Excursion: The Kares Mission to Duna.

Nittany Tiger · August 26, 2019

Seeing as my RSS/RO take on Ares is on indefinite hiatus because I need a better computer, I took advantage of the mission builder to create a Kerbalized Ares. Introducing Excursion: The Kares Mission to Duna!

Note: I'm considering this initial release a beta release. I've worked out as many bugs as I could, but I feel playtesting by others will help work out any bugs or problems I may not have caught or foreseen.

Mission Description:

Finally! After 15 years and billions of funds, we were able to scrape together and modify some old Kerpollo hardware to make a one-shot trip to Duna! Trust us, it's worth all of the science we lost not exploring the outer Kerbol system.\n\nSince we don't have the nerve to use NERVs due to that last mishap, we're using good 'ol hydrolox technology. We have a propulsion stack waiting in orbit for you to dock with after launch. Make a swingy of Eve, and then head off to Duna to make your historic landing. In the meantime, we'll be figuring out things for you to do when we get back so we don't lose funding.

Details:

This is a kerbalized Ares mission. You will be required to slingshot around Eve to Duna and return safely, and your main goal is to land on Duna. You can also drop a probe on Eve to transmit science to Kerbin for extra points.

This mission has four endings. Each ending is based on if whether you collected science at Eve or not and if you landed on Duna or not. This means that you can fail to land the Eve probe and still complete the mission. You can also abort the Duna landing attempt and still complete the mission.

This mission is purely stock, but to help with the interplanetary transfers and precision landing, you might want to play this with mods. I'd recommend Kerbal Engineer, Waypoint Manager, Slingshotter, Precise Node, and Trajectories.

Known Issue:
-If you lose the Eve probe and then lose the crew, you won't get the proper "mission failed" screen. This is because of an issue with setting the "Vessel Destroyed" catch-all node to fire more than one time causing the entire mission logic to be stuck at the "Vessel Destroyed" catch-all node, making the mission impossible to complete if you destroy the Eve probe. I will either try to work around this problem or just remove the general "Vessel Destroyed" catch-all tree and restrict it to the Eve probe.

Let me know if there are any bugs or issues in this thread, and I'll try my best to correct them and put further polish on this mission.

Link to Mission:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1846322610

Screenshots:

Screenshots taken using Astronomer's Visual Pack, Kerbal Space Program Renaissance Collection, and Real Plume Stock.

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