Cavscout74

I tend to use fairly standard launchers, and name them: 1.25m Jabbit or Horned Jabbit, 1.875m Dawngrazer or Steamglider, 2.5m Girroc, 3.75m Granok. I don't remember what my 5m or some of my reusable launchers were named. The names were from creatures fin an MMO I used to play. I'll typically have several sub-assemblies of each size with different length fuel tanks & possibly different engines. Individual small craft designs tend to get abbreviations based on their use - OMV= Orbital Maneuver Vehicle - a manned pod with limited dV & RCS, typically what I name the basic Mk 1 pod to get a kerbal into orbit in early career, or MPV - Multi-Purpose Vehicle, usually the 2-man pod with much more dV, usually enough for trips to Mun/Minmus. OTV# is Orbital Tourist Vehicle (# seats). If there are variants, that will get an additional abbreviation (ER = Extended Range is the most common). Then I just add a sequential number to each one I launch (MPV-1, MPV-2, etc). The design gets saved as (launcher) (craft abbreviation) so something like Dawngrazer MPV-ER or whatever. Relays usually end up with an abbreviation, altitude & A/B/C for the (usually) 3 relays in the network. So the second "medium" altitude relay around Kerbin at 500km would be MKR-500-B. Science probes get usually historic probe names plus destination (Pioneer-Duna, Surveyor-Mun, etc). Large craft - something like to take a crew of 4+ kerbals to for missions to other planets and are not disposable get a class designation and individual names, usually running in alphabetical order from a list I made a long time ago: Exploration Vehicle 1 (EV-1) is usually named Avalon, #2 is Babylon. Space Stations will get a basic name (Kerbin Fuel Station or Minmus Science Station or whatever) but whenever I kill a kerbonaut, I rename a station in his/her honor. Preference goes to more complicated stations first - a fuel depot with no crew quarters tends to just stay Kerbin Fuel Station while a research station that I built out of 8 separate payloads, with greenhouse, science lab and quarters for 20+ kerbals will be one of the first to be named.

My 1.12 career continued to progress, with the 2nd manned Mun & Minmus landings. Jeb performed an unauthorized maneuver, slinging his capsule out into kerbolar orbit before returning. Kelrik gathering a greenstone to bring home while Jeb keeps the lander warmed up Val & Ambera plant a flag on Mun Testing a miniature Mun rover before sending it off to space The second attempt landed safely and did some exploration before having to stop to recharge it's batteries. The first attempt suffered an unexplained structural failure & exploded near the Mun's surface (ie a clipped part reacted..... poorly when I staged away the transfer stage during descent) We also started providing rescue services to other space programs operating somewhat recklessly around the globe, using a shorter ranged version of the Dawngrazer multipurpose vehicle, repainted in red & white "rescue" livery.

Could you be missing one of tweakscale's dependencies? I ran into different problems, but I was missing one on my most recent build & it messed my game up pretty bad till I found the missing one.

Make a backup just in case, but it shouldn't harm anything. And the persistent.sfs should be the only file you need to edit. I regularly personalize my kerbals when I start a new career with no ill effects.

I know this has made the rounds of KSP for a while, but I didn't realize it was supposed to be a game guide....... * *courtesy of KSP Facebook page, I have no idea where it originated.

My new career has been making great strides - from exploring anomalies on Kerbin in low tech jets, to sending kerbals to Mun & Minmus

Yep, that sure sounds like one of my normal Eve missions.

There was a mod "Ground Effect" that added, well, ground effect to KSP, making creations like this able to be built more like the real thing. It also affected regular aircraft, making them more buoyant near the ground - which I found made for much smoother landings. I don't know if it works in the newest KSP versions, but since you just reminded me of it, I plan to find out tonight.

I started playing KSP again after a bit of a break, and decided to start a modded 1.12.5 game. I'm away from my game computer at the moment, so logs & an exact mod list will have to wait. Everything seems to be working good except, when I go to the tracking station. When the screen first comes up, everything is fine. But when I select a craft, it's icon on the map disappears, only the orbit is visible. When I select a different craft, the new craft's icon also disappears, but the previous craft does not reappear. If I exit tracking & reenter it, everything is back to normal until I select a craft. This is happening on two different computers, on two different career saves - one I started before mods but is now doing it and one new career that is only modded. And I don't remember if the unmodded career was doing it before I added mods - it was just starting, I don't think there was anything in orbit to track before I added mods. Went into a sandbox save I had, and it does not do this, only my career saves (currently with level 1 tracking stations)

All it takes is practice. Oh, and quite a bit of beating your head on your desk or other convenient hard surface. But at least no casualties. Seriously though, I found rendezvous to be the hardest skill to learn in the game, far harder than the actual docking - although that needs some practice to get the hang of as well.

So I bit the bullet and went through the trouble of building a modded 1.12.5 install & started a fresh hard career. So I've been doing all the early career stuff - at least the modified early career that I started using, with some aircraft & rover parts, to give Jeb something to do waiting on rockets to reach orbit. Bumper rocket, lofting the Korporal upper stage almost into space - 68km 2nd try a few days later, I didn't turn as sharply and kept the nose higher to get a 78km Ap and the first suborbital flight In the meantime, Jeb was off exploring the desert in a tried & true Hawk prop fighter while Kelrik & Ambera were working to bring the island airfield back into service After the successful Bumper flights, I was able to loft a small relay satellite into orbit Jeb also got to test out the experimental Juno engines, powering the new Star fighter. Lastly, Kelrik & Ambera were tasked to take a long range patrol jeep up to the arctic to investigate some strange signals received from there. Mostly because the Hawk I don't think has the range, the Star's engines were experimental & I don't have the science to unlock them now that the contract is complete, and my other prop fighter that might have the range still has parts that I also need more science to unlock. I am also wondering about something I encountered that I haven't seen before - in the tracking station, when I select a craft, it's icon disappears but the orbit is still visible. Then if I select a different craft, it's icon disappears, but the previous craft doesn't reappear and it's orbit disappears unless I mouse over where it is. I'm hoping it was just a glitch & will be gone when I load the game next time.

