OgreMagi

downloaded the mod from curse, site must be cursed I cannot get it to work tried several times on my space station to move kerbals from cupolas to service modules, and tried moving crew on a space ship from hitchhiker pods to command pods, and from other command pods. It doesn't seem to work,

I have decided to take up the challenge but I am only in the building stages, spending a HUGE amount of time on a space plane but I haven't played around with them much. My plan is to use the mothership concept, but all parts will/should be able to land on Val. 2 Tylo capable landers, one will be destined to land on Laythe as a base, one as a miner/refuel on Val, 2 ssto capable space planes one ferry people up from laythe one will return for research, and a mini lander for exploration emergency return to Kerbin ect ect. all will have the capability to mine/process kethane wish me luck.

well ya could easily do it with a kethan mod, just refuel on the ground wait for night then launch........

I seen a video on youtube and the probe crashed, destroying parts on it then bounced up, then fell again, crashed and the remaining parts were destroyed. think he got to - 5 meters

Mods, as someone wrote in these forums before "they ant good for nothing but adding weight and decreasing you delta Vee..." Seriously it more of a choice. you can open several games to play with, try the mods out see how you like them you can allways delete them, nothing wrong with that. What made me not install everything was the challenges. go the planet xxx, more points for the one who does not use mods..

SSTO space planes fill a niche in the space program to easily and simply ferry personell between the ground and orbit in a planet with a thick atmosphere. Around Kerbin, you can easily launch a rocket to orbit and aerobrake a return capsule but it is very inefficient, effectively throwing away 95% of its mass to do the job. A SSTO rocket can do the job but usually has multiple stages with throwaway solid rockets, and throwaway sections to get into orbit. The Main bus uses a ballistic return with parachutes to slow it so it can land. A slightly more efficient design but still your throwing away more then 50% of the rocket to do so. The SSTO space plane is a single stage that uses turbo jets to get it to near orbit and a much smaller rocket to take it into orbit, I seen several designs that can carry 4 or more kerbals only using stock parts and it is reusable. However around kerbin rockets are much easier but on Laythe where you cannot build rockets nor throwaway boosters, it is the only way to move people from the ground to orbit. that's how I see it. Moreover, I would like to see a airbreathing engine that can be used on other planets with atmospheres, Duna, and Eve come to mind. I have tried the kethane engine mod but it has a lot of limitations and several bugs. but just my thoughts.

nice names , must be a BT fan....

ladders DONT FORGET THE LADDERS....... kerbals can jump off rockets but they need ladders to get back in on high gravity planets..... ( tylo, eve, kerbin)

hmm so in the stock challenge refueling is permitted??, since I could launch a fuel pod to each planet then refuel for the next trip and exploration...

hmm was checking the rules and I have a few questions. 1. I havnet played the research/science part of Kerbal space program. so how do you account for the science points if you haven't played the science ? 2. no nukes ??? see there is a huge point reduction for using nukes ( even the LVN isn't all that good) but the cryptic part it is ok to use a nuke if the isp is less than 800? there are a few mods that have them but they are a bit munchy, A. the LNV 40 nuclear rocket. thrust 40 newtons, isp 770, mass 1.52, I can use 4 of them and get the same close to the same amount of thrust as a LNV. B. The LVN 14, 14 newtons of thrust, isp 765, mass 0.5 useful on probes and space planes. 3. living quarters, I have a rover I will use that uses a shuttle cockpit , one that uses a spacestation cupolua, and several based on fighter cockpits? so just checking I could be able to use them as living spaces? I am in the building stages but if I can use Nuke rockets that have less than a isp of 800 and use standard fuel ( oxidizer and fuel) then my job is much easier.

I would like to take up this challenge but I have a question or 2 I use the nuclear rocket mod, give you 3 new types of nuclear rockets, a 14 Kn, a 40 Kn , 160kn and a 280 Kn rockets I do like the standard LVN rocket but I use the 14kn, 40 kn on smaller craft to cut weight, and the 160 for interplanetary flights if that is against the rules then I can try to use a bunch of LVN rockets second with only one ship would it be acceptable to launch is fuel tanks empty fuel it in orbit? is so great third, I plan to attach a ssto to the main ship and a smaller lander but it would be easier to launch the main bus then attach the ships to the main bus in orbit. let me know I am building it anyway

hmm interesting I think I will try to go around the globe in a sea plane and see if I can do it unsupported I.E. no refueling stations, I will see if my kethane mod will work on a sea plane. I will post my images here of the test craft I build and see how they do. [

light sails well an idea I like was .... build a base on mercury, with large solar panels to redirect light, then use that light to focus it on a sail. work well but you would need refractors say above the plane of the solar system to refract the light to where you want to send it. but yea that would work. read about an idea of using a ship with a magnetic field that would ride the solar wind, in theory it would work but cannot remember the details.

