Angelo Kerman

Pristine Mode is not intended to do anything except provide pretty models to make ships and stations with. The real problem is that it sounds like the science system is still available when it shouldn't be.

As 1.4 rolls around, I'll be doing some mesh optimizations to all my mods like I did with the DSEV truss parts. That should help with frame rates. Looking forward to what you do next!

Snacks 1.8.7 is now available: - Fixed NRE and production issues with the SnackProcessor.

Awesome, looking forward to seeing it.

Yup, SVT really improves the graphics in the game. Technically Snacks won’t kill your kerbals if you run out of snacks. It will just ruin your reputation, levy fines, trash any science you gained, and make your crew pass out, but I’m considering an addon to Snacks that would let your kerbals perish from a lack of snacks. But for story purposes I decided that Bob and Jeb would have a bad day when they ran out of snacks. BARIS wouldn’t let me integrate and fly a rescue craft in time, so I crash landed Enterprise instead. It has a year of snacks aboard, plenty of time to rescue the crew.

“The World’s First organization just recognized ‘Kerbin Galactic’ as the first entity to land kerbals on another world, the first to EVA around Minmus, the first crew transfer around Minmus, and the first to place a station around Minmus,” Gene lamented over the wireless. Enterprise's crew couldn't believe what they were seeing on their monitors. They could tell that Gene was livid. “They not only beat us to Minmus, they put boots on the ground and planted a flag before we did! Their ‘Abenteuer’ spacecraft is on its way back now, with surface samples and EVA reports and experiment results, and that’ll net them another set of world’s firsts. No doubt about it, we just got upstaged. And they’ve just announced that they’re shooting for the Mun next. We cannot let them beat us to the Mun! “We’re stepping up production on the fuel tank modules. They’ll be delivered throughout next week. Also, Kapollo 3 was supposed to be a Kerbin orbit test of the Munar Lander. That mission is scrubbed. With Kapollo grounded we’re mounting it onto a Titan and flying the lander to Enterprise. Val, I know you and Bill were supposed to do the test, but we have to land on the Mun yesterday, so this is an all-up test. Once delivered, Val will undock from Enterprise, return home and immediately start preparing for the Munar Pathfinder mission. Bill, Bob, and Jeb will fly to the Mun on Enterprise, where Jeb and Bob will set down as close to the Munar Arch as possible. That’s just the first site. Enterprise has plenty of fuel reserves for multiple excursions to the surface. We’ll show the vonKermans- and the world- that we’re not just setting down, planting flags, and leaving. There’s valuable science to be had in a sustained presence.” *** Repairs to the Akron took several days longer than expected, and the whole crew helped out in one way or another. Serving as chief engineer, Samalla led Bobus and Pepe on a stem to stern repair effort while Payin and Munvan double-checked their calculations. Kelbin and Gregorio couldn’t do much more than haul various items around as needed. During their off times, the crew mostly kept to themselves, except during meals and daily briefings. Kelbin used his downtime to try meditating. His thoughts kept returning to some vivid dreams he had months ago of commanding a winged rocket plane and flying to a sprawling space station. Was it real? He was born and raised on Kerbin, looked into the night sky when he was young with dreams of exploring space, read and re-read all of Kuzzter’s novels, and even joined the Kerman Air Force in hopes of reaching the stars, so it wasn’t like he was from an alternate reality. But this… other self… Was it just a dream… or something else? Kelbin had a flash of insight. He hit the intercom to the ship’s botany lab. “Yo,” Munvan called out. “You know that pyramid we found? Tut-Un-Jeb-An?” “Yeah?” “Tut Jeb guarded the afterlife. Heaven or something.” “Gael, dude, that’s what the language experts said.” “Right. What if the Tut wasn’t a gatekeeper to the afterlife, but some kind of guard of a portal to another SAVE? You remember our conversation about Superimposed Alternate Variant Existences, right?” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Dude, I was like, high, ok? Like, I made that mulch up. Don’t tell me you’ve actually been trying to meditate…” “Uh, yeah,” Kelbin said sheepishly. “Dude, seriously?” “I-“ “You know,” Gregorio spoke up through the intercom, “ancient Scripture talks about portals of the gods. It sounds like this ‘SAVE’ of yours and the portals are connected. One of my theories is that ancient aliens, not gods, created the portals, and used them to travel throughout the multiverse.” Mulch, Kelbin thought to himself. He forgot that Gregorio and Pepe liked to hang out in the Botany lab with Munvan. I’ll have to talk to Gregorio later about sensitive data. Kelbin didn’t have time to respond. “Captain to the command gondola,” Samalla interrupted on the intercom’s priority channel. “Repairs complete, we’re ready to get underway.” A few minutes later, the crew had the Akron ready to launch. With Kelbin and Gregorio at the controls- he was a quick study- the giant airship’s old engines coughed into life- stubbornly- and the Akron once more went aloft. She headed back to Coaler Crater to drop off her mined cache of aurum, refuel, and then head straight towards the next