BechMeister

Mission Update: - No Kerbalnaut Left Behind - Foreword: The mission is at an end. I think, collectively between this mission and the establishment of K.G.01 and 02 - that I have squish everything I can from Kerbin SOI - It is time to break out into the Kerbol Solar System in earnest. It was quite nice change of pace to build and fly Search And Rescue planes to pick up lost kerbals - experiment with how much Δv is needed to fly the distance. It took a few iterations to get the planes right - but the 3rd generation hit the mark I think. Mission Tasks: A. Develop a SAR seaplane - Success B. SAR mission for the crew of the crash landed SSTO Spaceplane - Success C. SAR mission for the crew of crash landed MLKO - Failure. D. Develop SAR land plane - Success E. SAR mission for the crew of the crash landed SAR sea plane. - Success Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: Section A: SAR plane V1 take off from the boat launch. I have read that quite a lot of people found it challenging to make a seaplane. Once my SSTO splash landed a few KM off the coast of KSC I thought it was an ideal time to give it a go. I must say that it was a bit finicky to get the plane buoyant enough to float - the SAS strong enough to keep the nose from diving down and the engines air intake big enough to feed the engines. All in all the plane went through 3 design stages: Make a plane that could take off from the water, and fly straight. Give it wheels to be able to take off from a runway + extend the range. Update vehicle from Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified on Section C - range extension, as well as giving it a docking port for refuel capabilities. Model 1. The first step was making the plane buoyant enough. To my annoyance I quickly found out that the nose cones does not give any buoyancy what so ever. Only the the fuel tanks gives buoyancy. The prototype 1 were using the MK2 nose cone for the front and the back, angled slightly up. I had to add a empty MK2 JFT-400 on either side of the nose cone to make it buoyant enough. See spoiler for reference: The plane was now buoyant. It was time to find the right engine. I started by powering the plane by 2x J404 engines - the lift to weight ratio would have been fine for wheeled flight of a runway - but I quickly found out that you need a good lift to weight ratio to get out of the water. I replaced the engines with 2x J33. They needed bigger air intakes, so I added 2x Mk1 Diverterless Supersonic Intake + the circular intake and a XM-G50 Radial Air Intake - giving them more than enough air (otherwise I found that one engine would be starved of air before reaching speeds were the air intakes would suck in enough air for both engines to work) This gave me speed enough - but a new problem arose. The fact that the engines were placed higher than the center of mass, meant that they would work as a leaver, pushing the nose down. I added RCWs until the SAS had the strength to keep the nose up and clear of the water. But the plane kept getting heavier and longer. which meant that it was harder to lift off. to reduce length I replaced the front Nose Cone + the empty front MK2 JFT-400 for a single empty RF-AD-800. - lastly I angled the wings 4° to help the engines push the plane up and out of the water. The Result was this: The plane would now leave the water - but as soon as it was airborn the tilt of the wing would force the plane down - to counter this downward motion I deployed the two center control surface on the wings by 15° and deploy the tail control surfaces at -2°. See figure in spoiler. The plane now flies straight (to the point were you can auto pilot it) and I completed the first test flight - picking up the stranded Kerbals on the SSTO without issues. Its stall speed is was around 30-40 m/s - which is also the speed you need to land on the water with to not blow up. I added 2 aero breaks to help slow down for the water landings. Model 2: After a successful mission I had to get it to fly much longer to reach the desert. I figured an easy way to get more range would be to fill the empty tanks with fuel and give it wheels. Taking off from the runway and flying would mean that by the time It had to be boyant again, the tanks would be empty. After a test - I found that I needed more fuel so I added 2 drop tanks. That gave it a total Δv count of 57.500 Δv. See spoiler to see the addition of wheels and tanks. I was hoping that would be enough for the mission to the desert and back - alas I was short by ~100km. This mission proved that the plane would benefit from having just slightly more Δv - but also a way to refuel. Which lead to the final model: Model 3: By extending the pontoons with NCS 200 fuel tanks + some other minor tweaks(I found out I had flown without Methane in the two Mk1 Diverterless Supersonic Intake) , I increased the Δv count to 66.000 enough to theoretically fly 1500+km 140 m/s in ~4000 m altitude. When configured for water flying - the Δv counter is at 29.100 - and its take off speed is ~49 m/s. Section B: The SAR plane arrives at the floundered SSTO. After the plane had been developed it was a pretty simple to go pick up the lost kerbals. See spoiler section for detailed rundown: et voila - The Kerbals of the crash-landed SSTO