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thank you all. I think I finaly understand it.. to a user level. Its funny how KSP has been a better math teacher than my math teacher. I always just assumed I was dumb when it comes to math. But when people take the time to sit down and answer my questions. I get along in the end x) This quote reminds me of when my father talk about how he prefere win95 xl to the new one - he says it makes some errors that 95 xl didnt.. I always just shrug - I dont ever think I asked xl to do anything advanced enough to figure out x) But man.. people bantering about calculators is why I love this forum.

They deleted the post where I gave my opinion on where the development was going and suspended me for a week with a warning not to talk about it anymore. Now I don't care, this is dead, and the people who moderated already have their checks and are emptying the desks.

-=R&D_UPDATE=- CommNet - Satelites and the Molniya Orbit I figured a good way to continue with this blog - would be to alternate between a R&D post and a Mission Execution Post. Where all the theorycrafting on "how to solve the challenge", will be poured into a post first, and then I follow that up with a Mission Execution Post. I have a feeling that a lot of good discussion can come from making a theory and testing if it worked... at least it will give people a chance to say how wrong I am in my calculations and theories - and stop me before I do something really silly Or better yet.. give people something amusing to read. Any way - Without further ado - here is next challenges Before we talk about the 2nd challenge I am going to ignore it for a little while, and focus on the 3rd challenge first = 3 CommNet Satelites in Orbit around Duna - To me that screams for a Molniya or Tundra orbit. - Something I've been wanting to try out for a while now. If you dont know what a Molniya or Tundra orbit is - See spoiler section bellow: There are 2 reasons why I am thinking about a Molniya Orbit: A Geostationary orbit will not have Line of Sight to the poles of the planet - and It would make sense for future settlements to be near the poles were there is water ice. So a Tundra and Molniya orbit is necessary for such an settlement to be able to communicate with KSC. (Roleplaying) Since the orbit is highly elliptical, it will be more likely that none of the satelites are hidden behind Duna - which should be able to have reliable coms with KSC with fewer satelites and that there are no signal loss to KSC. (except when Kerbol is in the way) Now how do I propose to make a Molniya constellation around Duna you ask? My plan is this: Get 3 long range satelites to Duna and space them 120­° from each other around the planet, 0° inclination. Get them to burn to a 60° inclination to Duna while maintaining ~120° separation. (hopefully the burn will be quick.) Have them raise their Apoapsis to 6700km. (half a sidereal day - see vehicle design section to see how the AP is calculated) Now to complete this task - the Molniya satelites needs a carrier with an antenna strong enough to get signal from Kerbin. If you guessed that this will be the satelite from challenge 2 you are correct. My crazy idea is to make a Satelite Carrier - deploy it to Duna and put it in an orbit where I can space out the 3 Molniya Satelites in a 100km orbit - Then perform the 3 steps to deploy them at their correct molniya orbit (Pe: 100km Ap: 6700km) . After this the satelite carrier will deploy the 6 small cube satelites evenly on the 100km orbit - which will provide signal around the equator. Once that is done - we will see how much Δv it has left on the Satelite Carrier and find a good plan for that. If this sounds like it's going to be difficult... I agree... This will be a test of my patience and precision. Resonant Orbit Planning: Now I thought I would have to sit and actually use my brain to calculate the correct orbit periods etc for launching the satelites to get their space even across the orbit - however I was gifted this great tool that does it for you. Use this to plan the spacing of satelites. When I plot in 6 satelites orbiting at 100km I get these ranges: The smart thing about planning around 6 satelites LOS is that it resonates with the 3 Molniya satelites - which will be deployed on every second orbit instead of every orbit. If you - the reader - sees that I have made some terrible error.. please enlighten me Now the parameters of the mission has been planned. Now it is all about designing the vehicles. <<<<<<<<<<Designing the Vehicles>>>>>>>>>> The CommNet Satelites: Left: Cube Satelite - Right: Molniya Satelite. Molniya Satelite: 1064 Δv Cube Satelite: unknown (25kg of Monopropellant and 2 RCS thrusters. - more than enough Δv) Now for the communication satelites the Molniya Satelites are the ones that will be most demanding. They will have to burn from a 0° inclination to a 60° inclination - then raise its apoapsis to match ½ a sidereal day... Now.. How to calculate this number was lost on me. Even though I could find the equation online multiple places I could not get google to calculate it propper. So I asked for help on the forum, and help was received. Thanks to @K^2 and others for helping me wrap my head around this. To aid others (and myself in the future) I have decided to save the process here: How to find the AP: To find the AP for your desired Molniya Orbit you need to first find the Semi major axis of your orbital period - you do that with this equation: If you punch that into google so it looks like this: You should get this number: 3,719.831km - which is the Semi Major Axis for a ½ a Duna Sidereal Rotation Period. Now this number is the distance between Apoapsis and Periapsis - you may think "but that is an oddly big number" - at least that is what I was thinking. But that was because I "forgot" that there is a planet in between, and that the distance we are shown is taken from the "sea level" of the planet/body. We there for have to subtract the planets diameter. (or radius*2) Now - I have decided that I want a PE of 100km above Dunas Surface - So to find the AP you have to use this formula: This should give you a distance of 6,699.662km - which I have rounded up to 6700 km - With 1064 Δv I hope we have enough Δv to finish both maneuvers. (it seems like it should be enough?) This formula is "plug and play" so to speech - you can go to the wiki and lift the numbers, pick your PE and find the AP for any body you want. If you want to know more read here: The Cube Satelite: If we look at the Resonant Orbit Calculator numbers: See spoiler section bellow: we can see it only requires 40.4 Δv to lower the AP to 100km - I therefore decided that it would be more cost effective to just give the small satelite 25kg of monopropellant and 2x RCS thrusters to decrease the AP. This makes the satelite much lighter than if it had actual engines - and I can carry much less fuel - thus making the satelites much lighter. The Satelite Carrier: Satelite Carrier with 6 cube satelites and 3 molniya satelites. Carrier: 2091Δv The carrier will have 2091 Δv which should be ample since it's going to be launched from LKO: 80km and the Δv map shows it only requires 1690 - 1700 to transit to Duna Low Orbit. See spoiler section below for reference: Now - one does not need to look at this monstrosity of a satelite twice to see it wont fit in the small cargo bay for the SDG... So My "promise" to make everything fit within the small cargo bay only lasted until the next challenge... *Teehee*because - of course this was the only excuse I had for a glider re-redesign - It wouldn't be me without it. The SDGv2: Left: SDGv2 - Right - SDGv1. When I first flew the SDG on Challenge 1 - there were 1 obvious thing that struck me. It does not need the docking array. The vehicle is not meant to dock with K.G.01, like the Multi Fuel Gliders are. So I can do away with that and get more cargo space already - without changing the center of mass and drag a lot.. - how ever.. the satelite is still too long... But I figured I could add a bit of Tube in the end where the vertical stabilizers are and sort of have the satelite twist itself out of the glider... That being said.. I can easily see things go "wrong" though here... namely: A theoretical comparison of me getting the satelite out of the cargo bay. Nothing has ever gone wrong from banging sensitive electronics out of the box... *cough cough* - Luckily Kerbal tech is sturdy tech... Here are the two cargo spaces clearly visible - The SDGv1 still loaded with the probe that was send for the Duna Fly By of Challenge 1. and here a side by side comparison. Luckily the weight savings of ditching the docking port means that even though the Satelite Carrier is pretty heavy at 8.06t - double the payload of its cusin, the Multi Fuel Glider - it only increases weight by 2.22t. Something I am confident that the 1st stage will not have any issues getting into orbit. Weight distribution across platforms: Multi Fuel Glider:.............................................................25.34t SDGv1:................................................................................22.28t SDGv2:................................................................................27.56t <<<<<<<<<<CONCLUSION>>>>>>>>>> The plan has been made, Math has been calculated and vehicles designed accordingly. Stay tuned in to see if the plan survives first contact with reality. See you in the next one.

