Cmdr. Arn1e

Interesting first post, good sir! But there seems to be a few things missing to make this a fully fleshed out challenge... It is customary to show your attempts; while this is certainly a very possible challenge, it's nice to have an initial yardstick to measure our own efforts against, and some people like to set up scoreboards in advance... Not my sort of challenge at the moment, but I'm sure you'll have plenty of contenders in no time

do you maybe still have the SaceplanePlus folder installed? that would cause some issue if you tried it out... EDIT: not to worry if you never used the parts as the mod... I tried a second pass of verify, but everything came back fine for me the second time... can't hurt to try it again

in that case, you could try verifying the integrity of the game cache - when KSP first updated for me, it somehow missed the flags and new plane parts that verifying fixed

That does sound odd... as though the files for the new wings have installed incorrectly... are you using steam, website or launcher to update?

I have it through steam... for various reasons: 1) It's my main game library, but I do have some of the games on disk in case of offline-ness 2) Most of my games, wherever I want to access them. 3) controls stored for some games, so I don't have to worry about going into options and changing them every time I install 4) Most of the Indie games are DRM free, and so there is no problem playing them if steam decides not to work. 5) It's easy to fix if things go wrong - just delete everything in the steam folder except steam.exe and the steamapps folder, then run the .exe - it will download latest files, fixing the broken updates that can sometimes happen (that are probably the cause of some of the previous poster's problems...) When .24 came out, I was half-way through a Jool-5 mission, and didn't want to have to start all over again or possibly break my save by editing the persistant file, so just copied the whole game to its own folder and ran it from there until I was done

I guess you missed my post earlier in the thread... EDIT: I do look forward to bigger cargo bays in future though, and maybe fairings or rocket bays too...

Cheers, and that's what I have in mind for it... I'm thinking the Tylo and Laythe Landers will have to go externally on the back end of the ship, but they will be good for Vall, Bop and Pol landers, and maybe an emergency rescue vehicle or something if I manage to stuff up any landings... most likely on Vall, as I think I have my Tylo lander down pat now More on-topic, I'm sure I'll come up with more designs... the current one would be perfect for lifting a small space station into orbit, then transferred to any SOI of choice The Mobile Processing Lab would have to go as a seperate part, but then that wouldn't fit in anything smaller than a Kerbodyne sized cargobay anyway hehe

There are the usual uses for the cargobays, then there's those of us who like to experiment a little and ending up with things like this: That's 4 large and 4 small cargobays arranged around a large and a small central structural girder, with the Kerbodyne adapter top and bottom to take the Docking Port Snr.'s, for use in interplanetary ships. Default cargo is 4 Mun landers, but can be swapped out in LKO for whatever is needed...

This is a fairly common challenge, but one that isn't often updated when we get a new version! And be aware, some people don't count modded engines as cheating...

Awesome challenge, I will have to give this a go not too far into the future! (Messing around with ideas for my next Jool-5 attempt, and this seems like a very good in-between step...) I'm gonna hazard a guess and think cosmetic mods are allowed (things like KAC, Texture replacer and those types) but if I were to have mechjeb installed then I would be breaching one of the rules... how about if I have mechjeb, but only use it in VAB to calculate dV?

All these new parts! and the ability to tailor your earnables production (so if you end up with too much of one thing and not enough of another, you can use the Strategies to help balance things out...) I have put my efforts on hold for this challenge while I work out even more things, and I should end up with a decent budget for the Jool-5 mission this time, with some very interesting craft, I hope!

Ah yes, Despicable Me I have been wondering about a mod that would change kerbals into Minions! might have to suggest it over on the sub-forum... it could only ever be a mod though, and even then could be in danger of copyright infringement :-/

they slow down the servers, and thus slow down the hypetrain.... chuff chuff chuff...

And... I've totally lost interest in KSP for some reason... maybe playing it exclusively for about 9 months! >.< I'm having a bit of a break and playing Dark Souls... Will most likely be getting back on the Jool-5 case once I have worked out what I can do in .25

Ziv has allowed use of F12 to add Funds... So I'm back on track! To make it fair, I only allowed myself the million I had lost, so with a few completed contracts I have 1.5 Million to spend on the project... Main part and tug back in orbit docked together, currently launching the Tylo and Vall Landers to dock... And I will post those screenshots asap!

