Fenris

I really feel like this shouldn't have worked. I was thinking of putting an unmanned rover that could later be manned on the Mun. Just clowning around in the VAB and came up with this. I was like "there is no way this will work", but gave it a shot anyway, fully expecting it to go wildly out of control in the atmosphere and be a mission write off. But it was unmanned so I went for it. Selfie time Landing stuff. Turns out that I waited for the landing spot to be facing the sun but forgot to take into account Kerbin's shadow, so the pics are a bit dark. The plan, if it worked, was to take the landing vehicle back up into near orbit then crash it down into the Mun (or perhaps deorbit it into Kebin, it had a lot of left over delta v), but someone forgot to put any batteries or solar panels on that part .... so I guess it stays as a monument to stupidity. And off to do some science.

Oh nice! I wondered what they were for lol

I went to Duna. Of course I had to complicate the mission by wanting 3 Kerbals and all of the science equipment I could carry with me, as well as some ground science in storage. In the past I'd just make a massive launch vehicle, as well as a somewhat large transfer vehicle, then top it off with a lander that was large enough to land on Duna then return back to Kerbin. But now that I'm doing more docking I decided to do more of an Apollo style mission. So here is the launch vehicle. It is much taller than I'd like, but at that point I hadn't unlocked the largest tanks yet. [SPOILER="Some Pic Spam"] Turns out it flew better than I expected. That's a Twin Boar and 2 Vectors pushing it. Gaining the last bit of height and speed thanks to the Mastodon. Fairings deployed, solar panels out, and just waiting circularize the orbit. So long Mastodon. I try to leave no trash in space. On the way to Duna. Gathered some science on the way and am heading for a 55k x 55k orbit. Time to do this. Well that's not right. Not sure what happened here as everything was built in symmetry. My guess and it's only a guess at this point is that I didn't distribute the load evenly when I loaded on all the ground science. I'll check that out later. Luckily the capsules SAS was enough to level the lander. I also had the first near disaster of the mission. I was messing about in the capsule menu trying to get a crew report before touch down when I noticed I was falling too fast and less than 30 meters from impact. I had just enough time to slow the lander by going full throttle at that point, but it was a bit of a panicked move . The Kerbals probably would have survived the impact (it was slow enough), but I'd noticed on the way down that I had the landing gear too far up and the Spark engines were nearly level with the extended landing gear, so prone to getting destroyed if I landed a bit too fast. And here they are after landing and setting up the science equipment. By this time I'd switched to the transfer craft (using its drone core) and pushed the obit up to 75k x 75k to make rendezvous easier. Not sure if that helps, but I felt like it would so that was the plan. Time to leave. Man those sparks are weak lol. In the VAB I was showing around 1.3 TWR on Duna. Turns out it was more like 1.1 TWR. Glad I didn't pack on anymore weight. I'd love to claim that I masterfully planned to have exactly the amount of delta V required for the ascent and rendezvous procedure, but that would be a lie . I was sweating a bit, even the Kerbals look concerned. I have never cut dv this close before, I've run out dropping into Kerbin before, but I don't count those as I was already captured. Used the remaining fuel and about a quarter of my monoprop to slow down and am on final approach to the transfer vehicle. So after docking I I transferred the crew and all the science to the transfer vehicle. I'm getting ready to undock the lander and have it deorbit, and then I'm going to drop the orbit on the far side of the planet to 45k, detach the outer fuel tanks and engines which are nearly empty, and finally raise my obit back up before plotting a maneuver node home. So here I am doing one final check when I noticed I forgot the parachutes ....... again! Luckily I insisted on having 3 Kerbals on this mission, otherwise I wouldn't have brought an engineer along. So, after Bill saved the day (I really did not want to have to do a rescue mission lol), the lander was successfully deorbited using the remaining monoprop, and the nearly empty fuel tanks dumped, it was time to head home. BTW, those Communotron DTS M1s I brought along for the probe cores when I wasn't directly controlling the craft ..... 2% connection to Kerbin lol. That nearly changed how I did the whole mission once I got to Duna. So here I am coming into Kerbin. A bit before this I noticed my trajectories mod wasn't working (forgot to download the dependency). So I'm coming in hot and need to do an aerocapture since there is no way a single Nerv is going to do the job. I'm trying to quickly guess how low I need to be in Kerbin's atmosphere to do one, it's been 2 years I don't remember this stuff. I settled on 35k, it seemed too low but something told me to go for it so I did. I didn't get any pics of the areocapture, I was too busy being nervous, watching the readouts, and trying to figure out which explosions I needed to worry about and which ones were no problem (you could only say that last bit in KSP). I was still pretty high up when reentry heat started up, I'd decided to leave the Nerv and tanks on as a temporary heat shield to help save the ablator. The retracted solar panels and antenna went almost immediately. The Nerve seemed to only last seconds at this speed before blowing up. The remaining fuel tanks followed in quick secession one after the other. Then the large reaction wheel and decoupler went up. But I was captured, and nothing I hadn't planned on ditching was damaged (I pretty much figured the antenna was going to go). So on the second orbit. In the end I came away with 2.1k science, all the Kerbals survived, and unlocking so many world firsts payed for the trip. [/SPOILER] Uhh, sorry for the pic spam. I seem to have forgotten how to use spoilers. Could someone refresh my memory. Thanks