was safely back on the beach of KSC. Section C: A map view at the time of dropping the drop tanks - gives quite the impression of the distance that needed to be covered. ~15.013km in total The next mission would turn out to be a lot more demanding. - The distance that had to be travled back and forth were quite long. several hours long. Unfortunately the vehicle was to heavy to be able to fly on 3x time warp (I could not get it to fly straight, but once the flight had been lightened on the way home, it was possible) - So I actually spend a saturday afternoon flying from KSC to the Pod in the desert. fortunately the plane was so stable that I could run it at 70% power and have it fly between 3000m and 4000m altitude. I just had to adjust every once and a while - because of the curvature of Kerbin. It gave a lot opportunity to admire the volumetric clouds, lighting etc. around Kerbin. After 526 km of flight it was time to drop the tanks and see how much the mass savings would improve the Δv counter: After the drop the Δv counter went from 37,538 to 40,368 - saving 170 Δv. I was starting to worry about the success of the mission. The plane had gone a little shy of a 3rd of total distance, tour - retour, and spend (if my math serves me right) spend around 33% of its total Δv. Which in theory should mean that I would be fine - however theory and real life seldom lines up - any deviation from an optimal outcome would mean the flight got short of target. And spoiler alert.. The plane would end up about 101 km short from the runway at KSC on its 1412km journey. Any way after a long journey the plane arrived at the stranded MLKO pod to the cheering of the crew that had spend a day or two in the desert. Pilot Shepke Kerman gives a safety instruction before boarding the flight. Landing the sea plane proved to be a delicate matter - the 4° angle of the wing means it can be quite difficult to perfectly line up the wheels to the surface - you see leveled flight means that the fuselage is angled 4° down. And with the snug placement of the wheels, you need to land on quite horizontal to the surfaces, to not blow up a pontoon or lose a wheel. After a few attempts and reloads I figured the approach and optimal speed. (around 30-40 m/s like on water and close to perfectly leveled to the ground) It made me think that maybe in the future the plane would not be so suited for land operations(not all terrain is as gentle as the desert). But being able to take off from a runway fully loaded to land on water once fuel had depleted the floats - still merited the wheels. Now began the tour home. - Where the tour west to the desert had meant a slow passing of the day - the tour back would result in catching up with the dark quite quick. The SAR Seaplane reaching night time - short before flying over the western shore of the continent KSC is located on. It was here I was starting to debate with myself weather I should press on for KSC or attempt a night landing. I decided to press on until the vehicle had 500 Δv left - as I knew that I might be in need for a powered landing, so fully depleting it would not be advisable.. Fortunately I had anticipated needing lights for landings at nights - so the plane was equipped for night landings. That being said.. not being able to judge if it was a suitable place to land, before a few meters off ground.. still made it a spicey experience. A crashlanding was completed, only destroying some of the landing gear in the process: For a detailed walkthrough of this mission leg - see spoiler section bellow: Section D: Version 1 of the SAR land plane on Runway 1 KSC. Making a land plane was not difficult compared to the Seaplane - I could remove the 4° angle of the wing, and subsequently the ÷2° of the control surfaces on the tail - meaning it was a lot easier to balance the plane. That being said - the SAS really wants to rock the plane up and down when flying.. to the point were the plane crashes. I found that if I limit the range of motion of the control surfaces from its maximum of 20° to 10° the plane will fly stable. How ever to land at low speeds the surface needs at least 15° to keep the nose up. Another thing that were important to me were that the Land and Sea version of the SAR plane could refuel each other. It meant that both planes sported the same front, and subsequently the same cockpit (but it's fine, it gives them synergy). I decided to give the plane a probe core - since the Sea plane was full, and I did not want to fly twice. I figured I could fly it without crew and be fine. Stats: Δv and take off speed no drop tanks: 58.450 Δv - 67 m/s Δv and take off speed drop tanks: 75805 Δv - 84 m/s Section D: The last crew of The Minmus Expedition finally safely back at KSC. after 26 min of flight, and 202 km covered the crew was safely back at KSC - the final Kerbalnauts of The Minmus Expedition was home after 55 days away from the safe confines of KSC. See spoiler section for detailed walkthrough of this mission leg: MISSION_ACCOMPLISHED Thank you all for indulging me in my adventure. I can safely say that I am looking forward to do my Duna Mission ark - were a lot of the scope will be launching very small vehicles and probes. I got my fare share of big elaborate vehicles on this mission. See you soon!

