Cmdr. Arn1e

heh, well I never, I was right in a surmisation! Funnily enough, MJ is working fine for me... as long as I turn RCS off and let it settle a little in between maneuvres... There's a .GIF in my mission log showing how loose everything can be at times! handy to find out that docking ports will allow rotation, under extreme circumstances anyway!

Awesome, thanks! entry updated

To be brutally honest, I have no idea how to use them yet! I seem to be missing something... probably the instructions haha! From what I can make out though, KAS isn't all plain easy sailing... I'm under the impression that you can attach some bits and pieces in VAB/SPH, but to connect them together (in orbit) you need to send the parts pack up so a kerbal on EVA can actually 'tie' things together... which makes it semi-realistic IMO, but as I said, I haven't really played with it much so far! And I hope I have been pointing people in the right direction when either you or SSSputnik have not been around

Wondering when a mod will walk in and steal the show, and possibly move the thread too! Definitely more of a forum game than a challenge IMO... this last page is just 2 people chatting lol I'll finally join in though... +20 have an account (well, let me see...) +20 take part (heh, guess only the once counts!) +25 have an Image/Avatar (losing points because I don't like .GIFS as avatars... oh well!) +50 for having a friend... (yay! lol) +291 post count 2.91 posts per day * 100 = 291 again (lol!) +20 for 2 Threads started with at least 2 replies 5*48=240 for Rep 202 for visitors to my page = 1159 total Awards: Think I missed out on Greenhorne, started in .22 Just Getting Started - 777 on Steam, but have had a fair amount of KSP offline, which it doesn't count... Well-Rounded Missing Link So, not too bad for someone who's only been playing for 6 months or so, and found the forum a *bit* later...

It is customary to post your own attempt to show how do-able it is really... have you made one of those planes yourself yet? I think they are quite a feat of engineering, even in KSP! And by the way, they are called Ornithopters (you can change the title by using advanced edit... otherwise people will be thinking "Flappy Bird in KSP? wut?")

I'm hoping my multiple fuel trips won't disqualify me; I installed KAS mid-mission as I thought it would be a way round my huuuge fuel tankers wobbling about so much, but then saw that KAS usually results in an entry to the guest list, and found a way to make my craft more rigid in stock! (being able to dock multiple docking connectors at once is SO handy!)... so have refused to use any of the KAS stuff for the rest of the mission too, in the hope that I reach Jeb-Level (otherwise, why drag all those little landers along? heh!) My log is now up to date, as I said before I think, been a long day!

