Angelo Kerman

Prologue Finale: Loose Ends No doubt about it, DSEV-1 was slowly slipping down the hillside. The sliding already claimed the number two lab (the remains were recycled), but Bill wanted to preserve the wreck as much as possible. He first tried hooking up some winches to the craft and hauling it up the hill, but the winch violently broke free and sent its piling flying. The flight engineer was about to give up when he decided to try a radical idea: bolt some wheels onto Enterprise and drive it onto the platform! To his surprise, it worked! He did bottom out briefly, but a short burst from the repaired main engine enabled DSEV-1 to scrape over the regolith. A short time later, Enterprise took up its position on the konkrete platform built for its namesake mun base. Future flight crews and tourists would be able to visit the Kerman States’ first Deep Space Exploration Vessel thanks to the flight engineer’s efforts. With DSEV-1 preserved for future generations and the last load of gemstones nearly ready for shipment, Bill, Bob, and Jeb’s mission to the mun was almost over. Bill just needed to repair and refuel Kapollo 4 for the trip home and wait for Team Loner (they really needed official team names…) to arrive. They wouldn’t know the hardships of the early days- struggling to scratch out the resources they needed using feeble drills, wondering if they’d freeze to death in the bitter cold, worrying that their greenhouse crops would fail, and stripping down everything they could to print up new modules- but subsequent crews would have ample space to learn how to work together in an isolated environment. They wouldn’t even have cramped ships to travel in- the new Munbus produced by Captain James and MEX 2 took care of that- if they get the kinks worked out. Bill looked around and smiled at their handiwork. They’d turned tragedy into triumph. And in just a few days, they’d be home. *** Lagatha vonKerman opened her eyes, briefly panicked, and took a deep breath to calm herself. That triggered a huge coughing fit as she coughed up the blue gunk in her wind pipe. She nearly passed out with all the coughing. Her muddled brain struggled to understand what was happening. Across from her, she could hear Hanse vonKerman going through similar duress. She looked at the mission elapsed time. Then she remembered. 283 days ago, the Abenteurer left Kerbin orbit with her, Hanse, Alice, and Irina all in cryostasis- something the Kermans had yet to discover. In two days, they’d be 200km above Eve. Her job was to make sure that the Abenteurer entered orbit around the purple planet instead of sailing on by. She didn’t have much to do, however. Her instructions were simple: wake the ship up from its slumber, warm up the atomic rockets to prepare for the burn, gather science from high above Eve, and check in with Kontrol (which is supposed to be done first, but there wasn’t much they could do abou it). Check, check, and check. There were a few minor glitches, but Alice could take care of them once she woke up. Other than that, all she could do was make a crew report, flip the switches to run some experiments, and wait. The autopilot already plotted a 1568.1m/sec braking burn- well within the ship’s available delta-v. Even if the tankers failed to arrive, the Abenteurer had just over 5,500 m/sec of delta left in the tanks- enough to enter orbit, wait for the transfer window back to Kerbin, and head home. If they arrived in orbit, she’d wake the rest of the crew and they’d all explore Eve and Gilly, plant flags, take EVA samples, and then slumber for the trip home. If not, then they’d go back into cryosleep and await rescue. Two days of waiting with little to do. She chuckled though, Hanse probably had a few ideas… Two days later, Lagatha cursed. They were late to initiate the burn, but at least the atomic rockets sprang to life. An eight-minute burn was an eternity for a crew that had never been to Eve before, especially since nobody had been here before. She breathed a sigh of relief when the plot showed that they entered orbit around Eve. Now the engines had to keep going to circularize their orbit. The burn clicked below 800 meters per second, still no problems. Abenteurer was holding up her end of the bargain. They were on the night side now. Eventually the