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A lot has been made of the development teams (coders, artists, etc.) not having anything to do with communicating with the community, and I'll say up front that I agree with that statement. No, I do not want the developers to sit around and talk on the forums or Discord all day long; they have a game to write, for pete's sake. I'd rather they spend their time on the clock coding, or drawing, or whatever it is they need to do to get the game done. Go. Please. With that said, it is the job of the Community Managers to interact and engage with the community. As far as EA goes, it should be their job to engage with us and let us know exactly what is happening with the development of the game. Yes, this involves interviewing the developers, and compiling lists of bugs, and all the other stuff that goes along with that. But it is their literal job to interact with the community, and the issue here is that instead of the CM's doing this, they are worrying about things that the community quite frankly as a whole doesn't care about. This leads me to believe that one of the following 2 situations is true: The CM's are understaffed and overworked to the point where they simply cannot interact in meaningful ways. Dakota is on his own right now as Mike is off on paternity leave (and coming back this month, I think?), and the organization either hired but has not trained the new person they posted for months ago OR they simply decided not to do it. And this is on top of all of the vacation and time off that was taken over the holidays. If this is the case, if it is a situation where Dakota simply does not have the time to effectively do his job and interact with the community in thoughtful and meaningful ways, then I have to ask why he has the time to come up with weekly challenges and joke threads. I get that those things may be part of his job, but we have begged for more meaningful communication and have not gotten it. Does he not have time to ask the developers where they are at? Do the CM's not have the ability or authority to ask the artists what they have drawn up lately? Has Nate decided that he doesn't need to give interviews to the CM's or host AMA's any longer? And if this is all the case, why hasn't the company hired more CM's to help alleviate the strain on Dakota? It's either this, or... The developers honestly have nothing to show or discuss at this point. And if this is the case, there's a whole box of Lego's that need to be unpacked with this. Because, quite frankly, how can you be 6 years into development, and 1 year+ into early access, and have nothing to discuss? We have bugs that have been persistent since launch, promises made both before and during launch that haven't been met, and yet they have nothing to divulge? Bug reports that aren't discussed but end up in the archive with no explanation, and no talking about them? The company hired 2 of the best and brightest minds from the KSP1 mod community to help write this game, and you've got nothing to show at this point? For Science! dropped almost 4 months ago, and since then we've seen like 1 or 2 images of what might be in colonies, but you have no words to go with that? Where are we at on the road map as far as colonies goes? I know you can't give any dates, but are we even close? And those images of gigantic parts in space - are they going to be in the game, and if so, how do we get them up into space? Where are we at with all those bugs for months you just keep saying "Researching"? On those bugs you are looking for additional feedback on - what do you need from us to help you? What information are you looking for that we haven't already provided? And what do you say to those people - like myself - who have mid-range equipment and are supposed to see performance increases but aren't? (Side note - anything greater than 200 parts on my rig drops my FPS to 10. In orbit. 32 GB RAM, 2060 Super, Ryzen 9 3900 12 core. Tell me again how performance has gotten better.) It's no secret that I have been very vocal about where I think the game is at, and where it is headed. I've complained enough, so I'm trying not to do more of the same here (even though I'm sure this will all still be seen as complaining). But I want this game to succeed. I want this game to outplay, outperform, and outlast the original. I do not want to have to see the community come together and have the modders create KSP3. Nobody wants that. We shouldn't even have to float that idea, to be honest. But enough. Enough of the joke threads. Enough of the weekly challenges. Enough of the silence. We have held up our end of the bargain here in EA by not only shelling out the cost of the full release game, but we've been up front and honest with you about bugs, feedback, and telling you what it is we want. We are simply asking for the company to hold up their end. Too much damage has been done over this, but we are still willing to overlook that and give you back our trust if you would simply communicate with us and let us know where this whole thing stands. No corp-speak, no double meanings, no half-truths. Just be honest. We will understand. Heck, we've been understanding for the better part of a decade now; honesty will only help to repair the relationship.

Just to be clear: I'm not defending anything. I'm stating facts. That those facts are contrary to what people want is not really my problem. To also be clear: Of course I want a perfect game delivered 12 months ago with no bugs and a $10 price tag. However I live in the real world and understand that in the vast majority of cases I will never ever get what I want. So, I determine if what is offered is worth what I'm willing to pay and if it is, great. If not, oh well maybe I'll leave a bad review and then I'll move on. Complaining about obvious things over and over is such a useless exercise it frustrates me that so many enjoy it. Talk about twisting your brain into a torus, that's the idea that after the first 300 times, the 301st complaint will make some sort of difference.

Talk about beating a dead horse - at this point y'all are knocking on a skeleton Last I checked, SpaceX was doing perfectly fine without needing to check arbitrary boxes set by not-SpaceX on SpaceX's own missions.

This is a serious topic, and unfortunately, KSP2 fails on all fronts here. And I can only talk about problems with interface, but I'm sure there's plenty more things that can be improved. Plus, if anything, the 0.1.4 made it worse. Look at this Let's start from the top left. The "hamburger menu". Known to exist in most mobile apps, but absent from most desktop applications, except some browsers. Alright, it's a good idea to have a button AND a hotkey (Esc), just like staging does, but does it have to be an actual icon of a hamburger? Probably a snacks joke, haha. Okay, it's there but... it only works one way. There's no button to go back from the menu. Not very intuitive, is it? Meanwhile, a button with similar function (opening a menu of options) in App bar looks entirely different. Next stop is on the right, the GFORCE window. Or is it a Gforce window? Maybe it's crew portait window? And if it is, why does it show empty seats? Where's that cyber Kerbal dummy that devs have shown us ages ago? Anyway, what matters is that the name has a hard time explaining what it is, because the GFORCE only applies to that thin strip on the left. And I think another issue are the window names. Not only they're 8 pixels tall (at 1080p screen), very inconsistent in letter shape - look at any two same letters close to each other, they are not identical because the whole thing is badly compressed, but also inconsistent in letter size and style - for example, the resources window has the title made of 7 pixels, but also the separator isn't a dot, but a hyphen. And the whole theme makes it look like it's some placeholder codename, not an actual thing. Why is it ORBITAL.INFO, and not Orbital Info? Why is it TIME.WARP and not Time Warp? There's no reason to have it like that in a product that's not a prototype available only for the dev team. Font choices. On that one screenshot I counted 12 (Twelve) different styles, including changes in font size. That is the opposite of unified interface, feels more like a bunch of different bits made by 5 different people, glued together to make a UI. We've got window names in two (at least) sizes, orbital parameters (also at least two sized AND styles), the navball there you can find another 3, timewarp window with 2 more, the resource window with another new size, and staging with at least two more. Iconography. There isn't much here but there are two identical radiotelescope icons that do different things. One shows radio connection, the other is Tracking Station. That can be confusing. Also, all planets in the top left list have the same icon of Kerbin. I know it's an icon for "planet" but it's the same for moons. The Navball. Oh the navball. I should explain that I am slightly visually impaired. Wearing glasses, short sighted, astigmatism, recently fighting (without effects) focus/contrast issues in my right eye. And there's no other way of saying this, the new dark mode of the navball looks like crap and is unreadable for me without leaning in and squinting. The tiny, very densely packed numbers blend with the background, the center bird blends with the background lines, the SAS icons can be barely seen against what's behind them. You could say to increase the size of the UI - but I don't think I should. I'm not that blind because, in KSP1, with roughly the same size of the ball, I had no problems reading the numbers. Here though, it's a complete blur. Honestly, the most readable thing in this whole screenshot, is the FPS readout.

