Robin Patenall

Eve Flyby Today, we flew past Eve. Using a telescope on Kerbin, it’s a small fuzzy purple blob, up close it’s a large purple fuzzy blob with a lot of gravity. We had to force Twilight into her bunk to stop her performing science experiments using our limited science resources, this is a Jool mission and collecting science from Eve is “not in the rules”. We eventually relented when she promised that she would limit herself to digital photos and observations. We could just about make out the land masses beneath the clouds which, with some calculation, are at about five times Kerbin's atmospheric pressure. The sure is going to be fun designed a lander for. Once we had past Eve’s gravitational influence, we trimmed our orbit again so that our flyby of Kerbin would put us in a resonant orbit so that we’d return to Kerbin again two years later Back to hibernation until we reach Kerbin again.

Leaving Kerbin We’re off! We spent some time fitting out and testing the systems aboard the Emerald Star and then went into hibernation for about a year to test that while we were within easy reach of help. We’re not going directly to Jool, to save fuel we are actually going the other way down ot Eve where we can perform a gravity assist to pick up speed then pass Kerbin twice to push us out to Jool The initial plan we needed was to reach Eve and perform a close flyby and bring our Apoapsis to be near the orbit of Duna. Because of the ejection to Eve is quite large and the Emerald Star had a low thrust to weight ratio (due to the huge amount of fuel onboard) we couldn’t perform the burn in one go so we made eight burns of 100m/s at closest Kerbin approach to bring our apoapsis up to a point just below the Mun’s sphere of influence. Eventually we reached the final ejection point and performed the remaining 260m/s of burn Once we left Kerbin, we performed a small trim burn that will adjust our Eve flyby to bring us back to Kerbin in a year and 176 days. Now we go into hibernation until we reach Eve.

Launch 16 - 17 (Satellites) The last two launches to complete the Emerald Star’s fit out brought up four satellites that will be deployed in the Jool system. The first three of them are powerful communication relays that will allow us to ensure that we have connection back even when the direct line of sight is being obstructed by something, for instance Jool. The last satellite contains a set of scientific instruments that can be used by the Emerald Star during its journey but is also designed to see if we can get science from the very top of Jool’s atmosphere by being placed in an orbit that just grazes it. The first two relays were sent up on a cut down first stage, they aren’t particularly heavy but they are bulky. The launch stage was successfully recovered. The third relay satellite and the science satellite were sent up on a second launch.The launch stage was also successfully recovered. A full systems check of the whole ship was carried out and it was prepared for departure. This included: All the monoprop RCS systems where shut down and their configurations confirmed All engines, except those on the main drive cores, where confirmed to be deactivated All fuel tanks (LFO and monoprop), except those for the main drives, where physically disabled to prevent any fuel draw from tanks that we need to keep for later in the mission All ready to go Launches 17 Launch Cost 188,411.40 + 216,312.40 404,723.80 Recovery Value 63,362.00 + 64,737.00 + 68,251.00 196,353.00 Total Cost 2,380,480.70

Launch 8 - 15 (Fuelling) The next eight launches (8 to 15) were used to bring up fuel to fill the Emerald Star’s tanks. We took our standard launch stage and fitted it with a large tank which we could fill with 7250 units of liquid fuel and 1375 units of oxidizer if needed. These were launched into a 75km orbit and then rendezvoused and docked to the Emerald Star, where the fuel and any other small items (such as more struts) would be offloaded. The launch stage was left with enough fuel to de-orbit and attempt, after the main tank was decoupled, to aerobrake and land back near the KSC for recovery. This didn’t always work out as the margin was rather tight but we made it most of the time. We currently have the last refuelling stage still docked as there are about 1000 units of fuel and 1300 units of oxidizer still aboard and we still have some preparations to do before we are ready to begin our trip and we’d look really silly if we had to send more fuel to top up with after send some back. Launches 15 Launch Cost 930,368.50 Recovery Value 404,842.00 Total Cost 2,172,109.9