ship settled into a 290.5km by 155.7km orbit, right as Kerbol crested the horizon. Close enough. They’d done it, they were the first kerbals to orbit around another world! Time to circularize the orbit and wake up the rest of the crew. It would be another 19 days before the tankers made their orbital insertion attempt, but they’d have plenty to do while they waited. *** “Well, that’s the last of them,” Kerman Air Force Major Parie Kerman said as she gazed upon the open bay of the Air Force’s new A-52 Avenger, currently docked at Dolores Air Force Station. It had just taken on the last of the space station’s atomic weapons. Derived from the Kerbal Space Program’s Aircraft model 51 “Flapjack,” the Avenger (pilots called it the “Pancake”) was a disc-shaped craft inspired by the crashed flying saucer found in the Arctic. Its disc shape remained the only technology taken from the flying saucer thus far- and things would remain that way for years as the World Court argued about who got to study the alien craft and who owned its secrets. With the breakdown of the Total Disarmament Treaty, Avengers like the one docked to Dolores took up patrol orbits for up to 157 days- 90 days was the typical mission time- ready to dispense their deadly atomic cargos should the need arise. But the crew spaces and cargo/weapons bays designed to perform its mission came at a cost. The Avenger needed help from the new Ike booster to attain orbit. On the plus side, Avengers weren’t limited to a fixed orbital track like Dolores Air Force Station. They could adjust their orbit thanks to their built-in maneuvering engines, and once they completed their patrol, they returned to base while another rocket saucer sortied and took up patrol in a different orbit. With its last weapon offloaded, Dolores AFS retired from its atomic patrol. That was a good thing, the station was falling apart. Parie saw Captain Gedra Kerman exit the airlock for an impromptu EVA. “Number 2 Power Module just shorted out, and took Lab 2 down with it,” she said, grabbing a powered multi-tool. Parie sighed. “Again? I thought you fixed it.” “I did,” Gedra replied. “My fix is still good. This is something else. I should have them back and running in a few minutes.” “This is what we get for exceeding the station’s design life,” Parie quipped. “Need a hand?” “Nah, I got it,” Gedra said as she jetted over to the stricken module and began repairs. A few minutes later she repaired the part and headed back inside. After the airlock cycled, Parie headed in as well. The airlock was pressurizing when she heard the station’s master alarm, followed by a loud boom. “What the Moho was that,” she asked over the wireless. “Station crew report in. Gedra, was it another system failure?” “Cargo 3’s engine spontaneously exploded,” Gedra responded. That didn’t sound good. The crew gave their status report. Janchell and Nelberry reported no casualties, as did the Avenger’s flight crew. The airlock finally filled with air. Parie rushed to the command center. “How the mulch did it do that?” “Unknown,” Gedra answered. She took a quick look at the last few second of the logs. “One moment it was fine, then boom. Logs suggest a sudden loss of pressure right before the sensor failed. Never seen anything like it.“ “What is orbiting nearby,” Parie asked. Gedra checked the radar output. “Nothing but DenEye 5.” “No orbital debris? What about that spent Titan stage,” Parie asked, referring to a co-orbiting rocket stage that failed to de-orbit. “On the other side of the planet.” "Huh." Parie shook her head and shrugged. She ordered a station-wide status check. The station was intact save for the busted engine and several systems in need of repair. So much was going wrong that it could be any number of malfunctions. All she could really do at this point was talk to the boss. After reporting their situation, Air Force Mission Control ordered Dolores AFS abandoned sooner than planned- it was running out of spare equipment anyway, and it had run out of research kits and experiments to run, leaving it mostly useless. Both the A-52 and Parie’s Big Brumby undocked and de-orbited without incident. Both spacecraft crews failed to notice that the “DenEye 5” orbiting not too far from the ailing space station was nothing like one of their spy satellites...

