Werwolf

holy crap! That is freakin awesome.... I bet that's what Voyager's flyby of Titan was like.

ah ok. I gotcha. Thanks for explaining

whats the deal with the cards? Are they literally just virtual trading cards that people spend money on, or do they do something special? Is it just another "look, I spent more money than you and have these cool fake cards" thing?

hehehe, had me chuckling at the lander names. Shoot, you had every book in the bible landed down there, didnt ya!?!?

nice work man, i fail horribly at planes, space planes, shuttle designs, lol.... sigh

I use stock and parts from KW Rocketry, as well as spherical fuel tank mod for my refuelling portions of the station. Making them from completely stock parts to survive updates is actually a fantastic idea that I'd never had before...

lol "moved to the SSTO program" if your SSTO program is anything like mine, that means sure death

A lot of them are from the KW Rocketry and KSPX Parts Expansion... round tanks are the TAL Spherical Tanks

Now THAT is a refueller o_O

I slingshot off the Mun every time I leave Kerbin's SOI. Sometimes I can even set up a double shot, off the Mun and then off of Minmus. I also slingshot from moon to moon in the Joolian system... I knew the benefits of the maneuver when I got the game though, so I made sure to get comfortable with it.

Hey all, So after the failure of my first mission to Eve.. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36232-Kerb-X-Eve-Messenger-Probe-Partial-Success-VERY-pic-heavy%21%21 ... I decided to completely redesign the probe, and also added a small satellite to be left in orbit before deorbiting the main probe. Mission Objectives Land a probe on the surface of Eve via unpowered parachute descent. Probe is equipped with a Poodle engine and enough fuel for about 30 seconds of flight. After sufficient data and pictures have been taken, the probe is to attempt to lift off and fly as high as it can at terminal velocity in order to gain more understanding about what sort of conditions are experienced during Eve ascent attempts. When engine burnout occurs, probe will be destroyed on impact. Launches 1st launch: Fuel tank assembly. 2nd launch: Probe Payload docked to fuel tank assembly 3rd launch: Nuclear engine module attached to fuel tank/probe assembly, forming the craft to transit to Eve. Empty tanks are jettisoned from the fully configurable fuel tank assembly. This is the Payload... the large lander probe is easily visible, and the small satellite is encased in a protective cover, attached by a docking node to the end of the lander probe. After three launches, our ship is complete.... we get rid of the two empty round tanks after refuelling everything, and blast off for a Mun flyby/speed boost to leave Kerbin's SOI. Flying by the Mun's surface at about 40 kilometers. Welcome to Eve!! Time to jettison the EMM2 Satellite Payload... Satellite Payload before... And after! Fold the solar panels out and establish comms with the lander... EMM2 is fully deployed and ready for action! Now it's the main probe's turn... the extra fuel will stay in orbit with the Nuclear Engine Module, possibly to join with the other fuel tank and engine left in orbit from the failed first mission... Jettisoning the Payload Transfer Package... don't you love coming up with fancy names for your stuff? Little bit hot in here! Chutes are out, and we have passed a critical checkpoint... this is when the first probe failed, after the chutes came out and snapped the body in half.. Ahh.... Suntanning on an Eveian beach... Our job isn't done yet though... the probe will perform one final, fatal task. It will burn its limited 20 second supply of fuel and transmit altitude information, in order to better understand how difficult Eve's atmosphere really is. It only made it to 5k altitude! Fuel exhausted, our probe plunges back to Eve's surface to explode in a perfect sendoff to a well performing probe. Up at 150km, EMM2 records the impact and all transmitted data, and relays it to Kerbin, making this mission a total success!

Hehe, thanks.... it took about a week of casual playing, about 9 different launches and docking procedures involved. I use it for orbital refuelling and crew storage/swapping. Kind of like a meeting point for all missions intended for anything beyond Kerbin orbit.

I had a bunch of missions that went to other planets, but they have all concluded. All I have up right now is my Karmony Space Station. From my recent Eve mission..