MISSION_UPDATE - Tour de Minmus - Johndin and Podcal looking on the ancient relic found in the mysterious crater on Minmus. While Poduki relays their findings to KSC FOREWORD: Before we start - I would like to say that this post became a lot longer than I anticipated. I would very much like some honest feedback on weather I should dial it down a notch and be less detailed. Or cut it into more edible pieces. or if its just all good and fun. Before we start - I would like to thank all who indulge in my increasingly longer forum posts. Any way.. Funny story! A mistake was made by my internet provider and I was without internet this weekend! It was an odd experience.. I mean I grew up without internet.. but I realized how much of my home is setup to use internet.. I hear my radio through my Sonos and see TV through my Chromecast. At least when I was a child we had antenna tv and FM radio. It actually made my wife and I talk about getting a low tech FM radio - Just incase the political climate deteriorate even further in Europe.. and we need to be able to get news from the government. But before we go all doom and gloom... let's keep on topic... Without internet, the only game I could play was KSP - the others required internet in varying degree. So I managed to get the rover the last stretch to the mysterious crater in record time. Before being offgrid for an weekend, I was only driving the rover, half attentive, while listening to Audio Books or Podcasts with my wife. This weekend, the journey was done with plenty of whiskey in the glass and vinyls on the record player. You may be thinking, why plenty of whiskey? is Rovers that bad? well no... whiskey is a nice drink of course.. but also yes.. let's talk about Rovers.. and how much I dislike the Rover Game Mechanics. MISSION TASKS: A. Test the Rovers functionality and maneuverability - Success B. Drive an expedition to explore the North of Minmus - Success C. Drive the Rover back to Base Camp One C. Recover Rover via Dropship and return it to base- Success D. Return Dropship to ICV Explorer - Success LESSONS LEARNED; LESSONS IDENTIFIED: Section A: The Rover has left the Sheet Ice of the frozen lake and drive in the Snowdrifts that cover most of the little moon. Let's talk about rovers: I... HATE the way rovers drive in this game. It is not that I expected it to be Snow Runners, with the game simulating every minute physics detail of sand, snow and mud.. But man It would be nice if rovers at least drove like a car... and not a shopping trolley... It would be so nice if the wheels had just an inch of traction.. Speaking of traction.. What does the traction slider even do? It seems very backwards. If I turn traction up, the engines cannot turn the wheels, it feels like the engines are terrible underpowered (are they that weak?). But if you keep the tracktion down, you'll be wheel spinning like mad.. but unlike in our world, were the vehicle would dig it self down.. In the solar system of Kerbol the vehicle will gain momentum... a lot of momentum. I found I could get my rover to ~10 m/s on rough terrain (the only limiting factor being that it's hard to gain speed when the wheels dont have a lot of contact with the ground from all the jumps) and I never reached the limit on the flats of the Sheet Ice lakes.. the rover hit a small bump and tumbled. The science junior on the front broke off. - It was a bloody miracle the antenna didn't break off or the vehicle exploded.. So Johndin had to pick up sample and take readings by hand after that. The rest of the journey was done with the antenna folded down... and then only folded up to send situation reports to Kerbin, or the ICV when it passed by. After realizing this was how it was going to be - the only thing left to do was to strap in hit the speeder and tune the radio in on: And Start drift.. I mean driving. I found that the only reliable way to turn was to create a custom made Action Group for turning the Reaction Wheels ON - do the course correction and then press another custom made Action Group turning OFF all reaction wheels (to avoid the rover doing flips from the torque power when pressing forward). Because of course the "Only online when SAS is on" is bugged. The rest of the lessons learned Lessons identified I've put in spoiler sections for those interested to keep a bloated post more streamlined: 1. Axle configuration and angle of climb: 3. Thrusters: 4. Lights: 5. Power and Recharging: Section B: The rover - stopped in the snowdrifts - to enable Johndin to take samples and readings - While a cresended Kerbin is setting in the horizon. The Expedition to the Northern parts of Minmus was divided into 5 legs: Leg 1: Contained the initial testing of the Rover on the Sheet Ice Flats of (what I have Identified to be?) The Greater Flats that Base Camp One was established on. After that it took a sharp turn North East to get to new terrain that was found to be snowdrifts. This was done in the hopes that the reason the rover drove like a elephant on ice skates was because of the sheet ice - and not game mechanics.. Unfortunately I was to be disappointed. The rest of the leg consisted of the traversal of the Sheet Ice by night - Heading North West. Leg 2 + 3: Would be traversal of the hardest terrain the Rover forced. It was the heavy cratered mountains North of The Greater Flats. Leg 4: Would be the traversal of the less demanding rolling hils on the path North West - Dont let the map fool you - it looks way more smooth than it is. I thought it would be quickly traversed at high speeds. But the low gravity and rolling hills meant that as soon as the rover exceeded 10 m/s - it would spend the same time in the air (between jumps) as it did on ground. Making it impossible to really pick up more momentum. Leg 4 ended shortly before the destination. (My kids wanted to see what was in the crater, and were sleeping at the time) Leg 5: would be the last short stretch to the edge of the crater with the mysterious lightsource. (My daughter was so impressed by the monument that she had to call my wife so she could see it) Bellow a Map showing the approximated route with legs marked: From Right to Left: Leg 1, Leg 2, Leg 3, Leg 4 and Leg 5 Bellow in the spoiler section you can see a detailed walkthrough of the Journey: The Minmus Monument: Here, at the end of the journey I was presented with a choice - Call the mission done and drive home. Or, in the true spirit of the great kerbalnaut Jebidiah, drive down the cliff side and study the monument up close - though with the chance of not being able to get up again... or worse.. crash and burn The Rover had shown itself to be quite tough - It had survived landings with up to 20m/s - And no way in hell I was going to drive the rover all the way back again. No... going down would be a great excuse for a pick up via Dropshop and be flown back to Base Camp One, Johndin argued. So down the slope it was. Geronimo! - the rover going down the slope. While it is true the rover had survived traversing a chasm with the thrusters - and subsequently bounced in the rolling hills for several km going 20 m/s (it's hard to break when your wheels hardly touch the ground). Going down the cliff side quickly accelerated the rover to 40-50 m/s. and worse still, it was aiming directly for the statue. While I was positive that I could survive these speeds on uneven terrain as long as I kept the wheels leveled with the ground.. I was sure the suspension would not "tank" slamming into the statue at the center of the monument. In a last ditch maneuver Johndin, (who had pitched the idea of going down), managed to pull hard on the controls, pitch the rover up and break the rover with the thrusters. - a daring move! Having redeemed himself, he was given the honour of planting the flag.. and take another sample. KSC was still just visible over the ridge.. and the call for a taxi was relayed to ICV Explorer. While waiting for the dropship to arrive. Johndin, Podcal and Poduki had ample time to study the ancient ruin. Who was it depicting? How was it build? By Whom was it build.. answers I will likely only get once I've exhausted the sandbox experience - and try the campaign. Section C: Dropship arriving at The Minmus Monument - ready to pick up the Rover Crew. I had a feeling that by diverting the remaining fuel from the 3 Dropship to 1 - I would be able to complete the taxi mission. I was correct. It was strange to zoom past the terrain I had just spend the better of 4 evening to cross in meer minutes. Playing with audio on for once, I found that the Minmus Orbit Theme is really awesome - it made the tour back to Base Camp One felt like a final victory lap. I was to make one important Lesson Identified though: When correcting inclination - eyeball it - maneuver nodes are unreliable, as seen from the example bellow: The maneuver nodes are weird around extreme inclination burns - If I told the node just to burn Normal it would say that my craft would leave Minmus SOI before reaching the northern hemisphere. I had to adjust by also pulling on the retrograde node for the maneuver to stay in orbit. In the end the maneuver node did not work - and I ended up just burning Normal and eyeballing it. (without leaving the Minmus SOI) The result was this: Notice how much much further apart the two vehicles would be before the burn was complete. As well as the wrong fuel bars from image 1 to 2 (which had a quick load between them) For detailed walkthrough of the pick up - see spoiler section bellow: Plotting the course to Base Camp One: the next leg - getting the rover back to Base Camp One was a simple maneuver that did not require a lot of Δv - since there was no need for a expensive correction inclination burn. And the correct direction could be picked from the start, The maneuver wasn't even required to be orbital and a sub-orbital path was charted: The rest was just a final victory lap, were the achievement could be marveled at. - a few course correction had to be done as I forgot to take the rotation of Minmus into account. The last thing to do was to pluck the rover back into base for a refuel - I was a bit nervous about this since the rover tilted the base when I tested this feature on the runway of KSC - the alignment was slightly off. My fix to this was to give all the base elements landing legs - not only because I anticipated it would be nice on uneven terrain, but also because I thought it would fix the tipping issue spoiler alert - it did: As you can see it worked fine - but for a moment I had real fears that docking the rover to the base would cause it all to do flips in the low gravity. My fears were unjustified - The rover was refueled. Although not to full, as I didn't want to empty the G.P.U - the G.P.U was dropped only half full because of weight synergy between the base modules and the dropships performance window (around ~10t cargo each) - but I expect that I need to either downgrade the rover fuel levels (which is fine) or upgrade the fuel amount for the generator (which is harder to pull off). there are many things to consider for future base missions. In the spoiler section below you will find a detailed walkthrough of the tour. Section D: The dropship tacking off after waiting for ICV - Explorer to get into an optimal position for rendezvous. I thought i was smart and waited for the ICV - Explorer to get around Minmus, so I didn't have to play catch up - I did not wait enough though. After doing the initial sub orbital burn to get the right AP for a intercept orbit set, I realized that I was going to get ahead of the target... New plan had to be made. I had 2 options: A. Make a inclination correction burn and set an orbit 10km higher than target - wait for it to catch up and perform rendezvous maneuver. B. extend the AP and to meet target on the other side of the planet - making use of the approx 30° difference in path and correct inclination and make the path orbital at target. Option A. was the safest - but would use more Δv - something that was a bit on the low side (in hindsight it would not have been an issue) - option B used less fuel - but would need to perform both circulisation and inclination correction at the same time (this would also not be an issue due to the low orbit speeds around Minmus) I decided upon B and in the end the relatively speed to target was only 50 m/s opun arrival- an easy correction. the dropship safely docked back at ICV - Explorer. The Δv between the dropships are all but spend now - which means It will be hard to perform another pick up of the rover in the future. Although that being said - the Crew Shuttles have enough Δv to land and take off on the Mun from a 10km orbit. and the two that landed the crew at Base Camp One only spend 1/3 of their Δv - having 921 left - so Δv could be taken from the Crew Shuttle still docked to the ICV - as it only need enough to perform an emergency landing in case of catastrophic event. Now the only thing left - was to dock the dropship back at the mothership and call it the day.For detailed walkthrough see spoiler section bellow: Moving Forward: Where as I have done the long stretch from a bit south of the Minmus Equator - to the northern hemisphere. I only came across 2 different biomes. And can I truly call the expedition a success when so many more biomes are left to be explored? So much Science can be done? The Δv of the Dropships may be spend - I may have done enough Rover Driving on Minmus for 1 life - But.. there are two perfectly well functioning Crew Shuttles at Base Camp One - with ~920 Δv on them each. Maybe a few further excursions to the other flats - the south pole etc. can be done to gather more science with them? Am I done with Minmus, or should I explore further before closing down the Minmus Base for now and fly the Kerbals home. I need to ponder on this. Stay Tuned for More!

Scenario: We just developed immortality and can choose who gets it and who does not. Like all technology, no one holds a monopoly on developing it, and it is only a matter of time before the have-nots either purchase or develop it themselves. Nevermind the black market too. How it works: The first were designer babies that were biologically immortal. The male babies carry the immortality DNA, so they won't age past 40. They can pass on their immortality to their offspring, even if the woman mated with is not immortal. Female immortal babies cannot pass on the immortal trait to their offspring as adults unless the father is also immortal. Why I even started this thread: No healthy person wants to die, but I could not help but wonder about the alternative, and I considered perhaps it is for the best that we are not immortal. Since it is reasonable to conclude that both the best, the worst, and the pragmatic side of humanity would decide not only our fate, but the worlds'. And on a faster time scale. Think civilization evolution... on steroids. The most obvious problem is overpopulation. Child bearing age for women is ideal in the 20's, less so in the 30's, and definitely not at 40. Initially space colonization won't be available, so I suppose the humane way to prevent overpopulation would be to government regulate reproduction and only allow the act in goverment hotels after you have cleared all paperwork giving you the OK and what you need or won't. Birth control would be the rule and not the exception, and goverment hotel staff would make sure of this before any reproductive acts take place. Having a child illegally would be punishable by jail time and the baby would be taken from you to be a ward of the state. My conclusions: I don't like to admit it, but the death of humans seems to be part of a fine tuned system, which would quickly malfunction if every one of us became immortal. Some religions teach humanity will live forever on Earth, but barring anything beyond divine intervention, as long as we are running this planet, I am not sure giving us immortality is healthy in the long run. Why? Consider how capitalism works I dare say immortality and capitalism don't get along, since overpopulation creates scarcity of resources and the number of jobs to fill in any society is limited. Which at some point unless the majority were allowed to die like we already do, capitalism as we know it would break down. Entire economies would be forced to adjust for a population that is not going to pass away. What are your tboughts? Please try to not get the thread locked. Avoid politics and talk of.... eradication of undesirables Thank you.

Again, not talking about "magic me to orbit" - but I am choosing to be a little evocative in the hopes some will think about their own carte-blanche aversion to any kind of orbit assist. I used to work for an MMO called WWII Online, half-scale map of Europe with realistic guns/tanks/planes/yadda. When it launched, you could spawn at any friendly forward base alone the front line, and drive, ride, or walk, towards the nearest "enemy" town. The dream come true. Do you know how fun it is to talk 15km in a video game with birds tweeting in the distance, only to find an empty, poorly modelled village? Or to crawl thru ditches towards one for 2 hours only to have your screen go black inexplicably, because the bullet reaches you before the sound of the shot. Well, that's one of the reasons not many people have heard of the game (even tho it is *still* running, lol). One of the biggest cluster-fs in the game was finally realizing the melding of the naval aspect of the game and the land aspect: cargo ships. But, not wanting to break the spirit of the simulation, every troop and vehicle that the ship was going to carry had to be loaded onto the ship. That is: 1. Spawn the ship, 2. Convince people they want to ride a freighter to the battle happening _right now_ in Kaalmthout or Antwerp or somewhere, 3. Sail the ship into harbor and line it up against the dock, 4. Raise the crane and turn it out over the side of the ship, 5. Get a tank/atg/truck to drive in under the crane, 6. Lower the crane, find the hitching point, get the vehicle hitched, 7. Raise the crane, carefully, swing it over the hatch, 8. Gently lower the vehicle without damaging it and place it onto the cargo bay, 9. Unhitch the vehicle without dropping it, 10. Have the vehicle find the parking spot and "mount" the ship, 11. Repeat, 12. Sail a WWII freighter vessel across a half-scale English channel, while the players stay connected to their in-game troopers/vehicles, 13. Hope the fight remains at a coastal town you can reach during the *2 hours sailing time*, 14. Try not to get bombed/strafed/sunk by enemy air patrols who have a reasonably good sense of where freighters would be launching from, 15. Try to reach a piece of coastline sufficiently far away from the fight that you won't get shelled/bombed before you can unload, 16. The freighter didn't have a cargo ramp, so ... find a spot where you can use the crane to unload vehicles without dropping them into the water. Use the life boats to lower troopers down and hope you're not too far out... 17. Despawn, because f**k sailing back. 18. Never do this again after all the complaints you get from people who disco'd, sank, drowned, or who didn't get to the target until after it had been captured and the frontline moved away. It absolutely made sense that there be a player-investment in the loading of the vehicle, so that it wasn't just a magic firehose-for-one whereby if one player can get a boat into position X they could spawn an entire army on the enemy; but the vice-like grip of the auto-fear meant that there was no willingness by certain team members to even consider ideas where any part of that process wasn't entirely manual/humanized. My concept was for to add supply trucks/engineers who could execute sorties to the docked ship, the ship would operate its crane to take loads onboard, and then when it reached the opposite end it would be able to provide/deploy an amount of resources corresponding to the amount of effort that went into loading. Because on the rare occasion when people were insane enough to mount actual coastal assaults, almost invariably the outcome was that the reduction in number of combatants *at* the fight ended up killing the fight. You might be willing to spend 2.5 hours boarding a ship and sailing to 50km away from your planned destination, but will the enemy wait there or despawn and go someplace else? What I'm aspiring to here for KSP2 is that it be possible in some game modes to earn additional launch assistance so that you can *feel* you are moving your focus onto the next stage of gameplay. And yes, some people will hit launch and then timewarp. But what of it? How does that affect you? I dunno about you but when I watch Matt Lowne videos I'm always glad he doesn't show the whole thing in real time? I mean: tell me how much of *this* video you actually watch, and how much you think anyone else would watch?