Thanks for the answers. I think I'll skip rovers on Minmus and stick to higher G bodies for rovers. I did test it out later by using the hack gravity cheat and getting the gravity as close to Minmus as I could ..... and well it was no fun

I guess the first question is, are small rovers even possible on Minmus? I remember trying years ago and would just end up with a rover launching itself on every small bump, or gaining zero traction and going nowhere because of the reduced gravity. And yeah I know hopping to different biomes on Minmus would be much faster, I just felt like playing with rovers. So I made this one I'm thinking about taking there. So as you can see, I tried to make it wide and low to the ground to be more stable on a low gravity body, but still not sure if it is worth a try. I suppose if Minmus is out, I could try the Mun. And the second question (not really rover related), once I suck the science up into the Experimental Storage Unit is it then possible to dock and transfer the science through the Clamp O-Tron to a return vessel with another Experimental Science Unit?

I discovered that I'm like some kind of docking expert or something . But seriously, closing in on 1,800 hours and I'd never docked before. I tried multiple times years ago with rage inducing results, usually including never getting close to the target, screaming by the target at a high rate of speed, or getting RCS controls mixed up and quitting out of frustration. So for years I just played without docking. This made for some interesting launches when I wanted a space station or large rocket lol. Maybe it was from watching a lot of YouTube videos on KSP or just a better understanding of the game, but I was quite surprised (and happy) to see that docking isn't really that hard. So I'd accidentally accepted a mission to dock over Minmus and figured I might as well give this docking thing another go. I'd already had a cheap station in Minmus orbit (it was for a contract, so they got the least expensive one I could build), so I built a small rocket with a docking port, some RCS thrusters, and way too much mono propellant to fulfill the contract. I'm sure most here already know how to line up for a docking attempt and how to do it, so I wont go into details, but I was surprised at how easy it actually was. I won't say it was the most efficient docking procedure, and I probably used more monoprop than needed trying to keep the nose of the ship pixel perfect with the targeting reticle on the navball, but it went off without a hitch even if it was slow lol. I'm sure with more practice I'll see it is even easier than I made it. After that I sent another mission to rescue a Kerbal trapped in the Muns orbit without enough full to get home. It was actually easier than docking since ... well, since I didn't have to dock. I just got within 10 meters, killed the target relative velocity to 0, had the Kerbal EVA to the rescue ship, then had the engineer on the rescue ship add a cheap probe core and antenna (turns out the antenna wasn't needed). After everyone was safely aboard and before I had them go home, I switched rockets to the newly probe cored one and had it crash into the Mun getting rid of all evidence of a failed mission, I mean cleaning up space. Now I'm flooded with ideas on stuff to do in KSP with this new fangled docking technology. I really feel like the simple act of docking has really opened up the game to me.

For me, it has been mostly Minmus, some on the Mun, several times on Duna. I thought about doing Ike, but I don't like Ike . Seriously Ike, almost every time I go to land on Duna, you have to show your ugly face and get in the way. I suppose I should try to use that to my advantage though. I landed .... umm, docked on Gilly one time. I cant count the number of times I tapped the throttle just a bit too much and went flying off before getting it right. That was the first time I played with the throttle override setting, up until then I could never figure out why I would want to reduce the power. But man the decent took forever, I could have gone and made a pot of coffee in the time it took. If I ever go back to Gilly again, I'll just treat it as a docking attempt and not a landing, for some reason that didn't occur to me the first time.