/////////////////////VEHICLE_UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Foreword: On my Minmus mission 2 vehicles from the K.G.01 - 02 vehicles package proved to need a update. The MLKOs were struck by a bug that apparently damages RCS thrusters around fairings and engine plates: The SSTO Space Plane also needed a bit of tweaking after v.0.2.1 - the fact that the plane had not been flown post For Science! meant that I was quite sure its flight characterstics would be off. Since the Multi Fuel Glider needed a complete redesign to work. For the details - look bellow: MLKO: old MLKO and New (version 3) side by side for a comparison view. I have come to dislike the 4 by 4 RCS thrusters - I only use them on tiny crafts where I cannot use the point RCS thrusters. The fact that you cannot control which thruster is firering at what time is annoying to me. But I also find that the point thrusters in general bugs out much less. I got two chances to test out the re-entry characteristics of the capsule. One time with the 1st version, where I decided to de-orbit the craft once I learned half the RCS thrusters didnt work - The updated version I accidently got to test because of a brain fart with a rendezvous that got into the atmosphere of Kerbin. Video of the uncontrolled re-entry of the capsule. The parachute was primed at separation (which is why they deploy as soon as the heat is gone) Even though I did not think it to be truly necessary with a probe core (The M.T.Ds could connect the MLKOs to the H.T.Ds) I decided I would add a medium sized probe core. It would give the craft a bit more EC and RCWs as well as removing the step of having to dock the MTDs. It also provided a anchor point for the RCS thrusters pointing retrograde - meaning I could avoid the bug that plagued the build: two images showing one MLKOv2 (left) and two MLKOv1 (Right) - notice the difference in the gap between the H.T.D and MLKO is extended. The accidental de-orbit of the v2 version showed another weak spot - namely the Clamp-o-tron at the front of the vehicle - had it been a shielded clamp-o-tron.. I could probably have saved the vehicle. Although I could probably have saved it regardless as I could cheese the heat mechanics by flipping the vehicle and alternating between roasting the engine plate and the clamp-o-tron. But the last change between the MLKOv2 and the MLKOv3 was that I gave it a shielded port (now that they are no longer bugged I have started to use them again) - and I gave it a decoupler between the capsule and the heat shield. With 3 parachutes it still falls with 11 m/s - and I figured I could reduce that number by dumping the heat shield. (they are quite heavy after all) Crew SSTO Space Plane: Space plane v.2 (front) and v.1 (back) at display at KSC As mentioned the space plane needed some minor tweaks. I dont know if RCW has been boosted in energy consumption, if the MK2 cockpit has been nerfed in EC or if the small OX-STAT solar panels has been nerfed. In any case - the vehicle had gone from having enough EC last time I flew it - to having a way to small battery package and power generation. I decided to add two bigger solar panels and a small battery. The RCW also seemed too weak - at least it annoyed me. I added 2 small RCW and reduced the Monopropellant to counter the weight gain somewhat. Lastly on re-entry I had trouble keeping control of the plane in the thicker parts of the atmosphere. Even though the problem was that the nose only wanted to point prograde (the reversed problem of the Multi Fuel Glider that wanted to present its rear on re-entry) I still added the "body flaps" I recall them having a weird balancing effect on the glider - even when not deployed. The changes came to look like this: The two RCW are the silver part on the two wing mounted engines - the little white extension on the back engine is the battery. Conclusion: The vehicles are now up to date with the current build of KSP2. If you want to read more about the mission, you can find the info here:

MISSION UPDATE The End Part 2 - Coming Home. The two M.L.K.Os Arriving at K.G.02 - ready to pick up the crew. Foreword: This leg was supposed to just have been easy peasy - I mean most of the vehicles had been developed and "tested" in the building of K.G.01 and K.G.02. How ever, vehicles like the Mun to Low Kerbin Orbit capsules had never been flown beyond getting into orbit and docking with K.G.01 - there was never a need, since the crew on K.G.02 arrived with the emergency vehicles to that station. It proved that the vehicles were not completely bug safe. The second vehicle that would have a bit of issues was the SSTO Space plane that takes crew from KSC to K.G.01 - It had been developed before heat mechanics were introduced, and just like how my other re-entry glider vehicles, it had to be updated to re-enter proper. I have decided that the developmental changes to the vehicles will be posted in the blog about K.G.01 and 02 - since I find that is relevant to that mission report, and not this. Keep an eye on this space, I'll post it there when I get around to it: Without further ado - Here are the Mission Tasks: Mission Tasks: A. Crew rotation 1 from K.G.02 to K.G.01 - Partial Success B. Crew rotation 2 From K.G.02 to K.G.01 - Failure C. Crew Rotation 3 From K.G.02 to K.G.01 - Success. D. Rotate crew from K.G.01 to KSC. - Success E. Rotate Crew from K.G.01 to KSC - Failure Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: Section A: Medium Tug Drone (M.T.D.) connecting the Mun to Low Kerbin Orbit vehicle(M.L.K.O.) to the Heavy Tug Drone (H.T.D.) before departure from Kerbin Gate 01 (K.G.01) Getting the MLKOs to K.G.02 I thought this step was going to be easy - The MLKOs were lighter than the 20t hydrogen tanks the H.T.Ds had been designed to fly to K.G.02 - So it should not be so tight in the Δv margins for getting to the mun and back. How ever, bugs would become an issue, as well as my own mistakes. But, before we get to that, I read a very interesting forum post the other day about efficient maneuvering. You can find it here: I decided to try the method - However I just realized I didn't get the proper data to compare. So I cant see if it actually improved the Δv mileage. - I will need some more testing. Any way, here is a screenshot of the attempt. It makes seems though - by burning a little bit radial in in the beginning, and a little radial out in the end of the burn - you spend overall more time burning prograde. When you set the maneuver node to just burn prograde - you end up burning something like 30° radial out with the H.T.Ds. Thought it may save Δv - It is a lot more difficult to get the capture lined up. You see, I usually capture the mun by making a maneuver node that has burned enough prograde to reach the mun. Then I move the node around the vehicles orbit until I hit the Mun SOI. As soon as you introduce radial in/out movement to the maneuver.. the plan does weird things when you move it around the orbit. So the flight plan has to be adjusted. It may be necessary to have mods to fully make use of this concept. - I'll need to do more testing. For a detailed rundown of the MLKO vehicles tour to K.G.02 see spoiler section bellow: Human error and bugs: Since 3/4 docking ports were taken by the Crew Shuttle 01, 02 and 03 - It meant that one of the two MLKOs had to be parked near K.G.02 while the other could dock and pick up crew. Once the first vehicle had loaded the crew and I was going to dock the second. I had a weird "bug" - The SAS was going crazy and the ship would just be spinning, not responding any of my commands as seen here: I filed a bug report only to find out that it was not a bug - I had accidently turned on trim on the capsule.. Apparently if you press Alt down + W,A,S or D you'll apply trim to the controls. Which means you will apply 1-100% of that control. So if you ever find yourself in a situation were a vehicle will seem to turn on its own, and it's not because it is out of COMMNET range - then try check if the trim of your ship. How ever I was sure the vehicle was bust. So I ended up terminating the spinning vehicle. After that I send the working and now crewed MLKO back to K.G.01. The tour back to K.G.01 went without incidents until I ran into an actual bug. When I disconnected the MLKO from the HTD and was going to dock it under its own power, (I used the MTD to dock it to the HTD since it was un-crewed and did not have a probe core at the time) half the RCS thrusters did not work. See bug report for reference: It meant that it was impossible to dock the vehicle. I decided that I would redesign the craft in a way that I did not use the 4 split RCS thrusters. - I often find that the 4 split RCS thrusters break, or are hard to get to fire in the right direction. I have always preferred the point thrusters, as you can tweak them to what command to respond to: Any way - I reconnected the MLKO, transferred crew and de-orbited the vehicle. 1/3 crew rotation from K.G.02 complete. The crew was successfully rotated - but with total loss of two vehicles. Is that a partial success? Section B: MLKOv2 being launched into LKO. 1. Getting the MLKOv2 into Orbit and refueled at K.G.01 With 1 rotation complete and 2 vehicles lost due to human error and bugs I was hoping that it would be smooth sailing from now on - after all I had redesigned the crafts and tested the new vehicle. so I knew the RCS thrusters would work.. Now I also knew to keep my fat thumb away from the Alt key. First step first - the MLKOs would only have enough fuel and then some to get into LKO. It then need to be refueled at K.G.01 before the journey to The Mun could take place. This step went without any incidents. - My regular readership will recognize the 1st stage from the Multi Fuel gliders, used to refuel K.G.01 with Methalox or Hydrogen - and just like when I launch the Multifuel gliders - the 1st stage of course returned safely back to KSC after stage separation. For detailed walkthrough of the launch of the MLKO and the landing of the 1st stage, see spoiler section bellow: Rotating crew from K.G.02 to K.G.01: Refueled and ready - it was time to perform the second burn to The Mun. The tour to K.G.02 and back to K.G.01 went without incidents.... uuuntil I made a slight mistake coming back. The MKLOv2 got into a orbit with K.G.01 right behind it.. and not in front of it. If I did my regular way of rendezvousing I would need to wait around 3 days before the capsule would have caught up with K.G.01 So instead of making an orbit that were 10km bellow the target orbit (90km) - I decided to take a orbit 10km higher (110km). This would allow K.G.01 to