Norcalplanner

The cost and difficulty in obtaining meaningful amounts of Karborundum is one of the main balance mechanisms of this mod so it isn't too OP. I play in GPP, and all the locations where Karborundum is found are either very difficult to get to, or are actively trying to destroy your vessel.

Yep, it's the mothership. None of the torch drives gimbal, presumaby to make them more difficult to use. The problem is that the center column of the ship isn't quite straight anymore. I fear that we're going to end up doing loops once I have time to fire up KSP again.

Yep, still in 1.3.1 for this career, which may not be much longer for this world... Had a kraken attack on the mothership resulting in a RUD. Was able to restore to a save with only minor misalignment of parts, but the Karborundum torch drives don't gimbal. The insertion burns may or may not be controllable.

That's a mod called Kerbal Historian: That career is still running in 1.3.1, so I don't know if the mod will work in 1.4.3.

I recall NathanKell stating that the thermal model accounted for shockwave heating (or reduction thereof). This is one of the reasons a shielded docking port on the nose of a plane or a blunt heat shield on reentry don't get any hotter than they do.

I was just fed an advertisement for this class when I was watching something space-related on Youtube. Seems like something that may be worth looking into... https://www.masterclass.com/classes/chris-hadfield-teaches-space-exploration Here's the trailer:

Just a note to say I finally arrived at Grannus in my 2.5x GPP/GEP career. Got some pretty pictures doing orbital insertion burns around the star itself, then around Nodens. Next up is the Karborundum torch drive-powered mothership with a live crew. Six years or so ought to do it.

Just a note to say that I finally landed on Hox today. Forgot that there was a thin atmosphere, so the descent was very inefficient to avoid aero-trauma. Also got a nice shot of a similar probe landing on Lili. The hillside is actually a rather stable landing site due to Lili's rotational speed.

Today was a long time coming in my 2.5x GPP/GEP career. My Karborundum-powered interstellar probe first performed a Grannus orbital insertion burn... Followed by a Nodens insertion burn. With validation of the general mission architecture and navigation, it will soon be time to send something bigger. A lot bigger. With Gaelans on board.

Cupolas and large docking ports are always good. Other mods (such as SSTU and MKS) offer additional options with quasi-procedural end pieces.

A lot of this comes down to play style as well. I play in upscaled systems with lots of infrastructure and will frequently use MJ to execute the maneuver nodes I've already created. Doing a 4 km/s burn is much more easily and accurately accomplished from a higher orbit, especially if there's an orbital refueling station also in a higher orbit to refuel the craft before it heads out.

Thanks. I'll put that factoid in the decision-o-tron 3000 and give it due consideration.

@JadeOfMaar Is there a spice planet/moon in GEP? When I finally get a 1.4.3 career going, I'm considering starting there and having GPP as the secondary system, but I also want to give The Spice a try.

Quoted from the Atomic Rockets website "Seal of Approval" page: Educational What amazes me is how this addictive little game teaches the players how to think about astronautics intuitively. You may not know the equations, but you'll soon learn to know at a gut level what will work, what will not, and what is sort of risky. This is very important for science fiction writers who want their astronautics to be accurate. Trying to cram space flight facts into your head probably will not work very well. If one instead just plays KSP for a while, you will instinctively know what will and will not work. That is, you'll know it fast enough so it will not interfere with you creating the plot or otherwise derailing your creative process. You will also learn such useful facts as the bare minimum of spacecraft pilot controls consists of only a throttle, rotation/translation controls, a NavBall, and a solar system map. If you perform some orbit to orbit maneuvers, you will learn why astrogators are so obsessive about the accuracy of their chronometers. Mistiming your transfer burns can have serious consequences. A player named GreatBeast666 wrote how after playing the game for a while and creating more and more complicated rockets, he suddenly came to notice the need for a fuel-station in space. Now here on my website, I have mentioned the need for orbital propellant depots. However, trying to teach somebody a concept by talking at them will often result in their eyes glazing over and the concept will just ricochet off their brain. Discovering the concept on their own results in knowledge they will never forget. The need for orbital depots is nowhere mentioned in the game, it is an emergent behaviour that results from accurately simulating the real-life problems faced by real-life rocket designers. In orbital mechanics, it is a standard fact that "change of plane" maneuvers take a very large amount of delta v to perform, and most mission planners try to avoid them whenever possible to conserve fuel. Most students immediately forget that fact because it is boring. However, I read the lamentations of a KSP player. He had managed to get a Kerbal in a rocket into a polar orbit, then ran out of propellant. When it came to mounting a rescue mission, he suddenly found out the hard way that it was very very difficult designing a rocket capable of rescuing the Kerbal. Rockets launch into equitorial orbits, you need a change-of-plane to move into a polar orbit. The student has forgotten about the expense of change-of-plane maneuvers, because they never need that fact. But for the KSP player, having one's Kerbal trapped in orbit as one struggles trying to make a rescue rocket with enough delta V will sear the facts into your memory forever. Kerbal mod-makers are also either inspired by NASA solutions or independently invent the same solutions because KSP presents them with identical problems. I have written about the advantages of in-situ resource utilization, a mod-maker named Majiir created the Kethane mod, which brings such resources to the game. NASA worked on the concept of a Wet workshop, which is the idea of using a spent rocket stage as a makeshift space station. KSP developer NovaSilisko is working on a mod to bring this useful idea into the game. A father named Nikolai had been inspired by this Atomic Rocket website to try to make basics of rocket science understandable to kids (modest cough, he was impressed by this website's conversational and engaging writing style). He had tried teaching classes but they were less than successful due to lack of proper tools. And then he discovered KSP. It worked beyond his wildest dreams.