I've been working on this mission for over a month: a couple of weeks of design and build, 1 day to launch and get to Duna, another couple of weeks doing the Duna Elcano, and 1 more day to do Ike and Kerbin return. Plus another day to put all the screenshots in order. This was my third launch that involved landing kerbals. These are my "Giant Hop" missions. On this mission I obtained over 8000 science points, plus another 3035 points for the following 3 missions: Are There Fuel Stations In Space (35): Orbit Kerbin with a X200-64 methalox fuel tank and a docking port Duna Monument (2000): Visit the Duna monument Three Is Company (1000): Land 3 kerbals on Ike Here's the mission report. Enjoy! A full set of screenshots here: https://imgur.com/a/Wn2FzAj A subset of those screenshots are used in the highlights below. Launch, Transit to Duna, and Duna Landing More: Duna Elcano Circumnavigation Some of my favorite screenshots along the way: Documentation of the Elcano: I couldn't figure out a method to mark the Map View to show where I've been. Flags do not show up on Map View. So what I have for documentation is a set of 37 screenshots, 1 taken every 10 degrees of Latitude (with the landing location represented twice): https://imgur.com/a/PTpaWhz I noticed that items dropped from my lander, such as parachutes, did show up on the Map View. They also provide a waypoint marker in flight view when they are 50km away or less. I used my dropped parachutes to show my landing location every time I went to Map View, and to guide me home as I finished up the Elcano. Anyone have any ideas on how to bring 18 to 36 items to drop during the course of an Elcano? Let's just have flags show up, please. Overall, the scenery was great, but the Elcano just took too long and required too much personal attention while running it. If I start to talk about another Elcano any time soon, talk me out of it. And, yes, I experienced what I call the "finger flick" bug consistently and repeatedly throughout the whole journey. This is the bug where, with no input on my part, the kraken flicks a giant tentacle and knocks my rover to the right or left, sometimes spinning it out of control, sometimes messing up a tricky ascent or descent. This bug has already been reported by others through the bug reporting process. What a pain! Duna to Ike, and back to Duna More: Return to Kerbin More: Mission Complete!

Launch them attached to a manned vessel. Release the first one above KSC so it has connection. The rest can talk through it.

just a small thing dakota has done this week alone, communication requires more people a decent talk today with them on discord (dakota and darrin) they wish to have more CM's to help workload but he would rather have the resources spent elsewhere. and finally, dakota somewhat ratio of workload he has to do until April 1st (then it MIGHT change) hopefully there will be less stuff on dakotas plate when mike is back.. also Just because dakota said he is working on it doesn't mean its coming soon just shows what is needed for a single person in a week, and there is more that is missing from that list. why none of this was in dev tracker... and finally dakota said he will do this once in a while telling what he did that week increased communication

Talk like Up-Goer Five: Express complex ideas using only very simple, common words. For anyone who has somehow managed to miss it, a while back xkcd had an absolutely brilliant strip: a schematic of the Saturn V, carefully labeled.... but with all terms restricted to only the thousand most common English words. This is where the KSP community gets the term "you will not go to space today." https://xkcd.com/1133/ This game is to talk like Up-Goer Five. That is, you have to express complex ideas using only the most common English words. Here are the rules: The person before you ends their post with a brief paragraph of something reasonably complex to explain. You need to take their post and re-word it using this tool (it lets you type what you want, and draws a red line under any "forbidden" words): http://splasho.com/upgoer5/ You can paraphrase if need be (you'll probably need to). The one really hard rule is, your "translation" has to fit in that tool's edit box with no red "forbidden words" underlines at all. Post your translation inside a spoiler box, so that people reading your post have a chance to guess an answer first, if they want to. Then provide a technical paragraph of your own for the next person to take a shot at. You're not allowed to answer your own post; someone else has to. But you're welcome to come back again after some other folks have had their turns. Guidelines for the "technical paragraph": Don't make it too long, please. Just a sentence or two is plenty. (Otherwise nobody will want to take the burden of "translating" it.) Don't make it so hard that nobody understands it. It should be something that a typical KSP forum user can understand without having to go look stuff up. Ideally the post should be about KSP-relevant topics, e.g. spaceflight, astronomy, engineering, KSP game advice, etc., but that's not a strict requirement, just a suggested guideline. (Props to @Deddly for pointing out the upgoer5 tool to me, which is what gave me the idea for this game.) Just as an example, here's a sample technical paragraph: SRBs are useful as boosters on the launchpad, because they're inexpensive and provide a lot of thrust. However, they're less efficient as upper stages, due to having a low Isp. Here's my stab at translation, using the above-linked tool to validate it: Fair 'nuff? Okay, to get the ball rolling, here's a technical paragraph for someone to start with: Building a SSTO spaceplane is challenging, because not only do you need to balance air-breathing engines with those that work in a vacuum, but also the ship needs to be aerodynamically stable at high velocity.

Expansions add to what is already there. Without being argumentative, please reconsider your choice of vocabulary. There is no complete gameplay loop to KSP2, not for those of use that play career mode. I feel when it is done, it still will not be an expansion.. but something else entirely. As far as the simplifications: They have said that omitting occlusion from the game was a choice. They may revisit that at a later time, but [it was not implemented from the very beginning because they wanted it to be easier to have communication with far out craft]. One per system is all you should really need to talk to all the cosmos, right? The entire idea of Commnet was abandoned as an unnecessary complication. Perhaps exitc alloys will be relegated to nice shiny scatters [nodes] with collision mechanics. Im sure the pretty visuals will go over well with the kids. You can mine it like all the other survival crafters. Not being able to create maneuver nodes in another SOI is definitely a simplification over a feature already implemented and well established in KSP1 (Whether the wish to change that later due to feedback remains to be seen) The maneuver node itself used to split the burn time in a manner that felt more intuitive. I do not know advance math related to this, but all the math i do daily with circles involves ratios related to the arc. It feels simpler. There is no longer fuel priority assignment No longer mission specialists No longer experiments that require physical interaction during EVA The proposed colony design will be like craftin in Planet Crafter or Subnautica instead of the way people have spent up to 15 years building colonies? [Instead of having to Scan for ores with polar arrays, build complex SSRUs, develop solid engineering designs to connect orbital structures]... Granted some of this was mod function. But it was built around the core mechanics of the base game in such away to enhance. I really want to say something to all the people that keep saying .. "KSP1 didn't have that, that was a mod" The developers may not consider mods when evaluating what they want to replicate from the first. Considering Adderly's history that is asanine. Perhaps he only considers the mods he wrote to have enough significant meritory value to include into KSP2 From a community stance. The mods HAVE to be considered by the developement team... They have kept this game alive long after release. I want to figure out a series of polls to determine the length of time people have played the game, and if they use mods. The question becomes which mod features from KSP1 should be included in the BASE game. This is before the massive roadmap that included features we could only dream of without modded support. [My own deductions lens through perspective]

But Starship isn’t exactly reliable. It fails almost every flight, and frankly I don’t even know why they’re shooting for orbit, considering it could barely go to sub orbit. And Starship is taking so long to fix, yet it’s advertised as the future of space travel. Also, let’s talk about Elon himself. You really want our future to belong to a Reddit bro? He’s openly anti-Semitic, has 10 children among three women, half of whom won’t speak to him. But no, he can run a colony. He can’t even keep his own family together, and somehow you expect to run a city on another planet. People just listen to anyone with money.

This is the only project I've heard of that people feel needs more CMs. They don't even engage in moderation duty nor are they too public other than random tidbits on the Discord. This is just work not being done, not short-handedness. Sadly it seems to be the case for the game too: Bi-weekly KERB failed multiple times. They stopped giving certain dates because they failed multiple times. They stopped upnates because they failed to understand basic interaction rules and what the community wants to hear from them. They announced their new devblog system with videos and what not and we got... 1 deep dive, 2 interviews... and that was it, months ago. We as a community wanting to engage with an EA need to see plans, specs, designs, ideas, a smidge of compromise (as in being invested in the realization of your promises, not as in tradeoff) both with a vision and the steps required for its execution. Instead what we get is the inability to even make a list of 20 bugs every 2 weeks, let alone knowing anything else about the plans for the game. That's not even going, as other users have, into how feedback that's not bugs just goes into a dark hole, if it goes anywhere. Aaaaaand that's not even going into actual stuff relating to the development of the game. It's incredible to me people are still here. Remember when they laid off the whole community team after the paul furio fiasco? oh wait, the community team wasn't affected at all. Plus, it's not really the place to talk about the huge work of the community team when they're just announcing they can't do a single post every two weeks.

To help us understand better. Simply due to the shift heavily going to colonies work instead of smaller bugs (cause large bugs take forever) with NDA's, and just information you cannot talk to the public, it will be shifted to monthly due to "there ain't nothing new in this front" due to the priority shift to colonies. for a TLDR?

Including Iridium Next, New Horizons, Haven-1 and soon many more! (Check roadmap for what is coming) Join me on Discord! (DEV talk only) Tundra Exploration pics: Tundra Technologies pics: Planned features Roadmap Known issues "No tank type named 'RR_CryoMLOX' exists" means you have RR but not CRP, or you have RR, CRP, and WBI classic stock, and the WBI feature isn't working right. Make sure you have RR 1.16! Required Mods Kerbal Reusability Expansion (For the F9 legs and grid fins) B9 Part Switch (For part switching) Module manager (For all your module manager needs) Recommended Mods FreeIVA (So you can fly around inside Rodan and Gaira-1 parts! Modular Launch Pads (For those awesome towers) Waterfall (For those amazing plumes) Smokescreen (Realplume NOT required!) Flight Manager for Reusable Stages (For landing your F9 first stage) Omega482's Stockalike Structures NTR (For your Ghidorah landing needs) Basic DeltaV - Basic Orbit by DMagic (For better understanding of how much fuel you have to land all your crafts safely back) Tundra's Space Center (To launch from LC-40!) Near Future Solar (For the Solar Panel plugin if you want full 180 degree tracking) Not supported Mods Atmospheric autopilot FAR (Version 7.0 looks to perform a lot better) Beta versions on GitHub A very special thanks to @Beale, @CobaltWolf and @Nertea for the help and advise they gave me to make something awesome. And @DiscoSlelge for creating those awesome patches! And a massive thanks to @ValiZockt, @Rock3tman_, @Nessus_, @JadeOfMaar, @Starwaster, @neistridlar, @SofieBrink and @Infinite Monkeys for the help they gave me making this mod perfect! Changelog: Any of the configs are distributed under CC-NC-SA-4.0 License. All Textures/models/plugins are distributed under All Right Reserved License. SootyShaderLoader is based on the custom shader importer by shadowmage and modyfied by DMagic with custom modules and settings.