With talk of class action, I'm going after a joke

Assuming he really didn't know what was coming when he wrote this forum post a week ago, it's a good bet Nate is feeling like a broken man right now. His vision of KSP 2 is in tatters and the studio that he helped build is no more. He's almost certainly sick to his stomach about his soon-to-be unemployed staff, many of whom he likely recruited himself on the promise of his vision for the game. Many of them will have left high paying jobs in software, aerospace and other game dev companies to join Intercept. His reputation is in pieces and his future in game development is very uncertain. Even if he somehow falls upwards into Private Division into some sort of executive job, it will likely be some sort of token 'Product evangelist' role for the remnants of the Kerbal IP, probably more out of embarrassment on PD's part and to deflect from their own poor judgement on KSP2's development. Even if he was authorized to make a statement by Take2 legal, I very much doubt he would have the stomach to say anything. He likely just wants to crawl into a hole somewhere. I would love for the whole story of what happened in KSP2's development to come out, it is surely a fascinating tale. Even with NDA's, I'm confident people will talk. The game dev world of Seattle is small. People gossip, especially people with an axe to grind and who devoted years of their professional lives to a project that was so badly mismanaged and eventually canned by Take2. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest in the next few weeks if we start to see anonymous posts on this forum or Reddit from disgruntled former devs to justify their roles in what happened. Paul Furio, the ex-Technical Director already seems eager to explain his side of things on LinkedIn and Reddit. Non-disclosure agreements be damned, these people have their professional reputations to salvage and will be desperate to tell their side of the story.

Check Intercept discord #announcments Still at work. Can't talk about it.

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can" Not in a position to upload to imgur.. check intercept discord or X

Request denied, speculation is fun Granted, anyone attacking someone else for their opinion, belief or perception of the situation has lost the plot. Debate and discussion is fine, but some folks get way too heated and too fixated on being "right" or the ironclad belief that the evidence that convinced them of something MUST be able to convince everyone else of the same, and anyone who doesn't accept it is being [Malicious/Copium/Hateful] and must be attacked. Its really good to talk about this, a lot, it brings attention to the matter, shares information and conclusions, and lets people get an understanding of things. But we're not enemies here, two corpse in one grave and all that

Respectfully, The post did talk about them working on each of these problems: And even more he talked about fixing one of the main annoyances that come with the problem. While this doesn't necessarily fix the Delta-V calculator, It shows that they are committed to fixing the issue and making sure that the game stays fun while they work on it: I don't mean to disregard your concerns but I think if we are asking for more quality communication we should keep a positive attitude when they deliver, especially when it's specifically acknowledging what we have been saying for a while. I'm not saying anyone HAS TO be happy with where we are but I think a positive outlook is always better especially if one main complaint was asking for them to talk about what they are working on before it's here.

