Angelo Kerman

Good trick to know, thanks!

Oh, don't worry, @Kuzzter, Things are about to get odd in DSP.

Part 13 As soon as the Duna One Expedition received plans for their new airplane, they immediately got to work on it. Thanks to Burt Kerman’s design skills, the aircraft took shape in record time, with the 3D printers working around the clock. After loading it up with supplies and base components and team members, Duna’s first cargo jet, the Long Flight, took off in the middle of the night and landed early morning at The Face without a single stop. After taking a few moments to admire the strange rocky structure, the team planted the flag and wasted no time setting up their base. Even though the area was resource poor, at least they could drill for ore to extract monopropellant from. But even with the strip miner, they’d be stuck at Face Base for several days at the very least while they drilled for ore. The team spread out around the base of The Face to discover its secrets. It didn’t take long to notice what looked like an entrance. “Over here,” Bob said. “There appears to be a short ramp leading up to a doorway. It’s where a kerbal’s spinal column would connect to the skull.” It didn’t take long for the team to assemble and puzzle over the door. “That’s clearly solid,” Bill noted, “how do we get in?” “Let’s try knocking,” Jeb said. He stepped up onto the ramp and proceeded to knock on the stone slab surrounded by what looked like a door frame. His hand passed through with little resistance, like dipping a toe into a pool of water. He immediately backed up. “Woah! Is this some kind of illusion?” Bob picked up a nearby rock and tossed it at the door. It bounced off harmlessly. “It’s solid as a, well, a rock.” He tried poking at the doorway with various instruments. Anything he held that was longer than an arms’ length away could not pass through. Finally, Jeb had had enough and simply walked through the doorway. The team collectively gasped. “There’s gibberish on the walls, ceiling, and floor,” he said, flipping on his light and peering down the long corridor. “Looks like there is a room up ahead with some kind of light. Come on in guys, nothing’s going to bite us.” “How would you know,” Bob asked. “You’ve never been here before.” “True, but think about it. The door only lets us pass through. Anything else gets blocked. We’re the key.” “He has a point,” Val admitted. “Let’s go.” --- With Jeb leading the way, the team filed into The Face to see what was in store. The main corridor had passageways leading to smaller rooms. The appeared to be empty, save for writings on the walls. As Val, Bill, Bob, and Gerbles entered the large chamber located approximately where a kerbal’s brain would be, Jeb and Surina took the side passage that appeared right before the large chamber. The explorers followed the passage as it sloped upward, turned a corner, sloped upward again, and turned another corner. “Hey, where are you guys,” Val asked. “I think we’re above where we came in,” Jeb answered. “Just below the mouth, I think. We walked up a couple of switchbacks. Anything interesting in that big chamber?” “There’s a lit control panel of some sort,” Bill responded. “I want to play with it but Val won’t let me.” “Guys, come back to the ‘brain room,’ let’s not get split up, just in case. “Okay, Val,” Jeb acknowledged. “Be right there. Let’s head back, Surina.” Then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. “The writing here isn’t like the others.” “Let me see,” Surina said, approaching the wall. Jeb looked at her quizzically. “What,” she responded. “Studying languages is a hobby of mine. Anyway, this is written in some strange petroglyphs, I can’t understand anything of it.” “What about this,” Jeb pointed to another wall. “This looks like different gibberish.” Surina looked at the writings. Still nothing. She wandered around the walls looking for more clues, then found a ray of hope. They looked familiar somehow. “donde esta el bano,” Surina said, trying to pronounce what she thought it looked like. “No bano aqui. No bueno.” She shrugged, “The alphabet is familiar but the words make no sense.” She kept looking around, then finally found something she recognized. “This one is written in Ancient Kerbal... Oh, I get it, we’re underneath the mouth, right? We’re standing in a translation room! These,” She said, pointing to the petroglyphs that Jeb noticed earlier, “are like the glyphs in the other chambers. All these other ones must be various ways to translate what they say. I bet if we backtrack through enough languages, we can figure out what the petryglyphs say. It will take awhile, but this is going to be sooo much fun! I bet we can get my friends in the Rosetta Society back home to help. They’re a bunch of language buffs like me.” “Geek,” Jeb muttered under his breath. “What? I couldn’t hear you.” Jeb opened his mouth to say something in response, then closed it again and just smiled and waved. “Val, we found what Surina thinks is a translation room.” “Yeah, I want to stay awhile, see what I can make sense of,” Surina called out. There was a momentary pause. “Ok,” Val responded. “Jeb, stay with her and keep an eye on each other. I don’t want the krakens to suddenly grab you.” So much for playing with the JetWing, Jeb thought to himself.

If it's an invisible menace, wouldn't it be a... phantom menace?