This challenge was continued with permission from the previous thread manager @sdj64 LINK to the old Jool-5 thread There are over forty-five pages of entries and discussion, so look and see what made it and what didn't LINK to the older Jool-5 thread. There are hundreds of pages of entries and discussion, so look at it to see what worked and what didn't! CHALLENGE RULES Given the scale of this challenge, everyone who completes the mission successfully gets a spot in the hall of fame. 1. No cheating, including the stock debug menu cheats, HyperEdit, kraken drives, or file editing. HyperEdit is allowed for testing but get rid of that H when you fly the real mission! 2. No part-clipping of functional parts (fuel tanks, batteries, crew pods, engines, science parts, SAS) into each other. It is okay to clip structural and non-functional parts, wings, and heat shields. 3. Any number of launches are allowed to assemble the ship in low Kerbin orbit (preferably below 100km, not a hard ceiling though, but do try to stay around or below 100km at most). All launches must be flown! 4. There's funding for one main ship only so all the crew, lander(s) and other stuff has to go to Jool as one big ship. Once the ship leaves LKO, it cannot obtain more parts or fuel unless it mines and refines the fuel itself. The ship can separate once in Jool's SOI. 5. Kerbals must be in a pod or cabin (no seats) for the interplanetary journey. Seats are okay for landing and flying within the Jool system. 6. One refueling mission is allowed in the Jool system if you run out of fuel, unless your ship uses ISRU. The refueling mission can only transfer resources, not parts, to your Jool 5 craft. This mission must actually be flown! 7. On all of the landings, the Kerbal must be able to get out and walk (or swim!) around on the surface. Make sure your ladders work! 8. Use Normal difficulty or harder, except, any ComNet settings are allowed including turning it off completely. 9. All the Kerbals have to arrive back to Kerbin surface at the end of the mission, happy and alive. You are allowed to optionally send up a craft to return them from LKO. 10. Mods / DLC: STOCK: only mods which do not add parts and do not change physics are allowed. This includes any informational, planning, visual, autopilot, or automatic functions. DLC: Any and all DLC made for Kerbal Space Program are allowed. MODDED: Use of most parts mods and certain game mechanics mods are allowed. You NO LONGER HAVE TO ASK if your favorite part pack is allowed! Some parts mods are prohibited. Please see below. Specific Mods: ENTRY SUBMISSION RULES 11. Submit your challenge as an imgur album, with good captions and descriptions, as a video or series of videos, or as a thread in Mission Reports. 12. Pictures or it didn't happen! Please keep the resources tab open, as well as show the informative windows from Mechjeb or KER if you use them. Take a picture of every important moment, including transfers, dockings, landings, stagings, and refuelings. For Jeb's Level, also take pictures of the science screen when you recover your craft. Alternatively, video submissions are a great way to show everyone your mission as well. These will help future participants to see exactly how you accomplished each part! CHALLENGE LEVELS 1ST LEVEL: one Kerbonaut lands on all the moons and come back safely. Low mass and low cost and low parts sub-challenges: with stock parts and physics, how low can you go and still accomplish the mission? NOTE: Low cost submissions may not utilize ISRU, or a negative cost would be possible. (Thanks @jinnantonix!) 2ND LEVEL: two or more Kerbonauts land together on all the moons together and come back safely. 3RD LEVEL: There's not enough time left for training one crew member to be an expert on all of the moons, so five Kerbonauts must go to the mission, with at least one unique Kerbonaut landing on each moon. JEBEDIAH'S LEVEL: collect as much Science as possible! Your score is the number of science points from the Jool system only, returned to Kerbin (not transmitted). Only stock experiments count for this! To score, take pictures of the science screen(s) when you recover the data. Otherwise, the rules are the same as 3rd Level. GATECRASHER / HONORARY MENTIONS: Missions completed the mission in spirit but didn't meet every requirement. ISRU: Use of ISRU will get a note ISRU on the entry description in the hall of fame. This includes stock ore harvesting and converting as well as mods such as Kethane and Karbonite. ISRU is allowed for any level of completion. GRAND TOUR: Not officially part of the challenge, but landing on all planets and moons in the Kerbol system in one mission will earn a GRAND TOUR note and the everlasting praise of all of Kerbal kind. Rule 4 is waived, but any Kerbals on the mission cannot return to Kerbin in between any landings and you still must follow the other rules. Additional optional information to help others see how the mission was accomplished: - Which game versions did you use? - What mods did you use, if any? - How many Kerbals are on the mission? - How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? - How much did your mission cost? - Did you needed a refueling mission? - Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? - Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, now this big announcement is in the Kerbal News, all the public is excited about this mission and even the Government is watching! Now it's up to you, to the engineers and to the bravest and craziest Kerbonauts of all time! Completion Badge: Anyone who has finished the challenge can add this badge to their signature. The Low Mass Feather badge is available for entries in the low mass sub challenge. Hall of Fame 1st Level- - @Laie Video here. Used a smaller-than-you'd-expect rocket with a dedicated Tylo lander and a spaceplane shell that encloses the Vall-Bop-Pol lander to make the Laythe lander. A very well done mission with a great video. - @Stratzenblitz75 Video here. Used a completely reusable mission involving a tiny mothership which orbited Tylo and tiny landers that explored the system. I should also point out that no nuclear engines or ions were used in the mission. Truly impressive. - @Ultimate Steve Videos here and here. Used a single launch in career mode sending Val to many places in the system including Vall. Very impressive how quickly the mission was thrown together and carried out. - @IncongruousGoat Album here. A simple, single launch Jool 5 mission that only uses 42 parts! Very well optimized and well done. Good job! - @chargan ISRU Gif here. Used an ISRU shuttle and hopped from Kerbin, to the Mün, to the Joolian moons, to Duna, and finished it off with a glorious vertical landing at the KSC. Excellent job! - @GRS Album here. Used a massive, creatively named mothersheep that carried landers for Laythe and Tylo, landing on Vall and Bop (AND DRES!) by itself. As an added bonus, the lonely Dres was even visited, that doesn't happen very often. Amazing job! - @Challyss Album here. Used a brute force 5 meter launch booster with two 5 meter side boosters. Once in LKO used a vector-power stage to boost to an elliptical orbit, then used a rhino powered mothership to go to Jool, where it completed the mission. - @5thHorseman Videos here. Used a single launch to send three Kerbals to the Jool system, where the ship parked in an elliptical Tylo orbit. From there a tug took the landers to their respective moons where they *wait for it* landed. The ship then fired all three Kerbals home safely. An amazing mission and equally amazing videos. - @Xurkitree Grand Tour Thread here. A surprisingly small mission that not only landed on all the Jool moons, but also every other planet and moon in the system. The mission sent a craft out to Eeloo, which landed and returned to Jool before heading home. Once in orbit Derton was picked up by a recovery rocket and landed safely back on Kerbin. Outstanding. ISRU Video here. I don't even know where to start, Xurkitree didn't just do a Jool 5 in this mission, they did it twice. A large SSTO ISRU craft launched and refueled on Minmus before gravity assisting its way to Jool where it completed the landings and then returned to Kerbin, WHERE IT RELAUNCHED and then detached a small non-ISRU craft which carried out the landings again. A fun note was when the Laythe lander landed by computer control while the Kerbal parachuted down. Great job on your fourth Jool 5 submission! - @dvader Album here. A single launch using only chemical engines. Used several gravity assists to make the trip to Jool cheaper in terms of delta-v. Used a small but capable plane for Laythe, and a donut lander for the other moons (with extra fuel for Tylo and Vall.) Overall a very optimized mission, complete with a near KSC landing. - @fulgur Album here. A very small and well optimized mission with a smaller-than-you'd-expect mothership. Ions were used to scoot Jeb and Vall about the system to the various moons, and then left as the small mothership made its way home, getting into Kerbin orbit with only forty m/s of delta-v remaining. (Talk about close margins!) The crew were returned safely by an Aether SSTO. - @Pro100kerbonaut ISRU Mission report here. Used an SSTO spaceplane to go to Minmus to refuel, then flew off to Jool. This mission is the most impressive in how it handled the Tylo landing. Not only was the landing done using the SSTO, but it came directly from Vall without refueling at Bop or Pol. The landings were all completed flawlessly, but was destroyed in a crash landing back on Kerbin. The pilot survived though, and any landing you can walk away from... - @dnbattley Album here. A direct ascent mission to all five moons, starting with Pol and Bop, then Vall, Tylo, and finally Laythe. The tensions on this mission were very high, as Jeb began his Tylo descent on a NERVA powered craft with a TWR of .9, managing to get it above 1 just in time to pull off the landing. From there Jeb flew to Laythe where he somehow missed the ocean (this might be a KSP first) and used the craft's jets to push it into the water for an ocean launch. After struggling back into orbit, Jeb flew by Tylo back to Kerbin, using a Duna aerogravity assist to get the right trajectory (ARE YOU SERIOUS?) Upon returning to Kerbin he was able to sneak in a Minmus landing. This mission is without a doubt one of the more Kerbal ones submitted, complete with Jeb gliding the final stage down to Kerbin with his EVA chute. - @EveMaster Grand Tour, ISRU Thread here. Additional album here. EveMaster managed to complete the Jool 5 challenge with an ISRU craft, utilizing the power of two mammoth engines and a detachable spaceplane. Also went the extra few million miles and completed a grand tour! Both Bob and Jeb were on this mission, however Bill stayed behind on Eve, so only Jeb is being considered for this entry. Regardless, an excellently executed mission. - @ManEatingApe, @Jacke, @dvader, @Muetdhiver, @Rakaydos, and @Pds314 Mission thread here. What these users have completed is the first community Jool 5 mission for this specific thread, possibly the first ever. Furthermore, this mission was done in a 'caveman' style approach, meaning no maneuver nodes, tier one buildings, and launch mass restrictions. These restraints meant the main ship was built over multiple launches. The landings were carried out by a plane and three identical landers, which carried Jeb to, around, and back to Kerbin from the Jool system with excruciating precision. I highly suggest checking out this mission's thread, it's one of a kind! - @Space Nerd Album here. Using a long nuclear mothership, Jeb and Malvis conquered the Jool system in a surprisingly easy manner. An off-center Bop/Pol lander was docked onto the side of the mothership, leading to one of the more interesting mothership designs. Jeb took Laythe, Tylo, and Vall, and Malvis handled Bop and Pol. Once all the landings were done, they flew back to Kerbin and used a 10 meter heat shield to slow down and splashed into the ocean. - @ralanboyle Video here. Using a single brute force launch, a main station of sorts was put into Jool orbit,. From there a Laythe-plane was released, and upon returning from Laythe, a lander/fuel tank combo (and an extra part for Tylo) took on Tylo, then Vall, then Bop, then Pol. They forgot to put a flag on Pol, but who cares. Also, the lander was able to return to Kerbin all by itself. Quite the capable craft I'd say. The mission is edited into a very nice video, and I suggest giving it a watch if you've got the time. - @Carbonjvd Album here. Using the incredibly stylish IPV Excelsior spacecraft, Tridous Kerman flew to Minmus to refuel, where she picked up two more crew members in Minmus orbit. From there they flew to Jool, where they refueled at Bop. After the tanks were full, they hopped to Pol, then Tylo, then Bop again, then Vall. From Vall the crew hopped back to Bop for more refueling, then flew to Laythe. After converting stored ore into liquid fuel, the crew touched down on an island, then (you guessed it) flew back to Bop! (for more fuel) From this final Bop landing, the Excelsior returned to Minmus where it all began, then safely touched down on Kerbin. A stylish landing for a stylish craft. - @camacju Grand Tour. Album here. This mission is impressive as it not only visited the five moons of Jool, but also every other landable surface in the Kerbol System. The Jool portion of this mission was completed after the mothership completed the Eve portion, then used gravity assists to get to Jool. A Tylo assist put the ship on course to aerobrake at Laythe, and after landing on Laythe the lander was then reused for Tylo. The other moons were completed using a smaller lander, and the brave Kerbonaut landed back at Kerbin after quite an exciting trip. Video here. A very well edited video of a Jool 5 mission which used only liquid fuel! Launching from the runway as a spaceplane, the craft flew up before staging its rapier engines and continuing to orbit on nerva-power. The Laythe landing was done using a smaller spaceplane, and the rest of the landings were done using a very impressive lander which used only 1 nerv engine to land on all the other moons, including Tylo! The lander also served as a trip home and as a heat shield so that the brave kerbonaut could parachute to safety. This mission is beautifully summed up in the video link, and I highly suggest checking it out. A truly unique mission! Video here. Another liquid fuel only mission! This one utilized multiple relaunches of the