Launch 5 - 7 (Drive cores) Well, that was interesting… The fifth launch was the first of the Emerald Star’s drive core. These are just large fuel tanks (up to 22,277 units of fuel and 2,783 units of oxidizer) with four NERV nuclear thermal rocket engines and will push the main section of the Emerald Star about. Their main problem is that they are very long so we strapped boosters on the side to get them above the atmosphere and were relying on a small amount of fuel and the NERV engines to circularize. Once we launched, had terrible trouble with controlling its flight, mostly as it was mostly empty and therefore very light for its drag. We eventually got it into an orbit, but not the 75km by 75km one we were aiming for but a 75km by 106km, which we corrected to a 75km by 100km phasing orbit to get to the Emerald Star. After a couple of orbits we were able to rendezvous with the Emerald Star and perform a careful docking procedure with the center node of the main drive truss. To improve the drive core launcher, we added a second pair of boosters with a bit more fuel for them, a better probe core and more fuel in the main tanks which will give the drive core more momentum and keep it more stable during flight. We still had to launch into a 75km by 100km phasing orbit and the docking had to be every careful as we didn’t want to scrape any paint off the first drive core. The third and last drive core was also launched and docked. Once everything was docked, I went EVA and added some structs to stiffen up the connections between the drive cores and the main drive truss. I also pumped the fuel around to begin configuring all the modules for flight,, and as such the Laythe space plane, its long range tanks, the lander and the return capsules are all now filled to their required level and we have about one third of one of the drive cores filled. Next, a lot of refuelling needs to be done Launches 7 Launch Cost 183,145.00 + 2 * 245,526.00 674,197.00 Total Cost 1,646,583.40

Launch 4 (The Awesome) The fourth launch differs from the rest because instead of a rocket, it’s a plane. Specifically, it’s an SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) craft that can use air breathing engines and wings for efficiency in oxygen rich atmospheres (that is, Kerbin and Laythe). Technically, it’s called the Laythe space plane, but Rainbow Dash refuses to call it anything other than “The Awesome” and as she is its primary pilot, it isn’t worth fighting her over. Out at Jool it will fly down to Laythe’s surface, take readings with the science package and boost back up into orbit, but here it’s being used to bring itself and its pilot Rainbow Dash up to the Emerald Star. The plane uses two Rapier engines that can either use atmospheric oxygen or stored LOX and will accelerate very fast. This will be needed when launching from the surface of Laythe as we won’t have a nice smooth runway to get up to speed. Once the plane reached Mach 1.5, Rainbow started climbing and accelerating at steady rate reaching about Mach 4.5 as the atmosphere thinned out so much that the engines had to switch over to internal oxidizer. This provided quite a light show. After circularisation, and a few orbits, the plane reached the Emerald Star, where Rainbow managed to dock it, with an unexpectedly deft touch, to the prograde docking node and the plane’s long range tanks. Once we’d got Rainbow out of the cockpit, I went EVA to carefully secure it to the main ship to prevent it wobbling when we fire up the main engines. Rainbow kept shouting “That’s not a load bearing structure” over the radio as I was fitting the struts until someone cut her off vox. I mean, who’s the engineer here? Launches 4 Launch Cost 122,624.40 Total Cost 972,386.40

Launch 3 The third launch consisted of the lander, with the Vall booster and the Tylo descent stages, and the second return capsule with Bon Bon and Fluttershy. The lander wasn’t fully fuelled as the mass of the everything would exceed the maximum payload mass of the launch stage, so additional fuel will be needed to top it off, but we needed to fuel the drive stages anyway so this won’t be an issue. The lander consists of three stages. The first (to the left of the return capsule’s orange fuel tank) is the open frame main lander, this can carry two crew to the surface of Pol and Bop, launch back into orbit and make a rendezvous with another vessel. It also carries as many scientific instruments as we could fit on it. The second module, a fuel tank with the light landing legs, is the Tylo ascent and Vall descent / ascent stage. It will carry the lander down to Vall and back and back from the surface of Tylo once the Tylo descent stage, with the large white side tanks, has landed it. Once they matched orbits with the Emerald Star and rendezvoused the lander and return capsule were undocked remotely by Rarity and docked to the forward node of the habitation module. The launch booster was remote docked to us, just to unload the small amount of fuel and monopropellant left over, and then deorbited back to the planet. This did not go as well as the last time we de-orbited a launch stage. Rarity EVA transferred to the return capsule to pilot it, Bon Bon, and Fluttershy to the habitation module while I spent some time on EVA removing parts of the lander that were attached for aerodynamic purposes. These are very light, but every kilogram we lose from the lander (and the Emerald Star) is a little bit more margin. They will deorbit very easily, in fact, as they are so unimportant, they’ll probably disappear as soon as they leave the frame (I tell you that this looks very strange from this side) The last thing that happened was that the long range space plane tanks were moved from their temporary location to the top of the lander, which is where it will be during our journey connecting to the Laythe space plane. With that, the basics of the Emerald Star was complete. Launches 3 Launch Cost 227,231.00 Recovery Value 0.00 Contract Funds 0.00 Total Cost 849,762.00