You'd need to drive an engineer out to the pad or once in orbit to upgrade the engine. One way to do it is launch your probe into orbit, then send a service mission with an engineer and RocketParts to upgrade the engine.

Not sure. Are you in the editor or put in the field? If you are in the editor then you can't inflate the mode by design.

Thanks! With 1.1 around the corner, I'm going to have to wrap this up so that I can update my mods when 1.1 comes out and have a new test base. Speaking of which... Part 12 With communications finally reestablished with KSC, Midlands Base began receiving a deluge of data. Val’s “choice words” were heard loud and clear; Gene simply could not apologize enough for how the mission began, and never ran out of praise for the team’s efforts to put the mission on the right track. In between collecting and analyzing rock samples, the Duna Expedition found a bit of time for fun. “Hey guys,” Gerbles called over the intercom. “Want to come take a look? It’s done!” Jeb and Val immediately jumped to their feet, simultaneously calling out “Dibs!” Sitting on the workbench was a delta wing attached to a harness. Twin rudders jutted upwards, while modified model aircraft jet engines hung below the wing. Small nozzles protruded from various places, and a pair of boxy fuel tanks provided the backbone to the wing. “I call it the JetWing,” Gerbles proudly said. “It’s experimental, but it’ll fly in Duna’s thin atmosphere if you double up on the engines. I modified the WJ400 Jaguar- a model aircraft engine- to burn monopropellant. It can switch between monopropellant and liquid fuel, actually. Anyway, per Val’s request, there are no flight controls except for a throttle, altimeter, and a compass. Well, ok, I couldn’t resist, and added RCS controls and a hover mode too. But for normal flight you have to move your body to make the wing go up, down, and so on. Essentially, your body is part of the aircraft.” “You know, Gerbles, if this works, you’re going to create a whole new market back home,” Jeb said. Gerbles said nothing, but he didn’t have to. He just grinned. “Sign me up,” Val said enthusiastically, “when can I fly it?” Jeb bristled at the notion. Val immediately picked up on his reaction. “Mission Commander’s prerogative,” Val added. “Besides, I’ve been cooped up on this base way too long, and you got to take the first suborbital flight in the Komet, created a whole new base, and the micro-fusion reactor was invented on your watch. This one’s mine.” Jeb simply shrugged. “Well, we need monopropellant,” Gerbles said to break the tension, “but we can drain that from the Komet. That’s pretty much it, actually.” “Oh, I can’t wait for this,” Val beamed. --- “Fly safe, Val,” Jeb said over the radio, trying to put on a professional face. “Don’t turn me into the mission commander, I’d never get to fly again.” “What, and let you ruin my fine work? Never! Don’t worry, I won’t be meeting the Krakens today.” “Hey boss,” Surina called over the radio. “Hate to spoil your fun, but we’ve had another signal loss event.” “Be right there.” --- “Got it,” Bob said, “right there. Every time one of our satellites flies over that spot, we get that glitch. Fortunately the Bird Dog just reboots itself and continues on its merry way.” “What can we do about it,” Surina asked. “We’re here to explore the planet, let’s go explore,” Val said. “Jump in the Komet, take a suborbital hop, drill and refuel, and repeat.” “That’s halfway around the planet,” Bob pointed out. “That’s a lot of hops. Even with setting up a base each time, that’ll take weeks.” Bill looked at Gerbles, then at Val, and grinned. “I have a better idea.” --- Kerbin Times Robot Plane Discovers Face On Duna Kerbal Space Program’s Duna One Expedition sent a robotic jet plane on a record breaking journey halfway around Duna to investigate a strange signal that periodically disrupted one of their “Bird Dog” tracking data relay/global positioning satellites orbiting the red planet. After a fifteen-day stopover to refuel, The Duna Scout, or Scout for short, completed its journey and discovered a mysterious rock formation that bears an uncanny resemblance to a kerbal’s head. “Based upon the team’s aerial flyby, it is clear that the rock formation is a face,” says Gene Kerman, Flight Director for the mission. “There’s no doubt about it. We’re very excited to learn more about ‘The Face’ as we call it around the space center. Who built it, and why?” After its aerial flyby, famed kerbonaut Jebediah Kerman remotely piloted Scout and landed the aircraft. It now rests near The Face while it refuels and serves as a beacon for future missions. Designed by Bill Kerman and Gerbles Kerman, the two flight engineers on the expedition, Scout is powered by a jet engine derived from Gerbles’ monopropellant powered model aircraft engine, invented during his journeys on Duna. The engine proved itself when Valentina Kerman became the first kerbal to fly a jet-powered aircraft on Duna when she donned a backpack mounted flying “JetWing” designed by Gerbles as well. With the public clamoring for their own JetWing backpacks, lawyers are already arguing over who owns the rights to the flying wing. “Normally I’d argue that as an employee of the Kerbal Space Program the JetWing belongs to KSP,” Mort Kerman, intellectual property lawyer and financial advisor for Kerbal Space Program commented. “But as a concession for not suing us for gross negligence, KSP has agreed to turn the rights to JetWing over to the Duna One Expedition team members, with Gerbles Kerman listed as the principal inventor. I’m delighted to represent the team as we prove that the funding for the expedition’s activities came from private contracts instead of taxpayer funds, and that the Kerbal Space Program is a privately owned entity at this point. Therefore the JetWing does not exist in the public domain.” Mort would not comment on who owns the rights to the micro-fusion reactor designed by Bill Kerman and Bob Kerman, chief scientist of the Duna One Expedition. Flight Director Gene Kerman says that the Duna One Expedition is working with legendary aircraft designer Burt Kerman, who created the Kalifornia Kondor, the first aircraft to fly around Kerbin non-stop, to build an aircraft larger than the Scout that is capable of carrying the entire team and their equipment to The Face and return them to Midlands Base safely. “That boy Gerbles’ monopropellant jet engine is a game changer,” Burt Kerman said. “Jet planes on Duna, who’d have thought of it until now? I’m happy to fly down to the KSC and work with the engineers there and the Duna team of course to design a long range cargo plane. It’s an honor to have a small place in history to explore this astounding discovery.” Kerbal Space Center lost contact with the Duna One Expedition after they flew past Minmus’ orbit due to gross negligence by the former Kerbal Space Program Administrator. Nearly a year later, the new Administrator ordered the launch of Stormbreaker, a satellite designed to break through the radio static caused by the “Solar Tsunami” produced by Kerbol, a phenomenon that began while Duna One traveled to the red planet. Stormbreaker succeeded in breaking through the static and sending plans for a laser communications satellite…

