capi3101

@Angel-125 Howdy. Seeing the same thing that Nizrael reported earlier this week as well. Also need to report that something with the Bigby Orbital Workship isn't playing along with the latest version of Extraplanetary Launchpads (v. 6.99.3.0). I've fiddled around a bit with putting some of my craft up for construction both in a Mk 3 Drydock in LKO as well as with a Pathfinder Rangeland Launch Pad. The majority of my craft load and build okay; the ones that contain BOWs do not. Both seem to instantly complete construction, though in the case of the Rangeland, an immediate RUD usually happens as well. Using MOLE Classic Stock Play Mode v.1.27.0 with Wild Blue Tools 1.88.1 in KSP 1.12.3. Log file for the session in which I did all this. Also, got a bone to pick with you re: the Classic Stock Nukeworks. Formula for making nuclear fuel requires Hexagen, but if I'm seeing the data for that resource correctly, Hexagen should only be available at Kerbol and Jool. Makes it a might difficult to harvest.

Going to take advantage of a short set of log notes and knock out a quick status update for y'all. Can't say I did much these last 24 hours. Most of it was focused on the ongoing construction of South Base 2, which is coming along pretty well at this point. Always a big moment when the big dome finally goes up. I decided I'd just leave the initial Rangeland pad in place rather than go ahead and recycle it to put the domes there. The domes will be at the base's south end, the overall assymetry of which may trigger my OCD but will otherwise be acceptable. Haven't decided on the layout of the rest of the domes either; I want to keep the mass driver pointed eastward when the time comes, so there'll be some rearranging going on at some point. The big pain will be hauling all those steamer trunks out there. Nothing particularly odd about that. (I did get the mass drivers re-tuned. There are reasons I keep backups of my old saves...) Only other thing I've got on the log is the launch of my first Minnow 7 ferry craft for this save. Due to a change in the name of one of the parts involved, the old Minnows wouldn't load in 1.12.3, so the new Minnow had to be built entirely from scratch. Last time around, my Minnows were named after the characters from Gilligan's Island. This time around I think I'll go with the characters from Firefly, which would make this ship Mal. With South Base 2 still sans a mass driver and therefore no rocket parts yet delivered to the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard, this craft had to be launched the old-fashioned way. I used the launch as an excuse to get five tourists up to space station Kerbinport; the craft rendezvoused and docked safely at the space station to close out my day, in the process finishing up a contract I had to build a space station over Kerbin. The new craft will probably be staying put for now until more infrastructure is in place within Kerbin's SOI. TL, DR: Seriously? I continued building a base and launched one ship...

Had a very busy weekend, y'all. Translates to a lot of screenies today - consider youselves warned... As I'd hoped, I was able to start my day off on Friday with a flight of an Auk I rescue spaceplane, which Jeb took up on a mission to rescue pilot Billy-Bobrett from LKO. I'm not supposed to have favorites, but really, there's not much about the design of this plane that I don't love. After successfully retreiving Billy-Bobrett, Jeb guided the plane down to a safe landing at KSC. It's been entirely too long since I made the close pass of Mt. Killakerbal; forgot just how close you come to scraping the sides if you're in the NavUtilities glide slope. That job done, I received another repair mission in LKO, and so Bill was sent up to go and fix it. Since I knew how to do these now it was a relatively simple affair; Bill successfully fixed the satellite after an eight hour flight to get out there. Once again, whoever was running the space agency before me really overengineered things. Four Gigantors for a satellite? Come on... He was able to return by the end of the day on Friday, spending a total of fifteen hours in flight for the entire mission. Bill's mission complete, I received a replacement of yet another satellite fixer-uppe which was tackled by engineer Munbald Kerman freshly returned from his last "get out and push" repair mission. Munbald's mission to add a cylindrical monopropellant to satellite D8D-5S tank went off without a hitch, his flight lasting a grand total of 97 minutes. At the time of the mission I had three Mr. Wizard 7 repair ships in flight, with both Bill and Billy-Bobly returning from their respective repair missions. All three were retreived safely. With the Sandstone Yoke mission halfway returned from its historic flyby of Minmus, I next set myself to the task of setting up communications over the green moon. A Pink Noise 7 satellite carrier was launched toward Minmus where it arrived 42 hours later (on Saturday). Deployment of the constellation was pretty standard and by the end of the day on Saturday I had global communications set up. Did I just draw the Deathly Hallows around Minmus? Friday closed out with the successful return of Sandstone Yoke, landing in the water 1,259 klick east of KSC. I also finished up the long standing Core Samples Analysis experiment with the Mobile Lab parked right beside the Runway. With a go given to head to Minmus, Saturday began with the design of the Sandstone Zebra 7. I designed the Sandstone Zebra to arrive at Minmus with 5000 m/s of delta-V for surface landing ops. She also had what I lovingly called a Turd Probe atop the craft to handle the whole "get something back from orbit" part of the exploration contract. Once ready, Bob boarded the craft and launched for Minmus, arriving 32 hours later. While still in flight, Munbald conducted a repair mission of a satellite in Munar orbit. His Mr. Wizard 7 craft successfully rendezvoused with the target satellite and returned to Kerbin after about twelve hours in flight, the capsule landing safely in the water about 1300 klicks west of KSC. Note to self - the service module on all Mr. Wizard craft is inherently evil. Going to have to explain myself to Woodsy Owl on this one... I also had to adjust the orbit of one of my Trash Can 7 satellites (satellite K-01015-0508 to be specific), which was made all the more harder when it encountered Mun about the time it would've reached its descending node (without which a simple single node burn would've been all that was required). It took a couple of burns but I finally did get it into a target 21,856.9- by 7,972-kilometer, 178.94º orbit for contract. I also had to adjust the orbit of the Doofus 7 orbital telescope for contract, and finished up a Solar Activity Analysis experiment aboard the telescope as well. Once Sandstone Zebra arrived at Minmus, Bob burned the craft to put it into a high polar orbit, at which point the Turd Probe was released and sent back to Kerbin, arriving 26 hours later. I swear it took me half a dozen tries to get this stupid thing in without blowing itself apart on re-entry. Next time I'll have to pick a probe core that isn't wider in diameter than its heat shield... After the probe touched down in the Grasslands 676 klicks southeast of KSC, Bob was given the go-ahead to conduct surface landings. Meanwhile he collected as much science as he could from both high and low orbits over Minmus. First setting down in the Poles, Bob eventually hit all nine Minmus biomes and collected all the science he could. He even conducted experiments with Green Sandstone, covering two additional contracts I already had. Doesn't look like soft-serve to me...also, "Bob and the Green Sandstone" sounds like the title of yet another children's book... Job done, Bob burned for Kerbin, arriving thirty hours later for a successful return to the highlands 900 klicks southwest of KSC. He collected just over 9000 units of science, enough to unlock all of the technologies I have available to me with the exception of Alcubierre Drive. I still need something like 17,000 units of science for that, and so it's likely my first trip outside Kerbin's SOI will have to be done manually (as usual). With my regular tech unlocked though, Sunday saw the beginnings of my efforts to get normal infrastructure set up at Kerbin. Jeb launched the Kerbinport space station to a 108- by 107.5-kilometer equatorial orbit, while Val piloted the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard up to a 130- by 128-kilometer equatorial orbit with Bill, Munbald and Billy-Bobly all aboard. So ready to begin cheating building craft in orbit again... A ScanSat was launched to a 150-kilometer polar orbit to double-check resources in all of Kerbin's biomes, and a plane docking pier was added to the Kerbinport station. I still need to attach a mass driver to the station at this point, which I hope to be able to do soon. Last thing I needed to do was to try and re-establish South Base, since the time had finally come around. New Hires pilot Theoman Kerman, scientist Cergun Kerman and engineer Anmal Kerman all were sent out in a TBD 7e rover three klicks south of KSC and construction has been ongoing since then. Getting all new staff for this base was a bad idea. On the other hand, I think I've finally figured out how to build it without the whole thing shaking itself apart in the process. Construction of South Base 2 is ongoing and will likely continue for the next couple of days (both in game and IRL). I've hit the problem of Anmal being a new hire, and therefore zero-star level experience, which causes its own headaches related to not being able to scrap individual parts (I'll need to get rid of that launchpad before I can begin putting the permanent structures into place). I'll likely have to send up a craft to Dystopia Planitia in the near future to bring down at least one of the experienced engineers there. Meanwhile all the eventual base parts have been printed up and I'm slowly getting things together. I need to remember what my old setting was for the Pipeline mass drivers to get them operating sufficiently for general orbital ops. I anticipate everything will be up and running by the end of the week. TL, DR: Landed on Minmus. Got sci. Fixed satellites. Launched other satellites. Began the long process of cheating building needed infrastructure.