Launch 2 The second launch consisted of the main drive truss, which will join the three drive modules to the rest of the Emerald Star, and the long range fuel tanks for the Laythe space plane. This launch was uncrewed as it was going to be very difficult due to the drive truss, not because it was heavy but because it was very light. The vessel was placed into a 75 km orbit where it slowly, over a number of orbits, caught up to the first launch. Once the vessel rendezvoused with us, I undocked the engineering module from the habitation module and piloted it over to, and docked with, the main drive truss. It was then undocked from the launch vessel and I carefully piloted it back to the habitation module. If you look carefully you can see I had to get Rarity to flip the habitation module over before I docked as I was approaching the wrong side. Once the drive truss was docked, the launch stage with the space plane long range fuel tanks were docked and we pumped as much fuel and monopropellant out of the launch stage. Every unit of fuel we can save from these stages is a unit of fuel we don’t have to bring up later. Once almost empty, the launch stage was jettisoned and dropped out of orbit for recovery. Launches 2 Launch Cost 186,877.30 Recovery Value 61,198.00 Contract Funds 0.00 Total Cost 622,531.00

Hello everypony everybody, Today we started to construct the Emerald Star in low orbit. This is going to take nine launches to build up the structure and then a number of launches to bring up the fuel for the ship. Launch 1 This first launch contained a return capsule, the Emerald Stars main habitation module, and the engineering module. The initial crew, which is Me, Twilight and Rarity, went up in the return capsule on the top of the stack where the launch abort system could pull us free in the event of a problem. Once we reached the height of 100km, but before we circularized in orbit, we deployed the fairing and fired off the launch abort system to clear the return capsule’s docking port. Once we reached a stable equatorial orbit, we need to rearrange the modules slightly. First, Rarity undocked the return capsule from the end of the habitation module and redocked at the middle, allowing us access to the main living spaces. Next, I undocked the engineering module to move it to a more convenient docking node while Rarity redocked the launch stage to the habitation module. There was still some fuel aboard so we decided to keep it up here until we had empty tanks to transfer it into. Launches 1 Launch Cost 496,851.70 Recovery Value 0.00 Contract Funds 176,000.00 Total Cost 496,851.70

Hello everybody and thank you all for coming to this party to celebrate our upcoming mission. We are proud to announce a new large scale space project, in which we will be sending a crewed mission to land on, and return science from, all the moons of Jool. As this will be a very long multi year mission, the decision has been made that we will be sending a single large ship to the Jool system so that our crew isn’t going to be lonely on the trip out and back. Speaking of out crew, here we are: On the left there is me, Pinky Pie. I am the chief engineer and primary astrodynamics officer, which is a complicated way of saying that my job is to keep the ship working and get it to where it is meant to be. The most important being getting us home at the end. Next to me is Twilight Sparkle who is the chief scientist for the mission and also the mission specialist for Laythe, the innermost moon of Jool. She got to pick that one as long range scrying has shown us that Laythe not only it is warm enough from tidal heating that liquid water is present on the surface, it also has a thick oxygen rich atmosphere which, along with the detection of many other atmospheric chemicals, is a key indicator that there may be life on it. The next two, Fluttershy (left) and Bon Bon (right), round out our scientists. Fluttershy is the chief medical officer and also the mission specialist for Bop, the fourth moon of Jool, which she thought looked lonely. Bon Bon is the mission specialist for Vall, the second moon of Jool, where her speciality in the physical properties of ice under different conditions will be very useful and she also doubles as the backup engineer. The last two of our crew are our pilots, Rarity (left) and Rainbow Dash (right). Both are cross trained for piloting but Rarity will generally be in the pilot seat for docking and delicate manoeuvres and Rainbow Dash specializes in things that need to be flown in a more instinctive manner. Additionally, Rarity is the mission specialist for Pol, the fifth moon, as it looks pretty and Rainbow Dash is the mission specialist for Tylo, the third moon, because it is the biggest. We will come to the details of the ship, the Emerald Star, as we construct it in low orbit and details of the mission as they come up, but we do need to deal with some specifics now. [Pinky raps on the fourth wall with a hoof] Hello out there. Can you hear me? [Pinky fogs up a bit of the fourth wall by breathing on it, polishes it with a fetlock and presses one of her eyes to it to get a good view before retreating] We’re running KSP 1.12.5.3190, both DLCs are present and there are a number of mods running. Most mods are visual / sound, informational or quality of life and do not add parts or change anything major so we believe that this should be valid for a DLC Jool 5. The save game is a Normal level Career mode with the only change being that “require signal for control” has been added. Additionally, the game has been edited to hire the desired crew, grant us all the parts and give us 10 million funds so that once we get back from Jool we should be able to calculate the total cost of the mission and total up the science points returned for a “Jeb” level attempt. We will have a Mobile Processing Lab aboard so we will be transmitting processed data back so we will acquire science points that won’t count for the returned total.