It does that now. If you don't want to use Hover Mode, simply open the VTOL manager, find the FWD, REV, and VTOL buttons, and press the VTOL button. You'll be able to fly in VTOL flight without the need of the Hover Manager. Be sure to turn on your gravitic generator to produce GravityWaves, and have a power system that can power the generator. The gravitic engine is not a normal engine. It's based on max acceleration, not max thrust. Best to keep in mind that it's an alien engine; it doesn't work quite the same way as other engines in KSP.

That would be awesome, thank you I need ASET Avionics and RPM just for the HUD; everything else comes from ASET Props and MAS. Like I said, MAS is a welcome improvement over RPM

ASET Props, RPM, MAS, and ASET Avionics are all needed. Maybe when more props are ported over to MAS I can reduce that...

The K2 has a button that lets you start and stop a simulator. That simulator generates LabTime. It is very slow, and you need a lot of electricity, but it'll get the job done. Be sure to copy all the folders into your GameData folder. @Puggonaut Those look great! I can also see that I need to tone down the droning sound... I've seen the multiple windows too, I haven't figured out why that's happening yet. I think there's a way to detect when the game UI is hidden; if I can find that then I can make the window go away too. The trick to using the Coanda is to have a very light craft. Don't load up on LiquidFuel or you'll be weighed down and can't take off.

@shdwlrd @JadeOfMaar Those ships looks great! It'll be cool to see what you do with the mothership too once I get that done... A safety check for the ground is an interesting idea, though one that you can disable so you canskim the ground..

Today I released the first public alpha release of Kerbal Flying Saucers:

KFS won't support 1.3.1 without a recompile. I reemember it but don't have the post anymore. Yup! It's been a long road to get to today, but that's what I get for making something pretty innovative. Yes, that's intended. Crazy Mode is a little on the OP side so it eats through GravityWaves. More generators will help though.

And I have no way to close it. If I go to the pause menu and go back to the tracking station or space center, oddly enough the proper window will display in the black loading screen, but then the game camera will lock into place upon loading either the space center or my save from the tracking station, with no way to control anything or open any menus. The game will be running, sounds, physics, animations and all, but with no interactivity or camera control. This doesn't happen when managing operations from a Conastoga for example, but the same crash will happen when doing it from either the toolbar accessed Pathfinder menu, the Ponderosa, or the rec center. Also this may be a dumb question but sometimes when I recycle a part for equipment I don't see my equipment count rise in the Conastoga, and the Top Off Resources cheat in the Pathfinder menu doesn't seem to function. Am I doing something wrong? I just posted a small bug fix update, see if that helps. Meanwhile, Kerbal Flying Saucers Phase 1 is now complete! You can build a prototype flying saucer that can be conventionally powered or use an exotic engine. Before I start work on Phase 2, I have some stuff to do in Pathfinder. I've been experimenting with static base platforms in my career game and it's going well: It's much easier to build bases on a flat platform than on a hill, so I'm adding a Buffalo Bulldozer part to Pathfinder that lets you build flat surfaces. It'll take time to make the platform, though engineers can help reduce that time. The bulldozer will move local regolith around to form the platform. I'm also looking at making the Sandcastle 3D printer, that would initially make the konkrete platforms that you see above. It'll be the next step in Pathfinder's Project Sandcastle.

I've ironed out the bugs with the gravitic engine at last! Also, here is a video tutorial that shows you how to use Crazy Mode: Oh, and just one more thing: Kerbal Flying Saucers Initial Public Pre-Release is now live! Download it here. For future reference, the link to the releases is here. This is the initial public alpha release. It supports KSP 1.4.x. Alpha means the mod isn't done yet, parts are subjected to change, things aren't necessarily play-balanced yet, and there are bound to be bugs. But with that said, it's playable. Please do your part and provide constructive feedback! You can help by telling me what works well and what I might consider to improve. Please don't just tell me that some feature is lousy, suggest how it could be improved as well. NOTE: Graviolium is supposed to be a rare resource and hard to get. You can mine it from asteroids, collect minute amounts in orbit, buy some from the Refinery, and find GoldStrike deposits if you have Pathfinder loaded. Bug Reporting: Please don't just say "xxxx is broken." I need detailed steps to reproduce the issue as well as logs. CKAN is not supported! It completely borks my mods. If you want to say thanks for the mod, post your screenshots of using the flying saucers. Happy saucer flying!