catch up with the MKLOv2, instead of the other way around. Once K.G.01 was directly bellow the MLKO, I would just have to burn retrograde until I had a fitting rendezvous point: The astute will notice the error I made in doing it this way - namely that the PE was vastly bellow 70km. Unfortunately I only ever realized my error once I was dipping into the atmosphere Once bellow 70km and I realized my error, I thought I could still salvage the error. I have coasted through the atmosphere before in the past, and I had plenty with Δv to keep me in orbit.. How ever, the previous times I have dipped into the atmosphere on a rendezvous maneuver was in space planes. The MLKOv2 was not a space plane.. It did not have the lift, and certain parts would make the effort difficult: The front docking port would heat up over a period - I found that could turn the vehicle 180° and allow the engine to take the heat for a while, while the port cooled down. And I could probably still have survived this by keep turning the vehicle around. But I decided that was cheating. I find that heat exchange is way to generous in the game - With this thin an atmosphere.. I would not be able to converge the heat away quick enough.. and radiate the heat while in a plasma cloud? forget it. I decided with myself.. that all the bits that was not the safety capsule would probably have melted off (lamps lights etc.)... and that the craft would not "be suitable" for service anymore. So.. Even without wanting it. I got a chance to test the emergency re-entry characteristics of the design and enjoy the pretty colors. For a detailed walkthrough of the mission. See spoiler section bellow The crew was saved.. but the vehicle was lost.. and never made it to K.G.01 - so that must count as a... failure? Section C: MKLOv2 number 2 arriving at K.G.02 Now I was certain that I had suffered all the bugs and human error that would be thrown at me. Alas I was wrong. Getting the 3rd Crew Rotation went without incident - right until the point were I had to separate the HTD and MLKO and dock them back at K.G.01. When I was docking the MLKO at K.G.01, it seemed as if the floating point on the engine plate had turned physical.. I could not dock it: See bug report as reference: Fortunately it was not an error that persisted - by loading a game shortly before the docking - I managed to get the vehicle docked back at K.G.01. And shortly after docking another, so K.G.01 got 2 MLKOs and 2 HTDs again, ready for the next mission. Two MLKOv3 docked at K.G.01 ready for future missions. Section D: The SSTO Space Plane ready to launch for K.G.01 to bring the Minmus crew safely back to KSC Last time I flew my crew rotation SSTO Space Plane, was before the heat mechanics were introduced to the game - So I was a bit excited to see how it would be fairing after a few updates were I had not touched it. I brushed up on the flight procedure in the K.G.01 and 02 blog. It was time to test the vehicle. Getting into orbit: Getting off the runway and starting the ascending stage at 15° went without flaws - how ever I were starting to sweat a bit when the vehicle started to heat up in the atmosphere. A few heat indicators were starting to show, on v1 of the vehicle I think it was the RCS thrusters or front cones on the engines that heated up. On the later v2 it was the solar panels: Here on the updated SSTOv2 space plane - the solar panels are getting a bit toasty Fortunately it never got higher than this and the plane got out of the atmosphere without trouble. The step by step guide I had written myself were good enough that I could get back into flying the vehicle efficient right from the get go. The vehicle got into orbit no issues and was soon able to dock with K.G.01 Crew SSTO docked with K.G.01 and performing crew transfer. Re-entry: I was quite excited to see if the reentry characteristics had changed a lot from last time I flew it. Readers of my K.G.01 and 02 blog will remember that the Multi Fuel glider went through quite some changes after the v0.2.1 patch. Fortunately the vehicle did not have the same ass flipping tendencies as the aforementioned multifuel glider. Buut the vehicle did not have the ability to maintain a 40° AoA on the way down.. let alone a 5° So I imagine the windows to be quite toast. The lack of ability to pitch the craft also meant that I overshot the runway by a bit. Fortunately the vehicle still had a little bit of Methane left, and could fly back to the runway under its own power. 1st tour had been complete, and it had shown the needs for some tweaks to the design: More RCWs, batteries, Solar panels.. and more importantly - body flaps. For detailed walkthrough of this Mission Task, see spoiler section bellow: Section E. SSTO SpacePlanev2 docking with K.G.01 I quickly updated the plane and send it out again. It had gained a bit more mass and I was worried it would mean that the vehicle would be left with to little Δv to get back again. Fortunately my worries was unwarranted. It made it to K.G.01 without any issues and had enough Δv to deorbit. - Now was the real test - would it be able to reenter perfect? SSTO Space PlaneV2 re-entering with bodyflaps engaged. The fix for the multifuel glider worked for the SSTO as well - Now that I had the body flaps I could attack the atmosphere aggressively without being afraid of flipping the ass. However - I was so busy admiring the planes ability to keep the nose pointed in a 40° AoA that I didn't notice I was extending the glide... a lot... and subsequently massively overshooting the runway. evidently It became quite obvious that I would not make it to the runway when I was still in the upper atmosphere and could look down on KSC. I figured It was time to try reach the little runway on the eastern island. How ever - the fact that the runway in question is about 300 m above the ocean proved to be the final nail in the coffin, The SSTO is not a good glider. I would have to attempt a water landing right outside the coast. By carefully managing airspeed and altitude I managed to get down to the ocean with ~60 m/s (about the point of stall speed) and gently putting it into the water. Right outside the coast of the island. The crew survived.. but they did not reach KSC - so a failure? For detailed walkthrough of this mission task - see spoiler section bellow: Moving Forward: The vehicles and crew has been landed.. And even if the pod is several 100 km away from KSC it can be recovered.. But by now you must know, that that is not the way we do it here. Stay tuned for the SAR mission to bring all the kerbalnauts back home to KSC: A little sneak peak at what is to come.