Thank you @Geonovast and @Gargamel for that. It's made it much clearer what is permitted and what isn't.

Can I get some guidance on the forbidden content rules. specifically the one about Roleplay? I was going to start a thread in the Mission reports and have a mission narrated as if by one of the crew ("I am Jebediah Kerman. I flew a rocket into orbit. Bill and Bob joined me by docking another craft. We went to Minmus. I thought it looked like mint ice cream"). I had seen some mission reports formatted this way but just before I posted I had a quick review of the guidelines and saw that Roleplay is forbidden, have I misunderstood or wouldn't first person mission reports be disallowed under this rule? or does "acting as a Kerbal" mean something specific that isn't clear to me? (or is it that nobody has complained about the threads that I saw written like this?) I'm perfectly happy to do it in third person ("This is Jebediah Kerman. He flew a rocket into orbit. Bill and Bob joined him by docking another craft. They went to Minmus. Jeb thought it looked like mint ice cream") if first person isn't allowed but I can't see why switching viewpoint would make something forbidden into something acceptable. I'd also like to check if referring to the inner lives of the Kerbals that we literally can't know (i.e. what they think or actions that take place off screen) is also a problem by the rules. I mean I've seen enough of this to assume it's fine, but I've also seen people talking about adding a Hitchhiker can to their craft to give the crew space to live in on long journeys literally refer to it as roleplaying. To be clear, I know that "Jeb went EVA to retrieve the science from the instruments and placed it in the lab" must be absolutely fine as that can literally happen in the game, but "Jeb thought that Bob wasn't cut out for deep space research as he'd gone a bit odd and decided to lick the Vall surface sample to see if it was 'minty'" certainly can't actually happen.

I have a standardised nuclear pusher stage, that I've used to send stuff all over the Kerbol system. That's a Rockomax 64 converted to hold just liquid fuel (I use Configurable Containers, but other mods can do the same thing) with 3 x Mk1 tanks as outriggers and holding the engines. The service bay has monoprop tanks, probe core, batteries, reaction wheel and the large solar cells. A large Clamp-o-Tron both ends allows it to be docked to the payload. The small docking ports were planned for refuelling, but they've never been used. On its own, it has over 9000m/s. With a crew module / lander (hitchhikers + Mk2 lander can +fuel / engines for Mun landing and takeoff) it has over 6000m/s. The advantage of this design is that I can dock two together (180 degrees rotated) to have twice the fuel and 6 Nervs, so long as I remember to close the antennas of the bottom stage. I also have an inline version: This is a Rockomax 64 + Rockmax 8 for more or less the same amount of fuel. This allows me to stack 3 together for more push and the inline ones un-dock after the Kerbin ejection burn for a slow return (AP about the level of Minmus) to the Mun for refuelling from the ISRU plant there. Newer build versions forego the large solar panels and have four RTGs, where as most of the old build versions have been retrofitted with three RTGs clipped into the nosecones of the outriggers. You can see the full setup in this image of a couple of fuel tankers (two on the front with orange outriggers) being sent to Moho. To your other questions: I try to keep my TWR about Kerbin above 0.2 (about 2m/s) For long ejection burns, I either do a couple of Pe kicks (never quite to the Mun's orbit) for Moho or push everything to Mun orbit and refuel from the ISRU station there, then drop to Kerbin and burn at Pe for ejection.