anomaly. High atop another mountain range in the Glantry Pricipalities, they found it, another large tracking station. They also found something unexpected. “Is that another airship? Is it one of yours,” Gregorio asked. “No,” Kelbin said simply. “That’s the Valkyrie.” *** KSC rolled out the next fuel tank module to the pad, performed pre-flight checks, and launched it with little fanfare. Within a day it reached DSEV-1, and thanks to its redesigned hardware, it had no trouble docking to Enterprise. A day later, another Titan launched the Aquarius munar lander. The vehicle suffered burn-through on both SRBs, and both first stage Fulcrum engines suffered a hydraulic leak, but fortunately the vehicle didn’t explode. Worse though, the payload fairings got stuck during deployment and destroyed the lander’s solar arrays and broke off a landing leg. “If we had an on-orbit ability to print new parts, we could manufacture spares ourselves,” Bill remarked as Aquarius docked with Enterprise. He surveyed the damage and shook his head before getting to work. He scavenged the delivery vehicle for spare batteries and solar panels, attaching them to Aquarius before detaching the transfer stage. By the time he finished, he had an idea… “Hey, Bob, what if we convert one of the hab modules into a workshop?“ “You want to do what now?” “Convert the starboard hab into a workshop and jury-rig some kind of 3D printer to make parts with,” Bill elaborated. “Bill, we don’t have the resources to do that- unless we cannibalize equipment to make material kits,” Bob thought aloud, “and/or recycle the RCS thrusters we’ve stowed. But we’d also have to dump half of our recycling resources to make room. Not a bad idea though, maybe on a future mission we could do it.” “What if we empty the outboard fuel tanks and store the resources there,” Bill countered. “That’d eat into our emergency reserves… which… we… really don’t need…” “Exactly. We built Enterprise to test the systems we need for Duna, and she almost has the delta-v for that- and more than enough snacks- but we’re just going to the Mun…” While they waited for KSC to finish integrating the remaining fuel tanks, Bill and Bob scavenged what they needed to convert the starboard habitat module into a workshop. They based their 3D printer on a hobby kit downloaded from the Lattice, turned it on, and loaded the blueprints sent by KSC. Nothing happened. Angel-125 Bill cursed and traced through config files firmware code in the converted Mark One Habitat until he found the missing OSE Workshop part modules firmware bug and created a patch. Moments later, the printer sprang to life and made a new landing leg. The crew celebrated their success, and Wernher made a note to include a workshop in all future Deep Space Exploration Vessels. Bill installed the new leg without much difficulty, shortly after the third fuel tank arrived- after forgetting to turn on angle snap fixing some minor software glitches that prevented docking… The remaining fuel tank arrived a couple days later without incident. Bill removed the last of the construction equipment which was promptly recycled into material kits. The crew performed their final systems checks, topped off their resources from Big Brumby 3, and unfurled their solar arrays. Valentina undocked the construction module and headed home while Enterprise’s crew made ready to sail into the black sky. *** “Nice to meet you, Captain Kelbin. I am Hauptmann Siegfried vonKerman, of, ah, Kerbin Galactic.” Kelbin shook Siegfried’s hand. “Likewise. Um, aren’t you a bit far away from the Kosmodrome? I thought the Valkyrie was only used for capsule recovery.” “I could say ze zame about your Akron,” Siegfried chuckled. “Ve are here investigating zis eh, tracking station, zame as you. It iz very old, ja?” “Very. We sure didn’t make it,” Kelbin admitted. “Neither did ve. But zomeone did. Zey are goot for tracking spacecraft, ja?” That explains how they communicate with their craft, Kelbin thought to himself. Note to self. Find out how to use the ancient tracking stations. “Of course.” He looked over to the Valkyrie. Part of its command gondola appeared bent. Siegfried noticed his stare. “Rough landing, I’m afraid. Stuck vent valve. Nothing Alice can’t eh, ‘handle’ though.” “Alice? As in Alice vonKerman, the kerbonaut,”Kelbin asked. “Ja, Kaptain Kelbin, ze same. Both she und Irina vonKerman are participating in zis expedition. Ve are here for ze zpace program, ja?” That immediately broke the ice for Kelbin. “How would you and your crew like to share lunch aboard the Akron? Pioneer 1 is about to reach Duna, we could watch the events unfold together and compare notes. We’d love to hear about your adventures and speak to the kerbonauts as well. I can assure you that we have no contraband aboard...” Hauptmann Siegfried laughed. “Zhere are no political officers on zis expedition, I assure you, Kaptain Kelbin. Ve vould be honored to share a meal with you und your crew.” *** As the Akron and Valkyrie crew had lunch, they watched as Pioneer 1 reached Duna’s sphere of influence and settled into a polar orbit to begin mapping the surface. Sadly, the probe lacked the power needed to transmit experiment data from its multi-spectral imaging platform and its GORESat instruments. Pioneer 2 was due to reach Duna in two days as well, but being a duplicate of Pioneer 1 meant that it didn’t have enough power either. It would instead settle into a high Duna orbit to serve as a communications relay after it arrived. During