Ouuchchhh my sides hurt... that is so Kerbal it hurts.... lmaooo, good job man..you're a perfect fit for this game...

no batteries. you are out of electricity, so your probe is dead and won't deploy the chute.

what surprised me was that i had a 4x heavy strut around connecting everything to everything above and below it, and yet it still broke off... sigh.

I did, but it was a legitimate failure. I don't use quicksaves unless the game really glitched out on me.

I had thought about doing this, but was below 100m/s and the chutes had not yet opened so I saved the fuel. I wanted to save as much as possible anyways for my test.

Mission Objectives Land a probe on the surface of Eve via unpowered parachute descent. Probe is equipped with a Poodle engine and enough fuel for about 30 seconds of flight. After sufficient data and pictures have been taken, the probe is to attempt to lift off and fly as high as it can at terminal velocity in order to gain more understanding about what sort of conditions are experienced during Eve ascent attempts. When engine burnout occurs, deploy a second stage of parachutes and land back onto the surface of Eve, providing a permanent observation outpost and marker for a possible future landing. Launches 1st launch: Fuel tank assembly. 2nd launch: Probe Payload docked to fuel tank assembly 3rd launch: Nuclear engine module attached to fuel tank/probe assembly, forming the craft to transit to Eve. Empty tanks are jettisoned from the fully configurable fuel tank assembly. Eve craft has been fully assembled. From the left to right is the Nuclear Engine Module, the Payload Transfer Package containing the probe, and the fuel tank assembly. Empty fuel tank and mostly full Monopropellant tanks are decoupled and left in orbit for future reuse. Burning for the Mun gravity slingshot maneuver... The Mun slingshots usually entail very close calls to achieve the speed required to leave the Kerbin system without extra fuel use... Passing the Mun at very close range, outbound to the Sun's SOI.. Eve arrival! Circularization burn in progress. One of the two tanks I brought is now empty after getting us all the way here, so it is parked in a 100X200km orbit for use by future missions, possibly as part of a space station. All of the individual tanks have docking ports on either side so they can be used in many ways.. With the empty tank gone, it's time to reconfigure the spacecraft to facilitate the payload separation, leaving the extra fuel in orbit with the Nuclear Engine Module. Successful spacecraft reconfiguration! Now it's time for the Payload Transfer Package to decouple and begin the de-orbit burn with RCS.. De-orbit burn via RCS When the deorbit burn is complete, ensuring ground contact for any debris, the Payload Transfer Package is decoupled off of the probe. The PTP debris will impact the surface of Eve, leaving no trash in orbit. Feelin the burn... It is at this point that the mission suffered a severe failure. The drogue chutes were deployed at 10km altitude. However, when the chutes fully deployed at around 4km altitude, the resulting force snapped the main fuel tank/engine/lander assembly off of the probe body, which remained attached to the parachute assembly. The battery was ripped off of the probe, so the electrical charge drained faster than I could deploy the solar panels, which were left intact on the parachute assembly. The probe was dead before it hit the ground. Probe impacts the surface of Eve, dead as a doornail and upside down. Conclusion: Even strong and thorough use of struts throughout the probe body did not keep the craft from separating. The main chutes never had a chance to deploy, with the drogue chutes seeming more than capable of slowing the craft down. Probe failure due to high G forces experienced during drogue chute deployment. Future probe bodies must be more robustly constructed.

I tend to use a tall 2m single stack with SRB assistance on the first stage. I use asparagus a lot on my lander designs, since i like to do a large central tank, with four small tanks in 4x attached by decouplers. drain the outer tanks first, and on ascent decouple the outer tanks much like the apollo design did.

ach.... now that hurts just thinking about it....

When you figure out that engines cleverly put on decouplers so your station will look neat also means that fuel doesn't transfer from the upper stage tank to the engine...

If anything I find myself repeating old designs with different payloads... i keep using the same fuel tanks, decouplers, boosters... its getting kind of annoying. Generally, the only things I change are the upper stage booster engines depending on the payload weight.

I use the Mun as a grav assist every time I leave kerbin's SOI, and I've come as close as 300m off the surface. With a massive interplanetary vehicle loaded down with Kerbals. Talk about tense..

Ughghghghghhhhh, don't say that. Slender Man creeps me the hell out.