Ah yes, the bad publisher strawman, specially useless when we talk about a product that got a free pass to delay for 4 years and turn from a complete release into barely working early access. For Science! was a minor patch confirmed.

Gotta agree to disagree then, that was a painful read. Whilst you're free to like what you like, I fail to agree on any of the things you like, and some other things are plainly not a matter of personal opinion, like not being able to read the fonts on the UI, or loading times, or "potential" and so on. For loading times, on a new and clean game, the loading speed difference between KSP1 and 2 is minimal. Sure, the initial load is faster, but at the end of the day, a game made 10 years ago loads a whole *checks notes* 15 seconds slower from startup to flight. And that's with KSP2 still being in its incomplete infancy. Potential does not define a foundation. Foundation is a word reserved for how well the codebase and the game systems are put together. If "what I believe this game can be" was a metric, then every game in development has infinite potential and thus the strongest foundation. That's just not how it works. In reality KSP2 has the same engine as the prequel, the same middleware for some features, but a much heavier save system, and also a much heavier inactive-vessel simulation. KSP2 will be thwarted by that in the future. It also still builds and saves vessels as a tree, it still calculates fuel flow mostly the same way (something something "inspiration" from the code of the previous game), it still handles the atmosphere like the previous game, but thanks to that passive simulation and bad saving system, vessels popping into range still kill your game, orbits change randomly, and the game grinds to a halt with vessels and partcounts much faster than the prequel, to the point systems (like heating) have to be "streamlined", and part-counts have to be hammered down with new, revolutionary "all in one" science modules, station modules, and in the future colony modules too... or having the logistics layer be abstracted to numbers instead of seeing your vessels come and go. Right now, saves are just a couple vessels for 99% of players, let alone making any vessel in the hundreds of parts for maybe the last couple missions, and most people play serially too (fully complete one mission before launching the next). So really, KSP2s limits haven't yet applied to most people and thus it's no wonder they really think the game is better off. When colonies and interstellar arrive, along with more resources to keep track of... it's gonna be a mess, yet devs refuse to address it and have let the bug report sit unattended, and only mentioned the problem once in the K.E.R.B. and that's... the opposite of potential. So yeah, you might slowly start to realize why people who talk highly of the foundation, potential, and what not don't seem completely grounded in reality to me, and why the lack of proper technical talk in devblogs is worrying. I don't care at all for how they failed to replicate eclipses, or how they had to tesselate a line to draw a circle, I care to know why we're still stuck on something as primitive as tree based vessels, and how they plan to deal with high part counts, or even something as basic as what their target is.

I would love to see a Kerbol Origins or OPM port, or Parallax. I'm not sure how likely or feasible it is, but it would be really nice to see those mods ported over to KSP2. Despite KSP2's bugs, the game has improved a lot and can be seen as a similar title to KSP1. Honestly the amount of creativity generated over the course of KSP1's lifespan is staggering, and it shouldn't just be abandoned. Anyone interested in a OPM/Kerbol Origins/etc. revival? Maybe like a "modloader" that you install into KSP2 with mods that you can enable and disable? I don't know KSP2 modding, so maybe i'm not the right person to talk about this, but it still would be cool.

Let me rephrase this whole upnate into a single sentence: "We're working on showstopping bugs, PQS optimizations, prettier clouds, and also prettier engine exhaust plumes". Now go back to this thread, check what people wanted, and see if this post is that. Spoilers: it is not. If you want to know why traffic is slow, why the auxiliary bridge supposed to alleviate traffic has not seen construction progress in months, why the paint on the road hasn't been fixed and it's still illegible, why your boss insists on not telling you when you'll be getting your next free day... the guy rolling down his window to talk about "look how nice the clouds are" doesn't help.

So, I've got a few questions as it relates to communication and development. Can you share with us where you are at with updating your internal calendar as it relates to when we can expect the next KERB? I know you just got back and all, but we are jonesing for info here. As far as the KERB goes, are there any plans to be more verbose in the status of the bugs being worked on? For example, "Researching" doesn't tell us what you are doing with a bug, especially when some bugs have been around and in this status for months. What is being researched, and what about it is so complicated? Same thing for "Need Additional Information". What info do you need? Something from the community? The original reporter? Who and what? It has now been 3 months since the last patch, and there has been zero talk about the next one. Nor has there been any talk about colonies other than to show the same station orbiting Jool a few times. Can you give us any information on where the team is at with the next patch, or with colonies, or when 0.3 might drop? And why the complete silence on all of this? It is early access, but we put our faith in you guys and we haven't had that faith rewarded much (if at all). Can we talk about procedural parts again? We have been told that procedural tanks are too complex, but Juno has them. And ill have to look again to make sure, but I think HarvesteR's latest project Kit Hack has them. What is so complex about them as it relates to KSP2? Finally, we need to discuss maneuver nodes and dV calculation. Has the development team shared anything with you that you can share with us as to how these are being worked on, and what potential solutions we may see? Both of these are critical to the game.

