Drescapade Resurrection.

[Jakalth]

After the loss of most of the work, and craft, from the Drescapade Kraken Incident, I didn't think I was going to do anything else with this mission.  But after having some time to think about it, and cool down a little, I have decided to resurrect the Drescapades.  This run isn't going to be completely clean, there may be a few things I use the F12 "cheats" to help set in motion.  But most of it will be a completely clean stock mission.  Only mod I have installed is Kerbal Engineer Redux, in part-less mode.  All the parts used are completely stock with no modifications to the persistence files.

 

After having some time to think over this, I've decided to start again.  Loading up the save I went through and looked at what craft I could salvage...  Drescapade station was in pieces.  But since the debarkel with the save files, the pieces were still in orbit, but not assembled yet.  So all the parts were there, I just had to put it together again, for the first time.

Spoiler

 

In front of the parts for the station was the trusty old Lamp Post 1 and its spare fuel tank.  So after I undocked the parts from the Lamp post, and placed the space tank in a parking orbit, I sent the defunked satellite module(which had no SAS for the satellites) out into space and sent the Lamp Post 1 down to the surface to refuel.  The Lamp Post 1 descended into a crater, in complete darkness, and was able to find the sweet goodness of a 6% Ore vein.  Yummy!  It wasn't until daylight that I actually saw where I had landed.

Spoiler

 

Now for the Octopus 1...  I did use infinite fuel to land it on Dres, but this was just to save me the time of waiting for something I can safely use to link it with the Lamp Post for refueling.  Otherwise it would be a long wait before I can use it.  I know...  I know... Infinite fuel is cheating...  But after the last time of linking with the Lamp Post 1, I wanted to play it safer.  So down the Octopus went, trying to land near the Lamp Post 1 and the sweet, sweet ore vein.  Down into the darkness.  Only to find out I'm landing on the wall of the crater and don't have the maneuverability to shift my landing site over far enough to not land there.  So, landing on a nearly 10% grade, with a slightly tipsy Octopus...  What could go wrong?  Nothing apparently.  It did nearly tip over, but being basically out of fuel meant the craft was extremely light.  So the RCS was more then enough to right it before it toppled over completely.

Spoiler

 

Now that I know that the Train Breaker, which survived the Kraken unscathed, the Lamp Post 1, the Octopus 1 and most importantly, the Drescapade Station was intact and ready for use, I can prepare the rest of the mission.  I actually have all the parts of the mission already built, save for the refueling vehicle, who's design I'm not that happy with...  But first of all, I need to send over the satellites, once again.  This time I'll be sending them with a new friend of mine.  Meet the Evolution!

Spoiler

 

The Evolution is a large, multi part, mothership made up of 6 different segments.  The core of which is the Evolution Core.  This section of the craft is a large fuel reserves with housing for 32 Kerbals.  It has a few solar arrays to collect power and some SAS to help it align its self, but no RCS.  This section of the mothership is going to act as a new space station once it reaches Dres.  The cargo bays are currently loaded with the 8 satellites that will be distributed around Dres.

Spoiler

 

The next section is the central command and control section, the Evolution Gig.  This section is like the Lamp Post and Octopus in many ways, but is designed to sit in the center of the Evolution and provide about 32% of the thrust the mothership needs to fly.  Once at Dres, this section will be able to refuel its self and fly missions around dres in place of the second Octopus.

Spoiler

 

And the last segment, which will actually be 4 segments in total, is the Evolution Shuttle.  This segment(s) will be able to land on Dres and act as parts of the surface base.  Once the mission is over, the shuttles will be able to lift off from Dres, and be able to fly back to Kerbin, hopefully without a refueling trip between.  But otherwise a trip to Minmus might be in order.  Landing and lifting off with the shuttles is not going to be easy though.  They do not have vertically aligned engines so will have to nearly land on their tail before rotating to land horizontally.  Taking off will have to be done using a combo of thrust and RCS authority to pivot them into liftoff angle.  I was planning on making these craft atmospheric as well, but due to bad aerodynamic issues, I threw that idea out the window.  No worries though, I can send up a crew transfer vehicle when needed, and/or a set of parachute packs.

Spoiler

 

So yeah, this should still be interesting.  I can say right now, that I do have an asteroid tug designed that will be able to shift class C asteroids into Dres orbit.  And as long as they are not on the heavy side of Class C, I should even be able to land one on the planet.  But doing this will mostly likely take the life of the tug in the process.  So, unmanned is it.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Jakalth

[Mister Dilsby]

Well done! In situations like this sometimes you need to work with persistence.sfs, and sometimes you just need to work with persistence.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Godspeed, Dresian Soldier!

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Well done! In situations like this sometimes you need to work with persistence.sfs, and sometimes you just need to work with persistence.

What is this persistence you speak of?  You're becoming too much like Bill.  How can existence be on a file?

*KERBFLEET REFRENCE*

[Jakalth]

And sometimes you just need to step back, take a look at what others have done, take a deep breath, then build something crazy.

[Jakalth]

Well I've been busy for the last few days, working on other issues besides KSP.  But I do have some status to post finally.  Octopus 1 and Lamp Post 1 are both down on Dres refueling.  Lamp Post 1 is nearly refueled thanks to the rich ore vein it landed on.  Octopus 1 is taking longer to refuel, a lot longer...  Going with the smaller refinery seems to have been a bad idea.  Or the craft is just barely missing the rich vein the Lamp Post is on.  I even tried moving it a bit closer to no luck.  Also, unlike Lamp Post 1, Octopus 1 is having a hard time staying cool.  The radiators are running red hot, yellow under thermal view, and the drills and refinery also keep over heating.  Possibly a heat generation bug or the craft is simply not viable.  Ah well, Lamp Post 1 is at least working well.