That is actually just JNSQ with Scatterer Does make backing into your parking space a bit easier though

Did some more JNSQ careering. I also figured out the mystery of my lost career save - I had started it in 1.11, and soon after getting a Mun landing, I ran into game breaking bugs - specifically stuff falling off whenever you tried to attach parts to a craft. I ended up deleting all my 1.11 installs, and was experimenting with a new tech tree in 1.10, intending to try again but lost interest instead. Tested the abort system on a newly researched Mk2 pod The Minmus Surveyor landed uneventfully That was followed by manned orbital missions to Mun & Minmus, with safe returns by both

It looks like you are out of the atmosphere & I don't see any pieces missing after booster separation, so it couldn't have been too bad of an idea. You've certainly beaten most of my shuttle attempts.

When I first heard about KSP, I downloaded the demo & swore I wouldn't buy the game till I could at least get something into orbit. Took me nearly a week. A few weeks later, when I got my first kerbal walking on Mun, I was ecstatic. Keep trying, keep experimenting & before you know it, you'll have one of those Jeb clones planting a flag on Laythe, and Mun will be a distant memory. And I still occasionally misjudge & send something shooting off into the ground or into a bad orbit. Lastly, qucksave & quickload (F5 & F9 on pc) are your best friends when learning to land on Mun.

Back when I was posting my JNSQ career as an ongoing series, I had the mod list posted at the beginning. It wasn't RSS-length ridiculous, but I had a fair number of pretty large mods.

Are you using auto struts? They are usually a big help.

Thanks for everything you've done for the KSP community. I've enjoyed quite a few of the mods you've made & adopted.

Got off a few more JNSQ launches - my first tourist trip in this career, a Mun probe & completed a contract to take an aircraft past mach 2. Luna probe with Trans-Mun stage coasting to Ap as the Atlas falls away. Coming back to land after a successful (on the 5th or 6th try) mach 2 flight. This was a pain, as the contract stipulates no more than 10 m/s vertical speed. And hold it for 5 seconds. That is down or up - very hard to keep near level that long while rapidly accelerating in a tiny plane with a reliant at full throttle.

I got excited this morning, I thought I found my long lost JNSQ career. Nope, it was only on day 3, year 1. Still had some fun with it, though - buzzing around the desert facilities with my trusty Bison prop plane, then getting a contract to test jet engines, giving Jeb a chance to go faster & fly by the pyramids. Got in a night launch of an Bumper (V-2 + Corporal) that slipped above the atmosphere. Then tried to make something to put an Explorer satellite into LKO. I did not aim well, and merely ended up with a 550km high ballistic toss. Then I went back to my 1.8 career in time for my latest Moho crew to return & get ferried home in style aboard a Lightning II spaceplane. I was quite happy with myself, after not playing for a while till the last week or so. I picked an almost perfect reentry point, glided down over the mountains straight into a night landing at KSC. I barely touched the Rapiers during the entire atmospheric flight

Actually most of the US uses month/day/year. It seems stupid, but it is the norm here. I always thought day/month/year made much more sense. Ironically, the US military (at least Army) uses day/month/year. As well as the metric system.

Took a pair of tourists on an orbital trip then recovered safely And landed Surveyor 1 on Mun I also realized that this install was never completed - some mods weren't installed, others weren't trimmed of parts I don't use, the tech tree was pure stock. So I'm probably just going to delete this one and go back to checking out other old saves. I might even try to get all my Kerbals home in time for KSP 2.

Thanks but it was more like it was a small probe rather than I was awesome. It was built as a Voyager-style probe using parts from the Probes Plus mod by @akron and had several RCS thrusters intended to be used for maneuvering. I'm somewhat familiar with the stuck on Minmus running out of power in the dark hoping the Snacks last. I was using a Pomegranate or Onion pod on a lander once and accidentally hit space when getting ready to head back to orbit, staging away the pod to land a few meters from the rest of the lander. Had to hurriedly slap together a rescue and head for Minmus. I was on crumbs when the rescue mission landed - and that only because I moved the spare snack storage off the lander & attached it to the pod with KAS

My own dark confession - I accidentally murdered a load of 8 tourists on the launch pad once. Forgot the old "check your staging" rule and had a Tac Self-Destruct charge that somehow got moved to the first stage. And in my panic when I figured out what was going on, I couldn't think to hit the abort system - which I had actually taken the time to set up and test.

Continuing my tour of abandoned KSP installs across 2 computers, I fired up a 1.10 career that I barely started - it doesn't even seem like I got all my usual mods installed, but I was a few weeks in, with several flights done (specifically Jeb has been to orbit, but no one else yet). So I managed to get a primitive probe to flyby Mun & return, then a primitive comm satellite that despite having what should have been plenty of dV ended up using RCS to finish making orbit Luna-1 returning home Comm sat entering orbit with RCS. I also broke off the relay antenna on the visible side. Great job, me. Clearly my KSP skills have deteriorated in the time I've been absent.