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  1. Very much so! I just opened this thread to see if any updates had been made.
  2. To the Mod Designers, I've read this whole thread, and have given a few 'likes', but I feel I should write to thank the mod team for this excellent effort. So: thank you, all! I've been in a very busy/stressful/difficult period in the last few weeks, and KSP along with this outstanding overhaul has been a frequent target of my (very limited, and much-needed) recreational time. Your efforts and commitment to our game are very appreciated. Just... thanks! And a couple notes that I've not seen on this thread (knowing they may be on the development sites, which I don't follow): - The single-Boar engine is wonderful; I haven't even fully explored how to work that into my 'standard builds', but I look forward to it. Unfortunately it costs 12000 funds, which is clearly too much. I easily fixed that myself, but I look forward to seeing your final design choice on its cost. - The OP lists Restock as a bundled part of RestockPlus; as of now it is not (at least from SpaceDock). It was, when I first dl'd it a week or so ago, but no longer. I actually prefer this, and like 'Plus' as a plugin/addon, but since modders are so keen to scold posters for "not reading the OP" (and rightly so), I thought I'd point this out. I'd also like to talk about how much I love your design/aesthetic choices and how much they've added to my enjoyment of the game, yet how I prefer the new SQUAD 1.25 LFO tanks to Restock's, and how I've modded your mod to suit that preference... but I feel I run on too long. So, Restock Team: thank you all again, and again.
  3. I checked in on the Minmus refinery ops the other day; it had been a long time since I paid any attention to it. The (landed) lander was full, having been running for a few months in the background, and I had some time before The Overlord (a.k.a Kerbal Alarm Clock) needed me... So it was time to get the lander back to the orbital fuel depot, and I launched. Couldn't (or didn't) remember what altitude the depot was at, but figured it was about 50km, just like the (nearly) identical operations on Mun and Ike. Once I circularized at 25km, I (finally) switched to map view to target the depot and set up my rendezvous... and couldn't spot it at first. Going back to flight view, I found it: just under 200m away. Accidental launch to rendezvous! And, I must admit, closer than if I had tried to r-v that way...
  4. I did indeed; I failed to look closely at your screenshot. Very nice of you to follow-up with another. I use KER extensively, and have various HUDs for various situations (flying in atmo, roving, etc.) but prefer the Basic Orbits (by @DMagic) HUDs as my "general" info displays. But I've just added a KER "Body" display to my options. Thanks!
  5. Yes, thanks. That's the "trial and error" method I mentioned-- I just keep tweaking the orbit until I find the boundary. But I'm currently doing an extensive orbital survey of Jool's moons (which I haven't often visited) and it was getting tedious to keep tweaking orbits-- particularly for Bop and Pol, where the timewarp frames are very limited at low altitude. Bop's probe looks like it's going to clip ridges-- it's very fun and very terrifying at the same time... Anyway, thanks to both of you; it was a pretty dumb question, but the good nature of this forum never seems to worry about that.
  6. Good grief... I used to reference this page all the time, just to remind myself of which experiments were Situation/Biome specific. I completely forgot about that last table. Thanks much. And at least I was right about one thing: it was an embarrassingly foolish question.
  7. I'm almost embarrassed to ask this, and I feel like this must have been asked and answered before, but... For all the stock bodies, is there a list of the orbital altitudes where the Situation goes from "In Space Low" to "In Space High?" Obviously, I can find this by trial and error, and many bodies I've visited so many times that it's second nature... but I've felt for years like I'm missing something. Is it simply a function of the body's equatorial radius? Is there some in-game reference that I'm foolishly ignoring? This isn't a pressing "problem," it's just something I've never found a concrete answer to. If anyone knows, or if anyone can point out some reference that I'm blithely missing, I would appreciate it.
  8. Thanks for both the question, and the answer. I've currently got a refinery operation en route to Jool, including two landers-- one designed for Mun, one for Minmus. I'm going to test them on Vall and Pol, respectively... but I'm already pretty sure we'll set up the operation at Pol.
  9. This is really the question I started with, and though it took a bit of a meandering path to get to the answer... thanks! And it makes me wonder if how much I can improve the design. In the first picture above, you can see there's 2400 LFO on the central stack, 3200 on the boosters. I wonder if I could reverse that... it would mean, what, a reduction of 9 tons per landing. Nine tons I don't have to ship to Tylo. Away from (Gaming) computer at the moment; will play around with this later. I have a feeling (i.e. a back-of-the-envelope calculation) that reduction would drop the available dV below "safe margins." Instead, I may want to make both the boosters and the core 3200 LFO. That not only gives me a better margin-of-error, it should give the craft more ability-- reach higher latitudes, e.g. And the extra fuel shouldn't hurt on Laythe... Well, this post has devolved into me talking to myself, and making notes for things to look into in-game, later tonight. Thanks for your indulgence... I second that!
  10. I was worried about the same thing-- "a disastrous last minute drop in t/w ratio." I avoided it by putting the higher-thrust Aerospikes on the main stage. That, I think, was the decision that made it work for me. It goes against my normal thinking in rocket design-- low TWR, high isp on the final stage. This comes of course from many launches from Kerbin's surface. Tylo forces you to think "backwards," as it were. And then I started thinking how well Aeros would work for a Laythe ascent... and I think I'm pretty close to dual-use vehicle that (with orbital refueling) will work for both moons. Now... I'm starting to ponder Vall. Looks like this might be a "Jool-5" after all.
