Duke23

So I was grabbing a satellite from a ~300km orbit with one of my V3 series SSTOs but I deorbited it too early and ran out of fuel, had to set her down near the giant crater looking area on Kerbin. Earlier I was talking about the V3-SD (larger version) and how I had worked out the bugs. Well, I didn't. I crashed it after its first orbital test and two pilots lost their lives. NOW I have tweaked the balance a little and it seems to be working fine. I sent it out with a suborbital hop to refuel the smaller SSTO and then cruised back at ~25km and 1500-1700m/s before dropping back down to land at KSC. Everything went about as smoothly as I could ask for, and now I have to bring back the smaller one. Shouldn't be a problem since big kahuna here is the one that has problems lifting the nose off the runway (or grass). Actually in light of this mission I think I'm going to change the action groups on the V3-SD for orbital missions. Right now it's 1 - turn on Turbojets and RAPIERs in airbreathing mode, 2 - turn off Turbojets, toggle RAPIERs into closed cycle, turn on NERVA, 3 - turn off RAPIERs, 4 - turn off NERVA and turn on Turbojets for reentry. I have to run some tests with full fuel and a payload but I think if I turn off the RAPIERs and run the Turbojets a little longer on the ascent, I can gain about another 3km and a few hundred m/s before having to turn off anything that breathes air. This should be enough to get us back home... Good luck everyone, hope this questionably balanced hunk of junk doesn't end up being the death of my most experienced pilot (Aleny). Do you smell something burning?

The Valkyrie flies again! After several smaller versions each having problems getting proper lift on the way to orbit (they did get there, just very slowly) I decided to have a go at a new take on the original design resulting in the V3-SD. It doesn't have a payload in this shot but it maintained a good flight profile all the way to a 100x100 orbit. I wish I didn't have to go this route but I just wasn't getting the performance out of the smaller versions that I expected. Or the performance I got out of them in .24 with SP+ for that matter, although I'm not sure why. Still needs some tweaks to get maximum efficiency. If all goes as expected I've already eliminated the atmospheric instability of the original design from .23, but that has not been confirmed. It weighs 33.5t unloaded and is capable of lifting about 5t to 100x100km orbit with ~450 DV left. For what it's worth, here's one of the smaller designs (V3m-SDx to be specific) dropping off a module to deorbit this old ship that's been floating around for a couple years. This one weights 23t unloaded and can lift around 2ish tons to 100x100 orbit with about 1000 DV left over if I remember correctly. That weight should be higher but the problems with lift and TWR are holding it back. Just for good confusing measure here is another variant, the V3m-SD which is no longer in service since the SDx. It weighs 25t unloaded and has about the same payload capabilities as the V3m-SDx (ever so slightly better with ascent). The differences in all these are small but important on my quest for efficiency and reliability. Apparently I can't have both which is why I went back to the drawing board with the original larger design after these... Sigh. While I'm here, a bit about the name scheme: I've been lazy with designators on these but basically anything with this general look in my .25 game is a V(alkyrie)3(rd generation), V3m is a smaller (mini) version, SD is for Satellite Deployment (or any deployable / retrievable payload really), V3m-A(F/P) is for atmospheric only fuel/passenger version, and X usually designates a smaller version with minimal equipment (docking ports, cargo bays, reaction wheels, batteries etc may be reduced or eliminated). For good measure here is the questionably designated V3m-X, weighing in at 8.6t unloaded and can carry a .7t payload to 85x85km with enough DV to deorbit and land back at KSC (I don't know the exact figure on this one). I have a family of these things. lol

I chose 3 for the sake of argument. I do tend to blast off rockets that are way bigger than they need to be at times (and upwards of 100,000 funds) and usually for aesthetic reasons, and sometimes leave large partially fueled tanks in orbit. And half the time I don't bother trying to land at KSC because such a small part of the ship is coming back that it doesn't really matter. But I try to make up for that habit by completing new "explore x" contracts unmanned with small lifters and ion drives, and using SSTOs to toss up contract satellites. Sometimes... *looks around* I even take the SSTO up to recover the more expensive satellites after the contract is complete instead of crashing or terminating them. If I can say one thing about these last couple updates it's that they've really made me rethink my efficiency. Rethink it right up until the point where I still end up wasting a crap ton of hardware and funds.

