Angelo Kerman

@Kuzzter: That particular project is coming along well, should have something to showcase in the next day or two.

Those videos were done by NASA or professional artists. For the centrifuge, the current design is a spindle and hub and counter-rotating ring that makes use of Infernal Robotics. I've been trying to figure out a design that just uses animation that is also compact enough to launch without giant fairings. It's taking awhile though, and I'm busy with my other mods at the moment.

I think there's a good reason to keep the collars: If the ship gets depressurized, your crew has a chance to grab their gloves and helmets and survive.

For the Alt P menu, I'm looking into adding a toolbar button to the stock toolbar. That should take care of it. Right now the key is hard-coded but that's easily changeable in a future release. 3-5km is out of physics range, and vessels won't receive update pings so they can run their converters, animations, etc. If the vessel is loaded, and it has opted in, then it will benefit from the resource distribution system. Much simpler to make a distribution system that way. The Claim Jumper needs a bit of work, but it has a built-in drill. If you don't see "Start Strip Mining" on the context menu, then save and reload your game. That should bring it back. And I'm not sure why you don't have a close button on the modify drill screen, sounds like there is a bug. Next time it happens, if you post your logs I might be able to take a look.

If you used Amarillo USAF font, you might get lettering similar to the original USS Enterprise model.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll take a look once I get to the point where I can play with the JetWing again. You are correct though, the wing is intended to be assembled out in the field.

Outstanding, glad to hear it! I will make it a staple of WildBlueTools, and add the feature to the Mk2 cargo bays as well. Mitch wishes the crew of the Intrepid safe journeys, and if they have any other extras needed, just holler and he'll contact the WBI sales rep.

That would be a wee bit too complicated to implement. However, the Ponderosa hab tenplate has a built-in computer if you have kOS installed, so you could program it to run your base for you...

Sounds cool, thanks for sharing your building tips. If you have pictures I'll be happy to credit your work and showcase them. I'm aiming for the KISS principle for Pathfinder, so that means making things only as complex as necessary to get the job done. Think semi-casual player instead of hardcore gamer. That will turn off some folks but oh well, I'm not a hardcore gamer... For logistics I see the Ponderosa hab template or perhaps the Switchback being used as the coordinator for sharing resources. Hit a switch to opt in and you're done, everything is handled automagically. Any base within physics range that has opted in will evenly distribute their resources, unless you lock the resource (so you can keep your required resource). Even better would be for the resource distributor to automagically ignore resources in a part that are required for a converter. That way your greenhouse won't lose its Dirt and shut down. It will be an interesting design challenge to figure out.

Not sure what the curators of CRP think of this idea, but RoverDude's latest update notes have a suggested uses for the new resources. Maybe that is something to consider adding to the comments in the common resources file. Where it might not be intuitive, such as substrate, have a comment for an example usage. That would help modders get ideas on how to use and combine resources. It isn't something set in stone, just a hint on how it's used in the major/collaboration mods.

@Kuzzter: I've updated the tools this morning, refining it and making it possible to switch between the stock animation and the partial animation. You can download it here. Here is Lt. Kernel Mitch Kerman to explain how it works:

@Kuzzter: I created a special build of WildBlueTools that will help with your cargo bay woes. You can download it here. This will replace the ModuleAnimateGeneric with WBIModuleAnimateGeneric. You'll get a new sliders called "Open Limit" and "Close Limit". Open Limit is just a renamed version of Deploy Limits. Close Limit determines how far to close the doors. You also have a new context menu button called "Partial Open/Close." Press that to partial open/close the doors. Finally, you have an action group item called "Partial Open/Close" which works just like the context menu. Screenshot: It's a bit late, so I haven't quite integrated the normal open/close animation. I'll get to that if you decide to use the tools. If you don't find another solution, Wild Blue Industries has you covered.

Love how Bruce Springsteen is running your space program.

While Martystu is persistence-sensitive, that was actually the monolith's doing. If Martystu tried to fly the ship as a tourist, the story would be done, heh. The monolith wasn't going to do anything until it realized that Martystu was right.