same spaceplane to put multiple fuel tankers in orbit. From there, the craft departed for Jool after some gravity assists and once again demonstrated the unusual, difficult, and impressive use of a nerv-powered Tylo lander. The video this mission was edited into is nice and tidy as well, and I suggest watching so you can see all the work that went into it. Video here. And yet another Jool 5 mission, but this time with only one engine! A cargo spaceplane with a single rapier made multiple launches to place several fuel tankers into orbit before flying a gravity-assist-utilizing course to Jool. Once in Jool space, the Laythe landing was conducted first, and then the plane ditched its outer shell so that just the rapier engine and a few fuel tanks remained. The craft then docked to a fuel module in orbit and flew to Vall, landed, then went to Tylo where a dedicated fuel drop-tank was used with what I'll dub "backflip staging". From there the Pol and Bop landings were done, with fuel to spare. After a fiery return to Kerbin, the brave Kerbonaut, Wildard, paraglided safely into the ocean. I recommend giving this video a watch, because it's short, to the point, and an amazing display of Kerbal engineering. Grand Tour. Video here. This mission is truly a record breaker, as not only was it a Jool 5, but it is the lowest mass Grand Tour without ISRU record holder, with a take off mass of 14.447 tons, less than a Mammoth engine! To focus on the Jool 5 portion of the mission, a spaceplane made a bouncy, thrash-flippy landing, then a tiny tiny lander was used to tackle Tylo. Pol and Bop were handled by a small ion lander, and Vall was handled by a lander so small it looks like a pancake. You should definitely give this mission's video a watch, as words cannot truly describe just how insanely optimized this mission was. - @Goufalite Video here. This mission began with the assembly of a main mothership in LKO. Once complete, the ship cruised to Jool where it used gravity assists to achieve orbit. From there, the spaceplane was deployed to Laythe, but missed its target island. Never fear! The spaceplane had such high performance it was able to fly to a nearby island. Once back with the mothership, the SSTO was drained and detatched, and a capsule on its nose was undocked and docked to the Tylo lander. The Tylo lander used 2 aerospike engines to blow its way to the surface, and the final stage of the lander redocked to the mothership to be reused as the lander for Vall, Bop, and Pol. After visiting Vall and Pol, the lander flew by itself (and out of connectivity range) to Bop, where it landed and returned to Pol all on its own (Goufalite found this method was more fuel efficient). After returning to the mothership at Pol, a Tylo gravity assist sent the crew home, and both safely landed only 50 kilometers from the KSC. This mission made me nostalgic for my first Jool 5 mission, which in turn makes this mission special to me. Nice job, @Goufalite. - @king of nowhere Grand Tour. Mission thread here. This mission was done using Kerbalism, and an absolute UNIT of a mothership. Appropriately named the DREAM BIG, this ship conducted the Jool 5 challenge with dozens of farms, radiation shields, and drop ships to keep itself self-sufficient. Fighting food limitations, mod issues, solar storms, insanity and radiation damage, the crew of DREAM BIG flew throughout the entire Kerbol system planting flags on every world. The mission thread is an entertaining read, and has a video tour of the DREAM BIG spacecraft, which I highly recommend you check it out. I congratulate @king of nowhere on completing the mission, and for not losing their sanity in the process! Mission thread here. This mission was done with tremendous build constraints, and done entirely in a no-contract career mode save. Each launch was limited to 20-25 tons, meaning it took dozens of flights to finish the main ship, the Marco Polonium. The ship used many cost and weigh saving methods, including using the Laythe lander as a stage on Tylo, and by using claws instead of docking ports in some cases. The mission also visited Duna, Ike, Eeloo, Dres, and Eve (orbit) as well. This mission is one of the most entertaining ones I've reviewed (along with one of the most optimized) and I highly recommend giving it a read. Mission thread here. This mission was much like @king of nowhere's previous two in the sense that it involved Kerbalism and self-imposed building constraints. The result was a Jool 5 mission designed and flown to be as realistic as possible, and done with a maximum LKO mass of 140 tons. Bill and Bob took the Economic Downturn and its support craft to Jool and visited Tylo first, using the Seated Man lander, then made way for Laythe to deploy the Sole spaceplane, each accompanied by the space tug Right Answer. Sole's upper stage was reused as a Vall lander, while Seated Man's upper stage was used to land on Bop and Pol. For the inner three moons, great care was taken to limit the radiation damage incurred on the crew, with Bill being irradiated all the way to 95% upon his return to Economic Downturn. The return trajectory had to be tweaked a few times to prevent the capsule overheating, but Bill and Bob ultimately prevailed, and returned to Kerbin with nearly 500kg of samples. This mission is one of the few anxiety inducing submissions due to the challenges imposed by Jool's radiation belt. If you are a fan of gripping mission threads, I suggest giving this one a read. - @Lt_Duckweed Video here. This Jool 5 mission is notable for three reasons. Firstly, it is fully recoverable. Secondly, it only uses two engines, being the nerva and rapier. And thirdly, it was edited into a masterpiece of a video. This mission began with a launch just west of the KSC, and made a direct transfer to Jool. Upon Jool arrival, the elegently designed craft deployed a nerva-propelled lander, which performed the Tylo landing. After refueling at the main ship, the lander then visited Vall, Bop, and Pol with refueling trips to the main ship in between. The lander then returned to the main craft, which transfered to Laythe, completing the final landing. The craft then returned to Kerbin and came to a stop on the KSC runway, returning with it every part it launched with. I must repeat the high quality video the mission is edited into, and strongly suggest giving it a watch. - @bwest31415 Album here. This mission began with the launch of a long thin rocket which was followed by a normal transfer to Jool. Upon arrival to Jool however, inflatable heat shields were used to induce a Joolian aerobrake, a maneuver I've scarcely seen used since the addition of reentry heating to the game. The first landing to be done was Laythe, and the final stage of the lander was used to land on Vall and Tylo. The lander then left the main ship behind and traveled to Pol, then Bop, then back to Kerbin all without refueling. Jeb landed safely back on Kerbin after a toasty aerocapture, and exited the pod to take in a nice mountain view. - @18Watt ISRU, Thread here. This mission was done as both a Jool 5 and a Kerpollo submission. The mission began with a brute force launch and direct transfer to Jool. The mothership used wolfhound engines, which was good for TWR but slow when the ship was fully fueled. The ship flew first to Tylo, and after landing, the Tylo ascent stage would be reused for later landings. Next, the ship went to Bop to refuel, then to Laythe, where a staged spaceplane returned the brave Kerbonaut to the mothership. Next Val went to Vall, then the ship went to Pol and landed, before returning the crew to Kebrin, who parachuted to the surface of one of Kerbin's icecaps. - @OJT ISRU, Thread here. This mission was fully reusable* (apart from deployed fairings but we couldn't decide if that counted or not) and landed every component of the main ship back on Kerbin upon finishing the Jool system's exploration. The mission began with three launches, one for the mothership, one for the lander, and one for the SSTO spaceplane. Due to unfortunate moon placements, no gravity-assisted captures were possible and a retroburn was conducted. From there, a surprise Laythe aerocapture was conducted, saving much needed fuel. After the Laythe landing, the main ship flew to Vall, left the plane in orbit, and then landed with the lander beneath it and refueled on the surface. Next up was a Tylo landing with razor thin fuel margins, followed by Pol and Bop. It is worth noting that this mission did not repeat OJT's previous Jool 5 mission's Pol refueling process, in which the lander did numerous trips to the surface to bring tiny bits of fuel up to the main ship. With the landings complete and plenty of fuel to spare, the ship flew back to Kerbin where it landed piece by piece, with the lander being launched an SSTO parachute module. An excellent mission, and no doubt a fine achievement. - @kspfreak Video here. This mission not only visited the moons of Jool, Bop's Kraken, and in a rather small vehicle, but also visited every other moon in the entire Kerbol System! This mission's video is a fun watch, and ends with a fun paraglide back to the KSC. A mini grand tour of sorts, and very well done. Low Mass - @EvermoreAlpaca Video here. Mass of 6.2 tons. Spaceplane launch, gravity assists off Kerbin and Eve to reach Jool. Landed on Laythe with the same rapier used in the launch stage, returned to orbit with an incredible TWR, scooted over to Tylo where the most bare-bones Tylo lander I've ever seen was used to land on and take off from Tylo (saved fuel by having Bill push it to the top of the mountain), flew over to Vall where the landing was done using staged batteries and a single ion engine. The Vall lander (which was also part of the Laythe lander) completed the last two landings on Bop and Pol and returned to Kerbin using many more gravity assists before preforming an aerobraking, with Bill parachuting to the space center and landing atop the RnD. - @Alpaca Z Video here. Mass of 5.8 tons (Current Record!). Vertical launch using a whiplash ramjet engine, which was staged prior to orbital insertion. Resonant orbits with Kerbin and Mun assists were used to set up a KEKKJ gravity assiste route to save fuel. Spider engines were used in a two-stage Laythe lander design to save weight, and EVA construction was used to rebuild craft to negate the need for decouplers or rebuild the craft (or get away with only bringing one chair). Landings were otherwise routine apart from an incident on Tylo where the lander fell on its side, requiring an intuitive solution to rebuild the craft in such a way it could use redundant engines as support pillars. The video is very well narrated and goes into much more detail regarding the craft's design and flight plan, I highly recommend watching it to get the full picture of this mission. - @camacju Video here. Mass of 5.2 tons (Current Record!). This mission not only shatters the previous record, but does so with an impeccably made video. Launch mass was saved in numerous ways, one of which involved using tiny flags in place of landing gear for the horizontal KSC Runway takeoff. EVA construction was used to reassemble the craft(s) into what was needed at any given point during the mission. The vessels flown and techniques used are difficult to describe, so I highly encourage a watch of this mission to see some of the best of Kerbal engineering. - @camacju and @Ultimate Steve Grand Tour, Video here. Mass of 7.6 tons. This is a meticulously crafted and borderline perfectly executed low mass mission. This was not only a Jool 5, but also an entire grand tour weighing not even 8 tons! The video's excellent editing allows it to speak for itself, and I highly recommend you watch this mission to see perhaps the greatest low mass mission in the history of KSP. Low Cost - @jinnantonix Video here. 34,663 funds. The thread's first low cost submission! Using a low cost launch vehicle and a K-E-K-K-J flyby route, the mission put Val and a fuel-tanker station in elliptical Laythe orbit. From there one lander tackled Laythe, and another tackled the other four moons, with an extra few stages for Tylo. It is worth mentioning that this mission used no electrical charge and relied entirely on engine gimbal and some RCS to steer. On the way back, a double Eve flyby helped slow down, so an aerocapture could be done at Kerbin, where Vall proceeded to parachute onto the VAB. - @camacju Mission here. 24,070 funds. This mission used a SRB powered launch stage and a terrier powered transfer vehicle to get the landers to Jool (after numerous gravity assists). A dedicated Laythe lander tackled the ocean-world, while a multi-stage Tylo lander tackled the rest of the moons, and returned the brave Kerbonaut Wildard Kerman to Kerbin. Before heading back however, the new space-construction method was utilized to steal a solar panel from the transfer stage, marking the first time this creative form of staging has been used. Mission here. 17,635 funds (Current Record!). This mission is a more stripped down version of @camacju's previous low cost mission. This mission featured a visit to Laythe's ocean floor, and utilized eva construction to manually remove empty fuel tanks from the mission. Additionally, eva fuel tanks were used to refill the brave kerbonaught's jetpack to enable fuel savings by extended jetpack use. Low Parts - @bayesian_acolyte ISRU, Album here. A small, single stage craft comprising of 31 parts. Bayesian_acolyte said there could have been some part count improvements, but even without it the mission still did so much with so little. This mission shows just how far ISRU can be stretched, especially with that Tylo landing. - @Majk Thread here. A simplistic Jool 5 mission consisting of only 30 parts . The mission began using a very basic launch stage, and flew to Jool using a long nuclear ship. Lander reuse enabled part count savings, and usage of the nuclear ship as an ablative heat-shield helped return Val to Kerbin's surface in one piece. - @Majk Video here. Easily the most simple Jool 5 mission completed to date, accomplished using only 9 parts (Current Record!). This mission started with the 9th part, an RTG, stowed inside the command pod before installing it in orbit. It is also worth recognizing that a clever method of timewarping in the tracking station enabled refueling to take place while utilizing only a single RTG. The submission takes the form of a short, concise, and wel narrated video, and I highly encourage giving it a watch. 