lunch, Bobus slipped away from the briefing room, exited the airship, and dashed over to the Valkyrie. He went inside to look around. A few minutes later, he ran back. “Uh, Kelbin, you got a moment,” Bobus asked nearly out of breath. “Not now, Bobus,” Kelbin responded, “it’s a double feature today. Enterprise is boosting for the Mun. Take a look!” *** “GUIDANCE?” “GO!” “BOOSTER?” “GO!” “ECON?” “GO Flight!” “GNC?” “GO!” “Enterprise?” “MC go!” “MS1 go!” “MS2 go!” “Enterprise, you’re clear for the Mun,” Gene radioed. Cheers went up around Mission Control as well as inside Enterprise. Jeb spun the first Deep Space Exploration Vessel around to its maneuver node, and gunned the engine. The Hemi Cuda roared to life. Acceleration was slow but noticeable. Seven minutes of engine burning later, Enterprise was on her way to the Mun! A third of the way there, Enterprise made a couple of course correction burns to rendezvous with Kerbin’s first natural satellite. *** “You sure you don’t need any help? I can get pretty lonely out here when your ship is broken down,” Kelbin asked. “Nein,” Captain Siegfried said, shaking his head. “We, ah, as you say, ‘got it covered.’ Alice iz un goot engineer, ve shall be fine.” “Ok,” Kelbin shrugged, “have it your way. You’ve got our frequency if you run into trouble and need a hand. Take care, Hauptmann Siegfried.” “And you, Captain Kelbin.” Back aboard the Akron, Kelbin looked around at the vista, then at the ancient tracking station. “I hope this is the last time I see one of these,” he said. The KSC airship’s lift cells inflated, displacing the air around them until the Akron became bouyant and floated into the sky. *** A day after leaving orbit, DSEV-1 entered a 32.7km by 30.6km orbit around the Mun. The ship’s main engine developed a hydraulic leak, but Bill easily took care of it with a short spacewalk. They spent a couple of orbits checking the ship’s systems and preparing the Aquarius lander for its historic landing. As luck would have it, it was just past dawn at their landing site. KSC Mission Control took the opportunity to briefly check in on Pioneer 2. The probe successfully entered orbit around Duna, though its engine burned late. KSC radioed commands to have the probe circularize its orbit in three weeks. After that, Elcano 1 will make its historic landing! “Good luck guys,” Bill said as he closed the hatch to the lander. He took his seat in Enterprise’s bridge to watch Jeb and Bob undock and prepare for landing. “Gear down, the new landing leg works perfectly,” Jeb radioed. “See you in a few.” A half-hour later, Jeb performed the de-orbit burn at munar dawn after the auto-nav threw them off course and Jeb took over to manually perform the burn. Aquarius overshot the target and had to burn vertically a few times to avoid crashing into the ground, but Jeb managed to set the lander down within 250 meters of the Arch. “Enterprise, the Aquarius has landed,” Jeb said simply. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and then cheered. “We copy you down, Aquarius, Congratulations! Good job, good job, everyone, good job,” Gene called back. Wasting no time, Jeb exited the lander and planted the flag. “We come in peace for all kerbalkind,” he said. It was bittersweet, he wanted to be the first kerbal to set foot on another world, not some vonKerman! At least he was the first on the Mun. “Footing is solid, there’s a fine powder on the ground,” Jeb remarked. “Come on out, Bob.” Bob excitedly left the lander and planted his feet on the ground. “Wow, look at the view! Jeb, did you get a sample? I hope you got a sample. That arch is enormous! Did you take any magnetic readings? We need to get the SEP set up. Uh, how are we going to do that without Bill? Uh-“ “Calm down, Bob,” Jeb waved at his friend. “We’ve got plenty of time to sort things out. Let’s take a look at that arch-“ Bob immediately began sprinting to the arch. He ran most of the way there, then realized that he could just fly there. Jeb followed suit, hitting his jetpack thrusters and setting down next to Bob. “Let’s go to the top,” Bob said, and immediately hit his thrusters.” “Bob- oh, mulch, he’s overstimulated… Uh, Enterprise, Aquarius, we’re headed to the top of the arch to look around…” “It’s 30 meters tall, wow,” Bob yelled. Jeb landed next to him. “Squad, what a view. Hey, I can see my lander from here!” “Magnificent desolation,” Bob said. “We’re going to have so much fun here! It’s nice and flat too, perfect for the Pathfinder base. Let’s get some science going!” *** A couple of days later, Bob and Jeb finished gathering their last surface samples and made their final EVA reports. If nothing else, they’d have the samples to return home. Jeb would have to return with Bill to set up the Surface Experiment Pack, and then come back again with Bob to calibrate it, but Enterprise had the fuel reserves for the excursions. But for now, it was time to return to DSEV-1. “Preflight check complete and time to go. But we shall return,” Jeb said melodramatically. He hit the ignition switch. The lander’s engine promptly exploded, sending a fireball around the craft. The master alarm blared in the cockpit. “Fire in the engine compartment! We’re gonna die,” he said panicked. “Shut the fuel valves, Bob!” The scientist didn’t respond, he was too busy looking around and screaming. Jeb reached over and hit the cutoff switch. The fire died out immediately. He looked at his instruments. The entire engine status panel was dead. “Uh, Enterprise, Aquarius, we’ve