I can now start a career in 1.4.x. Hallelujah!

Generally it's more trouble than its worth to split up a burn that takes less than 1/6 of the orbital period to accomplish. If you do split it up, making the first burn so that the resulting orbit is precisely one day long (and making that first burn a day early) is usually a good way to go. My usual method is to simply give up some of the Oberth in exchange for a more accurate burn by departing from a higher orbit. Put the craft in a 300/600/1200/2400 km orbit, refuel with a tanker if needed, then make a single long ejection burn. One final tip - focus your view on the target planet as you get close to the end of the burn so you can stop burning at the correct instant.

In my 2.5x GPP/GEP career, I've calculated that I can get the Gael to Nodens transit time down to 5 years or less. That said, warp drives will be in the next career. :-)

So I'm playing in a highly modded career and am about to go interstellar using RoverDude's Karborundum torch drives. The problem is that orbit lines start disappearing once the craft's Ap is out of the solar system. Focusing on the target system doesnt help, so navigation is a challenge. Is there any tool or technique to make these burns more accurate? Or do I treat this like a giant skeet shoot and simply lead my target a bit using a Mk 1 eyeball? We're talking 40 km/s ejection burns, and my first attempt resulted in a 15 km/s correction burn once I entered the new system's SOI.

So, a question... For really long trips (10+ years) using large motherships or colony ships, is there an optimal ratio for the storage of supplies to mulch to fertilizer? It seems like perhaps supplies and fertilizer storage should be the same amount, with mulch only being 10% of supplies. Mulch would launch empty, fertilizer would launch full, and supplies would launch with a 10% loadout. This is assuming no ISRU fertilizer production en route - if fertilizer production is a possibility, then it would seem to make sense to increase the mulch storage. How do other USI-LS aficionados do this?

If you enjoy stations or motherships, I recommend this one highly: Not only does it add a bunch of great station/base/mothership parts, it also retextures the stock science lab, hitchhiker, and cupola to match the new art style.

Bob, Would you have any concerns about updating GEP during a career in progress? I have a few craft heading to Grannus right now using GEP 0.9.1, and would very much like for Grannus and all her planets and moons to be in their currently predicted locations when the craft arrive.

Two stations for your enjoyment. Here's Eta station, which is actually currently around Thalia in high orbit: Has two large craft docked to it, an interplanetary crew transport and a Karborundum miner which lands on Thalia. The other station is Parkehnrhyde ("Park n Ride") in medium Gael orbit. With two of the smaller 2.5m centrifuges from SSPXr, it has a surprising amount of habitation time. Proud of the fact that this one comes in at only 29 parts, so lag isn't bad at all.

This. Especially if the reaction wheels are far away from each other and/or rotated 90 degrees from the root part. If there are reaction wheels in each of those large arms on the station, turn them all off and see if things improve.

@Snark Your example is pretty much what I'm doing in my GPP 2.5x career titled "Nodens or Bust". And just for the record, once a player figures out how to bring home Karborundum and land it next to the Space Center, there's never a need to take ANY contract just for the funds.

@JadeOfMaar Is that Eta or Iota? Looks good, wherever it is.