Didn't even think to take screenshots, no loss though, they were really ugly rockets I made my first rescue attempt in my new game. I had a couple of missions on Minmus that were going to pay out a lot all combined. So I made an oversized lander since I wanted to do a bunch of science as well. I made it even larger by adding a hitch hiker, I figured I'd grab all my Kerbals for a Minmus outing to grab some experience for them and I needed a scientist and engineer anyway for the portable science stuff. I wasn't worried, I've landed on Minmus hundreds of times, sometimes with bases that took oceans of fuel to get off of Kerbin. So I get there, set my landing spot on one of the flats ...... and land with no problem. Everything is going great so far, no damage, remembered all my science stuff, and more delta v than needed to get home again. Anyone guess the problem yet? So I fiddle around with setting up the science stuff (kept getting Bill and Bob mixed up and had to redeploy several items), love that stuff. I think it is one of the coolest things in the game. I took a long break so it is all new to me. When I was done having fun I had Jeb jump back into the lander, I then took a look at the staging .... no parachutes lol. Now, I'm not too hardcore, but I do play "whatever happens, happens", so no reverting the flight unless it's because of a bug. I initially thought I'd just do a rescue attempt and write off the mission as a loss, then I remembered that engineers can add parts to rockets on EVA. I thought I'd make a probe with the required parts for Bill to place on the lander. But my probes still suck and I was worried I'd be out of com range and the mission would fail. So I quickly made a rescue vehicle, threw some drogue and side mounted parachutes in the inventory and hired a new pilot and engineer for the mission. When approaching the target site with the rescue vehicle I realized how much I over rely on pilots being able to hold retrograde so all I have to do is fiddle with the throttle and maybe make some minor course corrections. So now I'm fiddling with the throttle and trying to maneuver the rocket at the same time. First touchdown is 400 meters away ... no good. Got the second one to 150 meters away, same on the third, forth and fifth lol, luckily I packed way too much delta v. So by now I'm a bit perturbed to say the least, so I launch up to about 10k, spin around so my nose is facing towards the lander that needs the chutes, and when my velocity is pretty low I go full throttle towards my landing spot. When the prograde marker shows I'm heading there I cut the engines, spin around, pray a bit, and execute a decent suicide burn and stick the landing ... sort of. I was too close to the lander and knocked off 3 solar panels and also couldn't help noticing that even though I was at a full stop I was rocking around slightly. My rescue vehicle was sitting on top of Val's head. Anyway, adding on the missing chutes went easily enough, and for some reason I'd also packed some EVA repair kits in the initial lander so Bill was able to repair the solar panels. In the end, both crews made it home safely (even Val, though she complained about a splitting headache), so a successful, if sloppy rescue. My next self made mission is going to be to make a "tour bus" and take a bunch of Kerbals into orbit around Kerbin, the Mun, with an orbit and landing on Minmus as well, to get them enough experience to have some basic training. I'll remember the chutes this time ...... probably.

Yup, did another launch and left the atmosphere going south instead of north and got the contract completed. I didn't even feel like I had the orbit close enough, in fact I was looking at the encounter I was going to make with the Mun's SOI and debating if I should shrink my orbit until I passed by or just wait for the encounter to be over and see where I ended up when the contract completed

Thanks! I never even considered orbiting the opposite direction.

So after a 2 year break I don't seem to remember anything I took a contract to place a satellite in a polar orbit, and I believe I have the AP and PE close enough to satisfy the contract. The inclination in the contract is less than half a degree off and the satellite has all the parts required. My problem is that the contract wants the ascending node to be 232.6 degrees and mine is at 180 degrees. I just don't see how I can have a 232 AN while in the polar orbit the contract shows. Here is a screenshot showing my problem. My orbit and the red orbit (the contract one), seem to be almost identical, so I'm at a loss.

Yup, my first orbit was a proud moment, I just sat there and looked at Kerbin for awhile. I think we only had like 10 parts at the time, so there where several failed attempts. Then right after that they added the Mun, after smashing into the surface several times at a couple hundred meters per second I finally landed. I was so proud for about half a second, then the command pod popped off and rolled down a hill . That was a bug at the time.