well one idea is to terriform the moon. its close, it does have gravity, bombard it with a lot of comets to give it an atmosphere. it wouldn't last long in the galactic scale of events only 50,000 years but yea that easier to do. atmospheric pressure wouldn't be great but you could get it high enough to support life and people for a while. another idea was to use a gravity to move a planet, take a object and accelerate it to a very high velocity and have it make many many close passes to the target, over time it will move but again this will take a few thousand years... drill Mo Holes in the core of mars, warm it up a bit. like the moon idea you can drop a bunch of comets into its atmosphere to thicken it up, more than the moon but it would last longer. Venus well heat is venus problem, anthing you drop into the atmospshere will cause it to heat up, what you need to do it cool it. need a sun shield to cool the temp enough to get a way to fix the carbon, life forms to reduce the co2, ect ect but a much harder challenge. I would say give the moon an atmosphere,

mars direct idea I read about in science fiction analogue in the 1990's suggested several ideas for mars propulsion. one is a simple wing filled with hydrogen, it wont easily combust in a co2 atmosphere and it can generate lift with the combination of wing/hydrogen ballest. their suggestion was to land device that could make methane from the air with a h2 in storage and a small nuclear reactor slowly over 18 months. the same nuclear plant could be used as a thermal rocket compressing the atmosphere initially for a boost, like a ramjet.

so I thought, but with the new big rocket release I constructed a Large processor, can carry 64,000L of kethan at a time, quickly running out of kethane on the Mun and I hate travel to minus too much Delta v to get there. I look up how to change the cfg files if anything I just want to reset it zero out the current scans and rescan for kethan

the answer to the meaning of life the universe and everything 42 but what was the question? no one remembers.

quick question. I have been using the kethan mod for a while and I thought I had a bug when my miner/processor seemed to stop working on the MUN. I landed, drilled ect and noticed that I stoppd mining kethane but after a exhaustive search I simply mined out all the kethan in that field. So I might eventually mine all the kethane on a planet ( doubt it ) if that happens is there a way to look for more? don't think I will need it but hey ya never know..

the new tanks seem to make it easier to get larger item into orbit. the MHORE BOOSSTERR with few parts does work. I am using the kethan mod to mine fuel on the mun and ship it using a tanker based on a 3 orange pod configuration so I decided to try a larger version. and with the current program it launches easier without the occasional explosion ( gonna miss that, ). In one way it makes it easier for a novice player to put a big object into orbit without being creative. Is this bad ? no but not creative. I made several attempts to build a rocket to orbit my Bulk fuel carrier and had to be creative with the struts, staging, rcs ect ect but now the large rockets/fuel pods makes it a lot easier I can orbit very large and heavy payloads with only 4 stages. In a way it dumbs down the game in my opinion.

I am trying to build a simple vtol aircraft that can reliably fly on eve. The only mods I am using are MechJeb and the kethane mod so I assumed that I would be able to use a kerbin designed aircraft and use the zero bypass kethane engines on eve. However I have ran into a few problems . First I do believe my designs are flawed but I am having a problem correcting it on several accounts. First any kethane desinge aircraft using the zero bypass turbines will not show the center of gravity. It blips for a second then it disappears. so I have been guessing where to place the vtol engins but I managed to get 3 designs to fly ( using the infinite fuel cheat ) on kerbin however on eve I am running into problems. First the zero bypass turbines overheat and explode ( usually the Vtols ) when ran at 100% they do fine at 95 % but 100% will blow them up. Second I placed my aircraft on a transfer rocket and fueled them with kethane in orbit, then sent them to eve, when I deorbit them the zero bypass turbins will not function until the crafts lands on the surface. I tried running them at 20k, 10k 5k and 1K and they wont function unless I use the infinite fuel cheat. and I really don't understand why. 3rd all of my aircraft, simple will not fly reliably, they seem bottom heavy as if they don't have enough lift from the wings, I have to point them at 75 degrees nose up to get lift even with the Vtols on and they are not stable in flight. I understand the atmosphere creates more drag but I don't understand where I am going wrong, I even took a stock aircraft the areas 3a and converted it ot kethane and while it will fly on kerbin I cannot get it into a stable flight on eve so is it just a buggy modd, or is there something I am missing. OgreMagi

