challenge! Great demonstration mission for your shuttle concept, and a pinpoint landing as well - not an easy feat. I suspect a redesign will come soon to add significant cargo capacity, so here is your badge, and I'm looking forward to seeing more soon! Michal.don

I'd love to see the repair mission, as @hoioh said, that would be so Hubble....

I'm sorry to hear that, but I understand not everybody has fun doing this thing, and when your script works so well, it takes a bit of the fun from flying the missions. Nevertheless, if you do any more missions with your shuttle, even if they are not related to the challenge, let us know here - I'd love to see the script working in yet another circumstances Michal.don

Nice one again - I love the idea of an on-orbit attached docking port and the following assembly One issue I have with the bideo report though - could you please include liftoff and ascent next time? Or, at least, a few short clips of the significant parts of them? I won't make you re-fly this mission, but I'd like to see them the next one. Thanks! And, regarding the reentry/descent - the script makes it look soooo easy Especially the second one, the map view shows really well how the script beutifully gets the shuttle home - I think this is approaching the Skunkworks territory quite fast - I am truly impressed Anyway, a badge for you and I am indeed looking forward for more! Michal.don

Exactly. To be honest, I don't think lots of maneuverability is needed in a shuttle - quite the contrary. The only thing that is handy to have is pitch authority - and a lot of people use canards clipped into the cockpit for that (or lots of elevons on the rear end). Too much roll authority can prove to be... difficult... during reentry, in my experience.

You can go straight to STS-2a, the "b" missions are optional, bonus missions and are not required to complete before progressing further. Nice demonstration mission of your first shuttle - good job! The reentry was quite precise, with a bit of training you'll be landing at the KSC in no time So, here's the first badge for you: Congratulations! Michal.don

These two are not mutualy exclusive, in my humble opinion