 

To restart the whole of the Drescapade Resurrection, I will start by getting the Evolution Mothership into orbit of Kerbin and assembled.  To start this off, I will be launching the center section of the Evolution.  The launch vehicle for this craft looked interesting, but once I dropped the first stage, the whole thing turned into a wet noodle.  It was only moments before the craft spontaneously disassembled do to my bad design for a launch vehicle.  I got the center section into orbit, but not in the way I would of liked.  The center section is going to need a whole new launch vehicle before I even think of making it available.

Spoiler

 

With the center section in orbit, I next sent up the Evolution Gig.  This section, with it's launcher, flew quite well, and made a lot of noise doing so.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

The launch vehicle got a bit of altitude off the SRB's, but not a lot considering the TWR was so low.  But, they are a cheap boost and looked good in flight.  Once they ran out, I staged them off and ignited the main liquid fuel engines.

Spoiler

 

At around 12Km I began angling the ship to perform a gravity turn.  This went better then most so I probably could of started the turn earlier.  But with the 4 side liquid boosters burning along with the main, I soon made it to space and was burning to circularize.  A little ways through the circularize burn, I had to stage out the side boosters and rely entirely on the center engine.

Spoiler

 

With the orbit cleaned up, and the central fuel tanks of the launch vehicle nearly spent, I jettisoned them and continued to orbit, slowly catching up with the Evolution center section.

Spoiler

 

Using just the fuel in the small orbital booster section to assist the maneuvers, I soon found myself close to the Evolution center section.  It only took a few short burns from the booster section to close the range to where the slightly limited RCS on the Gig could do the rest. (fyi: I like this picture for some reason.)

Spoiler

 

Letting the Gig drift in a bit close, I wait for the right time to dump the booster pack.  No point letting the fuel in it go to waste if I need a bit more then just a nudge.  But once I got close enough to nearly touch the nose of the center section, it was time to dump the booster and start lining up the gig for docking.

Spoiler

 

Docking this craft is not the easiest thing in the world.  There isn't a lot of room between the two booms of the center section.  It took a lot of little thrusts and even more time to slowly move the Gig into place.  I burned nearly 200 units of monopropellant just lining up and sliding the craft into place.  But for once, this was a nice challenge.  It felt good and the Gig maneuvered nicely, all be it slowly.  The real trick was getting the craft lined up so that the engines would burn between the support struts and not through them, as well as allowing the radiators to point out the sides of the craft without hitting anything.

Spoiler

 

It all went smoothly since I was taking my time doing this.  Once the Gig was docked, the Evolution Mothership now had it's command section.  And a little over 7300 delta-V.  I could fly the whole thing to Dres as is if I wanted to, but I really want to get the 4 shuttles loaded up and truckin'... I mean docked and ready to provide Moar Boost(ers).  It was at this point that I noticed something odd...  It seems the Kerbals had been busy on their own.  Somehow they were able to make a clone of me?  Or are they up to something else here?  Odd...  I better keep an eye on this crew...

Spoiler

 

 

Next job, design a launch vehicle to get the shuttles into orbit and docked.  This might be an interesting proposition to try and pull off...

[Jakalth]

With the launch vehicle designed and ready, it is time to launch the first of 4 shuttles to dock with the Evolution center section in orbit.  The first shuttle I will be documenting, but the other three will simply be launched and flown up to the evolution, between posts.  Here we can see the evolution shuttle, with its launcher, waiting on the launch pad for the rest of the Evolution to be overhead.

Spoiler

 

This craft has 3 stages with asparagus staging to improve efficiency.  Launch is performed normally with all the engines in the launcher firing at once.  It's got a pretty high twr meaning I need to throttle down the engines most of the way up to control fuel burn and reduce drag from over speeding in the low atmosphere.  I am able to start a shallow gravity turn at around 10Km up and slowly increase this as I go.  But the flight profile of this launcher is not pretty, she likes to twist and tilt at odd angles when trying to setup the gravity turn.  Up at around 18km, the first stage burns out so I jettison it.

Spoiler

 

After dropping the first stage, you would think the odd twist and tilt would be solved somewhat since it is now more of a flat object.  But no, it still wants to go off course so I have to keep fighting it to maintain flight attitude.  The second stage has enough juice to get the craft into space and start circularizing before I need to jettison this stage as well.

Spoiler

 

The final stage, after finishing the circularization burn, has only around 380m/s delta-V left, but that is plenty to perform course corrections as I catch up with the rest of the Evolution.

Spoiler

 

With the station in sight, I can drop the final stage and bring the shuttle in to dock using RCs alone.

Spoiler

 

The shuttle comes in at a bit of an angle, but I try to use this to help align the three docking ports on the bottom of it with the 3 receiving ports on the Evolution central section.  This seemed to be going well as I was controling from the back port, that is still furthest from its receiving port, while guiding the front port into alignment.  Once the front port was touching, and the magnetics were trying to pull it together, I switched view to the rear port and brought it into alignment as well.

Spoiler

 

The first try wasn't so lucky.  Only the front and middle ports actually docked leaving the rear port hanging there loosely.  This would not do at all, far too much wobble in the craft without all three ports locked.  So I undocked the two ports, and the third port when it docked its self out of spite and moved the shuttle away by a few meters.  From here I adjusted the alignment again and brought it back in to dock.  This time all three ports clicked in, but not after quite a few minutes of fiddling and argueing with the shuttle as it kept drifting to far one way or another.  But now the first of 4 shuttles is docked and ready.  3 more to send up, and do the same thing all over again with each one.

