Francois424

Here's to hoping for a new Gas Giant looking like Saturn in a future DLC. But anything is good really. I've not played 1,8 yet and 1.9 is already there. Too much to do, so little time.

I usually build something to go say, to the Mun, then bring it back home. If I want to go again, I launch the whole thing again. I only use reusable engine modules once I reach the Nerva, but I design a new lander each time. Nerva engine module is usually 12k dV without any cargo attached to it. Very slow burns but I can get anywhere then. I also focus heavily on minmus/mun for science until I know my designs will stabilize and I can then build a fully re-usable craft that wont need any changes.

Really good rover propulsion. Gonna be sad when it's gone. I need to try it on a Laythe boat too. See how fast I can push it.

You've been busy @bcink ! Loving what I see so far, thank you for your hard work on this !

I can't leave undone science. Meaning I * HAVE * to complete each biomes I land onto. That kinda means relatively interesting designs for my science missions. Especially earlier ok without all the nifty parts. Other than that... NO WOBBLING. If a craft Wobbles, I get wery wery angwy !

I've ran into this in 0.25, then 0.90, then finally understood how to fix it around 1.0ish. It's something to do on putting 2 solar panels on the same strut/physical object that brings the Kraken. If you can still try it and haven't burned your savegame at the stake as retaliation, then give this a shot: - Put an extra 2-symmetric object first on your main shaft... - Attach your solar panels to that object instead of the main shaft. so main girder shaft <--- say an 'octo strut' or 'small beam' <---- Solar Panels. Everytime I get the flapping issue, this has worked 90% of the time. Good luck !

Honestly, I would say the "What did you do today" should win the thread of the decade. It's been running for what, 7 years? and has inspired a LOT of kerbanauts over the years, yours truly included... (Yes I was a total newb that failed at stating way back then... was driving me nuts as well). Even today I still look at certain things posted on there and I go... Wait a minute... This can be done? I have to try it! It's a thread which has touched every one, and is the most deserving imho (Let KSP2 be it's own thing... which it will need to be born first !)

( KSP 1.7.3 -- Kerbal-Sized RSS ) Today is the final update on this version of KSP... It also ends in a very Kerbal way. All that remained was to explore the 2 moons of Saturn that are in this mod. The first one was none other than Enceladus ! I tried to capture the plumes that it put out on camera but to no avail. Same deal on the surface, but the view is no less beautiful. Then we found out we had a transfer window to our last destination RIGHT NOW... Okay, let's go then ! Arrival at Titan after 7 or so days of maneuvers and waiting. Much like Eve, in order to get to Titan's secrets, you have to peak underneath her clouds. It's a good thing we checked the numbers... Did you know that Titan's atmosphere extends to 165km ? It almost ended in disaster as my original orbit was around 60km !!! Parachutes popped... should be an uneventful, gentle drop to the surface right? Well, Kind of... See, our engineer forgot to repack the 6 additional chutes near the docking port. He went out to do that (high atmo and all so "it's gonna be fine!" - he said) Well he couldn't reach them using the ladders... - "I'm gonna let go for a moment guys, this won't take long" ---- "I don't think that's such a good..." - "Oh sh.... Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...................." ---- "... idea!" Here goes one of our Engineer. Good news is that with his suit parachute he should be fine landing on the surface. Bad news is that he could land many dozens of kilometers away from the landing site. Now you'd think that would be the worst of it? HAH... think again. The Scientist wanted to perform EVA science in lower atmo. ---- "You've seen what that did for our engineer... Not worth it" - "That idiot only ended up skydiving because he let go of the ladder, I'm not that stupid... come on this is only going to take a second" ( He gets outside ) - "My the winds are a lot stronger that I thought they would be... OK, taking those quick readings... Now to get in... woooaaaa... eeeeek... Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee........................." ---- "Not again !" And there goes our Scientist. Now this is just going fine now is it? Still ISN'T the worst of it tho. And we finally touched down. A nice flatlands with a large lake of Kethane to explore close to the North-west. Customary flag when landing on a new place... ---- "Ok, Jetpacks works very well here, we just have to wait for our engineer and our scientist to arrive, and then we can check that Kethane lake out, then head home." - "Uhhh, sir?" ---- "What? What's with that expression on your face... What's wrong NOW !?" - "Well you know how our dual 'Sundog' engine are a derivate of Ion technology right? Well, it seems the atmosphere of Titan chokes them, and they each only produce 12KN of thrust on the surface." ---- "Are you telling me we're actually... Oh I don't know... STUCK ON THIS MOON ?" - (Eeep!) "Yes sir. That's exactly what it is." ---- "Of all the places... We don't even have a Rover to pass the time. Looks like we COLONIZED Titan after all." And thus, this is how it all ends up for 1.7.3. In a very Kerbal way and I had lots of fun. See you guys around in 1.8.1 or more in the future !

( KSP 1.7.3 -- Kerbal-Sized RSS ) Today I fired up 1.7.3 for the final stretch. On the menu today was getting into orbit of a place I've never visited before : Umm, what is this? It kinda looks familiar... Oh my... now there's a beauty ! It's the first time I get this close to Saturn in KS-RSS... looking promising ! Screenshots can only do so much justice; Saturn is absolutely breathtaking. The crew are getting their fill on it as well, but preparing for the deceleration burn. All sails furled, the 'Poseidon' gently slows down in high Saturn atmosphere... The rings are even better looking than I had imagined. Taking the time to visit was WELL worth it ! So we ended up in a 1y200d orbit. It was decided to get to Enceladus first and not in more than a year, so the crew executed the 2.8k dV maneuver to adjust orbit. Notice that the mod even takes into account the shadow casted by Saturn on it's rings. But that's it for today. One or two more episodes remaining in this finale of 1.7.3. See you later folks, and thanks for Reading !

