Cavscout74

Spent some time & funds getting ready to send ships off to the Outer Planets - lofted this monster comm sat into KEO. I should lift two more to space around Kerbin, but that's not in the budget yet. Plus it'll be 40-some years before the first probe reaches Plock. Until then, it has drastically improved comms throught the solar system. I'm using just the JX2 antenna mod without the OPM antenna improvement or improved tracking station. Also launched a huge & kinda ridiculous Duna lander - And finally got the Kerssini-Keyguns probe on its way to Laythe. Probes Plus mod is amazing.

There is no integration other than the new parts are available. I have used the mission builder to test fly new craft on other planets since you can spawn them wherever you want, but that is done entirely outside of the career

Technically yesterday, but I my landers to Eve arrived & well..... Multi-career tested design, apparently came in a little too hot this time & burned off the heat shield, fuel tank, gear & landing engines. But still, managed to put in on the ground with the science gear & 1 solar panel intact. Until the next time I came to do a science contract & the last solar panel broke. New design - basically a 2.5m bay + heat shields. Except as I'm starting the deorbit burn, I realize I forgot something kinda important - parachutes. Oh well, I've had these bays survive intact when they were just debris, hopefully this one will do ok. Probe core survives, everything else goes boom.

Just installed OPM, so I'm looking forward to exploring new planets & moons. The only down side is my current career had a Voyager-ish probe heading to Eeloo which I had to redirect to Jool for an extra ~400 m/s. At least in this career, I didn't have probes going to all the Joolian moons yet, so the probe isn't wasted. All my over-engineering has paid off, too.

Just had a rescue mission this morning with similar altitudes. I hadn't done much that high in a long time, and I ended up cancelling the first attempt with my LKO recovery vehicle & launched a 2nd attempt with the Mun-range version to enough dV. After all that trouble & expense, Gerfield Kerman better find a way to convert graviolli particles into snacks or something.

I actually did on one or two of the tries for my station, and made no difference. Got to almost touching, then got shoved back at >1 m/s with or without MJ

On the plus side, I at least noticed that before launch & was able to recover & try a third time, which went off flawlessly except for the scientist disappeared briefly during EVA. Not sure what happened - he was on a ladder while I was recovering the stranded kerbal for the rescue contract, then wasn't there, then when I cycled through everything around, he reappeared on the ladder & was alive & well.

That desert launch site looks like a big improvement over Woomerang with just a pad in the middle of nowhere. I'll be glad to wait for the patch till it's right & doesn't create more problems than it fixes.

On the plus side, two new recruits ended up stranded in orbit around Kerbin & Mun, so they can try this whole thing again. It is going to mess up the rapidly approaching Jool window since now I don't really have the funds for all the probes & relays I usually launch. That makes 6 KIA in this career & I'm barely halfway through year 2. Not counting tourists. Maybe I should start naming asteroids after them. Edit: 2nd attempt, checked to make sure staging was correct. Didn't check to see if the two recruits - or in fact any kerbals - were on board. Kinda hard to plant a flag or get experience that way.

Not in hard difficulty - no revert, no quickload

My agenda for today was apparently executing two recruits & a tourist bound for Minmus after a design I've used dozens of times - through at least 3 careers & 2 game versions - decided to randomly change the staging & release the launch clamps before the main engines ignited. I didn't even have an abort action group set up on this design because, well, I haven't needed it. "Happily" I was able to stage fast enough to get down to just the crew capsule, probe core, nose cone & chutes, which deployed just barely fast enough to save the probe core, parachutes & nose cone. The heat shield & crew capsule became the crumple zone that saved the probe core

So far, everything I've tried loads into 1.3.1 with no errors. Of course the only save I kept was the last hard career, and I only have lv 2 VAB & R&D, so pretty much everything I converted is either locked by size, part count or technology. But they load fine, so will probably work just fine. Thanks for sharing that

I'm glad you posted this - and that I remembered seeing it. Hopefully my 1.4 Pumera spaceplane will convert easily.