Spoiler

 

On a side note: Lamp Post 1 is fully refueled on Dres, but it seems Octopus 1 is pretty much a total write off.  Even after moving it again to within 30 meters of the lamp post, I still can't get the small drills to find the high concentrations of ore the Lamp Post was feasting on.  It is running so slow, even with both drills going, that it has only filled about 16% of its tanks with fuel.  The Lamp Post 1, only using 1 large drill, was bale to fully fill its tanks in the same time, and it has 8 times the fuel capacity.  There seems to be a bug with the small drills on the Octopus.  They no longer reach the ground when deployed and only mine at a rate of 0.022 ore/sec so matter where the craft is.  The small IRSU also is bugged with its thermals.  It says it requires 100kw of cooling, but it's max is for some reason set to only 50kw.  Because of this, or possibly not, I can not control the heating of the small IRSU, even with 2 small radiator arrays(100kw core cooling combined).  In testing, I was still unable to do a thing to control cooling on it even going overkill with 4 large radiators.  At least the large IRSU works just fine.  Dumping extra cooling through it prevents it from ever overheating.

[Jakalth]

After several hours of play time, I was able to get all 4 shuttles docked with the Evolution Mothership.  It is now sitting in orbit waiting to be sent on its way.

 

The last shuttle coming in to dock.  These shuttles are not much fun to fly into orbit...  The thrust is slightly off center due to how the launch vehicle is attached to them.  But I was able to get all 4 into orbit.  Here we see the last one on its final approach to the Evolution.  It is coming in backwards to make it easier to align the ports.

Spoiler

 

Once I had attach the last shuttle, the Evolution Mothership is waiting in orbit to receive a quick topping off of its fuel tanks, and to receive the rest of the crew it will be bringing along.  35 brave Kerbals to stand vigil over Dres.  The refueling was done easily with a cheap little refueling pod but transferring the crew was not so easy.  I could only transfer 8 Kerbals at a time before the transfer menu would quit working and I'd have to close and reload the save.  This got to be quite annoying...

Spoiler

 

I did finally get all the crew transferred, refueled the Evolution, and ditched the transfer vehicle.  The Evolution has a lot of parts on it... This has dropped my frame rate to just 4 fps.  But unlike the Lamp Post train, the Evolution is quite rigid, so turning is far easier and quicker.  Docking the shuttles was not quite as easy as the pictures make it seem.  They each have 3 seperate docking ports to like them with the center section.  Getting all three docking ports lined up took quite a while, and quite a few trys with each shuttle.  But the job is done now and hopefully their alignment is good enough to allow the craft to fly strait.  If not, then hopefully the considerable amount of adv reaction wheels will be enough to force it strait.  We'll just have to wait and see.

 

Oh, and once I had everything docked, I extended all the radiators.  When doing this, it seems the craft had gained a bit of heat in orbit for they all went red with heat, but started to slowly cool down.  Hopefully if I leave it in orbit for a while, it will dissipate the extra heat so the radiators can keep the engines cool.  I'll just give it a little time before I setup the escape burn to Dres.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

You know what they say, good things come to those who wait.  Well, I'm not waiting...  I plotted the course and sent this info up to the captain Zeltris.  Our honorable captain took the helm and sent us on our way.  Dres, here we come.  The Evolution, despite some worry among the crew and engineers who designed her, flies strait and true.  She's accelerating well and lighting up the sky with the beautiful blue of her atomized fuel.  Her engines are pumping out a lot of heat as well, keeping the radiators nice and toasty.

Spoiler

 

Several minutes, and 830m/s delta-V later, our course is set.  It's a little bit off course though,  Zeltris, you missed our burn window!  What? Oh, I see.  Zeltris, your a genius at the helm!  Exit route from Kerbin SOI achieved, medium/low altitude Mun`er pass plotted.  Not only did missing the burn alter the course, bringing us closer to the Mun, it also shorted the time to Kerbin escape by 5 days.  Nice job Zeltris.  Direct escape burn estimate, 1,500m/s, actual cost 830m/s, with a savings of 670m/s.  You gotta love those gravity assists.

Spoiler

 

Day 1: hour 3.5, the Mun looks so close you could reach out and touch it.  The gravity assist has pulled our speed up to a good 725m/s from the paltry 217m/s it was at before Mun encounter.  What a rush.  0.7G acceleration without even lighting the engines.  On close approach to the Mun and the gravity can be felt from here.  The Evolution is making a bit of noise but it's just the panels shifting a bit, nothing to worry about.  But what a view!

Spoiler

 

Day 11: hour 2, we're peaking out at the edges of kerbins SOI.  Not long now and we'll be in open trans-planetary space and on our way to the planer shift burn to align ourselves with Dres orbit.  The world seems so tiny from out here, and soon it will be even smaller.  188 more days to burn, time to sit back, do some science and wait for the designated burn time.  Crew moral is high and should continue to be so for some time now.  We'll keep them busy enough to stave of space madness, no worries.

Spoiler

 

Day 199: hour 4, the planer correction burn is completed is planned.  We are now aligned with the orbit of Dres, making the transfer burn far easier to plot.  In 352 days, we burn for Dres.