had a, uh, major malfunction. There’s serious damage to the lander, and the uh, engine exploded,” he said as calmly as possible. Bill’s heart skipped a beat and then started racing. Gene responded first. “Uh, Aquarius, Flight, we copy your last, we’re working the problem…” Gene took a breath. “Surgeon, Flight, how long do they have on the ground?” Dr. Jade checked his instruments. “About five days, Flight. After that they’ll be gonners.” Not good, Gene thought to himself. He took another breath, then looked to Wernher. “What do we have in the inventory that can reach them?” The ex-vonKerman looked shocked and stared at the monitors in silence. “Wernher?” Wernher shook his head to clear it. “Ah, ve hav, ah, ve hav Kapollo 3, Gene. Ve… need to replace ze Corvette service module engine vith un Hemi Cuda to shorten ze bell,” Wernher said, his thick accent reemerging due to his nervousness. “Ve zen mount landing gear to ze service module und convert un cargo module to un fuel tank. Kapollo 3 flies to ze Mun, refuels at Enterprise, und lands at Aquarius.” “How long to spin up Kapollo 3?” “Four days if ve rush.” “Do it,” Gene ordered. *** Wernher and his team worked tirelessly to modify the Kapollo- they knew what was at stake. Four days later, Kapollo 3 rolled out to the pad. There were no celebrations, just a stoic countdown. The clock hit zero. The first stage engines fired, and Kapollo 3 roared off the pad- for about a second. The central Skipper engine shut off unexpectedly, and the tank cluster sprang several leaks. “BARIS,” Bobak cursed, “She’s falling!” Kapollo 3 struggled to remain airborne and nearly hit the ground until its six Fulcrum engines, burning furiously, consumed enough fuel to tip its thrust to weight ratio above one. In its struggle to survive, the rescue rocket stumbled around the launch site like a drunken sailor trying to stay upright. It failed. *** Bill sighed, taking in the bad news from Mission Control. He sighed Heavily. He could tell Bob and Jeb weren’t happy either. “Autopilots,” Jeb said simply. “Valentina won’t forgive me for not letting her fly it,” Gene radioed, “But we needed to make sure we could bring all three of you home.” Bill swallowed hard. “So, uh, what’s our next step?” There was a long moment of silence. “Bill, you need to go home,” Jeb said quietly over the wireless. “I’d order you to return, but I know you wouldn’t follow it. There’s nothing you can do for us. We all knew the risks, buddy. Don’t try to argue, we won’t be listening. This is Aquarius, signing off.” The channel went dead. Tears welled up in Bill’s eyes as Enterprise coasted around the far side of the Mun. “Enterprise- Bill,” Gene said softly. “We’ve got a maneuver node for you. Next orbit we’ll bring you home. Don’t worry, we’ll be back.” Silence. “Bill?” More silence. “Copy, Flight,” Bill radioed finally, maneuver node received. I’m going to sign off for a bit until the burn. I need a moment. To say goodbye.” “Roger that, Enterprise. Come back on the air at least five minutes before the burn. We’ll walk you through it.” *** The Akron crossed over to the Northern Ice Shelf after taking a brief stop to conduct science for a few days. Just like the Great Desert, the ice shelf couldn’t be claimed by any nation. Small bases could be established that remained in possession of the sponsoring state, but nothing outside of the base’s perimeter could be claimed. The Northern Ice Shelf’s vast icy terrain was set aside as a vast wildlife preserve. Sadly though, broad sections of the shelf have been melting at an accelerated pace due to climate change. In a few decades, the shelf might very well be gone. The Akron headed to the North Pole Bio-Dome, recently established by the Kerman States to study climactic changes to the ice shelf, and to serve as an analog to Duna. Once completed, Astronauts headed to the Rusty Planet would train at the facility and learn how to work together in isolation. Their overnight stop allowed the giant airship to refuel before searching for the next anomaly; with the vast stretches of ice, the crew hoped that it would be easy to spot. The next morning, after having breakfast at the base’s mess hall, the airship lumbered off the runway and into the cold air. Samalla plotted a course to the anomaly. The crew was in a festive mood- they were headed to the last anomaly on their list! Kelbin felt particularly happy since he would finally be able to guide the Akron back to KSC after cataloging the monolith/tracking station/whatever, and finally resign his commission. Maybe he could get a job as a test pilot at Wild Blue Industries… The engines droned on as the airship flew over the ice, the sunlight glinting off of the shards here and there. One particular spot seemed particularly bright. “Uh, Kelbin, what’s that,” Samalla asked. Kelbin looked where the chief engineer pointed. He looked carefully. It wasn’t a shard of ice. *** “Flight, Telemetry,” Tanburry, Mission Control’s Telemetry Officer said, “I’m reading a decoupling event on Tanks 1 and 3.” Mulch, Gene thought, BARIS hit us again… “Alright, we need to break into Bill’s revere.” “Flight, FIDO. Enterprise is burning too early.” “Mulch. CAPCOM, get me Enterprise, Let’s find out why Bill-“ Gene froze. “CAPCOM, get me Enterprise now!” It took a couple of seconds to establish the connection. “Bill, what are you doing!?” “SAVING MY FRIENDS,” Bill thundered back. As the dust settled, Jeb looked over to Bob. “That’s not something you see every day,” he remarked.