No, that requires 1.4+ I play career 99% of the time, so didn't bother me. The only thing I've used mission builder for was to spawn a plane on Eve to test fly it there and another time to test an amphibious spaceplane on Laythe.

I just switched back to using my 1.3.1 backup copy after my getting fed up with 1.4+ yesterday. First thing I noticed was a faster load time despite having 2 or 3 more mods in 1.3.1 than 1.4.1, plus at least 50 mod parts that I deleted in 1.4.1 that are still in 1.3.1. I haven't timed the difference, but it was quite noticeable - I went to shower while it was loading & it was done before I was. In 1.4.1 I usually have time to enjoy a cup of coffee after the shower before playing. Then the normal reentry graphics & working payload fairings are a big plus.

Departed Laythe, transferred the crew to the transfer vehicle, did a fly-by tour of the Jool system, then when I tried to dock with the Laythe station to refuel before the Kerbin return window, RCS wouldn't work - used up monoprop, but no thrust & no visual effect. Reloaded the game, docked, refueled then undocked, set up a return maneuver in a few days. Then tried to dock a different craft & RCS stopped working again. I think I'm done with 1.4+ for a while. Gonna go back to 1.3.1 Update: Ok, so with more mods in 1.3.1, it loaded faster. And RCS works. And fairings work.

The mod KIS (Kerbal Inventory System) has EVA fuel tanks that can be carried in inventory & used to refuel on the go. They were bugged at one time and I'm honestly not sure if they are fixed or not, since I haven't needed to use them.

I've never encountered this before, but I had RCS quit working in the middle of a gaming session today. The RCS does expend monoprop at its usual rate if I try to use it, but there is no visual effect & no thrust applied. The first time it happened, I tried exiting & reloading the save, with no change. Then tried exiting the game & reloading it, which worked - for a few minutes. The next vessel I tried to dock, RCS didn't work again. The first vessel was under crew control & I've previously docked it with no problems, and yes it still had monoprop available. The second one was a probe and I've not actually tried to dock it before, but it had good comm signal, plenty of MP available. This is a 1.4.1 install with MH. I don't have a mod list handy (I'm on a different computer right now) but I haven't changed or updated anything recently.

After reading a few of the great mission reports & stories on here, I decided to try telling the story of my career mission to Laythe. I hope you all enjoy this first chapter.

Landed the third crew on Duna for this career. The pilot seems rather excited about it. The actual lander is an old, not very good design that's been in orbit of Duna for quite a while. Still works though, as long as its pretty flat ground. Also finally got almost all my ships in place around Laythe & transferred the vet crew over to prepare for a landing: Buffalo rover & surface outpost already landed:

I had this a week ago or so in 1.4.1, trying to assemble a science/fuel station to go to Laythe. I had a core with a transfer stage & 4 Sr docking ports around the middle with plans of 2 fuel & 2 hab modules. Only 1 of 4 modules would dock, the other 3 plus a duplicate i sent up to try again all very nearly docked (<1m) then were sent flying off faster than my approach had been. I finally let the whole thing burn up over Kerbin & built an assembled version in the VAB & cheated it to Kerbin orbit. I haven't had this issue with regular or Jr ports yet though.

In my 1.4.1 career, I got my Jool-diver into the lower atmosphere of Jool - was down to 1753m altitude before it poofed. Then my Pumera SSTO reached Laythe orbit, along with a survey sat & lander probe. Waiting on the other crew vehicle, science/fuel station & both surface bases still.

Just had something similar happen a few days ago - except the rover landed in the sea & is stuck floating there and the debris from the transfer vehicle landed intact on land 2-3 km away.

Texture Replacer can change suits, and there are a few suit packs out there (Cetera's Suit Pack is one). There is another mod for ear & eye pieces but I can't remember it. I think it uses Texture Replacer also.

Every time I read your mission mission reports, I get tempted to try RSS. My computer would probably melt if I did, but still, very tempting. A lot of frustration but the successes are that much sweeter.