The past 24 hours have been relatively busy. With a contract to conduct a Pathfinder Core Sample Analysis at Kerbin, my day began with a quick redesign of the Mobile Lab 7, swapping out the necessary parts to conduct the experiment. Jen, Bob and scientist Deswig Kerman boarded the rover and Jeb drove it off the edge of the runway. Once the two scientists had begun their work, Jeb hopped out and hitched a ride back to KSC; his job was done there. That job done, my next task was to redesign (yet again) the Mr. Wizard 7 engineering ferry, since the attempt to repair Aging Satellite 8FFJLN for contract went about as well as expected. It's always embarassing when you don't pack enough fuel. It's even more so when you cut loose the part that has your solar panels on it and you're three days away from your destination... The new design added more delta-V to the business end of the craft. After engineer Munbald Kerman had pushed his Wizard to where he'd return to Kerbin after his aborted attempt to fix the satellite, engineer Billy-Bobly Kerman boarded the redesigned craft and launched to a 115.6- by 113.4-kilometer, 158.81° inclined orbit. After finishing alignment with the target, he burned for a rendezvous with the satellite, arriving just twelve hours later (incidentally, about the same time Munbald was approaching periapsis and re-entry). I had finally read about Construction Mode and how to use it, and got the antenna needed to fix the satellite attached for contract just before I had to switch over. Billy-Bobly has burned for home at this point and will arrive in just under sixteen hours. Meanwhile, Munbald re-entered and lander safely in the Water about 1300 kilometers to the southwest of KSC. (I'm thinking Construction Mode is how folks using KIS might be able to move bits and bobs between their KIS inventories and the stock inventories, but I'd need to do more experimentation to be sure). The other thing that happened yesterday was the mission to repair and drive a rover on Mun, something I had hoped to take care of with the previous Mumbo Jumbo 7 rescue and repair mission. To that end I designed the Mumbo Jumbo Lite 7, designed to deliver a Kerbal engineer with the needed parts and nothing else - no mission bloat this time around. Bill boarded the new craft, which launched to a safe orbit and arrived at Mun about five hours later, landing at the target site in the Northeast Basin at 45°25’23”N 29°46’00”E. Bill went EVA and affected the necessary repairs. I totally should've told Bill to swipe that sweet narrow band scanner. Especially since it made the back end heavy and this damn thing wanted to do wheelies when I was able to get it moving... Bill added a QBE probe controller, two solar panels and a pair of extra batteries. I had to attach them to the rear of the rover because there were no available nodes forward, and as a result the thing was back heavy; when I finally did get to where I could drive the thing, I had to run it backwards for most of its journey. Ultimately I did get the rover to its target point, fulfilling the contract. Bill reboarded the lander at that point and burned for home, arriving at re-entry about seven hours later and landing safely in the Highlands 1500 klicks west of KSC. I only got one replacement contract for these missions, and that's a rescue mission in LKO. Having finally gotten all my old craft unlocked, it means that today it seems I'll be able to conduct a flight of an Auk I rescue plane. It's been a while since I flew one of my spaceplanes; last plane I flew was for Scott Manley's Runway Project and that was definitely an entirely different experience. Sandstone Yoke returns from Minmus soon; I have plans to launch communication satellites out towards Minmus once the probe is about halfway home to start setting things up for landings. CommNet will neet to get established out there anyway even if that proves to not be the point of the next exploration contract. I still have a long-term "colonization" mission ongoing and another Pathfinder experiment happening in LKO, and the current Mobile Lab experiment, which is going very quickly and should wrap up in just a few days. My other contracts are predicated on the parts I won't be able to unlock until I'm done fishing science from Minmus, so I hope to get that done in the near future. TL, DR: Fixed a satellite. Fixed a rover. Got out and pushed. Was generally a good day.