@Kuzzter Thanks! Martystu has been fun to flesh out, so to speak. Jeb has definitely gone missing, that's for sure. Bill did not want to leave Duna without at least recovering Jeb's body, but even an off-camera trip to The Face and back didn't reveal anything. Makes me wonder what the team is up to now... Part 21: Planetfall “Deedledeedledeedle” Valentina awoke from stasis to an alarm playing in her ears. She tried to roll over and hit the snooze button before realizing that she couldn’t turn over. A wave of claustrophobia washed over her before she regained her senses. That doesn’t sound like the Dres proximity alarm, she thought to herself. Val looked over at the status panel. Her eyes went wide. The cryopods were blazing hot! The panel displayed a countdown timer. It read 153 seconds until heat exhaustion and cryo systems failure. Her friends were going to die if she didn’t act fast! Val immediately tried to revive Surina and Gerbles, but the system would only wake one kerbal up at a time. She cursed and started thawing Gerbles. As he began to wake up, Val tried to thaw Surina. Nothing happened, the ship didn’t have enough electric charge. She tapped a control panel. 121 seconds left. The micro-fusion reactor was slowly replenishing the ship’s power, but her crew would be dead before she could revive them all at this rate. Val reached for the main reactor controls and tried to start it. Nothing happened. Its power cell was completely drained despite locking it before the crew went to sleep. She had no choice but to wait for the ship to gain enough charge before starting it. Ten agonizing seconds later, the main fusion reactor roared to life. 104 seconds left. Val started thawing Surina. Gerbles took a deep breath. “What’s going on,” he asked. “Why is it so hot in here? It’s like living in a furnace.” “Take care of Surina,” Val yelled back as she bolted through the crew hatch to the starboard cryopod. “Get her and you into the Hitchhiker and seal the cryopod!” 91 seconds left. She reached for the controls to thaw Bill. The system complained that it wasn’t done with Surina yet. Come on, Deep Freeze, hurry it up, Val thought to herself. 84 seconds left. Val finally started thawing Bill. Val sweat profusely, her body trying to cool down. 64 seconds left. She practically threw a barely conscious Bill into the Hitchhiker as soon as he was out of the pod. 44 seconds. Bob’s turn now. She could hear Bill grumbling about hating the desert. Val’s strength started to falter from all the heat. She shoved him through the hatch, his body floating into Gerbles’ awaiting arms. 24 seconds before systems failure, Val slammed on the thaw controls for Martystu. Her crew was safe. “You’ll still have the record for the longest time in cryostasis, Martystu,” Val said, and promptly passed out. --- The team huddled in Pegasus’s core modules for the better part of a day while the cryopods cooled off. Bob traced the problem down to inadequate plumbing for the pods; they were too far from the radiators to receive direct cooling. Val checked on the Dres Tug. It reached Dres orbit yesterday, settling into a 250km polar orbit and it started scanning the planet for resources and the Dres Face. The team would have to wait until Dres arrival for the results, however, the TERRAIN lacked the range to transmit its findings. With the crisis averted, the crew realized that they didn’t have enough snacks to reach Dres and investigate the Dres Face, so they had no choice but to return to cryosleep. Bill and Gerbles jury-rigged some conduit to help with the heat problem, but they could only slow down the heat buildup. Fortunately, Pegasus would reach Dres before it became a problem again, but the cryopods would definitely need more radiators for the trip to Kerbin. All but Valentina returned to their slumber nearly two days after waking up. She checked and rechecked to make sure that the heat buildup wouldn’t happen before reaching Dres. Finally satisfied, she entered her cryopod for 190 more days of dreamless sleep. --- The Duna One Expedition crewmembers awoke once again a day before arriving in Dres orbit and nearly two years after leaving Duna. The team gobbled up snacks to stave off their hunger while catching up on the news. KSC reported that Kerbol’s solar tsunamis stepped up another few notches, and the sun somehow gained additional mass equal to about 42 Jools. They predicted that Kerbol’s mass gain appeared to be exponential; if it reached 5 solar masses then it would naturally collapse into a black hole, but KSC suspected that it will happen sooner, aided by the Ancients’ implosion devices. KSC also reported that they launched the Icarus, created at the same time as Pegasus as a backup in case of launch failure, and that it was on its way to Dres. The Administrator had every confidence that Valentina and the Duna One Expedition could accomplish the mission, but either way, help was on the way. Pegasus settled into a 2,071km equatorial orbit, then lowered to 100km in preparation for landfall. Shortly afterwards, Val jettisoned the now empty drop tanks. Not long afterwards, Pegasus received data from the TERRAIN and relayed it to KSC; the resource distributions looked promising, and it found the Dres Face. It was time to complete their mission. “Bill, you’re in command of the Blitzen,” Val continued with the briefing. “I’ll fly the Donner. Surina and Martystu, you’re with me.