  11. DMagic Orbital Science and ScanSat, by the same author: They work together to give you more Science! instruments and contracts, several of which focus on anomaly-hunting. I enjoy both immensely.
  12. Yeah... I know. I just have an abiding distaste for hauling drills and converters around. I like them permanently on the ground, or permanently in orbit. I'm not against the idea though. However... I got the second test vehicle to work, and it was (surprisingly) a very simple and easy design. It's also exceedingly ugly, but this is just a prototype... In the VAB: Thinking that if I were going for fewer landings, each one would need to count, so I aimed for 0N/0W from a (IIRC) 70km orbit. I ended up with a longer braking burn than I'd have liked, with all four engines burning at less than full throttle-- in the production version, I'll toggle the Aerospikes so we can brake/adjust plane with just the Poodles. That should squeeze a little more fuel efficiency out of it. And on the surface: I did the descent/ascent once manually, then let MechJeb have a try. We both got back to a 50km orbit easily. I had just less than 200m/s in the tanks; MJ had over 360. Show-off. I didn't grab a shot at booster separation (I was rather focused on the dV and fuel levels), but in both landings the (onion-staged) side boosters ran dry just under 1000m from the surface. MJ didn't even freak out when I manually staged. ----- So, some conclusions/notes: - The final version won't look exactly like this. I like to "build" my own tanks by welding small radial tanks, radiator panels, etc. But it will have the same mass, form factor, fuel capacity, etc. Plus Science!, ladders, etc. - I'll probably add a disposable "nose tank" to help with inclination/altitude changes, and to add a little more margin of error. I'm thinking 400 LFO ought to do the trick if I turn off the Aerospikes for orbital maneuvers. - Instead of the big radial decouplers, I'll use clamp-o-trons. That way the central stack can be re-used. I'm tentatively looking at four landings (one for each of the Big Four), so I'll have to send 4 pairs of boosters out to Jool, along with some little assembly/docking tugs, etc. That'll be a fun exercise in logistics planning (no sarcasm; that really will be enjoyable). - A cool (if unintended) finding is that this thing could probably ascend from Laythe, if I add a nose tank with parachutes and de-orbit fuel. So that's awesome-- I really dislike one-use or disposable vehicles. Almost every payload I send up these days is meant to be multi-role and multi-use. (Note: I'm talking about the central stack, not the side-boosters.) I think this is going to work well. I'm of course open to any further suggestions or refinements. Thanks again!
  13. Hey, thanks all for such thoughtful responses. And Happy Easter, to those that observe it. I sat down this afternoon to test some designs, and quickly realized nukes weren't going to work. My late-night estimations were way off-- instead of firing up the game, I used an old spreadsheet (that I made when I got the demo, and had no access to KER). For reasons I can only describe as stupidity sleep deprivation I assumed LV-Ns had 120 thrust and massed 1 ton... and that is of course not the case. Anyway, I'm trying out a LFO "stage-and-a-half" design. I'm actually landing now, in a Sandbox test save. I'll try to post pictures later tonight. But even from my playing around in the VAB I'm coming to the realization that a reusable (or partially reusable) design that can hit all the biomes is probably not going to happen. I could do it, but the logistics and infrastructure needed to place and refuel so many boosters so many times would be, well... not enough fun to be worth the effort. So I think the mission parameters have changed. We'll try for 1-3 landings, depending on what the ScanSat/Anomaly orbiters find. I have a small flotilla of orbital research probes about 40-50 days out from Jool, so in maybe 80 days or so I hope I can identify a small number of interesting landing sites. I'll let you know when I do this "for real." Thanks again for the help; you guys really got me to sharpen and refine my goals and methods on this.
  14. Thanks, @-Velocity- and thanks, @Human Person. But you both get to the crux of my question without really answering it: how much does Tylo favor TWR over dV versus dV over TWR? More specifically, what is a good TWR for descent and ascent on Tylo? What does "high TWR" mean to you? 2.5? 5? 10? I'm currently roughing out a design in the VAB. It would have about this performance (these are very rough figures; I haven't added all the science and attitude-control parts): - Fully fueled for Descent from low orbit: 6500dV / 2.4TWR Assuming 3000m/s dV for landing (the Subway Map suggests 2270), it would have: - On Ascent, 3700dV . 3.5 TWR I -think- this basic design will work, but I know it won't be quite this efficient; there is more mass, more piloting errors corrections, more cross-range/inclination changes, etc. to work into the design. And I always increase my "safety" (read: fuel) margins when I have Kerbals on-board. Does that sound like enough (or close to enough) TWR to effectively use the nominal dV? ----- Thanks for the help, past and future. This really is a great game that is only exceeded by its amazing community of fellow players.
  15. Thanks-- and I did! I keep it on my desktop, and it's sitting open next to this window as I type this. That's where I got the idea that 5600m/s might work for me. I find I always need more than the Subway Map suggests (for airless bodies). It tells me I can descend/ascend on Mun for <1200m/s, but I find I need more like 1800-2400 to feel safe (depending on the craft, of course). So I should have been more specific: what's the "real" (i.e. safe and practical) dV goal for Tylo? And I don't care what you say, man... I'm doing this! Jeb's getting tired of ferrying tourists to Ike (which is very oddly popular to Kerbals in this save).
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