Ugh. It's been five days since my last post already. Guess I should tell y'all what's been happening this past week before it gets late enough that I have to go to Day 6... So if y'all will recall, I was in the middle of setting up communications satellites over Kerbin, a job that I completed in fairly rapid order at the start of business on Friday. That done, my attention turned to the Turdburglar 7 lander at Mün. Jeb brought her down in the Midlands at 0°46’22” N x 145°31’27” E, then climbed out and planted a flag like a proper Okie. Sorry that it took you as long as it did to get to Mün this time around, Jeb. Once done, Jeb and the tourists with him launched and burned to Kerbin, safely returning to the Deserts about four hundred clicks west of KSC on Saturday. Shortly after Jeb burned for home, Bill made it once again to RSA satellite 41-10, where it was discovered that I had once again not set things up properly for him to be able to conduct his repair mission and so it had to be aborted yet again. A rapid reedesign of the craft took place to incorporate the needed changes and Bill once again burned for home, arriving safely in the water 640 klicks from KSC on Sunday. In one permutation of the re-entry, I accidentally activated all the chutes too early and they burned off - it was necessary for Bill to bail out and parachute down. Bit hair-raising, as the last time I'd tried to do something remotely like that, the kerbal died at impact... I did discover another design flaw with the Mr. Wizard 7 craft (Bill's repair ferry) at entry, namely that I had failed to add a decoupler between the command module and the service module. It was rather nerve-wracking watching the entire SM cook off the craft but at least that all stopped once the heat shield was finally exposed. The last thing I got started with on Friday was construction of South Base three klicks to the south of the space center. I mainly was doing this to remember how exactly to put together a Pathfinder base and check for changes that have happened in the last few versions. I had issues with the old wheels on the TBD 7e base-seeding rover but was able to get underway once those had been replaced. Engineer Munbald Kerman came over from the Mobile Lab camped out by the runway and off he went with Val and Bob. OSE Workshop was giving me trouble with the Pathfinder parts. Eventually, I remembered that Extraplanetary Launchpads could function as a workaround, and by Monday I had most of the non-concrete base structures deployed. Took me a good long while to remember how to build up a base when OSE decides it doesn't want to work. Pity that this base is already in the garbage can, but that often happens to the outposts I call South Base... Unfortunately, the Kraken claimed this base during the day on Tuesday. I was able to get Munbald, Val and Bob out in time, but the base itself is already gone. It's fine by me, actually, as I'm not sure where I had it was optimal for this particular build anyway. Need to get an orbital surveyor going... Aside from farting around with South Base over the weekend, I put a Boop-Boop 7x probe in position over Kerbin for a contract and got the Turdburglar back. Bill began his third attempt to repair satellite 41-10 aboard the redesigned Mr. Wizard, finally affecting the repairs on Tuesday. Only took us three tries but we finally got the damn thing fixed. Still an ugly-looking overtooled satellite if you asked me. The Mobile Lab also finished up its Chemical Analysis, and I finally checked back in with my six colonists aboard Hurdy Gurdy 7 latched on to Hadwin's Shipwreck. It turned out that I didn't need to release and re-grab the old capsule for the delivery of the colonists to count, and at this point I've got a 48-day wait before the colonists can move on to their next destination. I'm hoping I'll have a Mün surface base they can inhabit by the time that happens. On Monday I decided to try and pair up a rover repair mission on Mün with a pair of orbital rescue missions. To that end I designed the Mumbo Jumbo 7 and launched it with engineer Billy-Bobly Kerman aboard. The craft made it to Mün and affected a pair of rendezvous with scientist Daphler and pilot Dudon Kerman on Tuesday, rescuing both kerbals. Unfortunately, Dudon's craft was in a retrograde orbit while Daphler's was inclined, and between the two rescues the craft didn't have sufficient delta-V remaining for a successful landing for the repair mission. So that was put on hold and the craft burned for Kerbin, arriving safely earlier today. I got a satellite in position for contract next on Monday, after which Munbald was launched aboard a Mr. Wizard craft to repair another satellite in high Kerbin orbit. That mission is ongoing and I'm not confident of its success just yet (fuel's looking mighty tight on that one). Another satellite was launched, this one for Mün; I put it into its final position earlier today for contract. The Sandstone Yoke mission finally reached Minmus for its historic flyby next; once that was complete and the craft had left Minmus's SOI, I set it on a course to return to Kerbin. It should arrive in another 54 hours. Aside from a parts test and another Münar satellite launch, the only other thing that's happened today is the return of Bill's Mr. Wizard craft. Tried to time the screenies of each solar panel as they exploded off the service module; this was obviously the best one I could get... Ended the official log for today with a parts test at the space center involving Jeb and Bob climbing aboard a fully loaded Auk 1 rescue spaceplane long enough to cover the test, then have to recover and hop out. I also launched another Boop-Boop 7x towards Mün. I'm hoping to get the Sandstone mission done sooner rather than later so I can begin proper missions at Minmus and finish mining the place out of science; still got a lot of parts left that need unlocking. I've got an orbital science mission wrapping up soon, the colonization mission and Munford's repair mission ongoing, and the new satellite mission to finish up. TL, DR: Built stuff. Got Krakened. Took three times to repair a satellite. More satellites. Some rescues.