I've been re-reading D:OB and E:OZ again and enjoying them once more. I keep hearing Martystu's voice- a full octave lower than other kerbals- in the voice of James Earl Jones..

Awesome, I can try to reproduce the issue with KIS. Does it only happen after you link a vessel and some time later snacks are consumed, or does it immediately happen? Was the vessel that you linkd with KIS the active vessel?

Look in the SampleCraft folder.

I need more information to go on. When you get this error, are you in the space center or in flight? If you look in your logs, you should see "ConsumeAndGetDeficit called for vessel:" with the name of the vessel. Which vessel is the one where you see that error? How many crew does it have? When was the last time you visited that vessel?

Either someone messed up their calculations, or Minmus is done. Or both! Either way, can’t wait to see what happens next.

With the DLC arriving March 13, KSP 1.4 pre-release is probably going to be available very soon. That means I’ll need time to prep my mods for a major game engine change. Better to patch things now for 1.3.1 so I can batten down the hatches to weather the coming update storm...

Pathfinder 1.21: Gigawatts is now available: This release focuses on resource harvesting by making quality of life improvements in the Lasso parts and adding the ability to collect exoatmospheric resources via a new part. Thanks for your help, JadeOfMaar and Rock3tman! NOTE: This is the last release of Pathfinder for KSP 1.3.1. NOTE: Next release will remove the old MCM parts- they now have replacements in DSEV. NOTE: Next release will remove the textures without names- they're obsolete anyway. Lasso - Cleaned up the available converters. Now there is an Atmosphere Processor to extract all available atmospheric resources from intake Atmosphere, and a Liquid Distiller to do the same for oceanic resources. - Added a new 3.75m Lasso-300. It can extract both atmospheric and exospheric resources via its Atmosphere Processor in addition to the standard Liquid Distiller. Be sure to start the Exospheric Scoop to gather up resources just above a planet's tangible atmosphere. Resources Definitions - Added exospheric definitions for Atmosphere, Water, Minerite, and Nitronite. With enough time and the proper equipment, you can skim the atmosphere of worlds like Kerbin, Laythe, Duna, Eve, and Jool to make LiquidFuel and Oxidizer!

