stephensmat

We knew it would be incremental. We know there'll be another between this and Colonies. "Soon" is a relative term, especially around here. The steps don't have to be big, they just have to be in the right direction.

Let's see what's coming this weekend.

Much Obliged. Turned out I had almost 800 quicksaves stored up in that campaign. Workspaces are there too. Means when i start a new campaign for Colonies, I can bring my already tested craft over with me.

I've been noticing a framedrop when I quickload. It would make sense if it was this, since quicksaves and autosaves are all included in the list. Must be hundreds of them by now. Anyone know where the saves are located in the file manager? It'd be a hell of a lot faster than going through the menu and deleting them one by one.

For me, the time when I started investing time in gameplay was the Science Update. A few mods for Maneuver control and an Alarm Clock, and patience enough to close/reopen the game have taken care of most of my problems with playing this game seriously. It's close to KSP1 parity as it is. Colonies will be icing, because it's the only thing I wished I had in KSP1 and never got. I was actually shopping for KSP1 mods to provide Colony Mode when KSP2 launched.

Also, remember that they announced Science Mode a month before it launched. Factor that in however you like.

It suggests the progression continues with the new Releases. Rockets gets you orbit. Orbit gets you interplanetary. Interplanetary gives you landings on other planets. Landings give you Colonies. Colonies get you Resources from Multiple Worlds. Resources gets you an Interstellar Craft. You fly to a new system and land, you return to Point A and start building again. And Science Points is the currency that unlocks each step on that progression. And if Colonies are saved for Tier 4, then it means they're likely following the 'Game' Progression of: "Do it for the first time, which is hard. Do it three times to get good at it. Then you Unlock something that makes it so easy you only need to worry about the next level." A 'fly and forget' model that will make automated flights easier to live with in 0.4. This also gives me hope about refuelling, even in a small colony.

All good advice. i tried taking it to heart:

Okay. So I've been experimenting with 'Kerbal Movers' for the Eve Mission, and Future Colonies. Spaceplanes have been the bane of my existence in this game. I've never managed a SSTO that works in atmo, and vacuum. Not even in KSP1 have I managed it. Yesterday I came up with the Mk3, which wouldn't even get off the ground. So today, the MK-4. Now I know what you're thinking: There's a hole in that plane. But it kept the weight low enough. The 'Passenger Module' up the front can fit 20 Kerbals. 16 Passengers, 4 in the cockpit. Jets and Hydrogen engines are the most efficient in the game. Using the girders instead of a fuselage, I was able to lay some small methane tanks down the middle. The question i had to ask: Why do I even want air-breaking jet engines, considering this is going to be primarily a spacecraft. The answer, of course, was for landing, back on Kerbin. But it has to fly first. It was weaving back and forth on the maneuver node for the last of the flight. With the hydrogen tanks emptying out, it was too 'front heavy'. It used almost all the fuel the thing had, but I got to a circular orbit of 120km. Finally achieved the goal that's been eluding me for hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay across the entire franchise. And amazingly, as I was looking at the view, I had notes for the MK-5. For instance, I didn't need the shuttle passenger section. If I used the smaller 4 seater sections, I could have secured them in the trusses, and mounted them further back, the way I did with the methane tanks. Solved the weight and the balace with one change. (Smacks forehead) Duh. But, this is proof of concept, so I keep going. As well all know, the only trick of spaceflight in KSP is getting off Kerbin. Long have I used 'Drive Sections'. An XXL Hydrogen tank, with a Hydrogen Engine. Standard Drive Section for all my interplanetary transfers, but this one is modified with a L-Sized Methane Tank on top. The reason for this is two fold. 1) It lets me refuel the jet engines, as well as the Rocket engines on my Spaceplane when they dock together. 2) It extends the medium docking port out forward. You can't really see it with the SWERV engines blazing so brightly, but between them, on that truss, is a Docking Ring. It took a stupid amount of effort, but the docking is complete, and the plane is fully refueled, witha drive to push it out of Kerbin's SOI. I'm going to make a run for Eve, eventually. I might save that for the MK5 after all. But in the meantime, a version of this craft is going to be making landings on Duna, Ike, Gilly, Moho, and Dres, as well as the Moons of Jool, to gather samples taken, and return them back to Kerbin. Remember what I said about how the 'Transfer Stage' is standard issue, for all my flights to other planets? That means I've got hydrogen tanks floating in orbit around several other planets and moons, waiting to pass on their remaining hydrogen to this one. And with that, the return flights can finally be made. Once I kick out the Eve passengers, I can load up the one-way trip Kerbalnauts, leave the landers and labratoies behind, and bring them all back in this passenger jet.