@Angel-125 Getting back into KSP in version 1.12.3.3173; got Pathfinder 1.39.0/Wild Blue Tools 1.88.1 /MOLE 1.27.0/Buffalo 2.12.0 installed, each in Classic Stock Play Mode. Trying to build a base on Kerbin's surface just to make sure everything still works and I remember what I'm doing. I'm encountering the old bug where the Workshop button under "Manage Operations" for a Clockworks Casa/Pondarosa opens a window that contains no dialogues and can't be closed without getting out of the game entirely. I know it's something that I ran into around 1.8 but I don't recall what the fix was. I can get the Workshop open via the PAD but all of the costs for the parts are negative and nothing actually prints once I've got it something selected in the dialogue. Here's my log file. Let me know if you need any additional data or need help with the diagnostic process. Also, I've been having problems with the Grizzly wheels lately - you get them out on the grass and it's like I've got the brakes on or it's stuck in the mud or something. It's just the Grizzlies where I'm seeing this behavior; Mountain Goats are working just fine. Not sure if this is something being addressed in the new Buffalo or not but I figured I'd say something about it anyway. EDIT: Noted that when I could get to the workshop through the PAW menu, the materials costs of the Doc, Casa and Hacienda were all listed as negative numbers along with the build times. Probably has something to do with the behavior I'm seeing.

Decided I'd try something novel today and only report on my activities this past 24 hours. Probably should've picked a more interesting day to talk about. I was rather dismayed to discover that something had changed that made my TBD rovers not want to drive at all on Kerbin; I had fully intended to get construction started on South Base in my current save, but I couldn't get the thing to move faster than 0.1 m/s; not sure what exactly happened there, but in fairness it has been four versions since I've tried to deploy one. With that plan dead, I instead decided to spend the day getting CommNet links established over Kerbin and Mün. The Pink Noise 7 probe over Mün was adjusted to 241.6 kilometer polar flyby orbit, shortly after which the Hurdy Gurdy 7 craft carrying six colonists to Hadwin's Shipwreck arrived and an intercept was established. An adjustment was made to a Boop-Boop 7x probe on its way to fulfill a satellite contract, after which the Hurdy Gurdy's rendezvous with its target was set up. The Pink Noise probe over Mün hit its target orbit next and soon Muncomm Alpha was established in the proper orbit, releasing Muncomm Bravo and Muncomm Charlie, both of which burned for their respective proper orbital positions to set up a triangular link over Mün. I should now have full CommNet access anywhere on the Münar surface. That job done, I set to work establishing the Kerbincomm network. A Pink Noise 7 probe was launched to a 776.6-kilometer equatorial apoapsis followed by a second such probe launched to a 110.80- by 110.4-kilometer orbit over the poles. I think Kerbin is the only planet in existence where the north pole is clearly labeled with a pucker mark...though you really have to be looking in this screenie. It's off to the left. Kerbincomms Alpha, Bravo and Charlie were deployed once the probe carrier circularized its equatorial orbit, while the polar probe carrying Kerbincomms Delta, Echo and Foxtrot burned to raise its orbit up to the correct altitude (a ninety-minute orbital period up around 776.6 kilometers). Alpha, Delta and Bravo are currently in their correct orbital positions and I plan to get the other three in position as soon as I have time to do so today. Last thing that happened was the arrival of the Hurdy Gurdy at Hadwin's Shipwreck; the craft was successfully grabbed. I now face the problem of having one seat aboard the shipwreck and six kerbals to count as delivered, which I think is going to require that I ungrab and regrab with each kerbal in the single seat of Hadwin's Shipwreck at least once. I'll have to go back over the conditions of a colonization contract to be sure. That will likely take up my time today. I also still have the Sandstone Yoke mission heading towards Minmus, the Boop-Boop probe mission, a couple of science missions that are taking longer that expected and an ongoing tourist mission to Mün to deal with as well. TL, DR: Deployed comm sats and not much else. Be happy I did a short post. For once.