Not according to startrek.com... http://www.startrek.com/database_article/impulse-drive Crazy Mode moves the vessel without kerbal physics. It is essentially a low powered warp drive, creating a ripple in space-time that the saucer surfs. If you look carefully, the saucer is rapidly moving up but its velocity remains zero. No kerbal physics involved, just repositioning the craft.

Chewing through the bugs today, I finally got the gravitic engine flameout and flameout recovery issues crushed. I also just fixed a problem where Crazy Mode won't disengage when you go sub-orbital. And, Crazy Mode is now tied to the throttle setting, which means you can warp around the world for longer if you don't go full throttle: Here you can see the saucer "flying" around but without any thrust. Think of it as a low-powered warp engine or as a sophisticated Vessel Mover. Crazy Mode works best when you're in Hover Mode, but it'll work with normal flight as well.

This is as close to the Coanda effect as I can get in KSP: On the plus side, the AVR0's engine controller is able to dynamically adjust the thrust nozzles so that VTOL thrust is always applied at the craft's center of mass. This is just like the gravitic engine... Anyway, the AVR0 is inspired by this: Now the Flapjack lets you make saucers inspired by the Avrocar, the lenticular re-entry vehicle: ... and of course classic alien flying saucers. I'm just down to the bug fixes at this point.

Last image for tonight: This central keel is the AVR0 "Coanda" Hover Jet. If it works out the way I want, it'll replace the existing hover jet that I made...

New low-profile docking port: And new Arc Wing:

That's cool! Do I need multiple cameras or can one camera switch modes?

And got the cameras working: The cockpit is essentially done. Time to make a couple more parts and fix some bugs!

Woot! I'll have to figure out the shaders later.. I'd like to have night vision cameras for when it gets dark..

Actually, I have that covered: It has some bugs but it does work.The @Kuzzter Industries K2 "Kray Kray" supercomputer has to be run next to a crashed flying saucer. It gives science like any other experiment in the game. It also has a small chance to unlock experimental versions of saucer parts before you unlock the node. It works like the stock game's part testing contracts, where you have to test something like a rocket engine or lab or something, but you haven't unlocked the node that the part is in yet. With enough effort you might unlock the 4 nodes before you get through the tech tree... Trivia: In the lore of my mods, Kuzzter Industries is an electronics powerhouse. They make everything from the kPad (there is a part in game called the kPad if you have KIS installed) to DSEV's Kuzzter Industries' Three Thousand, Emergency Multipurpose Hologram, Mobile Emitter, to the flatscreen monitors. The company is named in after one of my favorite KSP fan fiction authors.

Last image for tonight: Thanks for the suggestion @MOARdV! Tomorrow I'll tackle the side-view cameras.

Groom Lake Parking pass... love it! Thanks for the info on the camera.

Not just kerbals, humans too. I've made wiki pages and KSPedia pages for my mods but people don't read them and then come complain that they can't figure things out.

Awesome, looking forward to using that. Also, do you have any examples of a MASCamera configuration? How should a camera transform be oriented? Which axis does the lens use? Thanks again, the cockpit is nearly done.

Team Jeb (Bill, Bob, and Jeb) and Team Valentina (Val, Bobus, and Payin) launched into orbit with their new Estonian Duna lander- you might recognize it as a kerbalized Mars Excursion Module. After docking with DSEV-2 Protector, the crew moved in, activated one of the S.A.F.E.R nuclear reactors, turned on the recyclers, began basic research experiments, and activated the greenhouses. They are currently waiting for the Duna transfer window to open. The Estonian's transfer stage has some extra Snacks aboard, so it won't be jettisoned and de-orbited until a few hours before initiating the Trans Dunar Injection burn.