digger1213

I decided to test out artificial gravity after watching some inspiring videos. I started off by landing a small probe inside of a giant ring that I cheated used my 100 percent amazing KSP skills to get into orbit. I slowly increased the spin speed... I got to 3G faster than I thought I would. This was already very fast, but I kept going. At 7G, the camera wobble was starting to get very annoying. Since the probe was stuck fallen over onto the ring, and the Accelerometer was underneath it, I was already having a hard enough time accessing it. By now, the camera wobble was unbearable. I should have turned that down in the settings. I also just realized that this would be overkill good for doing those High-G Adventure contracts. But alas, all good things must come to an end. Somewhere around 17G, some rotation in another direction got amplified until the force of the probe on the inside ripped the ring's core apart. The probe was flung away unscathed, but the ring not so much...

I decided to test out some VTOL planes, but got irritated with the Center of Mass and Center of Thrust lineup. So I came up with a far simpler solution. I just noticed while looking at this picture that the RTG is off center. Whoops.

I used RCS when first trying to dock ships together. It always ended up in disaster, until one day when I forgot to add RCS. Simply used the main thrusters. Ever since then, main thrusters have always been my go-to, as Monopropellant and RCS adds weight, and its just easier to use the main thrusters anyway. You don't need RCS for klaws anyway, and the docking ports have a strong enough magnetic attraction that its easy enough to just use the main thrusters to maneuver.

Sorry for the extremely late reply. I have not had time to test yet, but I will try to minimize drag. I did try to fit the drills in a service bay originally, but they were way too big. Should I try an MK3 cargo bay facing downwards? I can't try these ideas right now, but I will try to get back when I can.

I have struggled for quite a long time to create a mining SSTO that could get itself to Laythe, and fly around... until I can be bothered to bring the Kerbals back. The process has resulted in many failures, all looking relatively like this one: I usually run into one of three or so problems. 1: Not enough TWR to reach orbit. 2: Not enough DV to reach orbit. 3. Flops around on the runway until it blows up. (Or fails to take off...) I usually find it too heavy to take off, so I add more wings. I then find it too heavy for the jet engines to effectively carry, struggling to make orbit, or unable to get fast enough. If I do manage to ever get it into orbit, I do not have enough TWR to go anywhere. I have been inspired by the SSTO in this Reddit post but even when replicating it as accurately as possible I find it impossible to takeoff the runway, or otherwise orbital TWR is less than 0.1 which I find unacceptable (yet still without enough Delta-V to get anywhere). Should I try using the smaller refinery and drills? Is there anything I can do to try and improve my designs? Thanks.

I recently got a mining base at Vall. Whenever I am at a seperate craft, and I come into range of the base, it always seems on the verge of exploding. Many parts are always on the verge of exploding, including the many radiators I have mounted. Notably, my drills and my refinery are not overheating. What the heck is happening here? None of my other bases (which all use practically the same design) do this.

Somehow, completely by chance, if I leave my Kerbin slowdown burn for my SSTO Tourist plane, it will result in Kerbin perfectly slingshotting me to Jool. If I did take it, I could probably refuel at my Vallbase anyway to come back. The only reason I'm not taking it is because my tourist deadline is coming near.. and they probably miss Kerbin after thier 20 year tour of Duna, Ike, Jool, Vall, Tylo, Mun and Minmus.

I finally decided to rescue Jebediah from his 40th year or so of being on the Minmus refuelling station (that I have yet to use). It's his fault (and totally not mine) that he boarded the flight without me knowing until I was already there... Also rescued Bob from his 4th year of being in EVA in Kerbin orbit after he too (also not my fault) boarded a mission to Jool he wasn't supposed to be on.

I have seen other people saying that the question mark anomalies are very innacurate. They are supposed to be the easter eggs, and that question mark is probably the black monolith just north of KSC, like egoego said. I personally have noticed the inaccuracy when trying to find the anomalies on Minmus, as it always was a very far distance away. Generally, you should look around the spot it says the easter egg is at, and hope to find it.