Yep. Yet another week has passed. Got an image-heavy post ahead, y'all - not as bad as some of the folks who post on the forum, but still. Fair warning. So at the tail end of my last post I mentioned that Jeb and Bill were getting close to doing a satellite repair mission aboard Genie 7 and that the Sandstone Xray 7 science gathering mission to Mün was rapidly approaching, and i mentioned the need to do a mission that would put a Mammoth engine on a high suborbital trajectory over Kerbin. Things after my last report did indeed proceed along those lines - Sandstone arrived at Mün and Val put the craft into a high polar orbit, beginning the process of collecting gravioli readings from all seventeen Münar biomes, a process that wouldn't conclude until this past Tuesday. With gravioli collected from both high and low orbit, Val proceeded to surface landings in the Farside Crater, Northwest Crater and Northern Basin before returning to Kerbin successfully, which also happened on Tuesday. Val's mission ultimately retreived 3,524 units of science and coupled with an effort to pick up some KSC science for another 469 science on Monday, I'm happy to report that with very few exceptions, my old spaceplane fleet is now out of mothballs. Focus has shifted to getting the rocket-based craft unlocked at this point, which will largely mean getting the 3.75-meter parts unlocked. I have a contract to get a space station over Kerbin up already; sure would like for it to be the orbital drydock... The Genie 7 mission arrived at the damaged RSA Satellite 41-0 shortly after the Sandstone mission arrived at Mün. Jeb piloted the craft to a successful rendezvous. Those RSA guys sure know how to overengineer their crap, don't they? Unfortunately, the mission had to be aborted for dumb reasons. So I need experience to repair the satellite, but to get experience I have to repair the satellite... With their mission effectively scrubbed, Jeb deorbited the craft. Note to self: structural adapters not to be used as heat shields ever again... The command module returned safely to Kerbin in the Grasslands 206 kilometers to the northwest of KSC after a fifteen-day flight, during which time the available technology had improved significantly - the Genie had already been retired from the inventory by the time Jeb and Bill returned. Bill's flight did earn him the 1-star XP rating he needed to actually do the job, but another mission to attempt the repair didn't get underway until just yesterday with Bill aboard the new Mr. Wizard 7 engineering craft. Rendezvous with the satellite is set for ten hours and 46 minutes. The rolling around of the Scimobile on Monday gave me sufficient science points to unlock SAFER reactors, the last component I needed to bring the mighty Echo Flyer 7 quadcopter out of mothballs. Freshly returned from his repair mission, Jeb and Bob took off in a hunt for a baobab tree somewhere in Kerbin's Grasslands. Cue the Ride of the Valkyries. The pair found one just seventeen klicks west-southwest of the space center. Bob got out and marked its position for a return flight before the pair returned the copter to KSC. "Bob and The Baobab Tree". Sounds like the name of a children's book. Here's your obligatory 'copter VAB roof landing for good measure. Monday began with the design of a detachable Flatbed Rover, basically a flat controllable thing with wheels and a scanning arm. I rigged a way for the Echo Flyer to carry it to its underside and deploy it as payload at the baobab tree. Efforts to scan the tree for contract were a success. It took a couple of tries to get the design of the flatbed rover correct; the octagonal strut was needed to get it off the ground enough for the scanning arm to not whack the ground. Luckily the rover still fit on the underside of the Echo Flyer after it was added. After that I decided to start working on some of the other contracts I had laying about. I began with the design of Doofus 7, an orbital probe to perform a MOLE Solar Observation experiment in orbit. I used the mission as an excuse to get the contract for the Mammoth engine done. Launch of the probe was a success, with it acheiving a roughly 119 kilometer equatorial orbit; the Mammoth was tested at 115k suborbital for the contract and I'm happy to report that I retreived the engine intact later on. The Kerbal Tour Bus Advanced 7 arrived at Mün on monday as well, putting down on the surface in the Midlands at 4°16’04”N x 172°18’29”E. The craft then launched and returned to Kerbin after an eight-hour flight, putting down in the water 1485 kilometers west of KSC and clearing three tourist contracts in the process. Tuesday itself was spent largely getting missions underway. With Val's returned from Mün completed, I was able to unlock two key pieces of my old rocket fleet, namely the Bill Clinton 7 grabber probes and the Pink Noise 7 communications satellite clusters. I had a mission to grab a piece of junk from LKO, so a Clinton launched and successfully grabbed its target by the end of the day, ultimately returning its payload to KSC first thing yesterday. Put this thing down in the grass just east of Mission Control. Not sure I could've gotten that landing much closer... A Pink Noise lanched soon thereafter, heading towards the Mün. It will arrive there after a three hour flight, at which time I'll busy myself putting it into the correct polar orbit to set up connections to CommNet. Next, I decided to get the rather ridiculous but high-paying mission to "colonize" Hadwin's Shipwreck in LMO underway, designing the Hurdy Gurdy 7 grabber craft. Said mission launched successfully and is now also on its way to Mün, expected to arrive in three hours. Yesterday also saw the initial mission to explore Minmus get underway, with the design of the Sandstone Yoke 7. The probe, whose mission is solely to conduct a flyby and return to Kerbin, launched successfully to LKO and then burned for Minmus. Arrival is scheduled for roughly forty-six hours henceforth. A Boop-Boop 7x probe was redesigned with a narrow-band scanned and then launched to LKO before proceeding to an 18,697.7- by 106.9-kilometer orbit at 9.31 degrees inclination, the first step towards putting it in a specific high orbit over Kerbin. Finally, having never actually been to Mün, Jeb boarded a Turdburglar 7 craft with five tourists and launched to Mün. The craft will arrive at its periapsis over Mün in eight hours. Today is likely to see both satellite missions wrap up; I'm confident that Bill will be able to complete repairs to the RSA satellite and return while the Boop-Boop gets into position. I have a chemical analysis ongoing in a Mobile Lab craft next to the Runway that I'm hopeful will wrap up soon and I'm hoping the Solar Activity experiment will complete soon as well. I've analyzed a broken rover for a contract on the Münar surface and have determined it just needs a control part and maybe a reserve power supply, so I'll be organizing that mission as soon as Bill comes back. Other than that, my missions are going to be on hold until I can get the TBD craft fully unlocked and manned, which means I need both money and science; both are going to need Minmus landings taking place in the near future. TL, DR: Finished Mün missions. Unlocked my favorite copter and found a baobab tree. Bunch of stuff got started.