I had a quite successful ssto I had just built before the update, and I rebuilt it with the new stock parts while looking at a picture of it. Now it's extremely slow and seems to lose lift above 10km a lot worse than it did before. So something has to be different, maybe it's the weight or lift of certain parts.

I've done that more than once... Usually because I docked two craft together face to face and controlled from the wrong one.

I did some tweaking to my V3M spaceplane (direct continuation of the V2M from .24) and tonight it carried its first payload to orbit. I've been using a smaller version of it for atmospheric only flight and it's quite stable but the SSTO version still needs a little work. It's so slow after rebuilding everything to be .25 friendly that it barely takes off the runway and as it climbs up to 25km I am hallucinating birds circling around it and outrunning the air intakes for fun. Once I switch over the RAPIERs and power up the NERVA though, it's all business. At least until I shut off the RAPIERs altogether, then it's slow again, but I knew that (conserves fuel). If you missed it, and assuming you care, this is a sideways step from the larger Valkyrie predecessor. This new one is lighter, more maneuverable in atmosphere, and more fuel efficient. But again that trade off is for lack of speed and payload. Without further ado I give you the V3M-SD (Satellite Deployment) on it's first mission to drop off a satellite into LKO for a contract: Everything looking good on the ground (had to test if the payload would need struts or not, it didn't). I almost went back and moved the reaction wheels closer to COM, but I remembered the reason I set it up this way ages ago is because that weight is always the same but the payload varies, so I wanted the payload to be closer to COM to reduce instability during a mission. Climbing, my pilots are a bit worried. I had to keep tipping the nose down during ascent to make sure my speed was great enough to keep the air flowing. I like this shot Here goes nothing... Payload successfully deployed Reentry was a little shaky but we made it. Had to transfer a little fuel to get some semblance of balance back. I wasn't TOO worried because one of the test platforms had to land with no reaction wheels (no electric) and did just fine on control surfaces alone. Cruising towards KSC Approaching for an early morning landing. Home sweet home. I guess this is a lot of spaceplane for a little payload but it's very versatile. It can theoretically act as a single stage to Mun or Minmus vehicle, but would definitely need a refuel to come back. Which is okay because I have a tanker station in orbit of both and a Kethane operation on Minmus.

I managed to get my .24.2 save working in .25 and to my surprise my game breaking bug was fixed! I don't know why or how, but I thought there was a slim chance so I went for it since there was a lot of stuff I didn't want to lose. I'm still getting a few incompatible mod errors but nothing has gone wrong so far. In celebration I remade my newish spaceplane (which unfortunately doesn't work quite as well as it did with SP+ the mod although it's almost identical). I also decided to attempt my base drive to the pole from KSC. I wanted to send more but it's not as stable as I'd like it to be as is so I'll send more later if need be, probably by suborbital rocket. It's a little ambitious but I think I can do it with the plane to scout ahead and pick the best route, provided nothing blows up. For some reason every now and then this thing blows a couple wheels out when physics enable, but that could be because I'm using KAS which may or may not actually be compatible with .25.

Download is working but slow from KSP store

Is it bad that I refreshed the KSP store and cursed under my breath before I even clicked...

Well I just officially somehow broke my save and apparently the only way to salvage it is to not recover or terminate any of my probes. I don't even. So, come on .25. lol

If the server is down, how is it going to successfully check for updates? O_o I got an Error 500 btw, for whatever it's worth...

I decided to work on my not-exactly-new spaceplane design a little today, even though it will be broken when .25 hits. Its codenamed the V2m-b (as in Valkyrie generation 2 mini, version . It's basically a slightly smaller and lighter, much more stable, and questionably useful version of my original Valkyrie design. The original got a lot of use tossing various satellites into LKO before being removed from active service due to general atmospheric instability, AKA leading cause of death of my Kerbals for a couple weeks... It still got some use from Kerbals who wanted to cruise up to LKO and perform a dangerous but fun reentry on a small disposable lander that fit into the cargo bay which is in my avatar. But that's neither here nor there, here is the design I've been testing on its first cruise to (hopefully) orbit. It's equipped with two KAS winches and I plan to use it to return all those contract probes I keep sending to orbit with no way to get back safely. It was fun watching them crash and burn at first, but the cost of that is starting to add up as I get better equipment and it'd be silly to spend even more money to build a conventional rocket to bring them back. Edit: Well it made it, slowly but surely. It's a little slower than the original Valkyrie, but despite that it was a smoother ascent and it seems to have a good bit more DV to play around with once in a stable orbit. I don't remember an exact figure for the original but this one has ~3000DV at 150x150km, which makes it viable for retrieving objects from Mun or Minmus orbit. Now it's time to try bringing down the first satellite. Unrelated, but I'm thinking of adding DRE. I was amused by it when I tried playing a BTSM career the other day. I did forget one thing... This particular probe DOES have a way to deorbit safely. Oh well, I still need to test this plane. So far so good.

