DocMoriarty

I usually test craft that transport Kerbals at least once empty. If that goes without problems then I allow Kerbals to go with them. But that doesn't always prevent Kerbals from dieing. Was testing a new rover with Jeb as driver. Got the problem that always comes after a while on Kerbin and was too fast, the rover hit some invisible polygons, acted up weirdly and crashed, Jeb died. Sigh.

I play the same style as the OP. I'm not accelerating interplanetary travel too much and instead do Kerbin missions until something arrives close to it's destination. And i use Kerbal Alarm Clock too for that matter. I actually guess there are lots of people playing that style.

I nearly never use ALT F12, reverting or loading. Only when a fail was definitly a bug. So often things don't work as planned and you have to improvise, do rescues etc. but thats what makes the game outstanding. Kerbals have a right to fail!

Most annoying: laggy physics starting at 180 parts and never fixed bugs like the claw related bugs, mirrored part group action restore bug, mining not suspended when tank full bug, everything explodes bug and your savegame is then unusable (which is most likely claw related), and so on and so forth

Coming from a 110x110km orbit where usually my space stations are i usually plan a burn with Pe precisely 34-36km above KSC from the opposite side of the planet. Then do a long descent around half the planet and keep plane most of the time on the prograde marker.

Linus: We had kinda really bad luck these days. Something went wrong in the Kerbalverse and all of a sudden all our craft kept wobbling and exploding with no obvious reason. We tried a lot to overcome this spacetime anomaly but finally our local Kawd of Kerbalverse decided to reset the Kerbalverse with a huge Big Bang that was hopefully even hearable at SQUAD! Doc Moriarty: Not even shutting down Kerbalverse and reloading worked or rebooting the Universe Engine! Gene: Yeah that was really weird. Here is an example of what was left from our huge Raider 31-02 after that incident. But it also happened to other space stations and ships. We at the control center couldn't do a thing. Even switching off SAS and stuff didn't help. At the latest when time compression kicked in everything kept exploding. Mortimer: Back to square one! We were broke anyway, so no big loss. Jeb: At least I'm back to life now! So can't really complain Gus: We weren't lazy tho since then. The guys again made lots of funny contraptions and did missions to get back science and money. For example this one as our new passenger shuttle: Wernher: Hey create something good when you have no advanced tech! At least this thing transports 3 tourists or VIPs and a pilot at the same time! Mortimer: Makin' money! Yeah! Wernher: Here another of our new contraptions. This lab slapped together from stuff that was laying around here somewhere will hopefully get us back into business big time! Only gotta load it with some science and a Kerbal! Jeb: Umm yeah thats nice. Though sadly Val died early in a stupid part test mission Walt: Not going to publish this. Anyway we are off into a new career and will be fighting our way back into the skies and stuff!

I actually spend way too much time playing KSP so there is no time to meet people. Not even those that don't play KSP.

I used to build really oversized spaceplanes pre-1.0 and bring nearly everything into orbit with these. You can find some of them also in the documentation about spaceplanes in my signature. Here are some highlights though: This is Leviathan delivering a new 100ton+- tug into LKO doing the final orbital insert with the nukes for efficiency: And Leviathan on runway without payload: This is a tanker called Milkman: After all the nerfs of the jet engines and rapier and new aerodynamics that stuff is impossible. Also because of the much slower physics in 1.0.x. Spaceplanes used to be A LOT more fun in 0.24, probably not as realistic but therefore 10x more kerbalistic!

Among other things I intercepted an asteroid and added a new chapter with lots of images to my story here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132782-Doomsday-Ahead-Will-Kerbalkind-be-Rescued-%28Story-with-Pictures%29?p=2178804#post2178804

It's been reported already here http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/5313 Though unlike the bug report says also when the ship is the active ship it doesn't stop mining when tanks are full.