Spoiler

 

The crew is starting to feel the time in space and some of them are getting a bit, antsy...  Hasgun for example.  How did the Kerbalnaut program not figure it out with a name like that?  I mean come on!  This guy is amazing!  Patching up a leak in shuttle 3 with some string, a bit of sticky tape, and a discarded snack bag.  What a guy.  But the leak led to another problem being found.  Seems the sensors were out of calibration.  There is a problem with fuel distribution between the command Gig and the 4 shuttles.  The Gig is showing 2/3 fuel reserves remaining, while the shuttles only show half.  If the next two burns aren't done carefully, we might be limping into orbit on the command Gigs engines along...  That's 1/3 thrust for a 600,000+kg mothership to brake into Dres orbit...  Not a promising prospect... 

[Jakalth]

Small update:  Octopus 1 is a dead horse.

 

Lamp Post 1 was able to refuel its self in under 11 days.  Octopus 1 took nearly 300.  The small drills are not working correctly on Octopus 1.  I will still be making use of it to perform a few missions, but it's inability to self fuel makes it basically useless.  I have two options here: use the Evolution Gig to perform most of the missions the Octopus was supposed to perform, even though it is a large craft.  Or, send over the little space hot-rod I've got sitting around, and use that instead.  I'm thinking use the Gig, it already there and has the same refueling capabilities as the Lamp Post, but with less range.

 

So in conclusion: The Octopus design is not good.  It still works as a light tug, but it can't effectively refuel its self making it a mission failure.

[Jakalth]

Year 1, Day 7: The crew is getting very restless, the long days out in space are wearing nerves thin.  The long burn to reach Dres encounter is completed without a hitch, save for the fuel imbalance.  Having moved the fuel around into different central tanks has made no difference, the fuel imbalance persists.  Looking at the fuel numbers and fiddling with the tanks shows the problem to lie with the docking ports on the shuttles not showing the fuel available properly.  The issue is not as bad as it seems.  So we continue on, monitoring the fuel levels closely.

Spoiler

 

Year 1, Day 131: the encounter with Dres is not ideal, so a corrective burn is needed to get us into a better encounter.  This burn only requires a measly 4.4m/s, but it's duration and direction is critical.  Luckily, at this range, even small puffs from the RCS will be enough to finalize the encounter position.  So lets burn for it.

Spoiler

 

Year 2, Day 312: we finally reached Dres.  It can be seen now as a small dot in the distance, visible to the naked eye.  This has brought the hopes of the crew up.  It has been a trying voyage, far longer then it should of been.  The sight of Dres is a welcome sight to all as we prepare to make our orbital burn.

Spoiler

 

Year 2, day 313: Burning for Orbit!  It's going to take less fuel then we had predicted meaning we'll have plenty left to get the shuttles down to the surface and prepaire the site for the surface colony.  But first, we need to achieve a stable orbit.  One that is about 104Km x 104Km sounds about right.

Spoiler

 

Now that the mothership is parked, lets get the Gig down to the surface to start the refueling process.  Just in case the remaining fuel is not enough for the shuttles.  First off is getting the Gig freed from its commanding position in the center of the mothership.

Spoiler

 

A quick burn to alter course and another to slow the Gig down and it's on it's way to the crater, to meat up with the Lamp post 1 and the Octopus.

Spoiler

 

Homing in on the landing site, from high up in the sky is not for the faint of heart.  But what a view!  Captain Zeltris has the site in her sights and will get us down nice and clean.

Spoiler

 

Closing in on the surface, we've drifted a bit off course, so a corrective burn to move us close it done.  This burn didn't take much fuel at all and got us a lot closer to our target.  So now it's time to touch down.

Spoiler

 

And...  We're down!  Drills deployed, solar panels extended, and radiators at the ready.  We'll mine this site for all it's worth.  The Gig is only 1.4km from the Lamp Post 1 and in the 6% Ore vein, Nice!  Refueling won't take long at all with this rich site.

Spoiler

 

The Gig has landed, the Evolution Mothership is in orbit, and the shuttles are ready to be sent down as well.  All is going well with the Evolution.  Without the Gig, the Evolution's FPS has risen to a wonderful 6fps.  That's a 50% increase.  Ok, that's not really much, but every frame counts.  Next steps are to deploy the satellites, land the shuttles, and combine the Evolution central section with the Drescapade Station to make a huge orbital refueling base.  Evolution Station.

 

There will be 3 more Lamp Posts dispatched to Dres, instead of the original 2, due to the failure of the Octopus tug.  These three Lamp Posts have a lot to bring over yet, the 4 parts of the surface base and 3 sets of rovers to keep the base running.  I could probably bring the parts over on two lamp Posts, but that would be dropping the frame rates lower then I would like.  And besides, 3 is better then 2 any day.

[Jakalth]

Well, the shuttles are next on my agenda.  So I disengaged them one by one and moved them away from the Evolution center section.  That is, after I had moved the mothership into an intercept orbit with the Drescapade station.  Each of the shuttles were moved into a lowered 60Km orbit where I could bring them down one by one far easier.  The first drop wasn't planned very well and ended up coming down in the dark.  It was also a test run to see how close to theory they actually follow, when it comes to landing.  After that success I brought down shuttle 2, but waited for daylight so I could document it's landing.

Spoiler

 

Starting out, I plotted a descent that would bring the shuttles close to where the first shuttle ended up.

Spoiler

 

Then its a bit of burning to slow down the craft and start it's descent.

Spoiler

 

Another short burn once the craft is getting close to the ground to finalize the landing site.

Spoiler

 

And the final suicide burn to bring the craft to a slow enough speed to land on its tail, 2m/s for example.

Spoiler

 

At that slow speed, touchdown was soft and easy.

Spoiler

 

Next was the tricky part.  Intentionally tipping over the shuttle to get it on its landing wheels.  Thankfully(as planned) the shuttles have a lot of SAS and enough RCS to make a nice soft transfer.  The transfer never exceeded 1.4m/s so it was an easy switch.