Thanks guys, feedback is both useful and welcome! I have now pulled of the first refuel mission (details below!), and the Laythe landing and lift - the Laythe 1 proved to be very much up to the challenge, and performed better than I hoped! even had a little fuel left over that I was able to transfer back to the mothership to aid in the Vall transfer... if I hadn't, I may not have had that little bit needed to close orbit on Vall, and I would be back in Jool orbit waiting for the next load of fuel before I could try again! I also think I was very lucky to get the Laythe landing on the second try... first time I didn't manage to get it down on flat enough terrain, and ended up making a small crater in a hillside! the same hillside actually helped on takeoff though, as it gave me just enough angle of attack to get airborne Anyway, on to the UPDATE! To continue where I left off, the tanker had just left Kerbin, and was on its way to Jool/Laythe: Ended up getting a lovely aerobrake in Jool's atmo, which put me in a position to intercept with Laythe without too much dV used: It made it with all 4 orange Rockomax tanks full, which was enough to sort out the Mothership's Laythe orbit and bring it in a bit closer (ended up parking it at 100x100km orbit). And the tug with lots of extra RCS also gets transferred across: (That last one shows how huge the fuel tanker is! >.<) And another 'spare' docking adapter: Once everything had been transferred across, it was a near-miss getting the tanker to crash onto Laythe: Good image showing how cose it came, and where the small tug has been stored for now: On the way to disposal in one of Laythe's oceans: SPLASH! Back to the Mothership to sort out its orbit before the Laythe attempt: Then transferring Jeb on EVA to the Laythe 1 plane: And attaching the Science Nose to the Laythe 1: Then getting to safe distance before firing rockets: Uh-oh, all the fuel lines and struts seem to have messed up! hope it doesn't interfere with the mission... (it didn't! ) Heading, 90.7 degrees... this must have been where I crashed into the hillside! This looks like the successful landing: Yep. 91.2 - just enough to land on a flatter bit of terrain! And Jeb seems to be very happy to be on solid ground once more : And so, onto the SCIENCE!! 1st MG cannister: One barometer reading on the surface (after forgetting to get a screenshot of Science Jr): Ladder down for surface activity: Disaster! or is it?! There turned out to be a wing in the way of the ladder... didn't stop Jeb getting that all-important surface sample! And EVA reports can be done anywhere, of course: Temperature reading: Seismic Scan: Gravity Scan: All science done (bar the nosecone reading, 2nd pressure reading and remaining MG cannister) so away we go! In-flight Nosecone Reading: Goo: and the last Barometer: Nearly Forgot! Crew Report: Switching to rockets for last of the ascent: As the fuel lines seemed to do their job even though they were messed up, I don't need the wings anymore! On way to Rendezvous with the Mothership: And back with the SaR Mothership, nosecone already re-attached to its correct port, and Laythe 1 attached via the Science Package: How it's looking now: Once docked, Jeb got out and moved all the SCIENCE!! to the Lab: That's a LOT of science! Then Jeb made his way back to his proper station: Then, after the remainder of the fuel and oxidiser had been transferred out, I used RCS only to dispose of what was left of Laythe 1 in one of the oceans: Then, like the n00b I am, I forgot to take screenshots of the Vall Transfer! D'oh! still, this thread seems pretty pic-heavy already... Anyway, Current state of play; In Vall Orbit awaiting MOAR FUEL! because my mothership is turning out to be SO innefficient... Very glad I transferred the last of the fuel out of the Laythe 1 before ditching it, otherwise the orbit would be even more eccentric! Still, the views are still pretty! And that's it for now, pending Fuel Delivery... at least it won't take me a month and a half this time, as I already have the vehicle for delivery after the first run! will see if I can get it to deliver more fuel this time, but as landers are used and disposed of the dV requirements should go down, I just hope that it doesn't rip apart on the way home! but that's a worry for later... Onwards! UPDATE: Fuel tanker now en-route...

There are lots and lots of 'Cloud' type services about, but there have been online storage websites for years and years... DropBox is very popular, others seem to have fallen out of favour in recent years due to advertising and security breaches... Curse is one example, and why it was such a contentious decision by the dev team!

Every time I see something new about .24, I make sure to put my thoughts and comments here rather than see lots and lots of other similar threads pop up... The original and best .24.11 thread! hehe Q&A phase is usually just before the experimentals go out to the testers, I think, so hopefully more forward progress soon

Currently uploading the 140+ screenshots from Fuel Transfer ops and Laythe visit, this could take a while! in the meantime, here's Jeb making his way back to the Command Cupola... Boy, were the guys in the hitch hiker container glad to see him back in one piece! EDIT: BOOM! done Had some 'interesting' glitches with struts and external fuel lines not being where I put them, but it seemed to have no effect on the mission... One down, 4 to go! Having to send another fuel mission... annoying, but shouldn't cause the month-and-a-half delay this time as I now have the perfect fuel delivery vehicle, just need to get a little bit more fuel to Jool than last time, and I should be set

UPDATE of update-y goodness; Laythe Conquered! Well... full amount of science gathered, but no flag due to odd glitch with some wings... ahem... I will update the log ASAP! Oh, and I would recommend using 4 lots of 4 nuclear engines, have reached Vall orbit, but totally out of fuel on the mothership again! good thing I have the fuel tanker worked out now... hoping to deliver more fuel this time, too, to cut down on fuel used by the mothership I will now be making use of a tug to get the landers in close enough to do their own de-orbit burns...

You seem to be able to do whatever you want during a grand tour, but to meet the requirements of the challenge your mothership and landers must go to the Jool System together... you can even ditch the landers once used, reducing the amount of mass you have to bring home, if the rest of your grand-tour will allow it...

I still did not complete the Jool-5 mission yet, but have been working on it...

Just read in Gizmodo that Chris Hadfield's health study has uncovered various space-related ailments that basically turn you in an 80 year old with type 2 diabetes... And that study of this can help us work on cures/preventatives for sufferers here on earth read it here: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/06/living-in-space-is-like-being-old-and-having-type-2-diabetes/ What do you guys hope we might cure with future similar studies/experimentation?

Again, I stand corrected! must be the mods, not the devs, running that show then! Looking forward to 64bit support myself, can't wait to see how much memory it will actually use! hehe

31.5 - I seem to be middle of the road compared to the rest so far!