Albert and the Martians “Breaking news from the CNN Election Headquarters. It is currently 10:14 PM and we can finally call it: Al Gore has WON the Presidency; he has reached 270 electoral votes with a victory in Illinois at 100% of the vote in. He is now the first Democratic candidate to be elected to the Presidency since Jimmy Carter in 1976, ending the Reagan-Bush streak of Republican control of the White House.” On Tuesday, November 5th, 1996, Al Gore won the Presidency over Republican candidate Bob Dole. He won the country's vote by campaigning on a staunch platform of addressing social and economic issues, alongside pushing forward science and technology. Gore’s victory though, despite it being the first blue victory since 1976, was not the talk of the country for very long. As four astronauts were preparing to go further than any human had ever gone. They were going to Mars. Robert Cabana, Eileen Collins, Greg Harbaugh, and Linda Godwin are awoken at 5:00 AM on December 2nd to prepare for their launch at 10:00 AM. Space Shuttle Atlantis sits at LC-39A, having been undergoing fueling for the past 3 hours in preparation for launch. Atlantis will launch the crew alongside the two pilots of the Shuttle (John Casper and Llyod Hammond) into orbit, and then perform a rendezvous and docking with the MMETV that sits in orbit now. But this was just one part of a 7-launch marathon to get everything for the first human mission to Mars into space and on its way to the red planet. It began on November 23rd, with the launch of the first half of the MMETV aboard a Jupiter 524-A at 4:26 AM. Following that, the second half was launched on November 28th at 1:17 PM. The two halves then met in orbit and docked together, forming the complete, fully fueled MMETV. Then, on December 1st, the day before the crew's launch, the “MSVs” (Mars Surface Vehicles, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles respectively) were launched together on a Jupiter 544-A, the heaviest variant of the SDLS rockets. The two are launched docked together, with Jupiter’s second stage propelling them to Mars, and then with the Descent Vehicle performing orbital insertion, as it only has to descend to the surface and has greater propellant margins. They will deploy their solar panels and radiators and operate on low power mode until they reach Mars in August of next year, just before the MMETV. That brings us to the morning of December 2nd. At 7:30 AM, the crew reach the launchpad and head up the elevator to board the Shuttle. This will be the last 2 and a half hours they are on Earth until they return in three years. The crew are strapped in by 8:00 AM and ready for launch. Final preparations occur over the next two hours until the crew access arm retracts and the last few minutes of the countdown begin. Upon reaching orbit, Atlantis makes a first OMS maneuver to set up a rendezvous with the MMETV. The catch-up takes about 8 hours, with Atlantis then moving in to dock with the forward port of the MMETV. These docking ports are the first functional flight variants of the IHDS docking port that will be used on Space Station Harmony, and there is no better mission to test them than on Magellan 2. After a successful docking, the crew all work together to move supplies from Spacelab II into the MMETV hab. About half of the supplies and equipment are being brought up on the Shuttle, while the rest will be in the dedicated supply module that is to be launched aboard a Titan IV in a couple of days. Skylab played an essential role in determining the mass and volume of food and water needed for an entire 3-year round trip to Mars; the 200-day missions total supply amount based on crew diets was extrapolated out and adjusted for the additional exercise and work that the Magellan astronauts will be undertaking. With all of the supplies offloaded from the Shuttle, a video conference is held with NASA Administrator Ken Mattingly and outgoing President George H.W. Bush. Although Reagan initiated the Magellan program, HW has seen it through its development and first two missions and has fought hard every fiscal year for the program to get the funding it requires. He has only a few words at this press conference, but he uses them to express his gratitude towards NASA, his appreciation of the Magellan program, and his hope that it will be part of his lasting legacy as President. Pleasantries out of the way, the Shuttle crew return to Atlantis and begin undocking and departure from the MMETV. Atlantis lands the next morning at the KSC and is shuffled back into the OPF for maintenance over Christmas and the New Year. The MMETV crew wait 2 more days in orbit, getting accustomed to their home for the next 9 months. Then, on December 4th, Titan IV rips off the launchpad at SLC-41 carrying the Supply Module. 12 hours after launch, the Supply Module reaches the MMETV and docks on the forward IDHS port. 24 hours pass as the crew continues to get comfortable inside the Habitat, and then, the next night, preparations begin for the most important operation to this point. Trans-Martian Injection. This maneuver has been calculated by computers the size of a room multiple times over the past couple of years. It is the most efficient trajectory to Mars available in the 1996 transfer window and will give the MMETV the most fuel for orbital insertion and return to Earth. At 8:49 PM on December 5th, the seven nuclear thermal rocket motors of the MMETV start up and begin the 16-minute burn to send 4 astronauts on a mission to Mars. 16 tense minutes pass, controllers sit idle in their chairs, watching in utter silence as the velocity graph steadily follows the pre-determined outline on the main screen of the Mission Control room. ABC, CBS, and CNN have cameras in the room as the event is broadcast live on television to millions of Americans. The astronauts sit with their suits on in the forward flight chairs as the slow 960 seconds pass. But eventually, the motors shut off, and Houston erupts in cheers and applause. A nominal trajectory is confirmed, and Bob Cabana, Eileen Collins, Linda Godwin, and Greg Harbaugh are on their way to Mars. Three days later, they become the first humans to leave Earth's sphere of influence and the first humans to enter interplanetary space. Over these three days, the final two chapters of Magellan 2’s departure from Earth are completed. On December 6th, the Magellan Habitat is launched aboard a Jupiter rocket on a faster but less efficient trajectory. Following this, on December 8th, as the MMETV leaves the Earth-Moon system, the EERM rover, adapted for operations on Mars, is launched aboard another Jupiter rocket on a similar fast but less efficient trajectory to Mars. The habitat and rover will be the first spacecrafts to perform aerobraking at Mars to minimize the propellant needed for orbit insertion. With Magellan 2 now on its way to Mars, 1997 begins with the ball drop in Times Square. A few weeks into the year, on January 20th, Al Gore takes the Oath of Office to become the 42nd President of the United States. As humans make their way to another planet for the first time, and a new face in government takes leadership of the country, America looks towards the new century with optimism. A New Era Has Begun.

