loch.ness

I've got a transit window to Jupiter open in 20 days - I feel like I should try to send a fleet of Scan Sat probes but I don't currently have an idea of how much Delta V I'd need (KSRSS) so I'll likely send a small test probe this window and hope to send a fleet of probes and rovers on the next window. This is the model I used for Mercury and the first probe was more than 2000 delta v short of being able to circularize so it turned into my first interplanetary flyby of this save and my first time I've gotten a craft in Mercury SOI . Still working on redesigning my Moon colony plans after downloading a part mod which has nice looking base habs and interiors. Sending an anomaly scanner to the moon to track while I work on a Jupiter probe - after that I'll be sending a new fleet of Apollos up with crews that need some experience to look for Moon anomalies that deserve a colony location.

Today was a learning experience. First I learned that the inflatable airlocks do not dock with normal docking ports but do dock with each other. I should have been able to guess that - but it was a surprise all the same. This meant the need to abandon by base in Mare Orientale and relaunch both the operations hub and Molab. I have not launched the new mission yet but I have gotten everyone home safe and sound and scuttled the old installation. Since I was doing that anyway I launched a mission to bring Val home since she had snuck aboard the unmanned launch of the Skylab prototype. Once she was safely home I launched my revised Skylab into a polar orbit. I know it isn't as useful as a way-point in a polar orbit but it's built in Scansat functions are more useful there and I don't really need skylab to be a functional waypoint station. This station could dock 2 Apollo crews at the same time with ample living space for all and there is a Docking Senior at the back in case I chose to launch an expansion to in in the future. I needed to adjust the orbit of my ore scanner around the moon. Biome wise, currently the Highlands are the most rich at a little over 9% ore density while Mare Orientale is the third highest density at 4.5% and has interesting craters and dunes to explore. I think a full Highland base might be a better first step with other smaller colony sites following up once I've worked out the problems. While I don't need to plan habitat space as I'm not dealing with life-support this time around, I still do because it feels right. As such the plan is to have ~ 6 launches per colony site. Colony Ops - a revised version on my Jamestown inspired colony I landed before. Molab - a pressurized rover for excursions from the base. The hub - storage and communications equipment for managing a larger crew. The Refinery - drills, ore tanks, and more to begin making the colony long term. The hab module - nicer accommodations for off time complete with expanded solar power production A fuel module - stores excess fuel from Ore to use to refuel landers. My hope is that if I can get this to work well on the Moon I can get all of the same equipment modified for and launched to Mars on the next window.

Got a Skylab inspired station up in a ~250km orbit. Double checked my visuals after it was launched and noticed that small things are off - the solar wings are a bit low down and somehow are both too big and too small at the same time. Airlock should have been rotated 90 degrees so that I could get the right profile. That said, I'm still happy with it because this is still a functional base for this sandbox game. The Telescope has a Scansat resource scanner and the lab has an alitemetry scanner. They are in an equatorial orbit now meaning I'll likely need to deorbit this one and put Skylab back up in an Polar orbit (I accidentally launched it with Val onboard). With the giant relay dish, some local comuitrons, and the whole thing being a single launch station - I'm hoping to get one of these (unmanned) on its way to the moon, Venus and Mars. I'll want to see how the power generation is at mars as I'm not sure it has enough solar to run things there. I know that I'll need a much more robust station when I send something out to Jupiter and Saturn's moons - but right now this is a prototype for the station I'll be sending to lunar orbit to help coordinate the colonies there - and the station and colonies there are prototypes for similar expansions on Mars later on.

The only place I've ever been good at precision landing was Minmus - and that was because I could pack tons of Delta V at a high TWR and had minimal gravity to deal with. So with that in mind I was pretty happy when I put my prototype for a Luna Colony hub down within 180m of my initial landing zone in Mare Orientale. I then launched my second generation Apollo craft (slightly better form all around) on a Polar orbit, directly into a Lunar polar orbit, and placed a lander 78.1m from the colony hub! My refined LEM flies better though has the same mass, TWR, delta V, and part count - I'm just using all those things smarter. I've still not figured out a good way to get the buggy to fit in the LEM without feeling like I'm cheating or giving up the form factor - so I just had the hub bring a pair of them along. Edit: Forgot to add - LEM's decent stage was bingo for fuel, less than 20m/s of delta v in the tank but a perfectly controlled touch down. Bill and Jeb will make the walk over to the hub station after a well needed rest. The LEM has plenty of batteries but they'll be shutting down non-essential equipment before they go so that it is ready as a return craft. Eventually I plan to get a refinery running as part of the colony and to start refueling the LEMs so that they are reusable and can get the entire crew down - for now Bob is going to have alot of time to work on his screenplay while the other two are on the surface.

As I continue to re-learn how to play, and to adjust to KSRSS, I've returned to the Moon and I think I've found a decent spot for a future colony too.

I'm running with 1.11 (which I know is not a supported version). Only other modes are EVE for clouds/city lights, Kopernicus and similar for compatibility, and Kerbal Alarm Clock. I'm on a laptop so I'm running the Lite version. Everything seems to be working smoothly - no odd textures yet, no weird height maps. First couple of splash downs I sank a bit deeper in the water than I'd expected but nothing too big. No "black moon" yet. I'm still relearning how to play (haven't Kerballed in a couple of years). Everything this running great so far and I'm looking forward to updates. The one thing I've run into that I wasn't sure if it was working as intended, a known issue that hasn't been solved yet, or something that comes from me using the mod with the wrong version of KSP: The Kerbnet function on probe cores and such is broken. This is mostly a non-issue. I'm trying to plan my missions around landing at specific locations (something I've never done before) and was going to use the in-game tools to set markers at Frau Maru for Apollo 13 to aim for and such. I can easily just use an actual map of Mars or the Moon and try to land on target that way too. I was just curious if this was me having broken the game because I didn't keep a save file of the older version or if there was an easy fix.

After a slight redesign of my Atlas rocket so that I had some actual control during launch, but not enough redesign that its orbital maneuvers were smooth - I manage to re-teach myself how to do an orbital rendezvous. Of course then while trying to be fancy and transfer co-pilots from one to the other I accidentally pressed "spacebar" on Gemini A and staged the engines off. I Kerballed together a way to get Val and her co-pilot back to Kerbin. Jeb is still waiting to land sometime tomorrow.

I've been away from the game for a few years - I bought the expansions but never really played with them. I'm re-teaching myself the game the way I fell in love with it in the past - remaking historical missions and documenting my progress. My save file is only using KSRSS, lite EVE visuals for that mod, and Kerbal Alarm Clock. I know KSRSS isn't optimized for the current release but it is working so far. I've completed Sputnik, Vostok (with parachute return), Mercury Redstone, Mercury Atlas, my first Gemini launch and my Mariner 10 launch (though I cheated and used an ion engine on Mariner because I've never tried to go to Mercury before and I expect things won't go as planned. I'm not using any stock vessels but I may pull apart Acapella and use that to improve my old Saturn V designs. Once I get Mariner on its way out of earth's SOI my next plan is to re-learn how to ravenous with two Gemini missions before I work on Soyuz, the N1 and Apollo.