Kerbals get Experience based on where they have been. Until you can get to the Mun, your Kerbals wont be able to reach higher than Lvl 1. However, their Experience is not what is stopping you from getting maneuver nodes. To use Maneuver Nodes in campaign, you need to have gotten at least Lvl 2 tracking station, Lvl 2 Mission Control and have Full Probe/Crew control on your vehicle. If any of these are not met, you will not have maneuver nodes, and will not have patched conics to show you your encounters. Full Probe control means having a connection back to Kerbin, and full Crew Control means having a pilot on board, or otherwise a connection to Kerbin. As a bonus tip on getting Experience, the best way to get experience on any body other than Kerbin is to plant a flag on it. A flag gives more experience than just landing does. You can view a Kerbal's experience in the Astronaut Complex, and they only get thier experience once recovered or levelled up using a Mobile Processing Lab (or you have Instant Experience turned on.). Hope I helped!

So, I knew I could do better. So I made an SSTO capable of carrying 13 Kerbals to orbit. This only took me several hours to get it to work. First, my internet goes out. Second, Imgur didn't save any of the numerous changes I put in. 3rd, I had to remake the entire screenshot list. 4th, I had to rewrite this forum post. 5th, I had to rewrite the Imgur. 6th, I had to redo the maths because that was on the Imgur. 7th, because the maths won't save onto the IMGUR FOR SOME STUPID REASON, I have to rewrite it here. Since cost is 1996 dollars, and the total Kerbals to orbit is 13, the overall cost per Kerbal is 153.538461538 according to Google. About freaking time, that this got over with. I am really salty right now, sorry about that. I hope I didn't do any maths wrong.

This is my craft, for this challenge. I forgot to name it, so call it the Unnamed. I made two Imgur albums, one showing the failsafe system, and the other showing the actual launch. For some reason, my first Imgur's text isnt loading in, but you should be able to see what is happening. If I did my math correctly, I should have 989 cost per Kerbal, with 84 kerbals. Not quite first place, but maybe I could modify this into a runway-lander... EDIT: The first Imgur's pictures are all in the wrong order, and no matter what I do, they won't update. Why does Imgur always do this to me?

I thought that there would always be a way to do it, but considering that it doesnt allow for mid-course corrections and it has a set time of transit on the Y axis, I guess I can actually see why. Strange though, considering how I've seen blank spots on my Duna transfers from Kerbin. Anyway, everything has gone to plan. I set up the base, landed the tanker, the refuel rover, and my lander. I EVA'd the Kerbal into the lander command pod. I took it to orbit. I tried to EVA the Kerbal again. Hatch obstructed. God dangit. I find if I spin the ship fast enough at 4x physics warp the parts glitch and separate enough to let the Kerbal EVA out, but that is a massive pain in the backside. I can't do that while landed. It's even more stupid because there is plenty of space for the Kerbal to get in, but once inside they are trapped forever without glitches or docking claws. Excuse my horrible-looking lander design. Is there any way I can force the Kerbal out, cheating or not? I will eventually get a replacement lander in here, but until then... well... there is clearly enough space there. I had a quick dive through the Cheats menu, and all of F12, but couldn't find anything. Thanks in advance. And also, my goal for this is pretty much to get as much infrastructure around every place as possible. That way all I would need is the Delta-V to get to each new place, rendezvous with a fuel depot and continue. As well as checking out loads of anomalies.

Yeah, I did mean a second small mining base on Tylo just so I can get around there. My one on Vall would be my main fuel mover, and although it is less efficient than Bop or Pol, it is far more conveniently located. Especially because once I get my Laythe SSTO program up and running it would be easier to move fuel to Laythe from Vall than from those far moons. That's actually a really good idea. Since my lander has a docking port on it that actually doesn't really do anything, top mounted just so I could refuel anything using it in emergencies, I could use it for tug purposes. Although it might be a bit irritating as my lander is a bit on the heavy side. Actually, if I have the tug land and refuel or use the refuel depot I plan to set up in orbit, it could be an easy way to get stuff into and out of orbit. Ooh, I might send a launch tug next transfer window. Thanks for the idea! My question still stands though about the launch window planner blank spots, for example looking at transfers from Tylo to Vall. There are a lot of blank spots on it, and I have no idea what they mean.