It's pretty hard to manage expectations after a huge hype campaign followed by... hummm... a somewhat less than expected initial release. There's a lot of promises (as well tons of plain statements taken as promises) made in the last years that are probably going to be broken, and without a viable release to use as a trade-off (ok, A is not going to happen, but look! B & C were implemented instead!), at least in my book, the less technical details (or any details that can be used by technicians to infer the state of the game) you publish, less work you will have on managing a new loot of fallen short expectations. It's kinda of a catch-22 situation: you talk about, you get screwed. You don't talk about, you get screwed. Finding the less bitter spot in which you get less screwed is the trick. (don't look at me for answers - I'm on the "talk too much" spectrum)

The first rule of cheating is to not talk about cheating. Which means everyone in this thread is breaking the first rule, and therefore cheating.

Y6 D185-232 - Draco Return and Nuclear Reprocessing Module Well, here we are almost halfway through year 6, and things are moving along nicely. We're just about finished with this year's crew rotation, and Draco has arrived at the edge of Kerbin's SOI. Our first Duna mission has gone splendidly, but it is readily apparent from the crew communications that after more than two years in space they are ready to get home. Unfortunately, they aren't there yet. Their current flight path takes them on a close flyby of the Mun, and then they will burn into an elliptical orbit around Kerbin. Then they'll plot a course to rendezvous back with Minmus Station. The crew will leave Draco there and ferry back to Kerbin Station aboard a transport, and then be carried back to Kerbin via spaceplane. So, they still have a way to go before they're feeling grass between their toes again. A couple of days later Draco passes by The Mun, which slightly alters its course. The good news is that Orbital Dynamics calculated this encounter into Draco's trajectory all the way back at their mid-course correction last year, so they're all set, no burn necessary. OD wanted to use this encounter to capture Draco with a gravity assist, but we decided against that. We're not hurting for fuel at this point, Draco is still at almost 35% fuel load, if you can believe it. So we thought that a controlled burn for capture was a much more reliable choice. A couple hours later and Draco is approaching periapsis. All systems are go, the crew is strapped in on the command deck, and they are ready to burn. Over on the night side of Kerbin, Draco burns to capture into Kerbin orbit. Welcome back, Draco! So now Draco is in a highly elliptical orbit around Kerbin. However, OD has just come back with some bad news. They're in a really bad orbit for getting to Minmus. Essentially they're going to have to cruise out to apoapsis, then fall back for a day before they even get to their burn. Then their transfer orbit to Minmus will take fourteen more days after that. Sorry, folks. While we're waiting for Draco to arrive at Minmus Station, let's get them a ride. The orbital transport Capricorn is dispatched from Kerbin Station and burns for Minmus, unkerballed. It will arrive there well before Draco. ---------- About a week later now, and Draco has arrived at its burn for Minmus. And then, the next day, Capricorn arrives at Minmus Station. So now we just have to wait for Draco to whip around Kerbin again and make its way to Minmus. Stay strong, folks. You can do another two weeks in a spin hab on your heads. ---------- So now it is day 213 and Draco has finally arrived at Minmus. She coasts in and burns into a 200-kilometer orbit. A couple of hours and a couple of burns later, she arrives at Minmus Station. Chief Engineer Kirkpatrick shuts Draco's reactor down, and then Captain Kreuger takes the conn and guides her in to dock. Finally, after over two years, the crew of the first Duna mission get to see other faces and talk to other people! But they do have some work to do. They finish securing Draco and rigging the ship to take power from Minmus Station, ensuring that the reactor will be safe. Then they begin transferring their personal gear and the incredibly-valuable Duna samples to the orbital transport Orion (yes, we rotate the orbital transports, so Capricorn will be staying here while Orion carries the crew home). Once these duties are completed, the crews share a celebratory dinner together. Then the Duna crew boards Orion, closes the hatches, and undocks from the station. Then they wave a final farewell to Draco, and burn for Kerbin. While the crew is on their week-long trip back to Kerbin, we can discuss our next major project. Draco's reactor is currently just above 50% of its reactor core life remaining. It could conceivably make another trip to Duna with its current nuclear fuel load, but that would be unwise, since the reactor is its sole source of electrical and propulsive power. While we could just fly a new propulsion module to Minmus, this would get very expensive, very fast. However, we have a solution: The nuclear fuel reprocessing module! This module is a marvel of engineering. It has been a collaborative project between CKAI, Kerbal Atomics, and Kerman Systems Group robotics division for almost two years. The idea is that nuclear propulsion modules can be removed from their respective crafts and docked to the reprocessing module hub. Then the four waldo arms are used by operators to remotely remove the modular fuel elements in the propulsion module