Ooooh, possible win64-bit in this update! Wondering if it will be delayed until after the Kerbin Cup has been done, can imagine the KC is rather a distraction for the Dev team atm!

if this doesn't catapult Whack into LEGENDARY status (if he isn't already!) then I don't know what will!

Random update; SUCCESS!!! My fuel tanker has arrived, with 4 full orange tanks (hopefully enough to complete the mission now!) Once docking/fuel transfer is complete, I shall be crashing the refuel ship into the Laythe ocean... And hopefully the Laythe 1 plane will be able to fulfill its mission and then get dumped in a similar fashion, then it's onto Vall

I think that in future we may end up using something quantum-based, much like the new computers do... Namely, Quantum entanglement - where two atoms are 'paired' and they both show the effects of something happening to one or the other, even seperated by great dstance... After all, Radio is currently still bound by the resonation of quartz and other minerals with a natural vibration, and most of our clocks/watches too! If we can work out ways of using Quantum Entanglement for communications, I'm sure it will break various barriers But then... what if this is what possible other alien races use? would we et interference from them that way? Not with Quantum Entanglement - it would be more like an old 2-way radio or walky-talkie that has been paired with only one other device, so more secure than traditionaly Radio, but with all the drawbacks of it being able to communicate between the devices with the Quantum Entangled atoms in the heat of it... Can we get round the limitations? We don't know yet... they've barely started palying around with Quantum Mahematics with computers, but I'm sure that someone at some point will experiment more and wider than current scope, and it may open even more doors, and provide answers to some of the questions about the universe (Especially if NASA succeeds in building the worlds 1st Warp Drive, AKA Alcubierre Drive - see other post for discussion on that though )

Yeah, know what you mean... I kinda felt a bit dirty seeing what was going on over on Reddit! not on a team, but felt a bit like Industrial Spying or something lol.. I hope you guys do get to submit .gifs, they always make for the more interesting entries xD

Exactly; what we really have is a lot of speculation, including from the experts on the subject... until experimentation is complete, they aren't even sure their device will work! For some reason black holes always end up being discussed when powerful, possibly fabric-of-the-universe-rending technology is put forward... but did the LHC create black holes? No. So even with the most powerful machine currently on the planet, capable of smashing atoms together at huge force, is incapable of creating the most powerful and destructive force currently known to man... thankfully! Has it avanced science and understanding? A resounding Yes - the Higgs boson may not have changed much yet, but who knows what another 10 years of study will show? So, back on-topic, do we know what will happen when they experiment with the AD? not yet... will their findings be reported? you bet your life they will, even if it's "We were wrong, we're giving up for now and going back to the theory to continue working out kinks..." Is it still worthy of discussion? of course - even though we may not be scientists, we can still come up with pertinent questions and possible outcomes that the scientists themselves don't think of, that's the way science works! After all, we have some very youn people coming up with totally new answrs to very old questions just because they have a fresh perspective, and a good grasp of how things work, which can be lost if you end up studying the same thing for a long time and get used to how you know how to do it... I'm hoping their experiments do help humanity in some way, even if it isn't what was originally intended... after all, some of the greatest inventions of the 20th century started off as something else entirely

Man, this is gonna be some competition... and congrats to Team Clown_Baby, you may not have made it on the forum, but you seem to be in the Reddit teams! I look forward to seeing what the teams come up with - I would participate in the unofficial version, but mid-refuel mission >.< might try something before the deadline though...

I think Rune and Whackjob should put their heads together and compete in the 'unofficial' version - I want to see what they come up with! ESPECIALLY Whack!

That's what I was thinking, thanks for clearing it up! And no need to apologise; revising the rules is well within your rights as the challenge-setter, but if we think you are going too far we will say, as has happened this time Hopefully I'll only need this one refuel mission... but now I have the refuel vessel, if it comes to it I won't be leaving any kerbals behind! and I don't ind if I get penalised for it - I will just have another go from scratch, using what I have learnt this time... When SSSPutnik had an issue with one of his landers, Ziv allowed him to re-launch the lander on its own to replace the broken one, but not after SSSPutnik had done the same as you - it was decided that Hyperedit is cheating! BUT, having said this, I'm not sure if he would allow or not in your case, as it isn't on the Jool leg of your Grand Tour... so I guess the only person you're cheating is yourself, really... (heh, and I thought I was having trouble with my refuelling mission! Only taken me about a month and a half RT to sort out!)