It's hard for me to believe .22 was that long ago. Strictly speaking I wasn't here for it, I first started playing during the last week or two before .23, but still. And I remember seeing the occasional blurb about KSP before that, must have been in the pre-.18 days, and I remember thinking "that game has a lot of potential but it just looks so unfinished and bare, I don't want to play it and get my hopes up, and then they stop developing two weeks later". Clearly I was wrong about one part of that, and I'm happy to have been wrong. Heck as far as the game had come in those versions, I wouldn't have even been mad if they did stop development at .23. Disappointed maybe, but not mad or cheated. Just thought I'd be vaguely nostalgic for a minute, don't mind me. So, uh, yeah. I'm kind of expecting a Tuesday or Wednesday release as well but I'm not planning my life around it just yet. I just really hope you guys (we, I guess) don't murder the server this time and I can actually download it

I took a break last night from my ongoing (and largely unfunded) Duna mission to do some contracts. Or try, at least. I took one to explore Eve, one to send data back from Jool, one to take readings around Mun, and one to scout some areas on Minmus via rover. Naturally I launched them all pretty much at once, and royally screwed up the Mun mission (lucky for me also the cheapest) twice. While the Eve and Jool transfer Windows are still about 120 and 200 days away respectively, the Minmus and Mun missions had a schedule conflict, so I babysat the longer burning and more expensive (and manned) Minmus mission, then made corrections on the Mun mission. But then I screwed up the Mun mission and ran out of fuel before I could get into the right orbit because of the corrections and late burns. So I sent a second one directly after which was looking good until I went to adjust my Mun approach and realized I hadn't opened the solar panels so I watched it crash into the surface. The third one I got right so far. The Minmus mission is already touched down and underway. Sad thing is I launched an identical lander and rover for a different mission a few (game) days ago but I accidentally mangled the lander and had to rescue the Kerbals with a nearby ship. Sigh.

I'm debating whether I want to try to salvage my save or start over. I'd like to continue my work on Duna but at the same time if I did start over I could just do it again but better... Ahh I don't know. Maybe I'll do both.

I'm wondering about this too. This along with difficulty settings was one of the things I was most looking forward to. Of course there's always Final Frontier but that seemed a little buggy to me. No offense to the creator of course, it was a great idea / effort and could have just been my particular save (or my memory failing)