“ “No,” Bill said sternly, “Martystu, you ride up front with me. You’ll appreciate the view.” He gave Martrystu a nod and smile. “Just don’t touch the controls like last time, ok?” “You got it, boss,” Martystu said beaming. Bill gave Bob a glance, and the senior scientist nodded approvingly at the seat assignments. “Ok,” Val continued, “Surina and Gerbles are with me. Bill, you’ve got Martystu and Bob. That actually divides up the team nicely… Donner lands first so I can scout out the terrain and guide you in on remote. Once we’re all on the ground, we assemble the base and then investigate the Dres Face. If all goes well, we shut down the doomsday device, then settle in and explore Dres until the next window to Kerbin.” “That’s about a year away,” Bob pointed out. Val nodded and continued. “If we can’t get the greenhouses going, worst case is we shut down the doomsday device, then shuttle back to Pegasus and enter cryosleep until the next Kerbin window.” “I wonder what Gene’s reaction will be when we finally tell KSC about Martystu,” Bill chuckled. “Oh, that’s going to be an interesting conversation,” Val admitted. “We’ll worry about that later. Let’s get on the ground first.” --- A few minutes later, Val activated Donner’s LV-N motors, unlocked its resources, and warmed up the gyros. Soon after, Donner separated from Pegasus and extended her landing gear. “See you guys on the ground,” Val radioed, and then lit the nukes. Donner shot away from Pegasus on her de-orbit burn. Twenty-five minutes later, Gerbles spotted the Dres Face. It looked quite similar to the Duna Face, but with a similar coloration to the asteroid. With little fanfare, Val set Donner down next to the Face, right on target. “Switching to remote guidance,” Gerbles radioed. “We’ll be using our console to order Blitzen to lower her shields…” Back aboard the orbiting Blitzen, Bill gave Martystu an puzzled look. “Uh...” Val laughed. “Don’t worry, Bill, we’re just going to fly you down. All set?” “Ready,” Surina radioed. Martystu gave Bill a thumbs up. “Yeah, we’re ready here,” Bill responded. “Great. Blitzen is on auto, bringing you guys down now…” via remote, Val unlocked Blitzen’s resources, warmed up the gyros, and activated her LV-N nukes. Everything checked out. Blitzen undocked from Pegasus and extended her landing legs as she backed away from the ship. Half an orbit later, Val remotely ignited the nukes for Blitzen’s de-orbit burn. It didn’t take long for the lander to go suborbital. Suddenly, the instrument panels lit up, warning lights and alarms all blaring for attention. "What did you touch," Bill yelled at Martystu. "Nothing, I swear!" “V-Val, the a-autopilot just d-d-d-dumped our air, and, and, entered safe mode, and we’re starting to spin,” Bill said over the radio, his hands shaking with fear. His helmet made it sound like he was talking inside a bucket. “Aw Krak. Gerbles, disable the remote. Take manual control, Bill,” Val responded. Gerbles switched off the remote link. “I c-can’t.” “No control?” “N-No, we have control, Val, I just can’t do it. I can’t.” “Bill, listen to me,” Val said, coxing him. “You’ve been training for this. You can do this. Just like you did with the Long Flight to pick up me and Gerbles.” “I’m sorry, Val, I just can’t. I’m terrified. I’m sorry.” “Bill snap out of it,” Val demanded. “BILL!” Martystu froze. This is it, He thought to himself, this is how I die. He steeled himself and looked around the cockpit and finally found what he was looking for. He flipped the switch, cutting off his microphone. “Monolith, I know you can hear me,” he said, knowing that the vacuum would not carry his voice. “We’re going to die unless Bill can get it together. Help!” Nothing happened. “Monolith, come on, help! Bob doesn’t have any flight controls. If not Bill, then let me fly this thing!” Still nothing. He took a deep breath. “Monolith, we’re about to crash and burn. I’m not a real person! I’m just a placeholder. If I go, so do you! This whole universe will go without me! Come on, Monolith, you know it’s true!” Once again, nothing happened. “Fine,” Martystu said resignedly. “I’ll do this myself. I’ll use whatever skill I’ve got. Either I’ll land this thing, or the entire universe will die trying.” He grabbed the controls. Martystu flipped the microphone back to live. “Crew, this is the pilot. Our autopilot is FUBAR. Our current trajectory is FUBAR. I’m taking manual control. We’re going to perform an Abort Once Around and then land next to Dres Lander Donner. Standby for circularization burn in 3.. 2.. 1… LET’S FLY!” “Who is this guy,” Bob asked. Bill said nothing and just shrugged.