Spoiler

 

Now that its on its wheels, the shuttle can be rolled around using small bursts from its main engines to keep it moving.

Spoiler

 

As I brought them down, I moved them all to the same area so I could keep them corralled.  That way they could graze on the lower Ore values here, but still top off their tanks.  Each shuttle has slightly different amounts of heat built up.  The second one down being the coldest, but the first one landed, the one on the far right, is having strange heating issues.  The whole craft it quite how, bright orange on the thermal displays compaired to the deep red of the others.  No clue why this is happening other then the overheat bug.  I cycled the radiators, the drill and the IRSU and this has seemed to have stopped the problem from getting worse.  But time will tell.  I'd prefer not to loose any of the shuttles, but that is why I brought 4.

Spoiler

 

They look like a small herd, grazing on the soil of Dres.  Silly things that they are.  The shuttles landed and move about of the surface even better then I had hoped.  I doubt this would be true of the gravity was higher.  But in low g's, they land nicely and are fairly stable while moving about.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Jakalth
bad links

[Jakalth]

Remember how I said over the top?  You know, that one time?  Right?  I did say that didn't I?  Somewhere....?

 

So, lets upgrade Drescapade Station.  It's a nice station and all, 3 docking ports, plenty of science, room for 11.  You know, a nice cozy little station.  Now combine that with the central section of the Evolution...

 

First off, we need to get the 2 craft/stations/buildings? close enough to each other to connect them.  Easy enough considering I already the the Evolution in a parking orbit that was already closing with the station.  It also ends up that the Drescapade station, despite being a tall and made of several parts, is also super maneuverable.  Go figure.  So getting them close was a piece of cake.

Spoiler

 

Closing to withing 200 meters, I bringing their relative speeds to 0.  I disconnect the communications segment from the rest of the station and get ready to dock it with the Evolution center section.

Spoiler

 

The communications section is the one part of the station that is not very maneuverable, but I'm still able to move it down and under the Evolution so I can line it up with the docking port.

Spoiler

 

Once it's lined up, its just a few puffs and the two craft are connected.

Spoiler

 

Now it's time to bring in the rest of the station and connect it.  Getting the rest of the station lined up proves to be incredibly easy.  The station is nearly to maneuverable and can move around quite quickly.  Now, with the shape of the station, and the shape of the Evolution, there is only one way they can be lined up properly.  So I begin to slide the station in sideways to line up the docking ports.

Spoiler

 

And once the station and evolution are lined up, I bring them together.  Their combined form, of the Evolution center section and the Drescapade station, becomes the Evolution Station.  All hail the glory of the Evolution station.  Crew capacity for 43 kerbals, power generation like mad, 1 top docking port, 2 bottom sr docking ports, and 7 docking ports on each side, as well as a huge capacity for fuel storage along with the Drescapades science capacity.

Spoiler

 

Now that's more like it.  A nice Large station to watch over Dres.  And best of all, this new station has 8 Ion satellites in it's cargo bay to deploy a new satellite network.  Combine this with the 4 shuttles on the surface(none of which are over heating anymore, that issue was resolved by cycling the radiators), the Lamp Post 1, the Octopus, and the Evolution Gig and it's already a lot of stuff around Dres.  And there will be a lot more to come.

[Jakalth]

update:

Well, I dropped all the satellites out of the Evolution Station's two cargo bays and deployed them into orbit around Dres.  Once again, the large satellite array is in action.  I've got all 8 satellites intertwined into a pretty good, all coverage array.  One of the satellites is also out on a journey to the edge of the Dresteroid ring and back.  I want to know what's all out there so I can choose the right one for the asteroid tug I'll be sending over.

Spoiler

 

In the process of moving them around, one of the satellites ended up bumping into the station as I was changing orbit... oops...  Because of that, the satellite lost it's XL solar array...  It still has a pair of RTGs to keep it running but the Ion Drive on it is severely crippled now and can only limp along at 15% thrust.  Could be worse though.

 

One other thing, It seems that I somehow deleted the orbiting Fuel tank from around dres while I was cleaning up the debree released while I was deploying the satellites.  Kind of annoying since I was going to dock it with the station to add more fuel storage...  Now I have to wait until I send over the rest of the Lamp Posts before I can add more fuel tanks to the station.  Oh well...

[Jakalth]

With everything at Dres under control, it's time to get the next set of parts sent over.  So it's time to get the Lamp Post 2 up into orbit.  It's a tried and tested design, this launcher, so not much to say but, lets get it going.

Spoiler

 

Once the Lamp Post 2 is in orbit, the next thing to go up is the minitug module.  This module will be useful to move some of the parts around.  It might not see a lot of use though, but I'm bringing it anyways.  Never know what you'll need sometimes.  The minitug module is a simple craft to launch so no worries here.

Spoiler

 

It was pretty easy to get this module close to the Lamp Post 2 with it's high RCS.

Spoiler

 

And once the minitugs were snugged into place behind the Lamp Post 2, the train is started.

Spoiler

 

Next to go up, is the surface habitat module.  This module will provide the Kerbals on the surface of Dres a place to live when they're not exploring the surface.

Spoiler

 

This launcher has a 2 stage asperagus staging system.  Once the launcher was over 20,Km, the outer stage empties out and the center stage does all the work.

Spoiler

 

The center stage gets the module into orbit where it can catch up with the Lamp Post 2.  No need to keep the extra weight of the launcher anymore.

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In no time, the surface habitat catches up with the Lamp Post 2 and takes it place behind the minitug module.