Just thought I'd put this up in case anyone is interested... It's not perfect but it's something I was pretty proud of when I built it as it was my first successful / productive Jool mission. This is my "Jooles Verne" core that I used in 23.5. Features: -Over 8000 DV for the main ship, plus just over 7000 in the forward return section (unloaded) -Custom lifter to get everything fully fueled to ~350x350km orbit with a little fuel left over. Everything but final stage deorbits. -Includes lab and escape pod (I used the pod for getting data back down to Kerbin in a hurry) -Can visit Jool and all moons* with Kerbin return, with payload of two small probes and a reasonably sized lander (*Assumes aerobraking/capture at Jool and Kerbin; I skipped Bop on my trip because of fuel concerns but it had a good bit left over so should make it; no guarantees) -Build your own twin science probes (or anything relatively lightweight, really) before launch or send them up later. I sent them up later and didn't save the design, plus they weren't well made, or I'd include that too. -Clampotron Sr at the rear for bringing along extra fuel or a lander (may require Sr-to-Standard adapter or small redesign) -Designed to be partially reused (docking ports instead of decouplers) although it may be easier to relaunch the whole thing. Or refuel the remaining ship for use around Mun / Minmus or maybe Duna. -"Comfortably" seats total 4 Kerbals for the entire trip, assuming one sits in the escape pod on the way back. Additional 4 external seats just in case you decide to leave Kerbin fully crewed. Not responsible for Kerbals left in abandoned landers or labs by your own forgetfulness. Warnings / pertinent information: -Not cheap to launch in contract mode -The journey to orbit is a slow one but it will get there -Be sure to disable crossfeed on at least the docking port between the lab and the return ship, optionally replace them with decouplers. -Stage 2 spins. A lot. I couldn't get a strut in the right place to stop it but this shouldn't be a fatal flaw, I've launched it several times like this. -Don't forget to ignite stage 4 through staging order (you'll see what I mean after dropping stage 3). To clarify I'm counting up from launch, not down as in the staging order numbers -My design used one probe for Jool and one for Laythe, my lander was not capable of landing on Laythe or Tylo (keep this in mind for fuel budgets if yours is) -Recommend MechJeb for babysitting long turns and burns -Staging order is a little off in the screenshot but should be corrected in the .craft -Recommend turning off fuel flow in central orange tank until the others are empty for easy and balanced lander refueling. -Action groups are not set as I generally didn't use them at the time. -Ascent is pretty forgiving but I usually start gravity turn around 8-10km and maintain ~45 degree angle until around 150km apoapsis. Craft File *Not all parts shown are included in the craft file

Yes tidal locking will make the rotation pretty much non existent, I didn't think of that. You definitely explained better than I did SkyRex. Terminology, how does it work.

I'm not the best at this but I'm getting better. My advice is either do your deorbit burn relatively low or make sure you compensate for the rotation of the body (Mun shouldn't matter much). Line up your trajectory into the ground past your actual target because you'll burn some of that off as you burn retrograde for the landing. How much to aim past is hard to say, it'll be based on your speed, altitude, body rotation speed, and a little experience. Another option is build a ship that can carry a small disposable rocket rover with a probe core. Then just land anywhere within about 30km and you're golden. Any rover really but a rocket rover with landing gear that can hop over craters is more forgiving imo and faster. Or bring enough fuel that you can land and then make short hops over to your target. For me landing on target was worse than learning orbital rendezvous but a little patience and trying different things will go a long way.

I remember one of the devnotes mentioning that they removed the black undersides "for a cool purpose". I wanted to do aerial drops (probes or rovers or equipment, not necessarily bombs) before without looking silly so this will be nice Now if we can just fix that little vessel deletion issue, or I'll have to drop from low altitude.

Thinking back over a lot of missions to answer those questions. I feel kind of dirty now. Semi-related, I think I'd like to try the no quicksaves and no reverts option in .25. Not saying I'll stick with it, but I think certain aspects might be fun. As it stands I have developed a bad habit of jamming F9 for the slightest thing, botching an aerobrake maneuver or landing too far from a target... Then again you can generally read "botching an aerobrake maneuver" as "accidentally deorbiting a ship without landing capabilities"

I'll be hiding SAS modules, batteries, and RTGs. And probably cramming SCANsat probes in there... I'd also like to make a rover small enough to fit.

Things are coming along still. Got the rest of my Duna base set up and everything went pretty smoothly. I brought the lander over to my Kethane rig to refuel it then filled up the tanker to take the first load to base. I still have to fix the lander because when I brought the Kethane rig down it went for a tumble and broke the solar panels off (which is why the rest of the pieces were dropped with parachutes and not the lander). I may bring a couple more orange tanks for the base if I think the FPS will stay stable. Currently I get around 20-25 depending on what's going on. Then I headed over to the Midlands nearby (using Custom Biomes now) to get some more data to send off. Long, boring drive.

This has probably been said before but this doesn't always play nice with mods. I thought my small Kethane rig on Duna was borked because I could see it from 5km away and it looked way too big. I panned the camera over there and saw this:

I've been working on my Duna project some more. I got a Kethane rig out there and the first two pieces to my base which turned out to be about 5.5km away (the lab and an orange tank, hitchhiker container and large monopropellant storage with solar is on the way). This is still stuck in interstellar space at the moment because I sent it a big behind everything else... The first two modules were about 30 days apart for what it's worth.