noname_hero

Since it looks like I might be able to pull off at least *most* of the missions, I realized I should ask about what kind of proof is considered enough. Can I get away with screenshots from the more difficult missions, and say the final savefile? Let's begin with at least some of the screenshots I already have. Here's the Munpollo mission. I think I have never left an orbiter around Mun before, and it shows on the design. Leaving a pointless landing can in orbit felt extra weird when the lander had two seats, because the *lander* was my return ship. And If anyone's wondering why I'm using the junior docking port, it was the only one I had at the moment. This one is Minpollo, but taken long after leaving Minmus. 60 science in return for a kind of crazy ship design wasn't much, but the asteroid looked pretty: Here's Bob on Dres. The wreckage in the background is definitely bigger than it appears, and IIRC there's still some fuel left in it, but Dres is too hilly for me to be able to land on transfer stage's engines. And the last one is near Eeloo. The reason the ship shows too little delta v is the drop tanks built out of those Mk1 liquid fuel tanks. Once I ditched those, I had about 6k delta v more, but I have no idea why the game sometimes glitches like that. However, I even had enough fuel to aim for a desert on Kerbin and gain a few more science points back home.

Finished another mission in my Kerpollo program, this time to Eeloo. Given this was my first mission to Eeloo, and considering the next two missions on my list are Moho and Duna+Ike, both of which I've managed to fly in another playthrough, I'm running out of learning opportunities before I have to deal with Evepollo. I'll admit I'm happy I managed to fly Eelollo without using any gravity assists. I know, better players would be happy to put in a bit more effort in exchange for free delta v, but I'm happy to see that even simpler mission plans can work if one launches with enough fuel. Sure, this approach kind of undermines the goal of learning more, but considering I already know how to make simple gravity assists, I'm okay with it. Besides, it is not like I haven't learned anything. For starters, I have checked that Mk. 3 liquid fuel tanks do work *great* for NERV-powered craft. I have learned that an attempt to overcome one's tendency to bolt on too many solar panels is kind of misplaced when going to Eeloo - battery status never fell below 50%, but some moments made me a bit nervous. And I have been reminded that connecting one's orbiter with one's lander by docking ports can subvert one's expectations of fuel levels - the NERVs drained *all* fuel from my lander near Kerbin, and I was lucky I only ditched the transfer stage during the final reentry, as all the oxidizer aboard was kind of useless with no fuel for it. I guess I better accompany this story by a screeenshot from *before* I made that mistake :-)

Are we allowed to delete debris left over from previous missions? I kind of didn't bother myself with that at first, but given I'm seeing Kerpollo as a learning experience, I'm wondering now. I'll admit I'm kind of salty about how KSP treats debris, as even objects with periapsis noticeably lower than 70 km seem to remain in orbit, so I've gotten used to simply deleting the debris once it annoys me too much. Even if its orbit should be stable. Yes, I do tend to let first stages fall back to Kerbin, or crash later stages into moons if it is not too much of a hassle, but I'm far from religious about keeping space clean. However, I'm beginning to wonder whether that's considered okay-ish or an easy way out by the player community.

When this topic caught my eye today, my brain wandered back to my first Mun landing. I guess it wasn't my most spectacular fail, but it is one that got stuck in my mind. And I'm a new-ish player, so it is still fresh in memory. The whole mission was as nerve-wracking as the first Mun landing of a newbie player with a lvl1 tracking station is, and the surface of the Mun was getting close, so I made (another) quicksave. Surprisingly, the landing was perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Another quicksave. And then... The lander tipped over the moment I tried an EVA. Quickload. EVA, lander falls over. Quickload. Again. what? To be honest, I'm not sure if took me two quickloads or more, but after a while, my brain finally began to *think* instead of quickloading. And I took a good look at my lander. Yup, my landing *was* perfectly balanced. On *two* landing struts, not the four I thought the lander had. Poor Jeb had to stay perfectly still in his seat while he said the words he planned to broadcast while planting a flag, took whatever measurements he could, wrote a scathing crew report, and blasted back into Munar orbit without opening his capsule's hatch.

I have run into a similar problem (i.e. not being able to open the map) about two weeks ago, and the apparent cause was changing the vessel type of a probe into Science. As someone mentioned in my post about that bug, it is a vessel type that's only intended for Breaking Ground, so if you use it in stock game, it crashes the map. However, I have been unable to recover from it, the only recourse being going back to a quicksave from before I have changed that probe type.