DSEV 3.0.0.4 is now available: - Fixed radial airlock's missing ladder and airlock hatch. - Fusion reactors now generate ElectroPlasma to avoid CRP resource conflicts. - Compact ISRU can now create LiquidFuel & Oxidizer from Water, Minerite, and Nitronite. This only applies to Classic Stock play mode. - WBT update. NOTE: This is the last update of DSEV for KSP 1.3.1

MOLE 10.1.2 is now available: - OSE Workshop now functions properly for the Mark One Habitat when you install both OSE Workshop and Pathfinder. - WBT update NOTE: This is the last update of MOLE for KSP 1.3.1.

Buffalo 2.3.4 is now available: - WBT update NOTE: This is the last update of Buffalo for KSP 1.3.1.

I'll look into it. Meanwhile, Heisenberg 2.9.3 is now available: - WBT Update NOTE: This is the last update of Heisenberg for KSP 1.3.1.

The visuals are really great! For a moment I thought Emiko was going on an acid trip. And Bill and Fayray are in looooove, though I kept reading her name as "Faraday."

@awsumindyman It kind of sounds like you're looking for a mod like Kerbal Construction Time: KCT has a number of features that you're asking for. I haven't tried using it with BARIS though.

@AlonzoTG Haven't seen it before either. I've not had problems recovering kerbals. Thanks to some help by @JadeOfMaar and @Rock3tman_, I've got the exo-atmospheric collector working: Now you can pull exospheric resources from collected Atmosphere, just as you can split Ore into local biome resources via the Prospector. Just don't expect rapid progress, you only get a small amount of Atmosphere per day. This sample station just needs a couple of expansion modules, then it'll be ready to make LiquidFuel/Oxidizer (in Classic Stock mode, DSEV's compact ISRU can turn Water, Nitronite, and Minerite into LiquidFuel & Oxidizer. Minerite and Nitronite are exospheric). Once processed, it can deliver the products via Pipeline to another station or to the ground.

I’m still working on the details but yes, that’s the general idea.

New Lasso-300 Aero/Exo Scoop: Unlike the others, this 3.75m diameter scoop can pick up exoatmospheric gasses that exist right above the atmosphere of some worlds.

When you stage a rocket, BARIS looks at the current stage and the stage above it to check for potential failures (necessary due to the way the game works as your rocket consumes fuel). If staging is successful, your parts automatically gain flight experience. If the staging fails, each part still has a chance to gain experience. You can set the failure percentage in BARIS' launch failures settings. Currently, the rep loss will only happen if the engine is activated and throttled up. Next update will also check for first-time activation of the engine within the atmosphere of the homeworld and/or near other inhabited vessels. In this situation, you'll incur 5 seconds worth of rep loss. This will cover the situation where you try to cheat and gain flight experience without actually running the engine. Given how powerful the Trinity is, I think it's reasonable to make it hard to test, especially since you can spend science and/or funds in the test bench to improve its quality, and can build the engine via Extraplanetary Launchpads off world, move it out of physics range, and give it a go. Thanks for the suggestion, but that functionality is a lot of work for little return on investment. It's easier to just build infrastructure at your space center to reuse the vessels you've landed. EJSA does it all the time with stock parts, but mods like KIS and Infernal Robotics can make things easier.

BARIS 1.4.9 is now available: - Added 0-workers and max-workers buttons to the Space Center hiring screen and High bay/hangar bay views. - Adding/removing workers won't happen at a glacial pace any more. - Maintenance result feedback messages now displayed even when performing maintenance during EVAs. - Part condition summary info panels in the flight screen can now be scrolled. - Fixed Intestinal Fortitude event card's tendency to kill astronauts when they should become BadS. - Fixed situations where event cards would show empty events. - Fixed incorrect parts mismatch error message that appears when loading a vessel from a High Bay/Hangar Bay when you already have another vessel in the editor. - Fixed NREs that happen when changing BARIS settings while creating a new game. - Fixed vessel quality ratings that exceed the maximum allowed quality cap.

I think stock contracts can make use of Heisenberg's parts.