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The third module to go up is the surface science module.  This module is designed to connect to the habitat module, on the surface of Dres, but rolling its self into position.  Both this module, and the habitat module have engines to allow them to land themselves on the surface.  But the science module has more fuel to work with.

Spoiler

 

To help stabilize this module, I added an outrigger strut system to keep the module stabile during the ascent.  It worked flawlessly.  So did the staging of the boosters.

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Catching up with the Lamp Post 2 was an easy task as well and soon enough the science module was parked behind the habitat module, ready to be shifted into Dres orbit.

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The last two module to go up are fuel modules.  Both of these modules are essential to give the Lamp Post 2 the range it needs to reach Dres.

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This module is brought up into orbit using a 3 stage asperagus stage launcher.  First stage burns out at about 6Km.

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Stage two goes out at close to 60Km just in time for the final stage to finish the orbit.

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Once in orbit, it's drop the nose cone and get the module close to the Lamp Post 2 before dropping the launcher.

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Up close and personal with the Lamp Post 2, the fuel module is docked in it's place at the tail of the train, followed closely by a second fuel module.(I like this pic, it's got the KSC and the island runway in the background.)

Spoiler

 

Now the Lamp Post 2 is fully loaded and ready to fly.  So next job will be to get this load of cargo to Dres.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

Off we go!  Time to burn for Dres with the Lamp Post 2.  It's a 860m/s delta-V burn to break Kerbin orbit and get another gravity assist from the Mun. 

Spoiler

 

As we fly close by the Mun once again, we gain enough energy to break free of Kerbins SOI.  Its another kick from our good friend gravity.

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From here we just wait as the ship drifts away from kerbin and closes in on escape.

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I really have to say, the Mun is becoming the real star of my Dres transfer vehicles.  It has taken part in nearly every Dres transfer I have done and has performed its part of the transfer flawlessly.  Here's to you Mun.  Thanks a million!

Spoiler

 

After escaping Kerbins SOI we let the craft travel for a while until we reach a point where the orbits of kerbin and Dres align.  Here, we burn some fuel to shift our orbit.

Spoiler

 

And finally plot a path to encounter Dres. 

Spoiler

 

It's a ways out there yet, so we'll tinker with another craft I'll be sending to Dres.  This one will be used to transfer crew between Dres and the orbiting station.  A smaller, shorter range craft with a little bit of style and a bit more thrust.

[Jakalth]

And the little craft I'll be using as a crew transfer vehicle is...  The Indignation.

Spoiler

 

This little craft has around 3600 delta-V and a TWR of 0.38 in Kerbin orbit.  It has a much lower part count then any other craft I have sent to Dres so flying this thing will be a dream.  I had parked this craft in Kerbin Orbit with my good pilot Henpond Kermen.  Ok, don't tell him this, be he's a bit of a coward.  We had to bribe him just to get him into the cockpit for a "tour", then launched him before he could get back out.  Yeah, I'm kinda mean sometimes.  But it'll be good for him to get the Dres experience, and besides, he's a far better pilot then he'll ever admit too.  Easily as good as Captain Zaltris and nearly on par with Jebadiah.  Nearly...

 

I sent up two of the Octopus fuel tanks to attach behind the Indignation.  This upped it's delta-V to about 5800.  With it's higher twr and much better maneuverability, I should be able to reach Dres with this much fuel on this craft since I'll be able to cut cost and make a direct transfer without corrective burning first.  here we can see the craft in orbit of kerbin with its trailing fuel tanks.

Spoiler

 

With a course plotted, it's time to burn for Kerbin escape.

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Spoiler

 

With some help once again from our champion of the Drescapades, the Mun!

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Thanks to the Mun's assistance, we'll be free of kerbins SOI in no time.

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It's hats off to you again Mun, your the true star of this mission.  You've proven far more reliable then any of my craft, and your a true friend.

Spoiler

 

The Lamp Post 2 will be reaching it's encounter transfer 50 days before the Indignation.  Both craft will reach Dres within a few days of each other though.  This should be fun.  As for the indignation, I'll be dumping it's rear fuel tank as soon as it's empty, this will extend it's range slightly.  But every bit helps.

[Jakalth]

Lets do the orbital transfer burn for both the Lamp Post 2 and the Indignation.  At the same time!  Mwahahahaha!!! *cough* ok, maybe not.  They are 55 days apart after all.

 

First of all is the Lamp Post 2.  It's orbital transfer is already plotted so it's only a matter of reaching the transfer node and performing the burn.  But first off, lets get all the fuel transferred from the rear fuel module.  Now that all the fuel is salvaged from this tank, in fact it is completely bone dry now, it is time to leave it behind.  Save weight and make the Lamp Post a little more maneuverable.

Spoiler

 

After dropping the rear fuel module, and lining up with the transfer node, it's a matter of going full throttle.  The transfer burn was a total of 14 minutes.  I started the burn a little early so I could do half the burn and let the engines cool down a bit before starting the second half of the burn.  This worked quite well and I got the Dres encounter right where I was expecting.

Spoiler

 

As for the Indignation, I allowed it to get close to the transfer and started the burn.  I started the burn what I thought was early, 10 minutes, but once I started burning I realized it will take 20 minutes to complete this much longer burn.  While the Lamp Post 2 only had to burn a total of 2000.2m/s, the Indignation had to burn for 2583m/s.  Once the burn was going, I started transferring the remaining fuel from both fuel modules and into the main craft.  This took a while as I was transferring fuel as it was being burned.  But once both tanks were empty, I didn't wait, or even slow down, I simply dumped them, at full throttle.