I'm still waiting for the completion of KSP1's solar system (ie: the continuation of the Kerbalization of our solar system) as DLC. This is my #1 request as the rest of the game is pretty sturdy. It would be a good content addition to purchase, especially since you don't have to install it if you want a vanilla experience. I hope KSP2 will feature such content too. And a RSS (and KS-RSS) options on a DLC expansion pack would be very interesting as well.

( KSP 1.7.3 -- Kerbal-Sized RSS ) While waiting for the 'Poseidon' mothership to reach it's Saturn insertion maneuver I received an alarm from the trusty KAC. I had forgotten it, but I had sent a Uranium cargoship to resupply the Uranus Station. It had just reached it's deceleration burn point... And a very long one indeed. Uranus atmospheric deceleration... It got very VERY hot. But since this thing has *abysmal* Thrust-to-Weight, I take all the help I could get. The second burn at around the height of the station. Notice that the moon Titania is now lower altitude than the station, making for some nice views ! The cargo ship in final approach of the station. 12'500 unit of Uranium is very heavy... Turning the station was easier, but once aligned . . . . . . the docking was extremely easy, if a bit laggy. I was worried the RCS jets would be anemic, but they did the trick rather nicely. Then the crew undocked the Cargo from the CargoShip, and sent it on it's way. It was decided it would be a waste to decouple the 300k Xenon container... so we kept it ! Unfortunately, the cargo ship ran out of electricity mere seconds after firing up her engines. You see, there was no uranium left in it's reactor and had been taking it from the crate instead... Oops? Oh well, I wanted to de-orbit it into Uranus for show anyways but I just deleted it as debris instead. I roleplay it as the station crew making spare parts and recycling the electronics and stuff. So the station now has a 25k capacity Uranium container, and an extra 300k Xenon container. Pretty good all things considered. I also brought the extra crew (including the rover crew and the original orange-shirts) back home using a Warp ship. @RoverDude had made some hyper-ring and it proved useful. Unfortunately I have very little pictures of the trip, but I have the most important ones : The 'KSS Warp' (yeah uninspired name, it happens) just arrived in the Uranus system... And needed to do a ~8.5k deceleration burn. Ultimately made it to orbit and picked the crew up ! The next pick-up was on Mars... Where we had those 2 crew-members driving that Martian look-alike land train, remember? And finally the return home . . . which happened the regular way via a good old Holman transfer from Mars to Earth. I kinda had to as I almost ran out of dV. A quick burn later and we gently glided back to the ground . . . . . . Which almost killed us. Fortunately, even tho we hit the ground at ~18m/s, nothing broke (except a few kerbal arms) . Warp ships are very much OP. However I did not have it in me to plan another 5-18 years voyage to Uranus and then same thing to get back. And I am at the end of the tech tree with 40k accumulated science, and I was in a hurry (back to work tomorrow). Let's just say my Kerbals had a Breakthru The only thing left is that Saturn expedition, then my 1.7.3 experience will truly be over. Thanks for reading !

Honestly, I would say to temporarily remove Scatterer (sacrilege, I know) and go ditch in the water with a lot of lights on your craft. I could be wrong, but I do not think this is a stock issue.

( KSP 1.8.1 -- ReStock, RealPlume, EVE + Astronomer Visual Pack ) Last time I had finished designing my Laythe Seaplane. Today I focused on my Moho Rover/Hopper (called the Moho Crawler). So after spending a lot of time designing it, it was time for the Moho Trials. For the landing process, simulated from a 30k orbit around Moho, I opted for a regular Jumbo-64 and a 'Skipper'. Does the job just fine ! The dual drills can refill a 1.5k ore tank (tucked-in at the back) which the 2,5m Convert-o-tron (glowing orange) then turns into fuel, even on the go ! Got nasty terrain? No problem! The 'Moho Crawler' can fly over it... Like here with it's landing gear raised. Autonomy isn't too bad either, but better not to push it. With a 5-star engineer (in the small cockpit at the back) this craft easily doubles if not more it's flight time. The more I use Ore tanks as fuel tanks, the more I like it. Converting everything while driving/flying normally is very nice. Of course, Moho provides 100 ec/sec to each of the 2 gigantors, and 15/sec on each of 2 large flat panels on the top (for 'noon time'). It's a bit clunky to fly, but once you get going it's decent. On land it can push 20-30m/s relatively safe... but more than that is asking for trouble. A Communotron DTS-M1 ensures contact (even to the KSP proper, provided I am on the good side of the planet). Lots of lights, and the usual science experiments inside a 2,5m cargo bay. Also, I noticed that there are no ~128 thrust bell engines in KSP at this time. I was looking as I could've replaced 8 parts with 2 on this design. No biggies tho, I was mostly in green-clock mode The closest are the Radial "Mk-55 Thud" but since I wanted the engine on the undercarriage nothing really fit, oh well, not a big deal. So my Moho craft is ready for when I start my next campaign.

Nope I am still in KSP 1.7.3, which means the old textures. Tho I am running EVE, SVE (the Kerbal-Sized Real Solar System equivalent) so it certainly helps. One thing to note is that I do own a 3440x1440 monitor, so those pictures are very crisp as a result. Still holding out on a pure 1.8.1 runthru at this point as I really want OPM and Kopernicus isn't ported to that version yet. And some old mods are getting some attention and they have lots of nice pieces I want to play with. I might re-run another KS-RSS when/if all the new textures Squad are doing will be complete and that the RSS authors put it in. (PS: giving Uranus it's rings could go a long way too :p )