reactors. Obviously we require the use of these waldos to remove and insert the fuel elements from the reactors. It's not like uranium is some kind of liquid that you can pump around in tanks or something. LOL. These expended fuel elements are fed into the reprocessor, which then deconstructs them into their component materials. The reprocessor recovers unused enriched uranium and recycles the recovered materials into new nuclear fuel elements, which can then be reinserted into the propulsion reactors. Any high-level waste is accumulated for later disposal. This module is incredibly complex, and breathtakingly expensive. So I am only going to say this once. If any of you screw around and break this thing, THERE WILL BE NO FOOSBALL FOR A MONTH. Do I make myself clear? In any case, before we can send the reprocessing module up to Minmus Station, we need to do some prep work. We will need to increase the crew compliment on Minmus Station from six to twelve to handle the increased work load. And we will need to increase the amount of power and cooling available on the station to support the module itself. Thankfully we already have quite a bit of living space on Minmus Station, but we will need to increase the amount of spin habitat space. For the power and cooling, we will be sending up a new truss with additional solar panels, batteries, and radiators. Robby is doing the heavy lifting for us today, and after an uneventful climb to orbit, we find it rendezvousing with Kerbin Station. Once they're docked, the crew of Kerbin Station gets to work. They guide Orbital Tug 4 over to pick up the spin hab module, and then bring it down to dock with the new expansion truss. Then, once the station comes around to the departure point, they undock Orbital Tug 6 and Mission Control instructs it to burn for Minmus. Then they undock Robby and it flies back to Kerbin. Now we're going to wait a week or so for Orion to come back with the Duna crew. ---------- So, here we are a week later. Orion is a couple of hours out from Kerbin. Tug 4 is about a day out from Minmus. So we're going to launch the additional crew for Minmus Station, and then the Duna crew can ride that spaceplane down. Save us a trip. ArToo is making this run with The Pod in her bay. While they're making their way around to Kerbin Station, Orion burns in to its parking orbit around Kerbin. And then, a couple of hours later, they arrive at Kerbin Station. The crews all exchange more greetings and congratulations. Then they set about moving gear once again, transferring all of the Duna samples into the Pod for the trip down to Kerbin. Then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for Minmus and Orion departs once again. And then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for the spaceplace. They close the hatches and undock ArToo. Then the Duna crew finally burns for home. ArToo cruises through reentry. And then sails in to a dramatic nighttime landing at KSC. Finally, after almost three years in space, the crew of the first Duna mission have made it home! Ticker-tape parades and Kongressional addresses next week. Tonight they get a hot meal and a real bed. Congratulations to all of them! The next day, we're prepping the reprocessing module for launch. Gort is doing the honors this time, and it launches the next evening. Am I the only one who gets nervous seeing millions of funds worth of hardware hurtling through the air at Mach 4? Nobody else? Really? Just thought I'd ask. Anyway, while Gort is going through its maneuvers to reach Kerbin Station, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus. It's got half a day before it arrives at the station yet. Meanwhile, Gort arrives at Kerbin Station and docks. The crew gets busy deploying the reprocessing module and docking Tug 5 to it. While Kerbin Station is coming around to its departure point, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus Station. The crew guides it in to dock the expansion truss. Then once that is in place, then bring the tug around and dock the new spin hab outboard of the old one, mounting them in a counter-rotating pair. Then, once the tug is out of the way, the crew deploys the radiators, solar panels, and spin hab. Then they start getting all of the new systems tested and settled before the new crew shows up. Minmus Station is starting to rival Kerbin Station in size and function. Back at Kerbin Station, the crew undocks Tug 5 and Mission Control orders it to burn for Minmus. As Tug 5 brings the reprocessing module out to Minmus, Orion arrives at Minmus with the new crew. A couple of hours later, they arrive at the station. They've got a week or so to get settled until their job shows up. ---------- Eight days later, Tug 5 arrives at Minmus. After the usual maneuvers, it arrives at Minmus Station, and the crew brings it in to dock. Once the tug is clear and the hatches are opened, the new crew gets inside and starts familiarizing themselves. Their first task is to limber the waldos and set them in their resting positions. So far, so good. Next we'll see how they do with a real refueling....

I love Civilian Population Combined with Free IVA. You can talk Civilians (Tourists) Through your habitat / station area.. out an airlock & EVA. Definitely adds an entire new element to game play. I enjoy it for the novelty sake. Other I have seen use curated mod lists to have full sensor info displayed onto IVA. Some even alloy camera overlay onto certain screens. KSP has so many different mods that even something like IVA can cater to several different playstyles!