Spoiler

 

Well, once I had most of the fuel out of the fuel modules, it started to get a little wobbly.  By the time the tanks had been drained dry, it was really starting to snake...  Thankfully it held together and didn't throw off the transfer.  So by the end of the burn, the Indignation was lined up nicely for a Dres encounter.  And thanks to the discard of the fuel modules, another 300m/s delta-V is now available.

Spoiler

 

The Lamp Post 2 handles a bit better with only the 4 modules behind it, one less then the last transfer.  But the Indignation handles beautifully.  And without the fuel modules, it now moves like a space fighter.  RCS turned on and it turns a little to quick maybe?  Ah well, we'll have the two parts of the surface base at Dres soon enough.  And the Indignation to transfer crew around, with it's capacity of 6.

 

On a side note: a 20 minute burn, with the medium sized radiator array to cool it down each engine, and they never got more then orange warm.  And with the 4 small radiator arrays deployed as well, after the burn was completed, it won't take long to cool the craft down to cold red.

Spoiler

 

So a bit of advice, if your going to have a very long burn with Nerv engines, make sure they have at least the equivelant of a medium array per engine.  Or stage your burn so the engines can cool down a bit between burn stages.

Edited February 4, 2016 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

Well, I'm still finishing the trajectories of the two craft, which will be entering Dres orbit soon.  But some odd things are happening that are quite ominous...  The Lamp Post 2 keeps getting faulty encounter readings that are making it difficult to line up the encounter.  The encounter stays there, but the part of the flyby that is between the encounter end escape nodes keeps vanishing, making it difficult to judge how close I've moved the encounter to where I'd like it to be...  The Indignation keeps changing orientation.  I point the craft one way, line it up for a corrective burn, then before I can even start burning, it is no longer pointer where I had it.  It shifted direction on me 3 times before doing the correction burn, even with stability control turned on and the craft completely stable before hand.  :\

 

At Dres, I actually had to resort to using the mod HyperEdit...  I really don't want to be using that mod for this...  But after I had finished getting the two craft into orbit, and started disengaging the modules from the Lamp Post 2, The Indignation simply disappeared without a trace.  One moment it was in orbit, the next it was not there.  Henpond Kermen was found sitting in the Kerbalnaut complex, at the KSC, completely confused as to how he got there...  But the Indignation craft its self was gone.  Instead of having to spend the whole trip flying back to Dres, I hyper edited it back to Dres with Henpond back at the controls and most of the fuel drained so it had about the same amount as it had when it first reached Dres. 

 

I did a quicksave at this point just to be sure it didn't disappear again, and if it did, I could just reload it back instead of using hyper edit.  I then went back to the Lamp Post 2 and started getting the modules ready for orbit shifts in preparation of deorbiting them.  Problem is, both the habitat module and the science module were missing!  The Lamp Post 2 was there, the fuel module and minitugs where there, but the two surface modules had also vanished without a trace.  And this time the crew that was on board them had also vanished...  So for the second time, I had to hyper edit both modules back into place orbiting Dres, with a new crew on board.  This is getting a bit annoying.  Another quick save after making sure all the craft where still there...

 

In other news, all my surface craft are refueled and ready to launch back to orbit except for the shuttles.  I decided to not refuel them so that I could move them. a bit safer, to a different site.  Their current location has bad ore values and it too bumpy and uneven for the surface base.  For some reason, whenever I load up the shuttles, shuttle 2 loads about 30 meters in the air and falls to the ground, harmlessly, but it messes with the Drill, IRSU, and solar panels.  It's as though the game really doesn't want me to finish this time either...  And I've still got 2 more sets of surface craft to bring over before this is all done.

[Jakalth]

We'll start off with the Lamp Post 2 again, since it's encounter is first.  I let the Lamp Post 2 drift in closer to Dres, keeping an eye on it's encounter.  This got a bit hit and miss since the encounter kept shifting from an actual encounter, to something that makes no sense.  Nearly at the encounter node I had it all lined up nicely though.

Spoiler

 

Just before the node though, the encounter broke once again.  I lost all information about the encounter so had no way to know when to start burning to get into orbit with Dres...  That is until about an hour from where I thought the burn should start, it finally came back again...  So crossing my fingers, I warped ahead to 5 minutes from orbital insertion and started the retro burn.

Spoiler

 

What I ended up with was a rough 92Km x 98km orbit that was at an angle.  I'll be able to clean this up later.  But at least I had the cargo in orbit.  There was enough fuel left on the Lamp Post 2 to correct its own orbit and bring it down lower to wait for refueling.  And the cargo its self has enough RCS to shift orbit as much as needed so I'm not worried about them.

Spoiler

 

Leaving the Lamp Post and its cargo connected and in orbit, I switch to the Indignation and begin it's Dres encounter.  With it's direct encounter orbit, it is coming in from under and outside the orbit of Dres.  I did this to save fuel from the cost of transferring to Dres from Kerbin since the Indignation has less delta-V then the Lamp Post 2.  It seemed to work out, but it did have the ship coming in at an odd angle.

Spoiler

 

At least the Indignation did not suffer from the same encounter issues the Lamp Post 2 had been experiencing.  So it was a lot quicker to get the Indignation to within 5 minutes of the orbital insertion and start it's retro burn for orbit.

Spoiler

 

The Indignation ended up in a wonky orbit nearly 30 deg off the plane of the equator.  It's 112Km x 138km orbit was not the prettiest I've done and with it only having 638 delta-V left, I would have to send up a refueling run to give it enough to land and fully refuel it's self the rest of the way.  But at least it still had enough to clean up it's orbit and bring its self down to a low orbit to rendezvous with the refuel-er.