Update 1.0.6 Get the latest here. - The Supernova will now properly allow you to upgrade the engine. You don't need Science when in Sandbox mode, but in all game modes, you do need a 5-star engineer. - Adjusted the parts cost to upgrade the engine. - Updated to the latest Wild Blue Tools.

Yup, please post your logs. I won't be able to help otherwise. 0.9.7 works just fine for me, I have no issues with the JetWing. It was working just fine for me as of a couple of days ago:

I noticed on your sodium satellites that you and small boxes. One has an orange science beaker, another looks like a red rocket, a third is some kind of green gear, and a fourth looks like a blue rainy cloud. I was wondering what those are.

There should be a couple of ModuleManager patches in the Buffalo/Parts/Command/BuffaloCab.cfg file and the Buffalo/Parts/Utility/CrewCab.cfg file. It looks like I goofed on the CrewCab, it should have a section that looks like this: @PART[WBI_CrewCab]:NEEDS[TacLifeSupport] { @RESOURCE[ElectricCharge] { @amount = 350 @maxAmount = 350 } //21 crew-days of life support RESOURCE { name = Food amount = 7.679 maxAmount = 7.679 } RESOURCE { name = Water amount = 5.075 maxAmount = 5.075 } RESOURCE { name = Oxygen amount = 777.266 maxAmount = 777.266 } RESOURCE { name = CarbonDioxide amount = 0 maxAmount = 95.913 } RESOURCE { name = Waste amount = 0 maxAmount = 0.1 } RESOURCE { name = WasteWater amount = 0 maxAmount = 0.924 } }

@pellinor @Bluebottle:I'll definitely be looking into these. I like the idea of a landing gear, like a foot. I may have another part that serves as a hub that has a landing gear type thingy. I'm also considering a distributed base solution as well; something that lets you have small clusters of modules and something that automatically distributes resources if you're in physics range. That's the fun of my "Duna Space Program" mission report, I've been discovering new challenges while trying to move my base around or build new ones. For instance, hauling resources is a real challenge, even if you're just driving a 100km. I think some kind of automatic logistics transport would be helpful. I might revive my old KOTS idea.. This will have to wait for 1.1 though, I want to take a short break and mess around with my mods a bit more before the new version of the game is released. @Denko666: Nice to see that you have a new mission on the way.

Thanks! When I started this mission, I was doing it to test Pathfinder's base building elements and it has worked out well in that regard. But I haphazardly threw ships together and randomly chose a spot on Duna to land. Then I decided to make a story out of it, and incorporated the haphazard elements into the story. So I'm the Administrator that Val is complaining about. of course the "new" administrator is just me paying more attention to the details...

I know Lt K Mitch Kerman (KSMC) would love to make a cameo, but his agent (read: commanding officer) says he's busy testing the JetWing.