The issue with what happened to me here over the past couple weeks is that it wasn’t an opinionated matter we argued over, it was- 1. The definition of something 2. History of something The first time, the guy had a weird definition of something that sounded like something else, so I looked up the dictionary definition to see if I was right. It didn’t match up and I pointed that out. Then he continually changed his own definition until he accused me of not discussing in good faith. Second time, I made stupid statements about something in history. I honestly did not know I was wrong. In fact, other people in the discussion later politely pointed out the flaws in my statements and I accepted I was incorrect and retracted my statement. But before then, this guy- the same guy as with the definition talk- simply says I’m “making walls of words” and again speaks of me “lacking good faith.” This isn’t public policy or favorite foods we’re talking about. If we can’t correct each other when we’re wrong and accept that we’ve been wrong when it comes to facts, how are we supposed to learn anything? Isn’t that what the internet is supposed to be about? For All Mankind had a clip of Tim Berners-Lee praising the then potential value of the internet in the 80s and he spoke of a “more informed electorate.” Obviously politics is politics and it can get nasty in its own right, but what about technical discussions? Discussions about the humanities? I think I’m getting back to my point I made in my long post about climate change. Everyone has armies of rhetoric and data on their side to defend their arguments, and criticism and differing data is “politicized” or has an ulterior motive. If I or others can’t or don’t want to correct or be corrected on facts when we’re wrong, what’s the point of even being here? Just hop in, see if we fit in the echo chamber, hop out if we don’t and then post tweets and occasional witty jokes from time to time? Isn’t a forum all about discussion? I’ve never expected people to change their opinions when I’m criticizing them. But if there’s a fact they’re talking about that’s incorrect, I have a hard time sitting by and letting them be wrong. I wouldn’t want someone on this forum to let me continually make inaccurate statements, and when I did that in the history discussion, I’m glad I was corrected. Considering most of the people who regularly post in the main section of the forum I visit- the Science & Spaceflight section- are also the same people who have espoused the climate change denial arguments I listed in my climate change post in this thread, perhaps I just need to recognize the people there are not who I thought they were when I joined this forum and read about the better forum movement and rules intended to make it a more positive place. The Lounge is cool though, so I’d still visit here. But I can get space news on Twitter and don’t really have any more technical questions to ask people over there, so if it’s just a place to report the news and make jokes from time to time- discussion, while legal, will lead to arguments if anything beyond supportive comments are made, even if someone is incorrect about something- what am I even doing there? I’m also now thinking about how I don’t even really follow much spaceflight news beyond what’s going on in China. I might as well just head over to Sino Defence Forum (where I’m much more conscious of what kind of people they are and how it’s important not to start arguments).

I am going to start my comment with a question for the CMs and then I will go into my further suggestions My question to the CM comes from the conversations that @Nerdy_Mike was having in the discord, he was talking about the roadmap and how development will follow it and all milestones will be fulfilled. This is obviously great news long term as we will get all that was promised on that front. I also remember many instances where CMs have talked about the ideas of polls and wanting to them but not knowing how to go about doing them correctly. I think some polls that will work are ones about which things should come first, meaning that the "losing" side of the poll will still know they will get the content they voted for. Anyways, my question is would KSP2 ever consider making a poll for if Recourses should come before Interstellar? I ask this because there has been a good amount of people talk about their concerns about not having resources when colonies drop and then having to wait until after interstellar for this feature. @Dakota and @Nerdy_Mike, I would love an answer to this question so I know whether to keep voicing my concerns about this subject or if I should use my time more wisely on commenting on other aspects of the game. I understand that there are reasons that would make these decisions out of your control or if this just plain is impossible with the current development process. I would love clarification on this. Alrighty, now that that is out of the way, I'll give my ideas towards communications: (Note) I think the major thing that is frustrating the community is that we just don't know what is going at all, this both goes for colonies and the next patch. I understand there are powers that be that keep you from giving information about colonies very often, so I'm going to focus on communications patch-to-patch 1. I think a good idea could be a "next patch bugs squashed counter" (the name needs some work ) somewhere on the forums that updates each week. You wouldn't even need to put in a bunch of details about the bugs, just a range based on the current "dev-version" of the game that is being focused on to give an idea of progress in development to the community. You could put a disclaimer that the number can fluctuate upwards and downwards because of different "dev-versions" of the game being considered the focused version, or because some changes broke something and now you are fixing those things while keeping what the original change fixed (this is what I imagine is happening right now and why its taken a while longer for this patch). Anyways I think this would be good because then the community would have a constant feeling of progress as the weeks go on. 2. I think more engagement in the individual forums would be nice, not just when we ask but kinda closer to how the interactions on discord are. It would be nice to see everyday at least one thought given on a thread somewhere about something. It wouldn't always have to be serious stuff either, right now I am realizing a lot of the community gets a bit upset at the "joking" and more "fun-oriented" posts being made right now but that is more because they don't have much communications and want quality/qualitative posts when they happen. After getting over the hump, and when seeing CM posts are much more common, then the forums will feel more like a conversation with CMs than complaints to them constantly. Really just like once a day would be enough, even if half are joke/fun posts. 3. I think that suggestions or things that CMs cant talk about should not be met with radio silence, but instead with a "heard*" or a "there is no information we are able to give right now*". This would give us more communication and make it feel like we aren't just talking into the void hoping that something sticks. (the * would be to indicate that these communications are not a direct "this will be in the game" or a "this will not be in the game"). Anyways these are my thoughts on improvements to the current communications (as far as patch to patch goes). All of these suggestions/criticisms come from a place of respect and excitement for what is to come next both in the game and in the community.

I love hearing more about development! It's great to see that the development team is taking the community's bugs into consideration. I also love getting to see at least somewhat technical talk on how yall establish what needs to be worked on and how they are being worked on. I appreciate the idea of unlocking the maneuver planner from Delta-V, I think that is a great call! I do want to say that I hope it stays this way even after the Delta-V calculator is "fixed", I would suggest just adding a warning statement that says "Plan exceeds Delta-V" but still lets the user try. Great work everybody and I appreciate hearing more about the development process!