Today I've learned that it is impossible to take surface samples of asteroids, no matter how close you are, if your ship lacks the grabbing claw. Which kind of s*cks, as I've decided to learn some KSP by finding out how much of the Kerpollo challenge I can do, and I've been hoping to squeeze a bit more Science out of the Munpollo mission. Turns out you can *dive into* an asteroid and you still won't be able to take a sample:

Played a bit of my Duna mission (my third manned Duna mission ever, and a first one in my second career playthrough, in case you're wondering why I'm building such Frankenships) and I realized I have (hopefully) both spare delta v and high-enough TWR on my transfer stage to land on Ike. So I did, and I've got to say I'm glad I don't have to spend the long wait for a transfer window back to Kerbin in that upside-down lander myself:

I realized my level 2 kerbonauts can get experience from orbiting Kerbol even if they only venture 1 m outside Kerbin SOI, and I realized such experience would be enough to push them to level 3. In my defence, I bought KSP in October. So I built a quick-n-dirty contraption to launch my dozen of dirtside kerbonauts a bit past Minmus and then back home. And yup, I got a bunch of level 3 guys and gals. And once I get around to rotating the crews on KSS, Mun and Minmus, *all* the kerbonauts around Kerbin will be level threes. Funny thing, Jeb, Bill and Bob were already on their way to Duna, and their ship *doesn't* have a lab, so they're about to become the *least* experienced kerbonauts on my payroll

I wasn't really early into the game, given I had a fully upgraded VAB and nearly complete tech tree. And if you're talking about the player's experience level, well, going to Moho wasn't that much harder than going to Minmus - and it felt easier than going to Dres. I guess that was thanks to much shorter transfer times and more frequent launch windows, but I already went back to Moho (although with just a surface probe and a bundle of sats), whereas I still have to set out for Dres again. And I wasn't talking about literally strapping on too many boosters. I do use some, my relay sats around Mun and Minmus even use a single booster (plus winglets) as the first stage, but what seems to fit my personality now is NERV-powered reusable transfer stages, Minmus-based tankers and Kerbin-launched landers plus drop tanks. It is better to have extra fuel and not need it than to not have extra fuel and need it. Even my *landers* tend to carry drop tanks, mounted on two of four radial decouplers. Brute-forcing my transfer stages gives me both a safety net (I don't mind parking back around kerbin with 2 km/s in my transfer stage and 1 km/s in the lander) and (reasonably) short transfer times. I think I did like *two* gravity assists during the whole time I'm playing the game, and those were because a body I could use for one happened to be in the right place at the right time. I know it is silly to worry about mission lengths, but something inside me dislikes the idea of waiting for a real good transfer window and then sending a ship towards Eve for a gravity assist if I can simply build a bigger ship with more delta v and head straight to Jool the next time Kerbin is in a good position for a launch. Oh, and there's also the fact that massive transfer stages with lots of delta v mean I don't need that much skill to perform at least some interplanetary missions. Landing on Duna, Moho or Dres doesn't require many new skills if you're used to landing on Kerbin and Mun, and massive transfer stages let me bring landers with the kind of performance I'm used to in Kerbin's SOI. Well, I began a new playthrough some time ago, this time on moderate difficulty, and I've already got three kerbals headed for Duna (the screeenshots from my Dres mission have been sitting on my HD for some time before I posted them). So... What kind of a mission to Dres might be a good learning experience for a new-ish player who already managed to land a capsule on Dres and land a mobile base (10 wheels plus 1 km/s rockets and ISRU) on Duna on Normal difficulty? I think Christmass might give me enough time to visit Dres again. No spaceplanes please, I can barely make one orbit Kerbin and land. Any suggestions?