Thanks! If I were to set up a mining base on Tylo, I could probably ferry the engineer back and forth in the lander as well. With that setup, I could probably use the 5km/s lander renewably for Tylo exploration too. And since I will be using Laythe SSTOs there, that will be fine. Considering this is my first big expedition in the Jool system, or really anywhere other than Duna, I hope it goes well too. Thanks. Actually, by the way, that launch window planner often has blank spaces on it where no Delta-V is shown. What happens here? I cannot think of a time where it would be actually impossible to do a transfer, so what exactly are they?

I just found a bug with this, couldn't decide whether to post it here or in the Bug Reporting section. I just decided to post it here, though. The imgur should tell you everything important. In short, the Body window still blocks mouse clicks while it is closed. Just a little bit annoying, but it is still there .

I decided I want to try and get as much out of the Jool system as possible. For this cause, I have set up a Vall mining base that is capable of producing fuel for anything that can get into orbit around Vall, with the help of a tanker I also sent. I am in the process of designing a vehicle that can be used to land on the majority of the moons of Jool, maybe excluding Laythe and Tylo, at least until I get refueling stops there. How much Delta-V should a vehicle capable of refueling in Vall orbit need, for exploration of these other planets? Preferably, it would be a single stage so it would be reusable after refuel. I have currently managed to get a lander that has 5k DV and has enough TWR to land on Tylo, but not Laythe. 5k DV isn't enough to visit Tylo and return to Vall, is it?

Well, that wasn't 24 hours but oh well, I meant 12. xD Using these tips I was able to land my base on Vall... with about 50DV spare. Probably will give myself a little extra next time. I am now focusing on expanding said base for full expansion of the Jool system. Also discovered the parking orbit of an elliptical orbit that is resonant with all 3 low moons, which was quite fun to set up. Anyways, I'll answer any questions that were here anyway. My Vall landing section has a TWR of just over 2. Is higher better when landing? The extra weight would probably make it even more difficult with lower DV for the rest of the rocket, or so I think. This is what I thought. Even if it only takes 1.2km/s of DV, it would still only save 300 DV or so, and the real-time and game-time isn't worth it. My game clock is already up to year 40, and Jeb has been stuck in a refueling depot he hitched a ride with for about 36 of those. The months/days that would take is tiny compared to the years the Jool transfer takes anyway. I have seen other people mentioning this tactic, but I always wondered how I would line it up, and how long it would take for Minmus to get in position, as its orbital period is many days. Yeah, I have started to wonder about those as I have had some high DV slowdown costs. However, I believe it is still more efficient to do a bad gravity assist than to spend over a thousand DV to slow down from interplanetary speeds. I'd rather a 1k DV slowdown around Vall than a 1.5k DV slowdown around Jool + transfer to Vall. I ended up using the MOAR BOOSTERS advice, and my rocket in the end had 5 TwinBoars mounted on the outside for my liftoff + orbit stage, in an Onion staging configuration. My transfer consisted of the medium sized Rockomax tank with oxidizer removed and 8 liquid fuel fuselages + 8 Nervs. I know that is inefficient, but I couldn't be bothered with low TWR. Thanks for the help, everyone!

Thanks for the answers. I have already been using Tylo for gravity assists every time I go to Jool, as I can see they are highly effective for slowing down. How much Delta V should I be aiming for to land on Vall, with some margin for error? I have looked at the Delta-V maps, but seeing how my numbers can vary quite a lot compared to the map, I am wondering how much I should be aiming for, Tylo assist included. I have managed to get the Delta-V up to 8k. I am also dubious about using my Minmus depot for interplanetary usage. Last time I did that, the transfer to Jool from Minmus took more DV than it did from LKO. The refuel still resulted in a net gain, but it took me almost 2k DV from Minmus orbit to get to Jool. Another question, is it worth using an Eve flyby as a gravity assist to get to Jool? I have messed around with it a little bit using my Eve probes, but considering it should only be a 500DV difference anyway I don't see much savings. I won't be able to try anything till late tomorrow, so I won't be able to respond for at least another 24 hours. Thanks for your help.