Well, there's always the '10 Kerbals to Eve and Back' mission.

All good points. I need teachers, more than I care to admit. Most Spaceplanes I've seen are long and thin, and mine is short and wide. The thing is, I really want to keep the docking port in the centre rear. I plan to dock it with a 'drive section' for a Grand Tour. With the exception of Eve, the only thing the jet engines are useful for is getting off Kerbin. I'm giving serious thought to just mounting it on a rocket booster. It's just infuriating that I can't seem to make an ssto successfully.

I'm working on spaceplanes, yet again. The MK3, my latest attempt, keeps veering off to the side on the runway when it gets up to 110m/s or so. I've checked the wheels angle, and I can't see anything wrong. The braking power on the front wheel is set to zero. I don't even touch the controls, and it does this every time. Any advice? EDIT: I've added the 'blueprints'. All advice welcome. I don't even know if lift is possible, because I can't get it up to speed on the runway yet.

Still hitting my head against the wall with a spaceplane, so I've shifted to the other project. With the 'Space Truckin' parts unlocked, I've been able to use the stock Rover. It's five times bigger and more stable than anything I've ever built myself, and has two jet engines on the back. I decided I could find a better use for the jet engine portion, since the wheels were electric. I put in some girders and wired in every experiment I could. My smaller rovers only had room for Sniffers and Science Jr Jr. After that, I spent some time experimenting with getting the things to other worlds. Duna was the appropriate first step, since it has the most use there. Mun/Minmus/Ike/Gilly are just too small to be worth putting a large Rover on them. Finally, I built a structure over the top and ran a fuel line for landing. Duna has one extra advantage: Parachutes work. The hard part isn't launching big things, it's landing them safely. I didn't even bother with a 'drive section'. The heavy Boosters I've been using had enough fuel to make the transition to Duna orbit leftover after takeoff. But I'm embarrassed to say that when I began deorbiting, I forgot to take a screenshot until after the fairings were ejected. You can see the sections flying away in the pic: It's not pretty, but it's detachable. Three parachutes gave it a falling speed of 20m/s. A few engines with fuel lines, and just enough fuel for five seconds of deceleration gave it a textbook landing. Detach the landing section, and I've got a fully running Science Rover. The experiments run during the landing were enough for me to test everything else. During my 'Recharging Stops', I can transmit findings will stationary, and still be filling up the battery thanks to retractable Solar Arrays. After mucking with the wheel settings, I can keep a comfortable pace of 30m/s on open ground. My goal is to go around to all the biomes, collecting points, and then meet up with the much smaller rover and lander I sent to check out the anomalies, and get their samples too. If I ever get a proper spaceplane working, I'll do a grand tour of all my landing sites, collecting the samples from each of them. Oop, don't forget to mark the location. Given the ugly, yet successful changes made to this thing from the Stock version, I've named it the 'Frankenrover'.

I'm a patient man on almost every topic, but there is one thing about this game I'm itching to find out ASAP: Refuelling Stations or parts, for off-Kerbin. Should we expect it in 'Colonies', or 'Exploration'?

Honestly, I'd wager that it was behind the scenes timing more than anything. They have multiple teams working on multiple targets, and this one happened to be close to something 'announce-able' first. We're begging for more communications about what's going on, so they gave us some. It's not what people are most interested in right now, but it's people working hard, and that's better than a lot of EA games get.

I always have both up. Flight plan for nodes and rendezvous, but K2D2 for Launches and landings.