THAT Where are the technical dev blogs. Where are the REAL AMA where questions about limitation & strategy are discussed. Where are the reddit AMAs & in depth talks about the "Wheel". So nothing regarding planned content? Start publishing the dev diaries from "For Science" Us those notes with a few water cooler questions / emails to generate an in depth dev blog on decisions behind tech tree groupings. The lack of substance is what sucks and lends me to the thought.. many decisions like tech tree ended up being ad hoc or arbitrarily assigned. When you see people talk about the negative aspects of the UI you see specifics.. Maneuver Tool, Camera Eccentricities, GUI elements blocked / hidden beyond other objects, poor click-through priority assignment, inability to maneuver in another SOI When people express a foundness for the new UI.. it's often "I like it" or "it's better than KSP1" The graphics are better. A new coat of paint.. but I dislike the UI intensely. Font Part Manager Staging Window Interaction Maneuver Tool Camera Controls Ship Save (Filters or Options for Structure) Could you please express the parts of the UI that you enjoy more? I like the stock app tray I like tracking station Aside I don't much like the UI

I am going to ask that you stop acting like the majority of this commentary is somehow without merit. When the points you attempt to make are so eloquently rebutted, you shift the goal post to "its just game" I do not think that "its just an X,Y,Z" is as acceptable excuse for the very last point that @PCDWolf made. It is not about patience. The majority of the rebuttal addressed that very issue and the last year we have been actively attempting to gain insight on the direction this game plans to take. They have been tight lipped because the community was promised for years that this game would have a certain goal. KSP PLUS. It was immediately apparent that a different direction was chosen and we clamored for something of substance regarding this. The stuff that does come out is pure PR content and nothing of merit with regard to game direction. The only thing worth a dang at all on the future of this game was completely compiled by @The Space Peacock... with much of it dated. How much of these old conversations and ideas are going to stay? You are not understanding how long it took for took to get them to even consider certain important things seriously... Like Wobble Font UI TimeWarp Constraints Things that are not "official' bugs are often ignored when we question specifics or insight in decisions. Official Bugs (Up Until Recently) has been difficult to navigate with key word searches not always resulting in success. This compounds with many redundant postings and ignored issues NO ONE can say that this game was playtesting in an organic manner. EA is not for Alpha State drops.. not traditionally. This leaves us guessing as to why and what.. with the track record our imaginations see "the best prediction for the future is the past" WE want this game to succeed. But we also want that success to be within some realm of what we enjoyed about the first game... People would talk about other things than how crappy "radio silence is" if we were given something to talk about.

Well the societies where people work together for the betterment of all rather than themselves alone have been dead for four centuries so it would make sense you’ve never seen them. If there’s a certain way we’re “built” psychologically it’s because there was a builder, and it occurred based on how we’re educated in youth. Advances in human history have been built on people thinking beyond what they were taught or what they had seen. No one told Columbus to go sail west, and no one told any settler to move somewhere else. The way they were raised told them to stay put as their fathers and forefathers had, but they ignored what they knew and made a decision of their own. If we can’t grow beyond the behaviors and systems that were set up and indoctrinated a few centuries ago I don’t think we’re going to last long at all, whether on Earth or on Mars. I never said all companies exist to make money. But money would be required to build a Mars colony, thus I assumed SpaceX is the type of company that needs to make it. And there are things they already have to pay for. Support infrastructure, paying their workers, maintaining and refurbishing rockets. Contracts in LEO and on the Moon. What will be left over for Mars? The colony, that is. I don’t know why you’d see what I write as a complaint. He can try, but if he fails, we shouldn’t give up. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying he shouldn’t, I’m saying we can’t limit ourselves to simply hoping a billionaire will do it all for us. When I say “we” I mean humanity. Not specifically you or I. I’m skeptical industry will ever be moved to space. It makes no economic sense either, because it’s easier to build factories on Earth. The cost of shipping something across the land or sea is much lower than shipping stuff to and from space. If governments signed off on regulations banning industry on Earth, then they’d do it. But corporations don’t really do massive “save the Earth/environment” type stuff unless they’re forced to. Otherwise they largely prefer the little things that look good for PR but don’t incur too much cost. The issue with automation is that it would leave people with nowhere to go. Eventually robots would be building robots, writing code, and repairing robots, and those robots would replace all jobs except government and management. There would be no need for humans. How are people supposed to pay for Starlink if they have no job? And then companies wouldn’t be making money and it would all collapse. There’s talk of UBI and what not, but at that point people would more or less be receiving necessities for free, obviating the money. Corporations would have the power to do things simply based on whether they have the resources to produce enough robots to do it, gained by cooperation with another corporation, which also just needs to produce enough robots to harvest the resources. If people are getting necessities for free and don’t have any way to work, because robots are doing everything, corporations wouldn’t really be making money off people by selling goods and services, they’d just be providing it with no return. A Mars colony suddenly becomes feasible not “economically” but simply on whether people want to do it or not. At which point it seems you’ve brought us to my point: How can we think beyond our existing economics in support of space colonization? It goes back to my original post when this thread was revived: thinking about profitability and affordability (both in terms of money) as a means of making space colonization feasible is silly.