I'm afraid I'll disappoint those hopes, as I can already feel I'm hitting a plateau with my skills. I don't have the talent or the dedication that KSP technomages like Scott Manley or Bradley Whistance (and too many others to name them all here) show. But I'm still grateful for the praise I've received here. To be honest, a part of me was kind of hesitant to post my mission here, given all the way more impressive missions I've seen both here and elsewhere. But then I've realized that KSP is a game. We're not risking real lives, we're not spending real billions. We can get away with things real space program wouldn't do, like ignoring math and precise observations, replacing sanity with strapping on more boosters. I'm *eyeballing my transfer windows*, but I have so much delta v I can get away with it. *Accepting* that I better build overengineered monsters is what let me fly those missions to Duna and Moho and Dres. Having huge safety margins means that mistakes which could mean mission failure often become simply learning experiences, and don't lead to discouragement that would make me give up on trying. Maybe other regular players who have problems going interplanetary should stop worrying about what delta v maps say and embrace the tao of massive overengineering too

Right-clicked the probe core, chose Rename vessel, the right-most vessel type option was Science, next to Relay. And I'm running latest stock game, no mods. I just took a look at a manned ship and that too offers me the same Science type; here's a screenshot: screenshot109

I'm sorry if this is a known bug, I didn't notice this problem mentioned elsewhere but I'm a newbie-ish player and I'd guess it is something easy to overlook. I landed a cheap and tiny probe on Minmus, to earn easy money from "transmit science data from Minmus" contracts before I'd get around to sending a lab-equipped base there, and everything worked fine. However, as the list of craft in my tracking station grew, I got the idea to change the vessel type of that probe. I do have a base on Minmus now, so I wanted something I could hide for most of the time and only see if I wanted to. But once I've changed the vessel type to Science, something I've never used before, map mode became unavailable. It works fine in another playthrough, it works fine if I load an older quicksave, and I'd guess it has something to do with the fact that the Science type is not a valid filter type in map mode, so I feel this *is* a bug. Or am I missing something here?

I hope I'm not courting necromancy by posting here, but given I'm a newbie, maybe I will get a pardon. Although, to be honest, maybe I should be saying I'm newbie-ish, not a newbie. On one hand, I only bought the game this October. On the other hand, my mission to Dres was my third interplanetary mission, launched after I already went to Duna and Moho (and back).And I only went to Dres because it was my next launch window, not to show true affection. So why am I writing here? To show other newbie-ish players that overengineering can get you places even when you're still learning the game. This is my first playthrough, career mode/normal difficulty, and I managed to send a manned mission and some probes to Dres. Okay, my mission was not an impressive one, compared to what others can do (and did). I did some screenshots, the mod can find a selection here, and I can provide more evidence should I get asked to, but it is nothing special. However, I do feel I've learned a few things and I'm happy to share with other newbies, so here goes: - it is nice to have way more delta v than needed. I had more than 10k m/s before my first transfer burn and it sure made the mission less stressful, - it is possible to eyeball a lot of things, including transfer windows, and the aforementioned delta v comes extra handy here, - designing the main interplanetary stage as reusable sounds like a good idea, but using loads of tiny liquid fuel tanks makes refueling a PITA and it stayed unused in Kerbin orbit for years after I got back, - refueling the main liftoff stage gave me both some extra delta v and better TWR. I know experienced players can use multiple burns, but I'm newbie-ish and those inefficient but powerful engines sure helped me flatten my trajectory before I had to use the NERVs, - it is possible to reverse the direction your ship's controls use. My design contained drop tanks connected by docking ports and I learned this *after* ditching those and re-docking my lander, but the option does make some of my dockings easier now, - it is a good idea to add some comm capability to the *unmanned* orbiter if you plan to biome-hop with the lander, because the lander might reach orbit with too little fuel to re-dock. I made this mistake for my mission to Moho, so knowing I *could* remote-pilot the orbiter around Dres was comforting, - seemingly overheating thermal control systems tend to *not* explode even you run your NERVs for long periods of time. Not all warning signs lead to actual explosions. And the last lesson I'd like to mention? Saving before your first launch, testing the whole mission and then *loading* that savefile and playing the mission again sure is kond of boring. However, it sure beats discovering a fatal flaw in your design when you're *back* near Kerbin and might have played a few dozen other missions after setting out for Dres. My first attempt ended up with the ship either unable to slow down enough to stay in Kerbin's SOI or with the ship exploding due to reentry heat, so I was glad I made that save. It wasn't *that* disappointing, I *expected* my first attempt to fail, but to fail that late into the mission hurts and it would hurt even more if I didn't plan for such a fail. So that's another newbie to Dres, and now I'll go back to learning to fly safe :-)