Yeah, I'm finding that large bases eventually get hit by the Kraken, but it depends upon where you place them. I'm considering some kind of distributed system so you can make smaller bases in places where the terrain is questionable. I have not seen the lights issue you had though. Below is an example of the lights working fine. Nothing wrong with attaching stuff to the inflatables.

Exploding gaslights (see what I did there?) is likely a result of terrain issues, not much I can do about that. One thing I do is mount them on top of the Ponderosa. Turning ob the light causing the willies... I have not encountered that one, I'd need logs to help. @max1982: the non-boxed modules are designed to be attached to the circular ports on modules like the Ponderosa, not set on the ground. For instance you can attach them to a Switchback.

@Kuzzter: I haven't played with the slider but as I recall the animation module will play from fully closed to whatever percent open you set the slider too. It might need a custom animation module, but I will poke around the API when I get home and see what I see.

Adding recyclers to the hab modules makes sense. Pathfinder's Ponderosa hab has one when USI-LS is installed, and MKS's Kerbitat has one as well.

Great, glad you like it. Nodes on the bottom of the modules? Which ones? The Ponderosa (habitat in a box) has one already. What do you need mounting points on the bottom for?

Funny you should mention that, I've been considering adding ModuleManager templates to Pathfinder that would add the mod's Science, Habitation, and Industry functionality to various KPBS modules. I already have the ability to vary efficiency of the modules, so different sized facilities will have varying degrees of productivity.

0.9.9 USI-LS Hotfix Get the latest here. 0.9.9 - Fixed an issue with USI-LS support where the Life Support template wasn't showing up. Also, added Dirt since there was enough room in the template.

@ZeroA4: Found the issue, thanks for the bug report. I'll have a hotfix shortly.

Yup! The team is finally giving him some respect. Speaking of the team... Part 20: Goodbye, Jeb “Bill, it’s time to go,” Val said. Bill didn’t move. “Bill? Bill… we have a world to save. You know he wouldn’t hesitate if it were you. Let him go, Bill…” The engineer stood silently for what seemed like an eternity. “No one gets left behind,” he said simply. “There’s no one else left on Duna to leave behind,” Val retorted gently. “He’s gone. Let him go. If you don’t move on, all he did will be in vain, because not only is his life cut short, so is yours, because you stop living and you just exist with nothing but your sorrow, waiting for the grim reaper. Trust me, I know.” Bill stood in silence. “Bill…” “I have to say something before we go,” Bill said, sighing heavily. “I’m not sure what, just give me a minute... I got it. It’s something he’d appreciate.” Bill took a deep breath, then tapped into the satellite communications network.

Yay for the CactEye working. Pretty cool that you turned it into a space station too.