Haven't gotten much done these last 48 hours in all honesty, largely owing to a lack of available funding for missions (plus new shows on the various streaming services that I use). I spent some time on Wednesday rolling around the KSC with the gravioli detector unlocked and all facilities fully upgraded picking up the sci from various loose locations. There seems to be an unusually large collection of cigarette butts here, you unpatriotic ingrates... I also designed the Kerbal Tour Bus Advanced 7, a Mün lander designed to transfer thirteen Kerbal tourists from Kerbin, land and return safely all in one package. Two problems I had with Wednesday's design - the first is that it was too expensive to launch, coming in at around 220k spesos. The other was that I had designed it only for twelve kerbals and ran out of time to make the minor adjustments that would be necessary to add the last seat. It had to wait until yesterday. After the redesign work, I went ahead and added a couple of gravioli detectors to the Crossroads Baker design and saved the result as Sandstone Xray 7, launching scientist Deswig Kerman to Mün with a goal of collecting Münar science from at least four biomes. The plan is to put the craft into a polar orbit to pick off all the space-based gravioli before landing. Ultimate hope here is to gather enough science to finish unlocking my spaceplane fleet along with several of my old rocket designs, including the TBD and Kerbinport series space stations/orbital drydocks. Deswig arrives at Mün in just over five hours. The rest of the day was spent doing parts tests, mainly. Val had a successful flight of a Bad Idea 3 plane to test a pumpjet at altitude, while scientists Sonrie and Hadwin Kerman along with engineers Munbald and Billy-Bobly Kerman began a MOLE Chemical Analysis aboard a modified Mobile Lab. I wasn't quite sure what to call this hodpodge of parts, so I left it as "Mobile Lab". But as I'm typing this, "Hodgepodge of Parts 7" doesn't sound all that terrible... Their mission should hopefully concluded in six days, assuming I don't have to nursemaid the craft the entire time. Other testing missions included a rover wheel on an IFS cryo tank both on suborbital trajectories. The testing missions were successful, and along with the acceptance of a few new contracts (such as testing a Mammoth engine in a suborbital trajectory), it gave me sufficient scratch to launch the Kerbal Tour Bus Advanced. Launch the tourists now, figure out how I'm supposed to get a Mammoth engine up to 110k later... Tourists Nabro, Dilbert, Roddon, Mademy, Asrey, Dupont, Dean, Newberry, Mausby, Urdard, Agalan, Jesnie and Nataberry Kerman are now en route to Mün and will reach periapsis in 14.5 hours. Pretty sure RL is going to keep me from playing much today into the weekend, alas, and with my in-game financial situation being what it is, I may not be doing much in the near future. Jeb and Bill will be reaching the target satellite of their ongoing repair mission soon, so I hope to be getting that done, and the Sandstone Xray mission is liable to take up much of my time in the near future. I may couple the Mammoth part test with a solar activity monitoring experiment I need to do for a contract depending on what all that will entail. TL, DR: Didn't do too much. Mainly parts testing. Launched for more Mün science.