It's like the heavens have parted and the word of God has been handed down xD Thank You! I can now get this mission off the ground I think there might be opportunity for a new sub-challenge here; something along the lines of 'distinction for using only the funds you've eant so far to fund the mission' or something... and least spent wins the sub-challene... would be interesting to see you recreate some of your minimalist ships to see how much they cost in Funds EDIT: I have given myself a Million Funds, to bring my total up to 1.5 million to account for the contracts I've taken since the glitch occured... gonna have to see if I can repeat the glitch, but not until I've sorted this mission

Question for Ziv: The thing holding me back right now is Funds after my wierd recover glitch... Have you considered what you think is a fair budget just in case someone asks to hack the funds in? I know this will most likely be against the spirit of the challenge and therefore against the rules/downgrade to honourary mention, but I really want to get this going, and adding the Funds through F12 menu seems to be the quickest way to do it (it's taken me about 3 weeks to raise my Funds back up to half a million... another 3 and I might be near where I was before the glitch!!!) Cheers

FAIL. Number 2. Just had a glitch while recovering some splashed-down debris... and recovered the whole assembly so far, leaving me with no funds to send anything else up This could be a sign EDIT: I will try to build up my Funds in this save to see if I can get it done, should hopefully only take as long as playing through to the same point again... depending on level of contracts available...

AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhh! Bloody game just glitched... and allowed meto recover the whole assemblage so far as though it were splashed down!!!! so...FAIL AGAIN now only have 398305 Funds available... gah, this couldn't get any worse

After showing you the whole idea behind the ship, I now get to show the individual parts before sending them up and docking together in LKO... (think I'm doing o.k with my rules so far! let me know what you think...) So, here we have the main part of the HMS Fearless Kraken (Without LV): With LV: Close up of the strutwork that was required to ensure it made it to LKO without anything falling off(!): On the Launchpad (I have to admit using MJ Ascent guidance a lot...): LIFTOFF! Still going strong at 12,000 meters: Start of the Gravity Turn: Circularizing: Dropping the side-tanks: Nearly there: Typically, MJ was a little out: 112 x 49 Km Orbit... better sort that out! did it manually at first: 130 x 70 Km seemed much better: So out come the solar panels: And time for the last staging event; decoupling the LV: Then de-orbiting began: And ended with me recovering the last of the LV in 3 bits... more practice needed! sure there's plenty to come... Once Everything was stable, all that was left to do was tidy up orbit: And in a comfortable 99 x 99 Km Orbit (Sorry for dark pics!): Next up will be the Tug with Adapter Drone

wow, nice job SkyRex! And an epic amount of science! That should earn you a place on the main post, when Ziv gets round to reading/updating My screenshot in my last post is my new Mothership Test Assembly in VAB, by the way, now has a name and everything; the HMS Fearless Kraken Took me a while to design, test and tweak the Laythe SpacePlane, now got it down axactly as I want it, all I have to do is tweak how it sits on the mothership assembly and apply some Clampotron Jnr.'s to the side fuel tanks and then get everything launched and assembled in LKO... Th main part of the HMS F.K. is already in orbit (after having to tweak the Launch Vehicle a fair bit, and taking LOTS of proof screenshots of both one of the fail launches and of the last successful one...) Story so far here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90691-Cmdr-Arn1e-s-Jool-5-Adventure-2-1st-Contract-Edition?p=1352698#post1352698 (Not linking in my sig this time until I manage to complete...)

It's tall enough for my purposes...

And it's a great shame, we've had some pretty interesting convo's so far

Woo! Huge advancement in the spaceplane department... messed around with a crew transport/transfer plane last night, and ended up building the new Laythe II So now I have also been able to put together a mock-up of all my tried and tested parts (some more in theory than practice, but from previous experience should be more than capable of the task assigned to them ) so to finally add a bit more interest to this so - far notepad like thread, I finally give you: The HMS Fearless Kraken!! Top section with fuel tanks: Bottom Section with fuel tanks: Whole thing with fuel tanks removed so you can all the landers, tugs, adapters and other goings-on: Top again, clearly showing Bop and Pol Landers, main Ship, Tug, adapter drone, Tylo Lander: Bottom again, showing bottom of Tylo lander, Vall Lander, 'spacer' drone, and the Laythe II: more Close-Up view of the connections between Laythe II, spacer drone, Vall Lander and Tylo Lander: Close-Up of Vall and Tylo Landers: Detail on the Tug and Docking Size Adapter/drone: Detail on the Main part, Bop and Pol landers: Of course, nothing is ever perfect...: Clearance issues are making me think I might need to use more than one spacer drone... but they are super-cheap compared to the rest of it, so tally-ho! onwards, upwards, and I'm sure I'll cross these bridges when I come to them About to Launch the main part of the Kraken, expect another update sooner than usual for me

are we allowed to build a launch rover, drive it up a hill, and launch from there? Only way you could get further in the stock aero model, I think...