Over the weekend, Lemlock Kerman decided to go to the Mun and do the tourist thing. He was quick to point out that it was like that when he got there and absolutely didn't hit it with the lander. Given that the lander was cobbled together for left over parts of other missions and only suffered a couple of scrapes, we are going to believe him.

I eventually launched my Laythe SSTO which should be able to cycle between Kerbin and Laythe without refuelling due to its inbuilt ISRU facility. It has a large drill that can be deployed ventrally with the help of Breaking Ground hinge, and in a forward cargo bay it has a small Convert-o-tron and radiators. The power supply is twelve RTGs that are balanced to allow a single star engineer to maintain the ISRU process continually without running out of EC. It took some time to design the SSTO and I did have some issues keeping it stable and breaking the sound barrier, but now flys relatively steady and I've managed to correct the twichyness that it had dropping back down through the transonic region when landing. It reached a 75kmx75km orbit with about 2300m/s dV remaining that will allow me to take it to Minmus for refuelling and then onto Laythe. For the return trip it will refuel on Laythe and then on Pol before returning back to Kerbin. For the moment it has docked with Gateway station for a systems check while waiting for the window to Minmus in a few days

Most of my stations are Level 2 although I tend to prefer a 2D backbone. Here is my Kerbin Orbital Research and Development station, with a visiting vessel, attached to the truss, making use of the on orbit construction / engineering facilities that it provides. Gilly station, which is mostly for supporting Eve research by providing fuel ISRU. Currently there is a mission in progress to replace the mining architecture that really isn't suite for Gilly with a more optimised set. I do claim a couple of Level 2.22 stations. They are not exactly Atoll stations as they lack the disc or ring, but are used in much the same way with multiple ships docking on the equatorial plane and providing a place to manage crew between mission. Currently, I only have one (#3) of the Kerbal Experience busses docked, the other one is taking the kerbals that came up on the docked SSTO for a practice mission outside of Kerbin's SOI and will be back in 45ish days.

After a couple of weeks of work, I have eventually completed my first real surface base (not just a collection of landed craft). It started with a contract for a new Mun surface base with capacity for 5 kerbals and a cupola and I thought I'd play with the parts from Kerbal Planetary Base Systems, which I'd installed but not used. First came the landing modules (foreground waiting for refuelling) which could dock with KPBS docking ports and ferry pieces down from orbit and move them around to assemble the base. As I wasn't sure that they could bring down a big enough piece and return to orbit, the second part was the stand alone ISRU module (horizontal, right of mid frame) which, if used as the first piece ferried down by the landers, could be used to refuel them before they returned to orbit. Third came the actual surface base and I found the K&K Central hub which ticked most of the contract requirements and with the cupola, fuel tank and some Meerkat engines formed the core of the base. As I realised that I'd managed to put this base down on a good ore patch which was almost diametrically opposite my existing Munar ISRU site, I decided to expand the base to allow me to refuel the orbital infrastructure when it was night at the other area (which I find is the major problem with IRSU from the Mun). So the next item was the tank farms, orange for LFO and white for just LF (thanks to configurable containers). A green house for role-play and running the (extremely difficult to biome farm) plant growth experiment and a proper science lab ( the central hub has a low capacity one) came next (left of mid frame) and some real accommodation for the kerbals (far left) so they can get out of the central hub. Last thing, I realised that I can use the K&K nuclear reactor and centrifuge without other mods so one was added (foreground) and this should allow the base to refine ore during the Munar night without having to resorting to ignoring the base because if I look at it them the solar cells will stop working. I'll have a play with that once all the fuel tanks are full. There's still a few more things to finish off: I forget an Experiment storage unit where I can store all the experiments awaiting processing in the lab (yes I know I can use several other parts to do that) I have a science hopper coming that can go from here to anywhere on the Mun and return to mine the Mun for science (again) for local processing I think that I want some lights for the landing areas (near the outer ends of the tanks farms), if the reactor allows for processing during the night then I might want to land there as well. Things to note: The docking port you want to remove is always the root part and a pain in the neck. Some parts will just make your base explode when added via EVA construction. A number of small truss sections which destroyed the base every-time I attached them got turned into modular girder segments using the magic of save game editing. A number of detached docking ports that ended up as a single part vessel got changed to a EVA dropped part in much the same way so my kerbals could tidy up. One of the docking port camera mods (I use Docking Camera KURS Style) makes aligning the parts of the base much easier No matter how much you balance, adding lander sections to a module after the fact will always result in a thrust offset. The best you can do is minimise it. Stock dV calculations really don't like radially attaching engines with docking ports. The TWR / dV and maneuver timings were always wrong.