Welp, it didn't take me very long to get back into the old habit of posting intermittently after a week's worth of log entries, didn't it? Ugh. (Image heavy post ahead, y'all. Trimmed it as best I could, but it's been an eventful week.) Last Wednesday began with the launch of Trash Can 4 on a mission to put a satellite with the usual accoutrements in orbit of Mün. The Sombrero, a Pathfinder/Buffalo part, is cool-looking. Not exactly intended for satellites, but I'm not going to complain too much. Does the job for sure. The satellite eventually hit its target orbit of 248.95 by 172.3 kilometers at 122.05° for contract on the 15th. With a contract to conduct a Temperature Study (a MOLE science experiment) on Kerbin's surface, I next set up a mobile lab rover using Buffalo parts, and drove scientist Delwig Kerman over to the R&D facility to conduct the experiment. That finished up on the 15th as well. The Trash Can 3 satellite finished its burn into a high retrograde equatorial orbit over Kerbin for contract next, after which the Kerbal Tour Bus 7 craft returned from its recent Münar flyby tourist mission. Twelve kerbals with just a large hunk of ceramics and metal keeping them from incineration. Kept this screenie because of the SM in the background though; it's a nice photogenic shot... The craft landed about 1200 kilometers west of KSC and killed off two tourist contracts in the process. Finally, the last thing that happened last Wednesday was the historic landing of the Crossroads Able 7 craft with Val and Bob aboard, their craft first setting down in the Münar Midlands at 1°40’40”N x 68°45'12". Val taking the time to plant a flag and taunt Jeb in the process. Didn't take Val long to find a Mün rock. Took me a while to figure out how to pick it up, though. Crossroads Able also visited the Highlands, East Crater, Midland Craters and Lowlands before needing to return to Kerbin. She picked off science for Kerbin's Highlands on return, landing 1200 kilometers east of KSC to close out the mission. Between the missions last Wednesday and Thursday, I got most of the space center upgraded to at least Level 2, with the VAB and SPH up to full. The mission brought back nearly 3000 units of science as well. Friday and Saturday were spent with picking off smaller contracts. I had contracts for three rescue missions over Mün along with a parts test of a 3.75m heat shield and a part test of medium landing gear on a Münar escape trajectory and decided to hit all five contracts at once with the Triple Gurney 7 rescue craft. Mainly just giving you an idea of what mission bloat looks like. Craft looked pretty cool if I say so myself, though. Triple Gurney had some issues with one of my mods early on in the mission with the result of the need to revert at one point on Saturday (it made the game send both it and its first target crashing into the surface); the mission in fact didn't make it back to Kerbin until yesterday, but I am pleased to report that the craft did manage to hit all of its intended goals, bringing another pilot and two scientists into my space program. Probably the most harrowing portion of the mission was the retreival of scientist Hadwin Kerman - on arrival, the Triple Gurney had no probe control to make the rendezvous burn (I have yet to set up communications over Mün), so Hadwin had to jump out and do the rendezvous on suit thrust only. Scientist Hadwin Kerman had a nearly two-kilometer EVA to do. At least he kept a positive attitude while he was doing it... I also had a contract to put a satellite into geosynchronous orbit over a point on Kerbin. To that end I designed the Biscuit 7 satellite and launched it into orbit. That mission also only finished up yesterday. Getting it up into geosynch wasn't the hard part - the tough bit was putting it over the exact spot it needed to be in, and it took me several tries to get it right but eventually I managed it. Between the Triple Gurney and Biscuit missions, I made enough scratch to finish leveling up all facilities at the KSC, shifting my focus to getting more science. The next exploration mission I received required me to dock two craft over Kerbin. To that end I designed the Agena 7 craft, first putting Val and Bob into LKO aboard Agena 1 and later pilot Jedus Kerman and scientist Deswig Kerman aboard Agena 2. Rendezvous and docking was a success, happening on Saturday. Shot from Bob's seat in Agena 1. Look closely and you can see the docking port light of Agena 2 outside window #2. Exploration now takes me to Minmus with a flyby scheduled. That mission has yet to get underway. Had two other missions get underway on Saturday. The first was the Guppy 7 mission, with the mundane task of testing a decoupler while splashed down. Caught this solar eclipse while I was trying to get the first iteration of the Guppy 7 out to the water. Subsequent attempts to get this craft in the water resulted in multiple game crashes, alas... The Buffalo sub didn't work as intended, but I hope to get back to revisiting the design eventually. Final thing was a mission to land four tourists on Mün, which wound up getting coupled with a rescue mission. To that end, I designed and launced a craft I decided to call the Turdbiscuit 7. ♫ This is the launching of another asparagus ♫ / ♫ another asparagus..... ♫ / ♫ ASPARAGUS!!! ♫ The craft successfully rendezvoused and rescued scientist Sheroly Kerman from LKO and eventually went on to a successful landing in the Farside Crater. After Sheroly planted a flag for the XP, the craft launched and returned to Kerbin successfully yesterday. The last noteworthy thing that has happened was the launch of Crossroads Baker 7, a second Mün mission for science gathering. After uprating the capabilities of the Crossroads Able craft a little bit, Val and Bob launched to return to Mün, the craft entering a polar orbit. Val and Bob cleared four biomes - Polar Lowlands, Poles, Polar Crater, and Highland Craters - before their fuel situation necessitated an attempt to return to Kerbin. The craft was able to break from Mün's SOI, but ran out of gas attempting to finish de-orbiting over Kerbin and thus necessitating that Bob get out and push. There are three ways to increase delta-V. If you can't add fuel or get a better engine, you have to stage... Bob was able to EVA and use his suit thrusters to slow sufficiently after ten burns, and eventually Crossroads Baker safely landed 709 miles west of KSC in the Desert (which the craft also cleaned out of science after landing). The extra 2500 science points went towards getting the gravioli detector unlocked (something I was waiting for prior to the Minmus mission) along with many of the other parts needed to bring my old spaceplane fleet out of mothballs (why fix things that aren't broke? I mean, I still have a working rover from v0.18...). Aside from the Minmus mission, I have a pair of MOLE science experiment contracts to do at Kerbin, three tourist missions to land thirteen Kerbals on Mun (a job for another redesign of the Kerbal Tour Bus), missions to hit a large Mün crater and a baobob tree with a scanning arm, a couple of high-altitude hauling missions, and my first Pathfinder colonization contract. This last is to send six kerbals up to Hadwin's Shipwreck for 48 days. It's a ridiculous contract but it pays fifteen million spesos, well enough to keep my program in the black for a while. I have grabbers unlocked, so why not... TL, DR: Did stuff. Landed on Mun. Heading to Minmus. KSC's upgraded. Satellites with funny names.

I also need to figure out how to update my ribbons, or indeed if it's even still possible to do so...

The past 48 hours for me have been filled with things that haven't been particularly photogenic, but that won't stop me from trying to bore y'all with it... After completing her EVA reports on the 11th, Val conducted a burn to take her Trinity 1 craft out of polar Munar orbit, beginning the process of wrapping that mission up. Shortly after completing that mission, the Genie 2 craft returned from its Munar flyby tourism mission, landing safely in the Grasslands about 280 klicks east of KSC. Shortly afterwards the Kerbal Tour Bus 7 craft carrying ten tourists (whose names I've already deleted) made its way back from a Munar flyby tourism mission, landing in the waters 270 kilometers west of KSC, finishing up three contracts in the process and paving the way for a level 2 upgrade to the SPH and a level 3 ugprade to my tracking station. With a new contract to put a satellite in a retrograde equatorial orbit over Kerbin, I next designed the Trash Can 3 craft, which launched to a 128.5 by 109.9 kilometer retrograde orbit before boosting itself up to its final target altitude. It will arrive at apoapsis in a little over eight hours. Pilot Jedus Kerman and six tourists launched on a fresh Kerbal Tour Bus mission, this time to orbit the Mun. The KTB arrived at Mun yesterday and after a brief period in orbit made its burn to return to Kerbin; it should arrive at Kerbin periapsis in about 8.5 hours. The day ended with Trinity 1 escaping the Mun's SOI, upon which Val burned to put her on a trajectory for Kerbin re-entry. My day yesterday began with a parts test at Kerbin, after which it was time to launch a new Gurney 7 rescue mission to pick up scientist Deswig Kerman from LKO. Gurney 7 boosting to LKO on a mission to rescue scientist Delwig Kerman from LKO. The mission was a success, with the Gurney 7 making a successful rendezvous and Deswig boarding before returning to Kerbin and splashing down about 78 kilometers northeast of KSC. After that, Trinity 1 arrived at Kerbin. Val making her way back down to the surface. The SM has been jettisoned; you can see it in the background. Val's successful return paved the way for the admins to greenlight a Munar landing. To facilitate this, I designed the Crossroads Able 7 Mun lander after making some changes to the Scimobile in order to get enough extra dumb KSC science to unlock seismometers. The Crossroads Able 7 Mun lander under construction. She's designed to hit 2-3 Mun biomes before needing to return to Kerbin. With Val and Bob aboard, CA7 launched and burned for the Mun. Crossroads Able 7 burning for the Mun. She only had 60 kN of thrust on the transfer stage, so the burn took over eight minutes to complete. The stage doesn't have sufficient delta-V to complete the orbital injection maneuver, which is going to impact the overall mission I'm afraid. The craft will arrive at Munar periapsis in just over a day, at which point Mun landings will commence. I expect to only be able to hit one, maybe two biomes at most before I'll have to return to Kerbin; the lander itself only has about 5000 m/s of delta-V and I'll have to use some of that to finish the orbital injection burn. Looking forward to conducting those landings either today or tomorrow. Hoping I'll find a Mun stone while I'm there; I have a contract to pick one up. Incidentally, if anybody knows whether Protractor was ever continued continued continued or some such, I'd like to know too. The mod I'm using was designed for KSP 1.3; I consider myself exceptionally fortunate that the thing still works...