2nd Level - @jinnantonix ISRU, Album here. Used a big launch with a self-refueling vector-powered lander that made multiple Laythe landings and mined ore from every moon. Two kerbals were landed on each moon and the lander was recovered at KSC. - @Kerbolitto ISRU, Album here. Excellent mission done using two space shuttles capable of refueling on moons. Absolutely amazing job. In all things I ever thought I would see happen in KSP, a space shuttle landing on Tylo was not one of them. - @Marschig ISRU, Videos here. Not one, not two, but three ISRU planes flew to Jool and to all five moons on both the 3rd and 2nd levels. The SSTOs also visited Duna and Minmus in their missions before landing back at the KSC. Truly exceptional. This is the first time I've seen three Jool 5s all submitted at one time! - @PhoenixRise86 Album here. Used a mothership for the first part of the mission, then resorted to ions to get to Ike and Minmus, then safely back home. Also, this is the first 2nd level mission to not use ISRU. - @GRS: Album here. The highly anticipated Sheep v2 did not disappoint, and went above and beyond by visiting not just Jool's moons but also Kerbin's and Dres. Used massive nuclear boosters to get around the Jool system and the Tythe lander to get two Kerbals on every moon and Dres, before using the Sheep v2 to land the entire crew on Minmus and Mun. Spectacular! - @Xurkitree ISRU Video here. This modded mission utilized ISRU, a nuclear mothership, and eight aerospikes to land on all five of Jool's moons with Cerdrin and Lodous Kerman. Returned the lander and mothership to LKO where a separate rocket retrieved the crew. I highly encourage watching the video submitted, it is excellently edited and the music supports the awe of the mission. - @QF9E Thread here. This mission used a blunt-force approach by lifting off on a powerful launch stage, and made quick work of Jool's moons. The moons were all visited by one lander, which dropped various attachments that helped it land on some of the bigger moons. At the end of the mission, the three brave kerbonauts safely touched down in the ocean, and a BFR style spacecraft recovered the remains of the lander in Kerbin orbit for historical preservation. Truly an impressive mission indeed! - @Mars-Bound Hokie ISRU Mission here. Using the Anubis II SSTO, Tancan, Fernal, and Kenby Kerman flew to Minmus to refuel, then blasted off for Jool. After touching down on Laythe to refuel, the crew went for Bop, then to Tylo. After landing with no liquid fuel to spare, the Anubis II was refueled, then launched for Pol. After a risky auto-piloted landing, the ship refuel before bounding to Vall, where the crew had a group picture. Heading back to Kerbin, a mix of brute force and aero-braking was used to get the trajectory needed to get back to the KSC, and then the crew refused to ditch the plane and pulled off the legendary runway landing. - @king of nowhere Mission here. "And so I completed the Jool 5 in day 383, 1 hour and 9 minutes of a new career" are the words typed by @king of nowhere at the end of the mission thread, and fundamentally capture the astronomical accomplishment documented within it. In a career save speedrun, it was decided to focus on a Jool 5, and the mission was optimized for time rather than mass or cost. The amounts of delta-v put into each maneuver to achieve bullet-like trajectories around the Kerbolar and Jool systems is simply jaw dropping. Over the course of the flight, the La coscienza di xenon and its landers managed to plant flags on all 5 moons within a 12 day window, which I don't believe has ever been done before. If you wish to see the chronicles of a one-of-a-kind, record setting Jool 5 mission, the flight of the La coscienza di xenon is the mission thread for you. Grand Tour Mission here. @king of nowhere's second Kerbalism Grand Tour, but with radiation shielding 3 times less effective, bugs, life support issues, frantic crew members smashing fuel cells and dumping food overboard, and so much more! This mission chronicles the Nail Bolt on its tour around the solar system, finding monoliths on every world and making it back in roughly two decades. This mission thread covers the begins, rebeginnings, redesigns, quick fixes, and compromises that took place during the Bolt's journey not just to Jool's 5 moons, but to every other surface as well. This is one of the most thorough submissions the challenge has seen, and is a great resource for those considering Kerbalism entries of their own. - @Lyra Mission here. A single launch mission! Using a spaceplane for Laythe, a notably slim Tylo lander (with a reusable upper stage for Vall), and an ion lander for Bop and Pol, this mission was a pleasant, self contained romp around the Jool System. One unique aspect of this mission I've seldom seen elsewhere was the use of claws on the nuclear mothership's outer hull. This allowed the landers to not need docking ports and attach to the hull like barnacles. A very clever, mass saving decision for the landers for sure! 3rd Level - @iAMtheWALRUS Grand Tour, ISRU, Album here. Used SSTOs to launch the mission and used moon hopping to get around the Kerbol system. Very nicely done. Also, first 1.4 submission - @sturmhauke Album here. To put it in the words of the pilot them self; "A mostly reusable mission to all 5 of Jool's moons. Single launch SSTO carrier drone, with a separable mothership and 5 landers." Very well done and efficient mission. Used fuel cells to power ion crafts for Bop and Pol, sent a plane to Laythe, and conquered Tylo with a rocket lander. - @mystifeid Album here, ISRU. Used two launches to put a mothership and a universal lander into orbit. Then used left over launch stage to boost to Jool and then around the system until it ran out and was staged at Tylo. Bob landed on every moon, accompanied with a different Kerbal for every moon. Very nice mission, and even had the added bonus of a near KSC landing. - @PhoenixRise86 Album here. Used a single launch of pure rocketry, no jets, ions, or nukes used in the entire mission. This mission did the Jool 5 mission in style, with some of the most interesting landers I've ever seen, including an aerospike Laythe plane. - @Marschig ISRU, Videos here. Not one, not two, but three ISRU planes flew to Jool and to all five moons on both the 3rd and 2nd levels. The SSTOs also visited Duna and Minmus in their missions before landing back at the KSC. Truly exceptional. This is the first time I've seen three Jool 5s all submitted at one time! - @jinnantonix ISRU, Video here. Of all the Jool 5 missions I have seen in this thread so far, none treat their Kerbals better than Jinnantonix has. The craft was modular in design and split into several different arrangements for various landings, and came with a gravity spin for deep space transit. Very considerate, and very awesome. - @Grogs Album here. Two launches to build the main ship in orbit, one crew launch for realism. Used a giant transfer stage to get the landers to Jool. Chemical engines pushed the landers about the Jool system, with nine Kerbals in total being involved in the mission. Once the landings were completed the mothership returned to Kerbin where a fourth launch collected the Kerbals and returned them safely to Kerbin. - @Pipcard ISRU Thread here. A well executed, eight Kerbal mission with one of the longest ships I've ever seen in this game. Excellent mission that toured the Jool System in an engaging thread. Mission was assembled in multiple parts, flew to Jool, landed on the moons (being sure to refuel on Bop and Pol when needed), EVA jetpacked off Tylo, and the crew was returned to Kerbin by a separately flown space plane. - @Kerbolitto ISRU Mission here, here, and here. Kerbolitto's second submission! Using a space shuttle with several surface experiments, a crew of eight explored the system. The Tylo landing was done with perfect margins, landing with no fuel left! This craft may also hold the record for lowest TWR launch of Bop in history, and an outpost on Laythe with a mini-plane was even constructed. Bob chose to stay behind and man the base while the crew returned home. Excellent end to an excellent mission! - @Ksp Slingshooter Album here. Assembled the main ship using multiple launches, then flew to Jool, settling in an elliptical Jool orbit with some help from a few gravity assists. From there the landers detached and flew to their moons, one by one and completed their landings. Due to some unexpected occurrences at Laythe, the Vall lander swooped in and rescued the Kerbal, taking both back to the mothership. Without enough room in the command pods for everyone, two brave Kerbals rode back to Kerbin on ladders, detaching and re-rendezvousing during timewarp. A rescue craft was launched, and met the mothership just in time, with only three minutes to transfer the Kerbals before a fiery re-entry. Truly a Kerbal mission! - @RoninFrog ISRU Thread here. Using the gloriously huge HMS Sauron, Jeb and 16 friends took to Jool in this massive SSTA. First they stopped at the Mun, then flew to Pol, then Tylo, then Vall, Laythe, and finally Bop. On the way back to Kerbin, time and fuel and the positions of the planets made a Duna landing prove itself most useful, before heading back to the Mun, and finally, back to Kerbin. This 1 stage mission has some amazing screenshots in its thread, as well as most amusing comments for each picture. If you're wanting to learn more about an ISRU approach, I suggest giving this mission a peak. - @OutInSpace Video here. Using a total of eight launches, this mission's mothership was constructed methodically, complete with an enormous pair of transfer boosters. After heading to Jool directly, the mothership flew to Tylo, Vall, and Laythe by itself, and sent an ion craft to Bop and Pol instead. After numerous attempts, the Laythe plane was finally able to show what it could do, and the 5 crew returned to Kerbin orbit, where they were picked up by a landing craft. If you want to see the nitty-gritty maneuvers used during a Jool 5 mission, I suggest you check out this mission's video. Its editing and methodicalness make it an unintentional flight-tutorial for getting to Jool. - @Entropian ISRU Mission here. Using a 5 meter tank with 5 meter tanks strapped on the side and a large cluster of mastodon engines, the craft rocketed off the pad to Minmus, where it refueled and went off to Jool. Landing on Laythe proved to a close call, with ZERO delta-v remaining upon touchdown. From there the ship bounced to Vall, Tylo, Pol, and Bop, before making a rough splashdown on Kerbin. It is worth noting that the crew did forget to put a flag on Bop. However since every other mission criteria was met and the craft was landed on Bop it is still being counted. - @GRS Grand Tour. Mission here. This time with the Sheep v4 the Jool moons were visited again, along with 60 other destinations! Relying heavily on ion power, landing after landing was accomplished visiting worlds close to the sun, around Jool, and even outer dwarf planets. So many worlds were mentioned that the Jool 5 portion is only a tiny fragment of the overall mission. There is genuinely too much in that mission to describe here, so I highly suggest you check out the most expansive sheep yet's thread! - @s_gamer101. Mission here. This mission began with the launch of an enormous reusable launch system that placed the main ship in orbit. A trip to Jool ended with a fiery aerocapture above Laythe, where two of the crew members took a small spaceplane to the surface. After a tricky fuel situation in which drop tanks were accidentally kept as huge pieces of ballasts, the Tylo tug was used as an extra stage to boost the main ship. This proved to be enough delta-v, as once the landings were completed the ship cruised back to Kerbin, where they parachuted safely to complete the mission. - @AlpacaMall Mission here. This mission began with the launch and orbital construction of the KSS-J "Orca". Engineer construction added fuel lines and removed unneeded RCS thrusters, and the craft departed for Jool with a reusable lander upper stage, with lander stages for Laythe and Tylo. The landings were completed in the following order: Laythe, Tylo, Vall, Pol, Bop. From Bop, the Orca was left to serve as a relay station while the crew module left for Kerbin. The vessel landed with all the crew and 23458 science. - @BeanThruster Album here. This mission began with the launch of Vapidity, the mothership used during the mission. Instead of going to Jool, Vapidity made its first flight to an E-class asteroid so it could refill all of its fuel tanks (it launched almost empty to save weight). After flying to Jool, the first landing took place on Tylo, before leaving the engine nacelles in case later refueling was needed. Next, the last stage of the Tylo lander was used to land on Vall, then the lander flew solo to Bop where it awaited the rest of the ship. Vapidity took the time to take a spaceplane to Laythe, then went back to low Tylo orbit to refuel. Vapidity met the Vapidlander at Bop, conducted the landing, then went to Pol to do the same. Vapidity returned to Kerbin before the crew landed using the Laythe spaceplane. In total, the crew collected 20113.6 science. - @RuBisCO ISRU Album here. This mission began with a lot of mainsail engines to push the main craft into orbit, and delivered not one, but seven Kerbals to the surface of each moon. The first visit was Pol, where cleverly built piston legs kept the refueling craft perfectly level. Next was Bop, then Vall, then Tylo, where a rover and lab were brought to the surface and returned to orbit (except Tylo where it got left behind). For the Laythe landing, the crew took down a spaceplane, as well as a helicopter and a floating lab with plane-refueling capabilities. The helicopter was used to collect science from the local area, and after being refueled, the plane returned to orbit. After the main ship was refueled on Pol, the crew returned home. - @18Watt ISRU , Mission here. This mission is nearly identical to 18Watt's previous submission, but now has accommodated a unique Kerbal for each moon, bumping it from a 1st to a 3rd level submission. Main ship refueled on Minmus before heading to Jool, refueled on small moons, and pilots Val and Billy Bobfurt flew each unique specialist to their respective moons. - @Krazy1 ISRU, Album here. This mission was done with the Principia mod, which makes gravity and orbits behave more realistically. The spacecraft used was the "2 by 4", named after its two mammoth engines and four nervs. First the craft launched