I am having trouble getting large payloads to Jool. My payload is a 50 tonne base segment that I want to land on Vall. The payload is capable of landing itself from an orbit of Vall, but my problem is getting it there in the first place. With a 50 tonne payload, adding LV-N's on a stage below it usually results in an extra delta V of around 1000 maximum. Adding more can get that up to around 3000 Delta-V but by then I am lifting around 150 tonnes into LKO which I cannot seem to do even with the large Kerbodyne parts. I've thought of some ideas, such as breaking it into multiple sections, brute-forcing it with loads of Kerbodyne engines, and Asparagus, but have not tried any out yet. I would like to keep the overall cost relatively low, anything under 1mil will be fine. I do have refuelling depots at Minmus and Duna, if those are of any help. Any ideas on how I could get large payloads to far places like Vall?

It took me a while to find why my maneuver nodes weren't being placed. Lesson learned. Don't place too many maneuver nodes.

I find most contracts are good, but the progression based Explore contracts are not. I mean the explore contracts about Exploring Mun, then Minmus, then probably Duna, etc. They're the only ones I do not like, as they cannot be declined unlike the others, and I believe are considered the storyline contracts. I also personally find the leadership initiative strategy useless, as milestones generate very little funds compared to the contracts given, with my average Duna contract now giving around 1m funds, which easily covers the 60k those missions usually cost around. I guess one way I can get around the return vehicle problem is to have a bunch of spare craft, but that adds to ship count around my base, and will probably cost a lot. Maybe I should plan for these same contracts at each location, like at least 2 manned vehicles, 2 kerbals, 2 landers, etc per planet SOI.

So, in Campaign, I have tried to go to planets in the order the explore contracts give them to me, for a sort of storyline/progression even after I have finished the tech tree. However, this is just getting annoying. Explore Ike: perform a rendezvous around Ike, perform a docking around Ike. Explore the Sun: Rendezvous two vessels, perform a crew transfer. Explore Gilly: Return to Kerbin from orbit of Gilly. Now, I want to explore new planets, and I am nearly done with these moons and planets. However I keep getting more contracts for Ike and Gilly, and even the Sun. I just finished the Explore Ike contract using a probe with a claw on it, and then got a contract to do a crew transfer around Ike, and I have no other easily available ships to do that with, from my Duna base. These contracts just start to feel more annoying after I've already done X around Y so many times. The return missions are annoying as well. When I first explored Gilly, it told me to return from a Gilly flyby. I sent a probe, returned it to Kerbin. A contract for orbit Gilly + return then is available. Since most of the time I either send one-way probes to moons/planets or I send refuelling bases, it means I either have to send another vehicle to go there and return, or sacrifice one of the vehicles I already have there to go back, which means sending a duplicate again, which gets boring after I've sent two different vehicles to the Duna system for Ike returns. What are your opinions on these Explore contracts? Personally, I believe it would be better with just Flybys, Orbits, Landings, Flags and Science but that's just my opinion. And also, is it true that going to a location early skips all Explore contracts for that location?

And there goes the 33333rd post, and so close to page 1337. This is the 33334th post. One late... oh well.

In my Campaign I decided to make the best of the next Duna transfer. I sent 7 different craft (instead of merging them all into one mega vehicle), two of which are base segments, two are relays, one is an ore scanner, one is a biome hopper, and one is a flying fuel tanker rover. I am very proud of that rover, it has enough Delta-V to land almost anywhere from Kerbin orbit. (Or I think 4000 delta V is enough to do that...) In all of these vessels, there are only two Kerbals. One scientist, and one engineer, ready to set up thier refuelling station on Duna. Then hop around in the biome hopper. Fun! I only decided to send this after I realized I was sending too many vehicles to Duna at once, because I wanted to make the best of the single transfer window. So I just sent it, which is why I forgot a 3rd relay, a high powered relay, a return vehicle for the contract, and an ore tanker. Edit: I now need to send two relays, not just one... I accidentally skipped the entry of Duna Relay 2 because I was busy getting the Science section on the right course. Oh well... that's not too bad. It didn't have any Kerbals or anything.