See? This really is Bill and Jeb's excellent adventure!

This mod works great, thanks for making it. My experimental monopropellant-powered jet aircraft works great with your mod. I could leave it alone and let it hold altitude:

That unfortunately is a KAS/KIS problem. Parts that can be radially attached tend to explode when dropped to the ground. My suggestion is to drop a Saddle onto the ground, then put the Ponderosa or Buckboard onto the Saddle. Side Note: the terrain that you put your base on matters. I have another test base on Duna, this time at the face, and when I did the above suggestions, the moment I reloaded the game, my base flew into the air (I did not bolt the Saddle into the ground). During the test, I turn on no-collision damage in the debugger, and just let the base fly. After it landed I hyperedited it back into place and righted it with a SAS gyro, then quicksaved the game. After a reload, the base kept flying up. What I found is that if I removed the Saddle that the base was attached to, then I had no issues and the base rested comfortably on the surface. It could be that the Saddle is too low a profile for the game to handle, and that causes the collision issues that cause bases to jump. It's also interesting to note that bases bolted to the ground eventually jump into the air as well upon reload. That happened to my second Duna base and eventually the first. Anyway, I'll experiment with different combos and see what I can come up with to help alleviate the issue.

One of mt network drives at home is making "click click click" noises and likely needs to be replaced. Hurry back, Bill!

I will look at it this weekend and get a fix out. Should be pretty simple. You don't need science in sandbox mode, just rocket parts.

What's fun is that when Bill talks about modifying the .cfg file to add a ModuleResourceConverter, I knew exactly what he was doing. Now, if Bill knew how to create and texture meshes and then write PartModule code, he'd be a minor deity. Speaking of which, I need to create a prop to turn off the interior lights, now that I can detect the mouse clicks..

@rumtreiber: Next update I'll create a toolbar button so there will be an alternative to the hotkeys. @Denko666: Glad it's working for you, thanks for the feedback. Mostly I just hear bug reports so I'm glad to hear things are working. Side Note: I'm sooo glad I finally figured out how to respond to mouse clicks on the internal monitors. That means I can create custom IVA prop controls. Things like props to turn off the interior lights.

Glad you like the mod. Actually, Pathfinder does have a greenhouse. Simply right-click on any Chuckwagon and convert it into a greenhouse. You'll lose whatever you have currently stored in the module. The Chuckwagon converts into the Prairie, and it'll take 90 days to grow crops- unless you have a skilled Scientist staffing the module. And for those not on the release thread: Get 0.9.7 here Ponderosa/Casa IVA You can now click on a screen to change its image, provided that your scene loaded with a kerbal in the part. See KNOWN ISSUES below. Buffalo Command Cab Added support for TAC-LS Buffalo Crew Cab Added support for TAC-LS Prairie To help with part count at the base, the Prairie now produces enough Snacks/Supplies/Food for 3 kerbals for 90 days. Bug Fixes Updated required Organics in the Prairie to match rebalanced max resource storage amounts. Fixed an issue where the Prairie wouldn't start running the Snacks greenhouse even though it had a full load of required resources. Kerbals won't fall over if trying to strap a Casa/Ponderosa onto their back. Ponderosa/Casa won't explode when attached to another part. Kerbals will now sit properly in the Buffalo ATV Seat. KNOWN ISSUES The monitors in the Ponderosa/Casa will retain their default image if the scene loads without a kerbal in the part. WORKAROUND: Put a kerbal in the part, and reload the scene.

Get the latest here. 0.2.6 Buffalo Command Cab - Added support for TAC-LS Buffalo Crew Cab - Added support for TAC-LS Bug Fixes - Kerbals will be seated properly in the ATV Seat.

Well, you're in luck, get the latest here. 0.9.7 Ponderosa/Casa IVA - You can now click on a screen to change its image, provided that your scene loaded with a kerbal in the part. See KNOWN ISSUES below. Buffalo Command Cab - Added support for TAC-LS Buffalo Crew Cab - Added support for TAC-LS Prairie - To help with part count at the base, the Prairie now produces enough Snacks/Supplies/Food for 3 kerbals for 90 days. Bug Fixes - Updated required Organics in the Prairie to match rebalanced max resource storage amounts. - Fixed an issue where the Prairie wouldn't start running the Snacks greenhouse even though it had a full load of required resources. - Kerbals won't fall over if trying to strap a Casa/Ponderosa onto their back. - Ponderosa/Casa won't explode when attached to another part. - Kerbals will be seated properly in the ATV Seat. KNOWN ISSUES - The monitors in the Ponderosa/Casa will retain their default image if the scene loads without a kerbal in the part. WORKAROUND: Put a kerbal in the part, and reload the scene. Let me know if you continue to run into trouble...