If you try it out. It would be nice if you could make some feedback on it. I could make a propper guide, I mean... this is just a long answer to a guy who had the same problem x)

Thank you for the kind words Ice! They're the fuel that keeps me push through when it gets rough x) The parts count for the ICV without the moon base modules is 530 and K.G.02 is clockin in at 801 parts - So compared to what fx ShadowZone is making.. Its not that "high" a number. That being said... My rig is also that much tinier xD I agree - I would have loved to see that too.. But in the end It became too much of a pain to see it to come true. It would have required me to keep the game running indefinetly.. and who knows what would happen once docked and I would have to load back to K.G.01 and return. Maybe all could have been lost.. Any way.. I decided to be a bit "lazy" - I have also reached the end of what I can endure.. playing at 1-2 fps is not fun.. 5 fps demands patient. My future project will focus on smaller more simple vehicles... that's for sure x) At least the precourser to a colony I think.. Its more like a science lab for a shorter stay on the worlds x) - I mean.. I would love to be able to do that 3d printing of domes over structures to shield for radiation... you know like this: But we will see what the devs comes up with x)

Rgr thx for the efford you guys put into keeping the bugs catagorized

MISSION UPDATE The End Part 1: Goodbye Minmus ICV - Explorer arriving at Kerbin Gate 02 Foreword: Hello fellow Kerbalnauts - I have officially completed this mission. How ever it took a lot longer to finish this final leg of the tour than I expected it would. For some reasons I were running into multiple bugs, vehicles breaking, a little bit of my own dumb mistakes and Real_Life™ (leaving no time for anything but work, eat sleep repeat.) But! last sunday I managed to end this crazy mission to Minmus, and (sometimes, just by an inch of a hair) get all the Kerbals back to KSC. How ever, Because of all the bugs and things that happened, This update was getting increasingly long. I have decided to split it in two: Part 1: The Journey from Minmus to Kerbin Gate 02 and Part 2: then from Kerbin Gate 02 to KSC. (which I'll write some time later this week) Enjoy the following Journey! MISSION TASKS: A. Return the Base Camp One crew to ICV Explorer via. Crew Shuttle 01 and 02 - Success B. Return ICV Explorer to K.G.02 - Success C. Dock ICV Explorer with K.G.02 and transfer crew. - Failure C. Dock Crew Shuttle 01, 02 and 03 to K.G.02 - Deorbit ICV Explorer into The Mun. - Success Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: Section A. All 3 crew shuttles - safely back at ICV - Explorer. This leg went smooth. I packed up all of the base. Made sure all the lights were off. And for flavour/roleplaying reasons, I also retracted the communication disks to avoid them taking damage from micro meteorites while uncrewed. I then Loaded the crew into the two shuttles, with all the science data and were ready for lift off. The fact that one of the crew shuttles only had 279 Δv left when launching, was not even close to become an issue. It really does not require a lot of Δv to get a vehicle into a 10km orbit around Minmus. When the vehicle docked the Δv counter was on 99. Meaning I spend exactly 180 Δv getting the craft to the docking port, just like the Δv Map said it should -and that was even with a rendezvous and docking I launched the vehicles one at the time (without having the base sink through the floor) - placed them in a 10km lower intercept orbit, like pearls on a string, and just had to wait for them to catch up with the ICV, before burning prograde for interception. By the time the first vehicle was docked, the second was ready "bellow" the ICV to intercept. image of the docking procedure. I have really come to like this rendezvous method.. as its so predictable and universal - I have been told a lot of people are having issues with docking. And I have been wondering If I should do a Docking Tutorial, both as video and as a step by step guide in writing. For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow. Section B: ICV - Explorer Arrives at K.G.02 - after a troublesome journey. With all the vehicles back at the ICV - Explorer, the FPS counted dropped and the Kraken reared back its ugly head. When ever I was looking away the vehicle would start resonating and if I didn't hit timewarp in a timely fashion for a few seconds. The vehicle would shake it self apart - as seen here in this bug report: With a majority of the Methalox load spend on maneuvering, and the fact that a lot of tonnage was left on the surface of Minmus (the base™) the Δv counter on the ICV ended on 1220 Δv - not bad, considering there was only 10.3t/50t hydrogen left in the tanks. - The vehicle must have been a lot lighter than when it arrived. The tour From Minmus to K.G.02 would be done in 5 maneuvers, as seen in the spoiler section bellow: The journey back from Minmus took to the Mun 27+ days - and could probably have benefited from planning for a more optimal transfer window. Because of poor planning it took 3/4s of the Muns orbit around Kerbin to catch it. The entire journey would spend around ~545Δv - meaning the craft had around 655Δv left when all was said and done. And here I was worried I wouldn't have enough Δv when the mission started. For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow. Section C: The 3 Crew Shuttles transfering the crew of the ICV - Explorer to K.G.02. After docking the two vehicles proved impossible. As I expected. Having these two massive structures in the near vicinity of each other, would result in weird things happening. The resonance issue was really difficult to keep at bay. While maneuvering the craft into position to join it with the docking tower - It would keep breaking. And playing at 1-2 FPS made it difficult to truly see when it was resonating. The most interesting of bugs though, were one were the game failed to load up the vehicles. When ever I loaded a save were the two vehicles were on the same "grid" - the ICV would disintegrate into a thousand pieces and be spread, like a bug shot, around the mun. Since it was impossible to do the final part of the mission in one session at 2 fps. I decided to do this instead: Load a save were the vehicle was not on grid with K.G.02 yet. perform the rendezvous burn. undock the 3 crew shuttles to K.G.02 with the crew. pretend the ICV burned into a different parking orbit. - take some screenshots delete the vehicle and save. Not having the game break anymore From here on, as you can see, the mission changed. It was no longer the Idea to dock the vehicle to the station and then transfer the crew. but to just dock the 3 crew shuttles instead. This step, albeit slow. Went without incidents. For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow. Moving Forward: The crew now having complete their mission. Would spend the time it takes for the crew vehicle to move from K.G.01 to K.G.02, preparing the science data and samples for the coming work. Back on KSC. The M.K.L.Os (Mun to Kerbin Low Orbit) would soon fly their virgin tour.. unfortunately their tour would be much like the tour of Titanic.. albeit without the casualties. Read more about that in Part 2 of the final chapter. Stay tuned for more!

that reminds me that I've been wanting to make a tutorial... I do it a little different now than most I see online.. and I think its a superior method x) I once did a step by step guide with gifs for another KSP player. This is an older post though.. but it is a step by step guide. I do it in a different way now though. That is more precise, but also demand that the player can be this precise.

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 11 Home | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz | GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI | RAM: 16,0 GB Bug: So I redesigned my little vehicle after the 4 way RCS block kept buggin out. When I wanted to dock the capsule to the space station, some hitbox kept hitting the station before the docking ports could meet up. I tried to replicate the bug by launching the craft from the craft file again. But this time it worked propper. I noticed that the distance to the hitbox corespond with the floating point on the engine plates, and wonder if the game some how has made that a "physical object" and that is what hits the station. Included Attachments: FloatingPointPakcage.zip

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 11 Home | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz | GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI | RAM: 16 gb Bug: for some reason - when I place the 4 way RCS Thruster Block on the Cockatoo command module - half of them wont fire. Included Attachments: BrockenRCSPackage.zip .ipsImage { width: 900px !important; }

you could have mounted a rescue mission?

Thats one big rocket! How much Δv does that have? What engines are you using? it looks quite monstrous. Looks like less can do it to me?