Just to check, you put your vessel in a 75km polar orbit right? The Scansat instruments can only see directly below your vessel and to map a whole planet your going to need a high inclination, if you are equitorial then you're only going to get data from a small strip of the planet What do your maps look like?

After 1200 hours of game play and on day 363 of year 4, my first vessel has reached Jool. It's a full Scansat satellite stuffed with scientific instruments, a large relay antenna and a Nerv drive section. Once I've put the relay into a 90,000km orbit (safely inside Bop's orbit), I'll detach the Scansat satellite and attach it to the drive section and push it out to Pol to scan for ore and where, eventually, there will be an ISRU station to refuel it and allow it to continue to scan the rest of the Jool system.

It might be a good idea if the vessels spawned on the taxiway next to the correct entrance to the given runway, rather then actually on the runway. Mostly as spawning on the runway might cause issues for multiplayer depending on how it's implemented. Imagine coming into land and another player decides that they want to take off on the same runway, at least spawning on the taxiway could check if it's obstructed first.

Today, the second part of the mission to investigate Moho was sent on its way. The "Hot Shots part deux" mission will extend the original "Hot Shots" mission (which consisted of a lander and a rover) with: A science and refuelling station with comfortable living accommodations and a grabbing adaptor that will allow the station to refuel and reuse some of the existing infrastructure that is already in orbit about Moho. An ore harvester which will land on Moho and refine fuel and is carrying an additional set of communication satellites. Two tankers that will carry the refined fuel from the harvester to the station. These components, along with the six brave kerbals, will allow more science to be wrung out of the nearest planet to Kerbol and the return to Kerbin of the reusable components from both of the missions. The departure was complicated by the narrowness of the Moho transfer window and the low thrust of the vessels, requiring burn sequences that overlapped each other. But the result is that each vessel has over 4000m/s of deltaV which exceeds the amount needed to capture at Moho (about 1800m/s) by a wide safety margin. The inline boosters that helped improve the ejection burns have been successfully decelerated and will begin the slow process of returning to the Mun refuelling buoys so that they can be reused. Spoiler contains some non-action views

Thanks. I'm glad that they at least have the issue in mind and hopefully will have it all work out.

Do we have any information about whether there is going to be save game compatibility during the early access phase of KSP 2? That is, if I start a game when it first comes out, is it likely that I can continue to use the same save up until the final release? or is it more likely that I'll have to keep restarting? I understand the point of early access, and issues that may cause a save to become incompatible are always a possibility, but does anybody know how likely that is to occur? Did it happen in KSP 1?

Bill and Bob took a souvenir picture at the canyon. No, not that one, it's wider, more tropical, cousin on Moho. Once I get them back, I might send them to Dres so they can make a an informed comparison.

For the last week or so, I have been driving Bill and Bob out of Moho's Northern region, and have eventually managed to do so. I made the mistake of thinking I could rove to all the Moho biomes and made my way to the North Sinkhole (not the Mohole) and realised a bit too late that my planned route (a) was a steep slope down to the sink hole and (b) it was in shadow. This meant that I couldn't drive out the same way I drove in with my solar powered rover and had to find a way out that was in sunshine (or wait until it was). Things to note when roving on Moho: The North is very hilly, with steep slopes Take some RTGs. It sounds odd but if the route you need to take is in shadow, it's going to be in shadow for a long time, possibly (at high latitudes) forever.