yea I do like the idea of a simulator, Planned a mission to deliver a space plane to eve and since regular jets don't work it needed kethan zero bypass turbins the problem was I couldn't ge them to work on kerbin so no flight testing of a design on kerbin well I made several designs to get it close #1 worked but it was a pain to fly the center of mass/center of lift changed because of the atmosphere and gravity change. but massive effort to build it, launch it, maneuver it to eve only to find out yea ti doesn't work. so I wouldn't mind a way to test my aircraft

the idea of a blimp for exploring other planets is old. several sci fi book I read used it. one was a flying wing with ballest balloons inside it for use on mars, hydrogen was used to help it get aloft and the physics do work out , the hydrogen filled wing supported rought 2/3 of the weight and a small gas turbine move it around. before the modern aircraft the blimp was the way to go, very long range it was used to explore both poles and was generable more reliable than the aircraft of the era. MORE BLIMPS nuff said

I went with the miner/processor/refueler MPR, as one unit and a fuel tug ( large fuel pod with LVN atomic rocket) to move the pods. the MPR is a lander with 4 kethan pods 4 fuel pods a single processor and the usual assortment of pods, I used a 4 LVN skyhook rocket system and added 5 Large solar panels and a couple large batteries. I land and full up the MPR make a full load of fuel and max my kethan, launch to orbit and wait on the fuel tugs, fill them processing the remaining kethane to fill my tanks so I can land again then send the pods back to kerbin. Mun works out the best all in all, Minus is a low energy return but it take a lot of delta v to get there, while the mun is higher gravity it think it is a better trade off as it is closer. working on a similar system for eve, duna and plane to take it all to jool

I have tried to play kerbal much like a real space program, I.E. you cant launch a rocket every time you run out of monopropellant. granted you can launch a resupply mission from kerbin but to explore and move on it is much cheaper to mine fuel in space. ( hopefully there will be a minning mod to allow you to build something on other planets) My program is based on a permant presence on the MUN, Munar orbital station ( mainly science and hitchhiker pods with some fuel, mono, kethane) with manned/robot landers that carry half fuel and half kethane and processors that land, mine, and fill their tanks then orbit the Mun. the tankers, nuke rockets, launched with just enough fuel to get to the Mun ( the kethane mod gave me the idea that I can launch larger volume payloads if I simply don't fill all the tanks on the rocket) then transfer to the mun, Orbit and have the fueler/miner meet them, fill them up and make a return to kerbin making several aerobraking orbits to save fuel. when they get low on fuel ( I leave enough to transfer and brake to orbit at the Mun) I send them back. current fleet. I have 3 miner/processors ( went thought a few designs) all can be robotically piloted or manned. so I can send them anywhere to explore when needed. a single mun orbting space station, just a few pods and hitchhiker containers. and 4 refuelers , 2 with twin Lvn motors which act as tugs for the other 2 fuel pods that mount smaller rockets to make rendezvous with other ships, when they transfer the std rocket fuel pods dock to the rear of the LVN equipped ones. I use aerobraking to save a lot of fuel when I return to kerbin and they don't weigh much when they are empty so the fuel to move them between kerbin and the mun is much less. I have sent a few mission out so far and I plan to have kethane mining every where I can. Just seems simpler to have it with you so you can refuel those craft to make exploring fun.

Kethane mining is a no brainer, you can get fuel easier from lower gravity moons on any planet in the kerban system, you don't have to launch a ship from kerban to refuel ect ect ect. Mun vs Minius Mun is closer less time but higher gravity slightly less efficient need more fuel to make orbit., Minius lower griavity but longer travel times and I much higher delta v to get there from kerban What I did was as follows, To get larger and larger craft in orbit I began to see that sending them up with less than a full load of fuel when launching from kethane made it much easier. By having a loaded tanker of fuel in orbit it was much easier to get a larger craft there. So I build a single stage lander/miner and placed it in orbit at the MUN, with rather large kethane tanks and a small converter. then I have several remote fuel tankers that move between kerban and the mun, I can in 1 day game time land the miner, mine, launch and orbit the MUN and still wait on the tanker to arrive. then dock with the tanker, covner the kethan and send it back to kerban, and even save fuel by using aerobraking to get it into orbit. I have a space station but I found it is easier to have the fuel tankers stay in orbit and rendezvous with ships as they launch from kerban.