I must be a pro ... I've done all of these .... more than once. And a few others as well, having astronauts stranded in solar orbit with no fuel springs to mind.

That's a tough one. I mentally went through my list of favorite parts to find my most useful one; fuel lines, struts, radial and stack decouplers, solar panels, and about 4 of my most used engines. Then I remembered SAS. Maybe one day I will be a good enough pilot/designer to get away from using them, but for now they go one every single rocket I create.

Haha, I don't blame you after reading a bit further. No it's nothing bad It's some shipping company

Still not sure ... but I did find this KSP Shipping

[quote name='RogueMason']The most infuriating bug in the game, if you ask me (hell, the most infuriating bug I've ever encountered, period!). I seriously don't know why it's been left for so long, but it [I]NEEDS[/I] fixing ASAP :mad:[/QUOTE] o/ Ha, I do that all the time. Even if I'm watching someone stream I'm clicking on the screen and trying to rotate the view so I can see what I want. Once or twice while watching streamers I've hit the "M" button on my keyboard to look at the orbit or intercepts, completely forgetting I'm not the one playing ..... I seem to remember a bug like this awhile ago where I had one rocket that would constantly blow up at around 30k on takeoff. F3 would always show something striking the launch pad, weird thing was that all my other rockets never had that problem, it was just that one.

[quote name='abowl']Very funny[/QUOTE] I asked because a lot of people when fulfilling a contract use the bare minimum parts to keep cost down so they get a bigger payout. At one time (I don't know if it is still true since Squad said they were going to add a fix), people were using landing gear wheels since they are cheap and the contract would not be marked as complete. I also asked because I have a contract requiring wheels and was wondering if I could cut costs by using the landing gear or if I needed to use rover wheels.

Did you use rover wheels or the landing gear wheels?

[quote name='Aperture Science']Environmentally conscious, eh? [url]http://i.imgur.com/OmyV3.png[/url][/QUOTE] Your pic reminded me of Ring World. You could almost build a ring with all of that debris :D I try to keep the space trash to a minimum: 1) For a bit of an added challenge ( I figure in modern day space exploration that would be a thing). 2) So I don't crash into anything. Once long ago I came within a few hundred meters of crashing into 8 empty orange fuel tanks that where in LKO, I think I was doing around 2,000 m/s at the time. I could just delete everything at the space center .. but where i the fun in that? I usually have stuff crash into a planet or moon when I can and just tell myself everything burnt up in re-entry or was destroyed with a 100% efficiency on impact. I have deleted the occasional part that is lying on the ground and did not blow up though. In trying to be environmentally conscious I almost killed some Kerbals a few days ago. I needed to orbit, land, and plant a flag on Minmus for a few contracts I combined into one mission. I was being lazy and just made an orange tank asparagus lifter. The last tank in that setup ended up being used to finish the orbit of Kerbin, a transfer stage, and a descent stage. I figured releasing the tank at about 2,500 meters above Minmus would destroy it ... it bounced ... almost straight up. There was a few panicked moments of seeing this orange tank with an attached Skipper coming straight for a craft that was about 1/4 of the tanks size. Luckily it missed by a few dozen meters :)

[quote name='BenCushwa']The downside of this is that there is now less drag available to slow you down during e-entry and aerobreaking. Plan accordingly, and pack your heat shields.[/QUOTE] I love it, I actually use drogue chutes now which I never needed before.

Nice job! That's pretty cool :)

[quote name='Choctofliatrio']ONLY 1? So I can't have multiple of the same engine?[/QUOTE] Yeah, the more I think about it the more I don't think orbit would be remotely possible. I suppose a lot of fuel tanks could be drained but that would still be a lot of weight and trying to balance the craft would be ..... fun ......

There is so much I've never done in KSP it's embarrassing (when I bought the game Squad had just added the Mun). I saw a blog the other day that I thought was amusing, someone (sorry I'm horrible with names) made a rocket with 1 of every part (except science parts), as predicted it blew up on the launch pad when physics kicked in. After seeing that I thought it might be a fun challenge to create a rocket with only 1 of every part (except fuel lines, struts, and launch stabilizers .. use as many as needed on those 3 parts) and try to get an orbit of at least 70 x 70 around Kerbin. But I'll probably never get around to it ... so yeah, that's something else I've never done :D

That's kind of creepy and cool at the same time