Spoiler

 

Switching back to the Lamp Post 2, I disconnect the modules from it and get them ready for their missions.  The fuel module, with the minitug module attached, will make its way to the Evolution station to dock and wait, while the habitat and science mdoules will be moved into low orbit before dropping down to rest in the crater I've been using as a refueling point.  The crater seems to be the most reasonable location since it has a fairly flat area just east of the Lamp Post 1 and Octopus.  And because the high ore concentration simply make sense for the base and what I plan to do.

Spoiler

 

It is at this point I notice something is amiss and find out that the Indignation has vanished, and soon after, both surface modules as well.  I ended up using HyperEdit to undo the loss of both craft by bring them strait over from kerbin.  I also set a new quick save here incase it happens again...  I'll continue as normal from this point and hopefully the issues don't get any worse.

[Jakalth]

Well, lets get those two modules down onto Dres and get our base setup.  I started by undocking the two modules from each other.

Spoiler

 

Setting up a descent node, I burned until I got the descent to lower the module down into the crater.

Spoiler

 

I waited until the module was just over 2000m above the ground before starting the suicide burn.  The engines on the module are pretty strong for the light module, so the twr is quite high for this craft.  The descent was smooth and I had no issues getting it down to the ground.  In fact I had enough fuel left after landing to take off and hover high enough to nudge the craft into a better landing site using RCS before descending yet again and making a second smooth landing.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

Next I send down the science module.  This is when I suddenly realize I made a big mistake.  This module has no SAS!   How the heck did I forget that!  The descent was a nightmare.  I could not keep it pointing strait.  And even once it was strait, there so little reaction control on it, any input caused it to drift off nearly aimlessly.  it took everything I had just to get it to the ground...  I had no time to get pictures.  The landing...  well, it was very ugly, a bit to fast, a bit at an angle, and on a bad slope.  But the wide stance of its landing gear allowed it to somehow absorb all this mess.

Spoiler

 

Once down, I raised the landing gear and started driving it towards the habitat module.  It went a bit slowly and the craft was wobbly as sin...  but I nearly got it there.  When I tried to brake once the science module was close, things went all wrong.  It started to tip, taking out the solar panels.  Then the tire caught and it flipped the module up into the air, where it really started going wrong.  The craft went end over end and crashed down a bit to hard on its end, blowing off half the module.  It somehow ended up up side down with the central section still intact.  The crew survived, but the science module was a total loss...

Spoiler

 

With no way to salvage the science module, I rescued the crew and brought them over to the nearby habitat module.

Spoiler

 

Well, the habitat module worked like a charm, but the science module was a total wash out...  Completely my fault for forgetting to add the SAS modules it needed to be functional.  I have the module repaired in the VAB, but now I have a choice, Hyper Edit the fixed module to Dres, or fly it proper behind Lamp Post 4, which is not scheduled to fly for a while yet...

 

:edit: Wait... what the...  *looks at craft around Dres* "surface modules"  Where did that come from???  It was gone last time I loaded the save...  It had vanished.  Now it's back?  Where...  did it go???  Ok, now I'm getting worried...

Edited February 6, 2016 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

I do have a question for everyone.  Did anyone else find a strange craft called "surface modules" in their game over the last day?   Trying to figure out where it was...

[SpaceplaneAddict]

You are really lighting up Dres aren't ya? Amazing Dres-Support going on. So many craft, do you even lag bro?

[Jakalth]

1 hour ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

You are really lighting up Dres aren't ya? Amazing Dres-Support going on. So many craft, do you even lag bro?

Lag?  Hmmm...  you mean I'm not supposed to be getting only 12 fps when visiting the craft in the crater?

 

Or have my frame rate drop whenever I switch view to Dres in the communications building?

 

And to think, there is no debree around Dres, othern then the busted science module on the surface.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

small update:  I've been doing stuff in the background.  Sadly I'm getting a bit burned out with this mission so I've not really been taking pictures, just launching parts and alt-tabbing out to watch scrapheap challenge episodes.  Shipping parts to Dres is becoming so very tedious... But I do have these.

 

I've been able to assemble all the parts for Lamp Post 3 and got them all sent to Dres.  The Lamp Post 3 I hauling a large science rover and 2 small buildings from one of my sponsors.  They are a place all kerbals love and enjoy going to, even if they don't admit it openly.  You will find out who they are soon enough.

Spoiler

 

I also got the Lamp Post 4 sent off with a pair of fuel transfer rovers and a quartet of runabout rovers for the surface crew to use.  Along with this, I have the upgraded science module attached to this one.  This upgraded module has something very important to its mission, SAS.  Still can't believe I forgot to add sas to the origional design...

Spoiler

 

Both of these two Lamp Posts still have their cargo attached and are waiting to drop them onto the surface.  It should go a lot better this time.  *crosses fingers*

 

I have one more craft going to Dres to complete the drescapades.  It has a very crucial mission to complete once it gets there.  Can you guess what this craft is for?  It shouldn't be to hard to figure out.

Spoiler

 

Once I have everything in place, the drescapades will have the following stats:

Number of Kerbals at Dres: 80

Number of craft at dres: 36

Number of separate parts shipped to Dres for assembly: 46

Number of craft it took to fly it all there: 8(4 lamp posts, 1 octopus, 1 evolution, 1 indignation, 1 ????)

Number of hours in game: over 70.

Number of failed craft: 5

Total disasters: 1(original mission)

Overall FPS anywhere in the Dres system: 19(normal is 30)

Regrets: none