Just checking in again - I will try replicate the craft once I see it to see how it flies

That is all good - Depending on the craft, the poodle engine may be underpowered. Duna has a pretty low gravity, and thin atmosphere.. so it may be good enough. All my crafts I have tested around Duna has been using the spark engines, but they have been tiny and multi staged.. and was essentially just a craft going from the Duna surface to Low Duna Orbit - to then dock with a "mothership" Any way... looking forward to see the rocket in question! x)

Can you share a image of your rocket? We will have an easier time to help you if we see your craft. What engines were you using and how much Δv you have etc.

Thx @Icegrx for the mention I have not read the entire thread... gut I get the gist of it. I think you need to remember that this is mostly an sandbox game - which means you get out of it what you put into it... It gives you tools, but you need to make the content. If you ask me the game is "too easy" in its mechanics around CommNet, and how long a kerbal can survive without food etc. It makes my game a lot more compelling by imagine that i cannot send rovers to distant planets without a relay network of satelites - and I need to have some sort of habitat on another planet. Since it can take months if not years before the next optimal window arrives. I dont like to make huge rockets and just launch it all in one go - to me the design challenge of getting things into space, assembling it and shipping it is what keeps it interesting.. and finding synergy between designs. As in.. create vehicle standards etc. I need to put on to me design constraints before its fun. Fx. I always try design my vehicles with some degree of re-usability. Its a good challenge. I also never use a nuclear engine without a nuclear power plant on my craft etc. If I could have it my way.. KSP2 would have a hardcore mode, where you could only see the other bodies as they look through a telescope on Kerbin.. and you would need to build space telescopes and send probes to the other planets to "unlock" their features.. kind of like a fog of war mechanics in RTS games. I would want Kerbin to have Communication stations scattered around the planet - meaning that you would have signal black outs for probes until you've made a CommSat network. And that you would need to upgrade that network as you go. But I digress... Imo - to keep the sandbox fun, give yourself some design constraints, build infrastructure and design missions through that scope.

Welcome onboard! I would say what my Kerbals die to the most.. Is them sneaking on board highly experimental crafts (that usually have a probe core for testing phase) - I guess the little buggers do everything to be on the page of the Science Tabloid Media on Kerbin. I would say that... But the truth is lazyness.. Me being to lazy to not drive my rover 40 m/s and hit a bump that yets it to its death... Me to lazy not to check if the kerbals were actually on the craft before de-orbiting it because I found out a part was put on backwards... Me to lazy to make sure the staging was correct.. etc. etc. But.. I try to minimize casualties.. a lot of my crazier crafts are drones.. At least Kerbals are happy to give their life for progress. And according to the scientific method, closing development dead ends is still progress. Outch... Imagine if there were a memorial with all the deaths you caused at KSC

I hate the big legs too... The rockets also tumble so easily if its not landing on the flattest of ground.. Sadly its the only legs we have that will allow us to land rockets with main engines that isnt tiny. I have been struggling with them when returning 1st stages (like a falcon 9) on Kerbin. I know its maybe a bit cliché to say.. but remember its early access.. and its very much still feels like a alpha build and not a beta

I must admit that when I plan my maneuvers.. I often just pull the prograte node until I have a path that intercept the object I desire to transfer to.. Then I move the node around on my orbit until I have a interception. And then I use the Normal/Anti normal and or Radial in/out to adjust where i land on the other bodies SOI... So I am very dependent on the nodes.. Its only if I have to circularise or correct inclinations that I eye ball it. But I guess I can almost do the same on this approach. Just make sure that the initial prograde arrow pull is also pulled down a bit - As seen on this screenshot: If I should put myself into the spotlight... I can tell you that the maneuver I did which I questioned was the "right" way to do it.. But I guess the only way I knew how to do it... Looked like this: The quote is from my "blog" about building two space stations (one around the Mun and one around Kerbin) I hope its okay I include an example from my own mission report... I just remember specifically asking this out into the void, not getting a correction, and assuming that was how it was done x)

I often fly vehicles that are "underpowered" or have long burn times - I have in my mission blogs been asking question about the efficiency and fuel usage when you burn and I could see that by the end of the burn I was burning "up" a lot (as you mentioned). I did not know any other way... But I guess this also explains why I tend to need about 100-200Δv more than what the Δv maps say - In the beginning I was just assuming that my Δv readings were wrong... and was considering doing the rocket equation to be sure.. But just to be sure I understod it right (and pardon me for using rookie terms): 1. You start the burn before the optimal position on PE. place PE on the halfway point of your burn? 2. You then burn prograde and down until you reach the mid point. After which the maneuver node will start burn you Up. But because you start by burning down, less Δv is spend burning up, and your average burn time is more prograde than if you just tell the maneuver node to burn prograde. Correct?

thank you for your service x)

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 11 Home | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz | GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI | RAM: 16,0 GB Bug Documentation: Bug replication: open save. wait Work around: - Once it starts vibrating, you hit time warp +3 for 1 sec, and all the resonance is killed. Make sure to keep an eye on your vehicle when in map mode. - Generally only happens upon loading in, If you have stopped the resonance once, it usually doesn't come again.. usually. P.S.: @Anth - I'm sorry you have to go through my more and more extreme parts counts I've attached craft files - the vehicle at display consist of parts from these two crafts. - Pardon me not sending a file with the vehicle as it is. For reference it looks like this as of now: It consist of most of the craft file called "moon transporter" - the tubular drop ships docked to the large ports are empty (the base modules has been dropped on the Moon, you've seen it in other bug reports.) - you can find those in the "New Workplace" file. if I have to, I can make a craft file that has the vehicle as it is in the save game. It was just easier for me to take both craft files. Included Attachments: VehicleResonanceBugPackage.zip .ipsImage { width: 900px !important; }