Same file, look for "WarpFactor". Default is 6 (meaning 6 times light speed). There's also one called "TurboMult" that you can fiddle with but you don't want to make that one too large (there's even a note in the file to that effect).

If I understand what you're asking correctly, you need to go into the configuration file(s) of whatever engine you want to affect. Find the attribute "MinAltitude" and adjust it downward from its default value. Frankly, I'd leave it as it is myself. Using warp drive in the vicinity of a planet or moon can be a good way to put a craft on a terminal course with things as they are. Or just smack one outright.

One time I did a 900 kilometer drive over the surface of Tylo. The place is great for roving, almost ridiculously easy, especially compared to other places in the system (I'm looking at you, Mün...). Found my old shorthand notes on how I use to log my activities and decided to start a new log up yesterday. Did a fair number of things before that though, like the launch of the latest iteration of the Kerbal Tour Bus 7. Ten Kerbals on a Mun flyby...and no pilot. I'm obviously further along the tech tree than I think I am. Also sent up the latest iteration of a Gurney 7 rescue ship to grab engineer Billy-Bobly Kerman from LKO and bring him back. The Trash Can 1 satellite made its final set of maneuvering burns over Mün to get it into its target orbit for contract, and Val positioned her Derpstick 6 craft in a 49.7 by 49.3 polar Münar orbit to commence the main goals of the Trinity 1 mission (i.e. getting low space EVA reports from all of the Mun's biomes). Val did finish up her mission yesterday, but not before Billy-Bobly's rescue mission completed and several tourist Münar flybys occurred (including the Kerbal Tour Bus showed launching above), and another satellite positioned over Kerbin. I have yet to begin the process of getting Val back to Kerbin with her data so that Münar landings can commence. Meanwhile Jeb and Bill are out with their satellite repair mission aboard Genie 7, which is now scheduled for a rendezvous with its target in about 78 hours. I'm concerned as to whether or not the two of them will have sufficient fuel to return to Kerbin on mission completion, though I am confident that they will successfully rendezvous and repair the satellite's main antenna. Got the Runway fully upgraded too, which is always a red-letter day...now I've just got to get the SPH up to snuff and maybe I can do some aerial surveys. Always enjoy those.

It's been a while, y'all. Finally got the bug to play KSP again. Been doing the early game of late; last night I had a contract to send up three tourists to Kerbin orbit. The mission was a full success and the return trip was, shall we say, a good one.

Let's see it intact - it'll be easier to diagnose issues that way. (Unless you bought it from IKEA and just unpacked it, in which case you're on your own...).

But did you do a barrel roll? Somebody was going to ask eventually...

Classic stack? If so, those things are inherently unstable, what with the Center of Mass being out of line with the Center of Thrust and all. Begin by making sure your payload (the reentry vehicle/plane) will fly as desired, and then when you're building the launch stack to which you want to attach the thing, you might want to consider putting your engines off center and angled to try to keep the two aligned with one another (and it'll need to stay that way the entire way through the launch sequence). Shuttles are notoriously tricky in KSP; it's actually easier to build and fly a horizontal SSTO spaceplane IMHO. Best of luck.

That's pretty cool - how did you get the tracks to work? Was that a mod or some chicanery? (Also, if you want to cut off the bits where you start up / shut down OBS, the native Video Editor app in Windows 10 will do the trick. It comes along for the ride (i.e. if you're on Windows 10, you already have it) and will accept MP4s as both input/output. I've been using it for my videos with Scott Manley's Runway Project this season. Been using OBS for my video captures too.)

I might suggest a dozen or so large ASAS wheels in the interior along with the batteries to utilize them. Putting your thrusters so that it'd roll down the runway (pointed downward up front, upward in the back) would also help, methinks.

Yeah, Scott Manley talked about Mriya today in his Deep Space Updates. Whole situation sucks.

Went dogfighting over Laythe. Can't say I'm completely happy with the design but there's still something to be said for having Jool, Vall, Tylo and Kerbol all in the shot at the same time.

Hey y'all. Been a while. Been participating in Scott Manley's Runway Project lately, so I've been dabbling with autopiloted fighter craft in KSP a lot since October. Been doing okay-ish so far; had a plane get into the top twenty during the third round. Still not sure just how well my fourth round plane did but I got top marks for art, so that's not nothing. Meanwhile, I've begun work on my fifth round plane. Testing is...testing. Here's Bob riding the remains of his plane like Slim Pickens on an atomic bomb... This is not my plane for the fifth round, just to clarify - this was when I was tired with testing and decided to take a break for some fun.

Spoiler shields. All I'm saying.