I'm kinda wondering if this is part of the problem I'm having with Spaceplanes.

0.1 to 0.2 = 10 months. The Devs say they expect 0.3 to come faster. 0.2 to now = 4 months. Place your bets.

We can have both. Specialized Resources to build 'interstellar Drives' in the 0.4 or 0.5, but regular Hydrogen or Methane? I can't see a Colony that doesn't even let you Fuel up to return back to Kerbin.

We've seen Fuel Manufacture in Colony buildings from before 0.1 came out, so bare minimum, I'm hoping for a landing pad and a fueling station. That'll bring us to KSP1 parity, and surpass it.

The problem with living in Australia: For me, April 1st was yesterday.

So, last time I was trying to land a rover on Eelo... Since I already had a Science Station in Eelo Orbit, my plan was to send a Rover, land the two craft near each other, and have one of my Kerbalnauts walk over to take a spin. I also figured I could make a craft that would deposit the Rover, and have a heatshield, chutes, a docking port so that it could connect to my Hydrogen Drive and head back to Kerbin... and a single Rover seat so that I could transfer data. I've successfully brought samples and data back to the KSP that way. It took me about a dozen disastrous tries to realize the landing wasn't going to work. Not the for the 'Deposit and Return' plan. I was using up too much Delta-V to land, and I dramatically underestimated returning to space. After a dozen tries, I gave up on 'return', and just tried to soft-land the Rover. Another task that took a stupid amount of re-tries. Finally, after playing around with 'Control From Here' and traction/brake/steering controls, I managed to detach the rover, and get it to stay upright. And that was when it hit me: It's been a long while since I made a decently long rover journey across a planet. With more gravity than the Mun, and more experience in Rover settings, it was actually the most enjoyable part of the whole mission. I'm adding a shot of the journey with 'telemetry' included. The one thing I managed to do 'right' was land on the correct side of that big ravine. And finally: Ladies and Gents, I present to you: The smallest Rover with the Biggest Heart! The Little Rover That Could! The Rover trekked across Eelo all alone, even without a driver, and won the day! I think I'll name it 'Herbie'.

A simple explanation would be that the 'Orbital VAB' is part of the Colonies update. Building larger ships in orbit, rather than launching in pieces would negate the need for Docking Ports altogether.

Quality over Quantity for the patches and updates. Quantity always for sneakpeeks. That's been my rule since Mass Effect, and I stick with it.

So. Today's mission: Recovering Samples. I've been making flights out, but the 'early' Tier Science means it's hard to get long range craft that can return to Kerbin. As a result, I leaned into it. I put everything into Science Production, and sent my ships out on one-way missions. Without local refueling capabilities, the only move is to build whole spacecraft for the sole purpose of launching fuel tanks out to everywhere a mission has gone before. Or, I could send out a probe mission to collect Samples, and bring them back. After conversations with the Forum, I made the least expensive ship capable of reentry and docking that I could, and stuck a rover seat on it. Docking turned out to be time consuming. Each 'Orbiting Station' sent out a Kerbalnaut for EVA, and thus transferred the Samples. (Science Station Orbiting Mun is not included in this picture) After doing the loop of Mimnus and Mun, I've already collected over 1500 science points from the samples. Next stop is to try landing on Duna and bringing it home. I put this thing in front of an XL Hydrogen Drive, like my usual stations, and I can send it out to the far worlds. The XL Drives are so efficient, I can even refuel from all the booster drives that are still out there. There are plenty of them. Every Planet/Moon that I sent a Science Station to? The Drive sections are still in orbit from the insertion/deceleration burns. And on that note, my outer planets missions? Just got to Dres and Eeloo. First time I've ever reached a planet with Rings. Not sure how dangerous those rings are, so I came in at an angle off the ecliptic, and made my orbit inside the rings before I changed the inclination. Dres is... interesting to look at, with that 'ridge' right around the equator. Eeloo is a little infuriating, because And that's the one bit of equipment I didn't bring on this flight. Next step is to land, but I'll do that tomorrow.