Other Findings: I successfully launched the vehicle into orbit. - and got back to the base without it falling through the floor yesterday evening by doing this: 1. Launch the vehicle into orbit. 2. Hit escape and go to KSC 3. Hit the Tracking Station 4. load back into the base. I don't know if its because it resets/unload the crafts when you go to KSC and then loads them back in on their correct path. But there is something there.

Reported Version: v0.2.1 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes OS: Windows 11 Home | CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz | GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI | RAM: 16,0 GB This bug seems to be related to this: Although that being said. The result is achieved without using any time warp: Bug Documentation: Bug replication steps: Fly a craft away - take control of either the base or the cew shuttle 02 Result will be that it have fallen through the floor. Note: I have a map bug - but I've never experienced that before.. The bug report is not about that though. Included Attachments: Basefallthroughground-notimewarppackage.zip .ipsImage { width: 900px !important; }

- MISSION UPDATE - 4/4 Samples Collected. Theomore taking a crater sample, in a crater (oh really) south of Base Camp One. Foreword: Today is going to be a short update - after spending 6 (ingame) days on Minmus I can feel I am going a bit dead in this mission. (seems the readership is too) Minmus is just not that exciting x). So I am happy to announce that the only thing left after this update, is the return trip back to K.G.02. and from there Crew rotation back to Kerbin. Without further ado, here comes the mission update - with all the bugs and problems that came along with it. Mission Tasks: A. Recover Missing samples via Crew Shuttle. - Success B. Recover Missing Samples via Rover. - Success Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: Section A: Crew Shuttle 01 on the way south, performing reconnaissance in search of the two missing biomes. Even though the recon tour south with the Crew Shuttle turned out to be short, and all though I did every maneuver with Δv conservation in mind. ~900Δv is just not a whole lot. - and now I worry that Crew Shuttle 01 won't have the Δv to make it back to ICV Explorer. A short tour south quickly revealed the two missing biomes. The first Biom after the dark Sheet Ice of the Greater Flats was Arctic Ice (which I thought would be at the poles). I decided that it would be most cost effective to pick up that sample with the Rover instead of spending Δv landing. Thus allowing the Shuttle to continue its coasting phase south, getting most out of its initial burn, which was aiming for a crater. I suspected that it would be there I would find the biome called "Crater" Surprise surprise -It turned out to be correct - which was lucky, since the Crew Shuttles would only have enough Δv for one small expedition each. The Crater sample was taken and the shuttle made it back home. Alternate Timeline - An Attempt at Refueling the Shuttle: Because the shuttle had spend more Δv than I thought it would, and I was getting worried it wouldn't have enough Δv to get to Orbit, I decided to attempt a docking with the Rover to transfer the Methalox to the shuttle. (After all, once mission was done - there wouldn't be a need for methalox in the rover) How ever - even if the docking maneuver would succeed.. It proved to be worth nothing more than the training in precise maneuvering with the shuttle - because when ever I docked with the Rover or any other docking port on the Base - it would result in a rapid unscheduled disassembly: See spoiler section. Normally I go with the flow, and accept my errors... but this felt like the result of a bug rather than my missmanagement. So I reverted to the save back in the Crater. Back to current timeline: According to Loïc Viennois Δv map - It only takes 180 Δv to get into a 10km orbit on Minmus - and if that is true.. then the 279 Δv left after the mission should be enough for take off, rendezvous and docking with ICV - Explorer. For detailed rundown of the mission section - see spoiler section bellow: Section B: Johndin talking to the crew of Rover01 - describing the site where the Actic Sample was taken. This part of the mission turned out to be quite difficult because of a nasty bug. As you recall, the last time the rover returned to base. It did so via. Dropship. Apparently there is a small bug that may occur when you return to base driving along the ground. If your curious see here: Besides that taking a few tries, before yielding a result that didn't catapult the base or landing crafts into the air, this step was straight forward, and done pretty quick. For detailed walkthrough of this Mission Section see spoiler section bellow: Moving Forward: I have done and seen what I came to do and see - I have tested all vehicles, gotten a lot of experience with bases etc. I can use in future missions. For instance I realized that the Bulldog Rover has 3 seats. Something I wish they had added in the info on the vehicle (I should probably have noticed this when I tested the vehicle on the Runway... I wish they wrote how many could be seated in the different modules, and not just how many is needed to fly it). Which mean that in the future I won't have to add the two tuna cans, and can use the space behind the vehicle more smart. I have gained experience making bases, which I am sure will come in handy for when I inevitable have to make one on Duna. Next and Final update (unless the Crew Shuttle 01 wont have enough Δv to get back to the ICV) will be the return of the Kerbals to Kerbin. Where I will attempt something.. that probably will burn my pc down.. viz. to dock the ICV - Explorer to K.G.02... (that is a lot of parts ) Stay Tuned In for More!