to Minmus, then visited a passing asteroid, then went back to Minmus to refuel, then shot off to Jool. After the Laythe landing, there was some trouble getting to Vall due to orbital issues. After Vall came a very bouncy Tylo landing, which was followed by a Pol landing, and then a Bop landing. It is worth noting that Bop is orbiting retrograde in this mod for orbital stability. After completing the landings and experimenting with weird orbits, the 2 by 4 traveled home, refueled on Minmus to prep for landing, and then touched down safely on Kerbin with its crew of 5. ISRU, Album here. This mission utilized an orange and gray aesthetically pleasing spacecraft. Once launched into orbit, the craft refueled on Minmus, then shot off to Jool where it landed on Vall, then flew to Tylo where it performed this landing, before nearly burning on Laythe, then finished up with Bop and Pol. Upon returning to Kerbin, some excess ore was turned to fuel to save weight, and the crew splashed down 10km from the KSC. - @Kimera Industries. Mission here. This mission's mission thread chronicles the Avocado on its journey to Jool's moons and back, using appropriately named components and landers. Due to its nuclear propulsion, the escape burn was split in two, though did not go gently into that good night, and upon arriving to Jool, took use of a convenient Tylo assist to go almost directly to Laythe. From Laythe, a lander was dispatched to Vall and Pol, then the entire ship reunited and migrated to Tylo where the landing was achieved on the fifth try. Next came Gilly 2.0 Bop, where an interesting SPOILER was discovered. Upon returning to Kerbin with little to no time for caution, the cargo container and its draggy friends kept the craft from overheating during airbraking, and the crew landed to live another day. Jeb's Level - @Xurkitree Grand Tour, ISRU Album Here. Collected 19,711.3 science from Jool on a girl's night out mission with no lack of gravity assists. A note from the author said that the mission greatly improved their skills in KSP and proved that fact well with the insane gravity assists they pulled off. Also first Jeb's Level on the new thread yay! - @ManEatingApe Video here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. Collected 16,532.0 science from Jool. There isn't anything I can say about this mission except you need to see it for yourself. Exclusively low tech was used, and collected in space science from all biomes. This mission did the near-impossible, with primitive parts, and landed all Kerbals safely back on Kerbin. - @SolarAdmiral Video here. Collected 42,296 science from the Jool System. Single launch on a cluster of three meter parts, before heading off to Jool. Started with Laythe first, landing using a floating platform. Science was collected with a small jet-powered boat. Next stop was Tylo, where a rover was used to collect science from many biomes. On Vall one landing was done, and a hop added to it before heading to orbit again. Numerous biomes collected from Bop and Pol by hopping around in their low gravities. Direct shot home and landed all seven Kerbals to tell the tale. Absolutely astounding mission! - @jinnantonix ISRU Video here. Collected 82,510 science from the Jool System. Single launch, one much smaller than you might expect. Used a plane to gather large amounts of science from Laythe, dove into Jool's atmosphere, grabbed science from almost if not everywhere, and even managed to use the Laythe plane as the final stage on the Tylo landing. Had an artificial gravity system to facilitate the kerbals, and landed back at the KSC. Honestly jinnatonix managed to do so much in this video I can't describe it all here so I suggest you just watch the video. Amazing job. - @GRS Album here. Collected 28,643 science from the Jool System. The long awaited Sheep mission that satisfied both the Kerpollo and Jool 5 requirements led by Simone Kerman that explored the Jool system and returned home Apollo style. The mission had a heavy launch and went to, around, and from Jool using a massive nuclear stage. The usage of the Scifi visual pack gave the mission a unique look as it took science from every moon (including Jool's upper atmosphere!) in style. Incredible. - @Jim123 Video here. Collected 8780.9 science from the Jool System. Single giant launch put a large nuclear mothership in orbit. Flew straight to Laythe where the landing was completed with a dual stage to orbit (and Jeb's jetpack). From there the crew went to Vall and landed, before heading to Tylo and dropping one of the most Kerbal looking Tylo landers I've ever seen to the surface. After Tylo biome hopping was used on Bop and Tylo, before a pair of service modules detached and went back to Kerbin, boosting each other home where the crew landed. Nice video. - @jost ISRU Album here. Collected 16940.2 science from the Jool system. Flew to Jool using a long nuclear mothership. From there an ion ore probe helped find ore on every moon but Laythe for the rocket lander. Laythe used a three seat plane for the landing, and even found a geyser while on the surface. Landed on Tylo with 1m/s to spare before refueling, and landed everyone safely back on Kerbin after leaving the nukes in a graveyard orbit around Kerbin. Excellent! - @Beriev Album here. Collected 49430.1 science from the Jool system. This entire mission was done in a 6.4x solar system. Launched off the pad with an absolutely enourmous rocket, fittingly dubbed the 'Absolute Unit'. Used many kicks to get out to Jool, where the ship split up to tackle the moons. For Laythe and Tylo, ascent vehicles were landed separately, before the crew arrived on-surface. Later, both sets met up at Vall, then flew to Pol, then Bop, and then to Dres. After a fun journey, the Absolute Unit returned to Kerbin, and the crew landed safely. This mission has an incredible execution and design, as well as a well-captioned Imgur album. I highly suggest giving it a look. - @Pro100kerbonaut Video here. Collected 10238 science from the Jool system. This mission was done with a rather interesting, asymmetrically balanced ship, and had quite the bouncy ride. On Tylo parkour was done, on Laythe swimming. On Vall two landings were done, and on Pol and Bop the lander bounced around. This mission used a combination of a gravity assist off Tylo and a retro-burn to capture at Jool, and upon return to Kerbin parachutes were attached to the crew section using a klaw. A fun mission with great editing. - @king of nowhere ISRU Mission thread here. Collected 105136 science (Current Record!) from the Jool system. This mission was insane from its conception, with the goal to collect every single bit of science from the Jool system as possible. While this goal was not ultimately accomplished, the mission is still one of (if not) the greatest Jool 5 submissions I have ever seen. To collect science on each world, a durable lander known as the Dancing Porcupine was deployed and driven on all moons but Laythe. For Laythe, a spaceplane called Absolutely NOT Albatross was used to collect science from each biome. In fact, Absolutely NOT Albatross did even more than just Laythe. Using a multi-stage attachment, Absolutely NOT Albatross visited the lower atmosphere of Jool and returned to tell the tale. The craft's brave pilot even took an EVA report while in flight before ascending. The main ship dubbed the Flying Christmas Tree, and was capable of refueling on low gravity worlds. Upon returning to Kerbin, a craft launched to return the brave Kerbonauts to their home-world. Having visited every biome on every moon, it is no surprise that this mission amassed more science than any other Jool 5 mission before it. I highly recommend viewing this mission's main thread. Amazing job king of nowhere! Mission thread here. Collected 11395 science from the Jool System. This is my favorite submission to the Jool 5 Challenge I have ever reviewed. The sheer amount of effort put into this mission cannot be overstated. King of Nowhere started this mission as a nanocristalline diamond caveman mission, which in short meant no contracts, no facility upgrades, no quicksaving, on career mode, while starting the save with severe limitations. While the mission ended up needing quick-loading, it still is eye popping to see just how much work went into it. Each launch (in the VAB) was limited to 18 tons maximum, so a work around was used by having docking ports around the base of the rocket, to which separate boosters would be docked using a runway-launched rover. This meant that many launches required multiple launches of booster attachment vessels before the rocket itself could attempt to leave the pad. After over 100 launches, the Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis and all its cargo were ready, and the ship departed for Jool, leaving a most amusing pattern of drop tanks in its wake. Upon reaching Jool, disaster struck when the Tylo lander suffered an anomoly, and quicksaves were needed to complete the Jool 5. While at Jool, science modules were discarded after use because a lack of KSC upgrades prevented their resetting, and every aspect of the mission, from flying between moons to the landings themselves, were executed with meticulous testing and prior calculation. I cannot possibly explain everything this mission did in this little blurb, so I highly encourage anyone who wants to see some of the best Kerbal engineering I've ever seen to check out the linked mission thread above. - @OJT ISRU Mission thread here. Collected 26871.3 science from the Jool System. This mission thread contains some of the most eye-catching, visually stunning KSP screenshots I have ever seen in a Jool 5 submission. The mission itself was tested and proofed in sandbox, and consisted of a long, skinny mothership, a spaceplane, and an ISRU lander for Tylo. With the lander and plane hanging from docking points on the main ship, the craft boosted to Jool and used a Tylo flyby to capture. Visiting Vall first, the lander took around 100 days to refuel. The ship then flew to Pol where the relatively tiny lander (in relation to the mothership) flew to Pol's surface and back numerous times to refuel the main ship before it could head to Bop. At Bop a kraken was discovered, and on Tylo the crew found it refreshingly eventless. The last destination was Laythe, where the plane and lander were left in orbit so the main ship could return to Kerbin. A return craft returned the crew and science, and crew XP was had by all. - @Robin Patenall Mission thread here. Collected 61174.6 science from the Jool System. This mission began with the construction of the Emerald Star, a large and reconfigurable interplanetary vessel that required 17 launches to complete. Once built, the Emerald Star used Eve and Kerbin gravity assists to efficiently sling itself to Jool and started with Tylo. Using one of the Emerald Star's 3 drive cores to send itself down to a lower Tylo orbit, the lander successfully brought the crew to and from the Tylic surface. When the mission reached Vall, a magical anomaly was discovered, one which would prove to be only one of many odd discoveries made on Jool's moons. An SSTO found one on Laythe as well, during one of its three total landings. A monolith was found on Pol, and a deceased kraken on Bop, one which caused a crew member to lament their inability to bury it. Once the landings had been complete, the remains of the Emerald Star returned home, where it was parked in Kerbin orbit awaiting future assignment. - @problemecium Mission thread here. Collected 8755.7 science from the Jool System. This mission thread covers the finally completed tale of the Aletheia, a massive, nearly 1.3 kiloton mothership. With numerous cargo bays, it brought landers, an SSTO, a deployable space station, numerous pieces of scientific equipment, and two ARKS to return the crew to Kerbin if needed. Upon construction, Aletheia and its seven crew members proceeded to Jool, using 46% of its total fuel. The transfer section was left behind in Laythe orbit while the rest of Aletheia continued on. After Laythe came Vall, where one of the ARKS was used to refuel the Tylo lander to enable it to tackle Vall (the ARK was then joined to the deployable station and left behind). The lander then tackled Tylo, and was left behind for future use. Bop saw the discovery of a hopefully deceased Kraken, and Pol marked landing number 5. This romp unfortunately depleted Aletheia of the fuel sufficient to return to Kerbin, so the second ARK spacecraft brought the crew home safely, using a Mun assist to tweak its final trajectory. This is one of the more aesthetically pleasing Jool 5 missions, and done in career mode in a very well typed out and necromanced thread, so if you are a fan of large stylish motherships, I would recommend giving this thread a view. Gatecrashers / Honorary Mentions - @JacobJHC Grand Tour, video here. Giant single launch craft, also visited every planet and moon from the OPM planet pack. Very big. Gatecrasher because crew hasn't landed yet. - @Fraus Mission here. There's nothing that can be said about this, other than that this mission definitely had more thought put into it than any other Jool 5 I've seen. - @cqIpb Mission here. This mission was flown on an Xbox, and pushed the console to its framerate limits! cqIpl was inspired to do a Jool 5 mission after finding this thread, and despite not being able to land on Laythe due to lander instability, still had a lot of fun finishing the rest of the mission, and took a few great screenshots along the way! As of writing this, cqIpb is still new to the KSP Forums. Welcome, we're glad you're here! - @Alpaca Z, using a craft built by @Lt_Duckweed (with permission) Grand Tour, ISRU . Video here. Using a rather simply built SSTA, this mission was a simple case of flying around the entire solar system and refueling everywhere. This craft utilized air-fans, ions, vectors, and nerv engines, allowing it to be not only capable of high efficiency maneuvers, but also those requiring high TWRs. A highlight of this mission was the strategy to use EVA construction to rebuild the back of the plane to enable it to land vertically on Tylo's surface. Why bring landing legs when you have wings that could do the job just as well? This mission's video submission is also of a high quality, so I recommend giving it a view. In all, the crew of three finished their grand tour in only 15 years and 117 days! Efficient and speedy Moved to Honorary Mentions due to the fact that the crew could not exit onto Tylo's surface.