Epilogue of Epilogue: A Second Chance ALERT - ALERT - ALERT Walt: Umm wassup? Why that alert? Linus: We have a new classe E asteroid approaching Kerbin! Just discovered it on our scanners. Walt: On a crash course again? Linus: Well, actually not this time. It's just passing by, not too far away though. Gave green alert to wake up everyone related with the project and because it's cool and i can! Walt: Since it's not crashing I gonna inform the public this time. Maybe we can make this a big triumph for KASA and get more funds in return? Mortimer: More funds! Yeah that would be great. No fun(ds) when we are always close to being bankrupt ... Linus: Carrica, calling Carrica, ... , CARRICA Carrica: Who disturbs my beauty sleep? What happened so far One day scientists from discovered a class E asteroid on a crash course into Kerbin. A new vessel designed for intercepting the asteroid was developed: the Predator. The vessel launched and could, remote controlled, intercept the asteroid. But problems with navigation computer and the concept of the vessel made it impossible to redirect the asteroid off of his deadly trajectory. It finally crashed into Kerbin but at the same time simply vanished! The Kawds of Kerbin have obviously had their fingers in the game and rescued Kerbalkind - this time. Lots of snacks were eaten to calm the nerves as a consequence. After this incident and the unexpected survival, the scientists and engineers got a second chance to refine their concept. A lot of effort, and funds, was put forward to create a new ship named Raider 31-02. The biggest single vessel ever created and launched from Kerbin, 1400 tons with boosters, 900 tons wet (without boosters). Carrica Kerman, an experienced asteroid interceptor, was assigned as commander to the new ship. The new ship was delivered to Minmus for refueling, where Carrica was parking with her old mining barge called Marge. As soon as both ships met, she switched over to the new Raider 31-02, totally impressed from it's size and the drawers full of snacks in her new cupola cockpit! In order to get ready for the case that another class E asteroid meets Kerbin, the new ship was refueled and thoroughly checked, tested and stuff and snacks. Finally Carrica brought the ship into a 4000x4000km sentinel orbit around Kerbin - waiting for precisely what happened today: the detection of a class E asteroid entering Kerbin SOI! What didn't happen so far but will happen now Linus: Hey Carrica, we finally have a class E asteroid on track entering Kerbin system, have a look at the current situation. The roids name is IRD-777. Carrica: Oh noes! It's in a retro-orbit. Linus: Umm yeah, now that you mention it ... Carrica: Well let me get to work. First of all, i need to reverse my orbit. Glad we decided to set up sentinel orbits much higher than normal orbits because that'll cost some fuel now to reverse it but not as much as in a lower orbit. Carrica turns her ship retrograde. Then the ship starts swinging and shaking as the Carrica pushes throttle for the 12 nukes to full. An incredible loud noise comes from the engine sections of the nuke-siderockets. Carrica: That'll be around 1400m/s dv just to reverse the orbit and quite a burn, even with 12 nukes. Be prepared for like 20 minutes straight burnin a the current ships weight. Carrica turns to the drawer with the snacks. Linus: Thats ok, it has a reason why we had the ship fully refueled at Minmus. 20 Minutes and 3 snacks later the reverse orbit burn was done. Carrica: Still have 32° inclination though. Carrica starts an inclination burn to match her orbit now with the asteroids. Once both orbits are in the same plane, she starts to plan an interception node and finds a pretty good solution. Carrica: Now I have a solution to get within 16km of the asteroid within 6days roughly Linus: Thats great! Excellent work. How's your ship doing so far? Carrica: Well, basically a bit overSASed but thats ok. Wobbling quite a bit with those stacks of SAS modules in the center axis though. Hard to plan manouver nodes at times. Carrica commences with the approach burn that'll bring her close to the asteroid. Nearly 6 days later, Carrica arrives at the asteroid. Thanks to Carrica's excellent navigation the separation was pretty close. But the speed difference was unexpectedly high, more than 500m/s! Now thats quite a burn, even with 12 nukes. So Carrica started with a retrograde burn with respect to the target right away, even adding in her 2 S3 engines at times. The ships hull was trembling from the sheer power unleashed in the breaking manouver. Finally Raider 31-02 and IRD-777 had their speed and location matched. Carrica: Wow what a potatoe! Linus: Now for the docking. First target the asteroids center of mass! We need a correct alignment this time. Carrica: Ok. Target set to 'roids COM. Linus: Excellent. Now switch nav to orbital mode and turn ship retrograde, that is the direction into which we want to pull the asteroid later. Carrica: Ok. Done! Linus: Switch SAS to assist. Now dock with the asteroid without altering your attitude. Switch to the rear-ends claw 'Control from Here'. When the yellow nose marker is precisely on the target marker on the navball, then attach claw to asteroid. That way the asteroids and ships COM are aligned for the retro burn and you don't need to turn around or something with that 1500 ton baby. Carrica: Ummm ok. Working on it ... After a few minutes of careful manouvering and a few hundred units of mono later the ship was docked to the asteroid facing the direction in which it needs to burn. Carrica: Made it, docked to asteroid, a little deviation between nose marker and pink target marker but guess thats within the tolerance. Linus: Excellent. Carrica: I fear we have a problem. Despite the distance of the engines to the ships center, they are still too close to the asteroid! Let me do a test burn. Linus: Ok. Don't overdo. Carrica: KSC, we have a problem. As I already suspected the asteroid melts when I engage the engines! They are still too close to the asteroid, despite the construction of the ship. Mortimer: Oh no. That'll be our next 600,000.- funds ruin in orbit if she can't deal with the asteroid! Gene: As long as it stays under the control centers control I don't care whether it's a ruin! Linus: Change of plans then: Mine the asteroid until your tanks are full and then we destroy it by melting it down. Carrica: Ok. Switching to mining then. The resource miners at the ships rear end next to the claw sink their teeth into the asteroid and start mining it. Carrica engages the ISRU and converts the ore into mostly liquid fuel and also refills the mono reserves. Due to the density of ore in the asteroid, the ore tank fills a lot faster than the ISRU is using it up. Once full, the mining process doesn't stop though. Carrica: Oh no, the resource miners don't suspend mining automatically once the tanks are full! Linus: DOH! Hmmmpf! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargggh! - a snack later - Linus: That renders asteroid mining practically useless! I hoped we could pull a few E class 'roids into orbit around Kerbin and do the refueling stuff there. Then we wouldn't have to fly our IP-tugs and stuff to Minmus. Carrica: Yes sigh. No unattended mining of 'roids like we do on Minmus or the Mun! Wonder what the devs thought when they were implementing the firmware for the miners? Linus: Probably nothing! (See also bug report at: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133443-Bug-Asteroid-Resource-Extraction-Continues-when-Ore-Tank-Full-!) Carrica: Well for now going to fill my tanks and then destroying the roid! The mining and resource conversion continues until tanks are full. Then Carrica fires the engines again, just a bit. After an unexpected short while the asteroid simply vanishes as if it never existed! The resource miners are still extended and pointing into the void now. Not even an explosion or anything else that could be told to your grandchilds and stuff. Carrica: Did you see that? It didn't even take a lot to destroy the roid! Linus: OMK, if we had known that before we coudda saved Kerbin last time just by destroying the roid with our engines! Mortimer: What a fail and wasted funds! Walt: I wouldn't say it was a fail. It was a great success actually. At least thats what I'm gonna tell the public. For the first time we docked and MINED a class E asteroid! Doesn't sound bad to me! Linus: Guess we need to go back to work with todays experience and redesign our interceptor! Carrica: It would only be a fail if we didn't learn from our experiences. Guess I return to my sentinel orbit for now. Linus: Oh by the way, we have a problem on the Mun and we need you to help out. You are our last 3-star engineer available here in the vicinity around Kerbin. We need you for a rover repair on the Mun. So report back to Mun - Galileo station for now. Someone killed all 5 wheels on one side of his research rover and we have no funds to replace it now. Carrica: LOL, sigh and ok. Omw! Over and out! - The End -

I consider this a severe bug since it renders asteroid mining more or less useless. I seriously don't want to spend my time watching paint dry! That is, i don't want to have to wait until ore tank full, stop miner, wait till ISRU got ore tank empty, start miner again, ... So please make the resource extraction stop automatically when ore tank(s) are full and quit sucking the asteroid empty, both when ship is current as well as ship is not current ship. Just wanted to make sure there are enough threads about this topic to get it fixed!

I keep rescueing just about every Kerbal from anywhere in the Kerbin system to fill my ranks. Currently my next Kerbal to hire would cost 600k+ funds and really can't afford that. But I often get the same type Kerbal multiple times in a row, right now I have lots of (currently useless) pilots, a few scientists and definitly not enough engineers.

I build space stations around every planet I visit. They are kinda central hub where everything comes together when it's not on a mission. Just avoiding too many flights active in tracking station. My Kerbin station has some fuel too, sometimes, though refueling usually is done at Minmus which is a lot more effective than hauling fuel from Minmus to Kerbin. A few ships are stranded at Kerbin station right now waiting for fuel though, like Predator, the ship in the foreground, which is here about to dock to the station.

An alien barcode edged in terrain!

Talking about map mode, there are a lot of improvements that are really needed: - Map mode is for navigation and maps usually are readable. But how are you supposed to navigate, when dark sides of planets and moons are as black as in the 'real' game? Please add some ambient light to map view of planets so that i actually know where KSC is at when it's on the dark side. - All flight controls should be without alteration also available in map view! Why? Simply because a lot of flying takes place in map mode to have better control of the outcome of burns. So i need to be able to see everything that i also see in 'normal' mode. - Quit blocking input controls in map mode when navball is hidden. Thats so superfluous and r-worded!!! Best is quit hiding navball. Everytime when i launch something or switch to something i need to get that stupid navball up. Geezus!

First I had an urge to design and launch a new interplanetary tug. I actually repurposed the design of Predator from the story in my signature and modified it a little to create a luxury yacht with loads of fuel and engines. It also got two viewing cupolas and a large crew compartment. Additional docking ports allow to add further modules for the voyage. The ships name is Panther. Her take off weight (wet) is 215t. So she was mounted on a Thor 51 rocket which can get that weight into orbit with only the last 200m/s dv being done by Panther's nukes. Launch went well and Panther got into orbit. She now waits for further supplies and modules. Her first mission will be a voyage to Jool, not without stopping by the Minmus refueling outpost. Mortimer: And her price tag is > 600,000.- funds! Was that really necessary for that mission? Gene: At least a really nice addition to our fleet! Looking forward to control this mission. Linus: Not only a new huge passenger liner was created, but we had also some more mundane tasks today, such as a rescue of a Kerbal plus pod from Minmus. We had to develop a new technology to pick up pods from ground though. Spider 20-01 was the new repo-rover-lifter-lander that tried the rescue/retrieval first. Yet the claw was mounted a tad too high and the Kerbals were too lazy to test this at KSC before going to Minmus. So this rescue was a fail. Even Aldry tried a lot to get his pod attached but nothing worked. Gladly there was another rescue on Minmus, just the dude in this case. So Spider 20-01 got redirected after failing to pick up the pod and went there to rescue the other guy, which went well. Linus: Now that didn't go well! We had to redesign the spider concept and came up with a solution that finally worked. After creating the new rescue/retrieval rover she went to Minmus and could successfully pick up the pod including the stranded pilot. The new rescue rover has 2 small aircraft wheels that can be raised to lower the claw even down to ground level. That will help pick up anything off the ground. Also refueling Raider 31-02 in Minmus orbit, a class E asteroid interceptor, continued and finally got finished. That were quite a few roundtrips for Tanker-144. Carrica (commander Raider 31-02): I thought that guy running the gas station on Minmus never gets finished delivering my fuel!

My KSP day began with some routine jobs. There is quite a queue of ships currently waiting in Minmus orbit to get refueled. So first task was to finish refueling Cudgel Station for Eve before it goes on it's long journey to Eve. Here is an image of Tanker-144 00-01 that is currently on duty on Minmus arriving at Cudgel Station. Since Cudgel Station only uses liquid fuel and has enough oxidizer, the oxidizer was delivered to Raider 31-02, also waiting in Minmus orbit for refueling. Raider 31-02 features not only 12 nukes but also 2x S3 engines which are very thirsty once fired. NOTE: Tanker-144 is that tiny ship at the bottom which has a capacity around 17,000lf and 8,000ox. Raider has a capacity around 70,000lf and 50,000ox. After this roundtrip to two current customers in Minmus orbit the tanker returned to the Minmus mining op, currently run by Tedcal Kerman. It's composed by an ancient mining rover which lost 3 of it's 6 solar panels in an accident, a new one much larger (8 solar panels) and 2 tanker vessels that haul that stuff into orbit and serve as fuel storage when docked to the mining site. Tedcal: A really cool job, but stressful regarding that there are at least 3 missions waiting to get refueled. Also often get visited by kerbonaut trainings missions, then we can play poker and eat snacks together. I also took on a mission to rescue a Kerbal from Minmus surface including his pod. Bad thing about picking up pods from surface is that there is no moving part such as a telescope arm, crane or something which would allow a bit more flexible operation of the claw. In any case before going there I wanted to see what I'm dealing with. So I redirected a research rover to the crash site to have a look at what's the pod to fetch. Luckily the crashed Kerbal was a scientist. I had only a pilot on the rover but already nearly max. science in the lab. Also finished a build base mission with this rover when landing on Minmus which was pretty good since my funds is really low at the moment. Mortimer: Low? Looowwww? You must be kidding. After the desaster with developing a so far useless huge space plane. A yes, also I worked on a large twin-hull space transporter which has a take off weight in the vicinity of 120tons. Twin hull is important to be able to add bulky loads in the middle. And I lost 4 or 5 of these during testing. Mostly on ground when taxiing since the gears aren't as stable as they should be and torsion forces are strong between dual hulls. Here is Twingoose docked to my Kepler Station with Predator docked in the background. Here Twingoose after return from that space flight waiting to be towed into the hangar. It features 10 RAPIER engines and 2 nukes in this long distance version that is supposed to go anywhere in Kerbin system.

Today Mortimer, the old party-pooper, said, we need to save money on our missions. So Linus , Bob and the others came up with a simple but effective idea to do rescue missions including the pods now with a shuttle. They simply added a claw on top of the shuttle. Despite some concerns about aerodynamic and such, the first test mission prooved them right. It actually worked perfect. Here the shuttle after picking up a Hitchhiker can from orbit. Sorry for the dark image, but according to Murphy all interesting things always take part on the dark side of something. The shuttle including the can was very stable during reentry. And finally the payload was delivered to KSC, right to the hangar doors. Even Mortimer was impressed with how little we spent on getting this can down.

Today I can add another monstrosity. I created a real behemoth of single vessel for moving / mining E-class asteroids after some desaster with one (which is the story in my signature). It has a takeoff weight of 1400 tons and the vessel itself without boosters has a wet weight of 900 tons. The reason why it's so big is simply to have enough thrust to move E-class asteroids (somwhere around 2000+- tons). And since something that big is hard to get into orbit with a rocket, or at least not effective in times of resource mining, it got enough tanks and stuff to get into orbit itself with the help of 20 SRB's. It even has got enough fuel to make it to Minmus to the refueling station there. It features 2 x S3 rockets and 12 x nukes. And thanks to it's 21 SAS modules (SQUAD you owe us real 3,75m SAS modules, aren't ya?) it's as agile as a tiny newbie rocket. Kinda. The key of this one is, that it pulls asteroids and doesn't push which also explains the weird setup of 4 rockets surrounding the center rocket that has a claw at it's rear end. Here is a comparison with one of my older designs for asteroid moving and mining. Raider 31-02 meets Marge 01-02 in orbit around Minmus while waiting for fuel. Well actually the new captain for Raider 31-02 was commanding Marge before and took over command of Raider at this point. Carrica: And I already thought my old Marge was big!

Abpout the editor I hate most that mirrored parts group actions get removed when a mirrored branch is detached and reattached. Then I forget to fix it and notice it when it's in orbit. Doh!

I lost most of my Kerbals in the current 1.0.x career due to reentry in the beginning. A total of 6 died so far in my career. Haven't lost any more lately.

Ummm yeah meant the claw.

When a clamp docks to something that was previously targetted, then the target has to be reset automatically. This is actually kinda bug. Bad things can happen if this is not done, such as SAS programs not correctly working anymore. I had this already a couple times with asteroids as well as with pods of rescued kerbals.

I'm seriously missing these 2 group actions: - Fuel Cells need a 'Toggle on/off' group action. Right now they have only 'Start' and 'Stop' so if i want to toggle them via group action keys i have to waste 2 groups. If they would have a toggle option i could set this into the same group that toggles engines on my crafts. Would make a lot of sense, don't ya's think? - Rover Wheels: Missing group action 'Shutdown Motor'. Any other jet or rocket engine has a shutdown option, but rovers are missing it. I use shutdown to make sure all engines are off and it would be really nice if the same worked for rover wheels. It would be even greater, if 2 new key-bound standard action groups would be introduced, 'Power Up' and 'Power Down'. Then it would be possible to set all start and stop actions that are usually used for a model into these 2 groups.