I definitely know that feeling Is there anyone that you can talk to about this? Maybe a parent, friend, cousin, therapist, etc.? Oh hey, I know a neat trick. If you've been asked to do something, set a ten minute timer and (more or less) force yourself to do it for just that 10 minutes. See how you feel after that. If you're feeling good, then keep going. If not and you're not done, take a 5 min break and do another 10 mins!

Calling 911 because you want to learn how to hustle at cards. (Operator: "Please hang up and talk to your state or local gambling authority for further advice.")

Is there an echo in here? J/k Looks like an interesting approach and perhaps explains DARPA's recent talk of lunar He3 mining

I guess the list of all mods is the point where anyone working on Kerbalism will bonk my head and say they're not even touching it, but welp, 'ere we go: https://imgur.com/a/MJ5Khqb The exact name of the engine I'm using is CANDLE Travelling Wave Reactor Engine from Interstellar Extended. I completely forgot IE comes with its own set of stand-along nuclear engines, not just nozzles you need to attach to a Thermal Generator... I apologize for confusion here. Since I'm also running KTC, launchpad tests would be a hassle, with all the rollout/editing times... I fully admit I might've borked myself with my modding, but after all those years (and KSP2 being the thing I don't wanna talk about) I really wanted a KSP run that'd give a big system for exploration, realistic mechanics and interstellar lategame... So JNSQ, Kerbalism and KSP Interstellar sounded like a way to go. I do realize the devs explicitly said IS might not be fully compatible with Kerbalism, but I'm not sure if there's another mod that adds such nice beam power system and complex ISRU.

1st rule of ban club is you dont talk about ban club. 2nd rule of ban club is you dont talk about ban club. banned. 230703012024 new page!

My apologies if I came across that way. I understand my first impression is not always correct. I have a question for you, though. How am I derailing a thread titled: "Is KSP2 going to offer any challenge to experienced KSP1 players?" by offering the opinion of an experienced KSP1 player on the state of KSP2? Also, I'm not accusing you of not dealing with me square. I am saying in general, if someone comes up to me and is open and honest with me, I will listen to whatever they have to say. If I feel they are hiding something, I will tend to not trust them so much. I was not talking about you specifically. Having said that, you came into this thread, presumably read all that I said, did not address any of my points, did not even reply to me until I asked you to specifically, and told me that I am reading too far into something and jumping to conclusions. Ok, tell me how. I will not believe something without proof just because you said it. Give me something to work with here. How am I jumping to conclusions? Maybe if you talk to me you could straighten me out rather than have me derailing threads with misinformation.

also this is extremely flat understanding of what there work flow is like, this is ofc different in some fashion or way Just hope for mike to be back on board soon i know his situation, it should hopefully cause fewer headaches with the community communication, there is to much work for 1 person, and a little to much for 2 people, you need 3 or 4... i have something of an understanding of what's needed for this community: Mike and Dakota is two, which is the bare minimum from what it seems. 3rd should be for more communication to users and platforms that are harder to reach or not as active as discord, doesn't mean this person cannot use discord, just more active, like on the forums for example. 4th should be for more creation of leaks, photos, videos, mini-part/action posts to give perhaps the name, and the flavor text and its size, location leaks, and proper far away to JUST somewhat see what the leak is showing.. The fourth person should be in a lot of contact of the early access parts/features/ giving this user/person the time needed to make the leaks proper such as i stated before. Photo of part/craft/location of the building, either doing a "slow" build adding more and more parts, or start off with a chunk of new parts, and do for parts: Photo of parts or craft/building(s), or adding new part as if you are build a craft (be in space looking cool and fancy) or if a building just add it to the colony (spruce it up once in a while building a new colony to change location). Video of it in motion (if possible to see if its on, spinning, engine plumes, or even just lights turning on). Kerbal for scale (if wanted). If not in a build, see it near other craft/parts as if it was a functional part Mini post of the part, engine, and building, telling us its function, giving us the name, size and flavor text of it (can be kept secret some parts to create hype). Repeat process adding a new part to the craft/location if this way was used.. Even if we got 20 new parts and we got ALL this done besides step 6 (due to it being a repeat statement) each week, we would have 20 weeks of leaks.. 5 months or so of consistent once-a-day leaks of the game... either showing, a video, photo, kerbal for scale (if wanted), the function of the part, building, giving us a random leak of the name, function, size, or flavor text, it wouldn't be bad due to once a week a new part is shown, or added to a larger build. The issue is that the fourth person got a lot of work to be done and is pretty much needs to be consistently working on leaks and wouldn't really have time to be a real CM, just doing the leaks. Hence, its not on the other real CM's plate, even though they are a real CM's just they have a large focus of creating leaks for the community, This person still can talk to the community just like any other CM but his job isn't juggling everything , having a solid one person doing leaks that has a good decent mental plan makes it go along way. @Dakota This is my brain storming idea, the issue is the amount of CM's overall, there isn't a real solid answer to fix everything, but the amount people isn't enough just simply due to amount of users across all platforms. and the last one doesn't need alot of large requirements to create the job, only real passion of the game, a clear mental focus of what and how the leaks need to be created/published, an understanding of communication to users.. etc and not like a full on real CM example:

Well, there seems to be a lot of dev info on Discord that did not make it onto the forums. Not that I've been asking about CommNet for months without getting any answers. Such is life for second hand forum citizens.. you're either on Discord all day or you don't get to talk to the devs. I can only thank providence that Dakota is still engaging with us here. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:17 AM i hear there are some questions about commnet and im here to answer them if they're here Spork Witch — Yesterday at 2:18 AM yeah! I was asking about whether occlusion and vehicle links were implemented at this time. I was told occlusion / LoS is not, but that if there's a commsat in range, you'll bounce off that back to kerbin. Further, is there a distinction between transmit-only and relays? I notice we have all the old commsats, wasn't sure if they ALL function as relays now, or if there's still the same split of RA=relay, others are Tx only. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:23 AM Generally All antennas are relays by default, they can bounce signal back (we didn't like this distinction) Line of sight is not a thing, there is only distance as a concern Connectivity between vessels is a simple matter of ensuring that they both have antennas that have ranges that qre equal or greater to the distance between them. So if 2 satellites are 100 km apart, they both most have antennas of rating 100 km or higher to connect Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:26 AM Commnet and occlusion was extremely forgiving by default settings in KSP1 and we didnt feel there was a significant difference between soft occlusion and no occlusion for EA launch. Lots of the depth people would want requires a set of supporting visual and planning tools that are a fair bit of work to design and build Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:32 AM I think there's a thing I wrote in a devblog of everyone playing KSP with different goals in mind - everyone has a thing they prefer, whether it is building vessels, making comm networks, etc. We can always take player feedback into account in driving plans and make changes at that point. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:33 AM dev hat off, I hate commnet and always turned it off in KSP1 Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:34 AM I mean that goes back to need - a question we always need to answer is that, given all the ways people play the game, should you 'need' to do any particular thing? That could significantly impact what someone else wants to do. It's a fine line Spork Witch — Yesterday at 2:37 AM which is why it was always a toggle, but KSP is also about education. Learning about line of sight communications, and the need to set up satellites in particular orbits is a REAL WORLD learning thing, and also an orbital mechanics one, a core focus of KSP. The easiest way to properly position satellites is to launch them all at once, using resonant orbits. Without this constraint, from occlusion, you remove the one thing in the game that would actually direct someone to learn about these things. Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:39 AM Yep, understood Nertea, Destroyer of Fun — Yesterday at 2:35 AM I think I could say with some confidence that increasing commnet complexity has to come with more viz and planning tools Nate Simpson — Yesterday at 2:39 AM A lot of us like all the detailed line of sight/relay features in Commnet and it's definitely a thing we want to revisit, but as always we're having to balance multiple priorities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That being said, here are all the current antennas in the game, for comparison purposes: