Norcalplanner

I actually like that asteroids are inadvertently disabled with this typo. I rarely do anything with them, and I've noticed that my career lags much more once I upgrade to the level 3 tracking station and the game has to keep track of all these extra objects. In the past, I've frequently stayed with a level 2 tracking station when everything else is at level 3 just to avoid this asteroid lag. Now I can upgrade to level 3, so thanks!

Decided to start giving a little love to the flags in GPP, and settled on the Republica Gaelia as suitable for being my main featured flag decal in addition to my own KABOOM flag. Here it is on the Hornet III, my biome-scanning satellite headed for Iota:

This happened to me yesterday too.

0.5 or 0.6 lever across the board works well for 6.4x.

Ditto here regarding solar. I'm using the tiniest ones in BDB and they're providing many many times what they should be. Makes transmitting science easier, though.

Yep, definitely bigger and better. I'll get a mission report thread going sometime soon for my 10.6x GPP career. Having a lot of fun so far with BDB, although I think it may have scaling problems...

I'm going to be pretty busy the next few days, but I should be able to give this a go by Friday or Saturday. Thanks for working on this.

Yep. Huge difference between sea level and a few km up. There's oxygen in the atmosphere, so jets are a good idea. There's also a bunch of Karbonite in the atmosphere if you have that mod installed, so you can actually harvest more fuel as you're flying along than your Karbonite jet engines are burning.

@Galileo Thank you so much for this. I look forward to trying it, although it may be a little while - I just finalized my 10.6257x install and kicked off my new career. Nothing has made it past high Gael orbit at the moment. Having a lot of fun with the new mod set, particularly BDB and Ven's Stock Revamp (which has its own SMURFF configs - yay!). I should probably call this save Titan space program at the moment.

I tried to plant a flag three times on Icarus, and every time the Kerbal vanished in a puff of smoke. Ships are OK with enough radiators, but we really need a KIS-type outfit or backpack for a Kerbal to wear in extremely hot environments when on EVA. The suit/pack can be expensive and/or near the end of the tech tree and/or only be good for five minutes, but there needs to be some solution.

IT. IS. DONE.

Chapter 23 - Ending on a High Note - SSTO to Tellumo It's time to wrap up this career save and this mission report. As promised, here it is - my SSTO Tellumo mission. For those of you who may not have read the whole thread, I'm using Kerbal Research and Development in this save. I've dumped at least 20,000 science points worth of upgrades into the various parts that make up this craft, including bumping up the heat tolerance on every part to over 4,800 degrees C. The LV-Ns which provide the main power for the craft have an Isp of 1160, a weight of 1.2 tons, and put out 161 kN of thrust each. In other words, don't try this in a standard 3.2x GPP save - it won't work. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's get to it. Meet the Indomitable. A more fully developed version of the Tellumo Flyer craft, this will take Jeb and Bill to Tellumo. And hopefully, back to Gael. First step is to grab a supply pod, the Chuck Wagon II, so that they won't starve on the way to and from Tellumo. Next step is to visit Leviathan Station in high Gael orbit to top off the tanks. After an ejection burn on the dark side of Gael, the Indomitable arrives at Tellumo approximately 350 days later. The capture burn is approximately 5 km/s for a 300 km orbit. With the tanks fairly dry, Jeb casts off the Chuck Wagon II, then proceeds to enter the atmosphere. All the parts are able to (barely) handle the heat. The airbrakes in particular are sensitive, and are closer to the CoM than is ideal simply so that they'll survive reentry. The best angle for reentry is 40 degrees above surface prograde. Shedding almost 8 km/s of orbital speed through aerobraking takes longer than anticipated. The craft misses the continent we were aiming for, and passes over the terminator into the night. After slowing to a subsonic speed, the Indomitable makes a U-turn and heads back toward daylight and dry land. Ciro peeks above the horizon once again as the craft heads west at 1,400 m/s. A lot of tweaking of Karbonite-harvesting parts and throttle levels was done to stretch the liquid fuel supply. Eventually Jeb and Bill reach dry land, and head for a promising piece of ground about 4 km above sea level. Data for the data hounds. This is it. On final. The full color photo for the New Kerbal Times front page. Only Bill went down to the surface, because of a glaring oversight - no ladders. Jeb stayed on top of the Indomitable so at least one of them could make it home. Thankfully, retracting the landing gear while Bill stood under the cockpit and mashed the "B" key allowed him to finally reenter the ship. The process of refueling the craft begins. Karbonite is harvested from the atmosphere, then converted to liquid fuel and oxidizer. A Karbonite-powered electric generator ensures that the craft will have adequate power for harvesting and refining. With full tanks, the Indomitable turns around on the ground, then takes off on a 90 degree heading. As soon as the craft is airborne, more Karbonite is harvested, to be converted to LF during the ascent. The Indomitable heads back over to the night side during the ascent. During the latter part of the ascent, a fairly large positive pitch is required. You can see that the Ap was still less than 10 seconds in front of the craft at this point, despite our speed. But eventually, Jeb and Bill made it. Here they are performing a small circularization burn to get back into a 300 km orbit. More data for the data hounds. With the remaining 2.1 km/s in the tank, we should be able to make it to Cape Town station and refuel. Docking to Cape Town station, which was sent to Tellumo one transfer window ahead of time. The Indomitable still had 500 m/s in the tank when it finally docked. Docking was also a bit tricky, since neither of these craft had RCS thrusters. After refueling and an epic celebration, Bill and Jeb head back to grab the Chuck Wagon II for the trip home. Burning for home. Gael, here we come. With EVE clouds glitching again, the ship ditches the supplies module and inserts itself into a 100 km orbit before heading down. We needed to burn up the fuel anyway before reentry. Only 300 m/s remain in the tank after orbital insertion. Gael reentry. Sadly, Jeb and Bill seem to have learned nothing, and overshot the target continent again. The end up doing a U turn and heading westward again to land. Almost down. With nearly empty tanks, the final approach speed is down around 50 m/s. And they're finally back on Gael, 1 year and 62 days after casting off from Capetown Station. Welcome home, boys. Well, dear readers, it's been fun. This wraps up this mission report. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed playing it. The current plan is to take a short breather, then jump into yet another GPP career save, this time in the full-blown scale of 10.6257x, focusing more on colonization and exploration of the outer bodies in the system. I'll post a link to the new thread once it's up. In the meantime, I'd encourage everyone who hasn't done so to check out Galileo's Planet Pack. Getting it working takes a little bit of effort due to all the components (and no CKAN), but it's been one of the most enjoyable and rewarding mods I've ever used. Major thanks to Galileo, JadeofMaar, Poodmund, Ohio Bob, and everyone else who's helped with GPP.

Wow, two of my threads linked in response to the same question. Thanks mucho. And just in case anyone is wondering how TWR interacts with efficient ascents where atmosphere isn't a factor, here's another thread:

And if you've installed Strategia via CKAN, you already have Custom Barn Kit!

Thank you kindly.

Apologies if this has been answered already, but does SSTU work well with SMURFF? I'm setting up a 10.6x GPP career save and am trying to make informed decisions regarding the selection of mods.

Jso, Thanks for the informative response. This is exactly the sort of information I was looking for.

CobaltWolf, I'm using your mod for the first time, and really enjoying it. I'm using it in a 10.6x GPP save, and initially ran SMURFF at full lever (which is normal for an RSS save). However, this seems overpowered - for example, a 6.4 ton rocket put a 22 kg satellite into a 200 x 3,000 km orbit. With your comments above, it seems like a lower lever seems appropriate, but would you have any advice on what it might be? 0.6 or 0.7, perhaps? And how closely do the sizes and masses track to RL? Any sort of a rough fraction or conversion factor would enable me to crunch some numbers and arrive at something appropriate. And just for some eye candy, here's the first crewed rocket I made in sandbox as I was getting a feel for the part catalog:

I'm using BDB to good effect in 10.6x, and it's a bit overpowered at full lever. I'll probably back it off to 0.8 or so. One of the best things about BDB is that it gives you some tiny probe cores at the beginning of the tech tree, allowing for Vanguard and Scout type missions.

Chapter 22 - Kerbals on Icarus, and The Beginning of the End It's time to start wrapping things up with this career save. Galileo's Planet Pack version 1.2 has come out, and after some spirited debate, I've decided to do a 10.6257x career using SMURFF, but no Kerbal RnD. I've almost gotten the new install working correctly, and the bright new shiny thing beckons. In addition, I've never been able to get the TAC Greenhouses or agroponics modules working correctly, so plans for long-term colonies aren't going to materialize. Glitches are starting to increase (the save file is over 11 MB at this point) so it's time to finish up. There will likely be one more chapter after this, but that'll be it. So now, to recap the last few things which have happened... A Gibraltar-class station, Capetown Station, is sent to Tellumo to acts as a base of operations and refueling station. After a somewhat tedious 11 passes through Ciro's Karborundum zone, the Apollo III begins raising its Ap and setting up a Gael encounter. It's long, slow work - the craft was 85 tons when it arrived, and now masses over 2,800 tons. TWR is down around 0.15. The crew from Vanguard station picks up the crew from Leviathan station, makes a short trip to the surface of Iota for experience, then heads back to Gael. One less crew now to worry about in orbit. Another Mosquito-class probe is launched, fills up on Karborundum from Apollo I, and hightails it to Nero. A number of probes are launched, each bound for an ultra-high energy transfer to one of the outer planets. All these probes arrive years, and sometimes decades, ahead of their nuclear powered predecessors. They can paint a pretty picture as they burn for the outer reaches of the system. 20 km/s burn in one orbit? No problem. Sambert and Henley Kerman decide to take the lander with the broken antenna down to Niven from Gibraltar Station. Thankfully the good comms enabled the inherent antenna in the probe core to be enough to direct the craft. The Audacious probe finally reached Lili after burning from Niven, allowing a long-standing orbital survey contract to be completed. Capetown Station arrives around Tellumo, and takes up orbit just outside the rings. Apollo III arrives back at Gael. Ironically, this triumph dramatically reduced my interest in this career. With 1.6 BILLION funds worth of Karborundum in orbit and the tech tree fully completed, it seemed like the challenge was over. The Trey III leaves Niven to head back to Gael. This craft is pretty dang capable, but it's nothing compared to its successor - more on that in a bit. With plenty of fuel on tap, the Trek is able to help out with retropropulsion quite a bit. The touchdown in the Midlands was by the book. No new experience was granted, since everyone had leveled up at Gibraltar Station before heading home. Lots of new ribbons, though. This unassuming craft is the lifter for The Ace, the Karborundum-powered successor to the Trey. The Ace heads in to dock with the Apollo III and fill up her tank. With every extra ounce of weight removed, this craft has over 78 km/s of delta V on tap from only 600 units of Karborundum. Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val are all on board. Destination - Icarus. Here's the craft finishing up the ejection burn from high Gael orbit. Data for the data hounds. A short time later, the fearless four complete a 12 km/s insertion burn at Icarus. Heading down to the surface. The four upgraded medium radiators are working hard. We may not be able to get out for long. Touchdown! Sadly, none of the crew were able to get out long enough to plant a flag - every attempt ended with the Kerbal in question doing their best Spinal Tap drummer impression. Poof. We tried heading over to the shady side of Icarus, but still no dice. What we need is some sort of wearable radiator system, using KIS or something similar, which allows Kerbals to spend more than a few seconds in an environment like this. After a wait of only a few months, the crew heads back to Gael. With so much range still on tap, they enter orbit while an atmospheric landing system is launched. Similar to the old Trey I, a module with airbrakes, drogues, and radial chutes is docked to the front of the ship so it can land. This thing has a spot waiting for it in the Kerbsonian. Sadly, no photos of the actual landing were taken. Here's the crew receiving their accolades, with both Jeb and Bill achieving lofty five-star status. With the trip to Icarus in the rear view mirror, the only thing really left to do is try out my Karbonite-powered SSTO at Tellumo... in the next (and probably last) chapter.

Just to post a little rocket eye candy... First manned test rocket in my new 10.6x GPP save. Using mainly BDB, this Saturnish-rocket is a combination of a Block II Apollo CSM, a Saturn IC from ETS, and two Titan III SRBs. Sandbox mode, just to try things out. First career orbital probe - third launch. It was after this that I suspected that SMURFF is making things too powerful. The rocket weighs 6.4 tons, and got a 22 kg payload into an orbit with a 200 km Pe and 3,400 km Ap. Yep, definitely too powerful with SMURFF interacting with BDB. This rocket weighed 33 tons on the pad, and launched a Hermes (Mercury) capsule to an orbit similar to the probe, hitting high Gael orbit during our first orbital sojourn. For the moment, I think I'll turn down the lever on the engines and pods a bit. Yep, reentry is pretty dang quick. I'm finding that a Pe in the 48-50 km range is required to keep the Kerbal from passing out. First impressions are good, but it still needs a bit of fine tuning. I'll get a full blown mission report thread going soon, and will post a link once there's something more worthwhile to see.

Were going to go full Roverdude, with MKS, Karbonite, and USI-LS. I'm also going to forgo SpaceY and SpaceY expanded in favor of BDB and SSTU. Basically getting away from my comfy place and trying something new. SMURFF at full lever, no KRnD, with Real Scale Boosters waiting in the wings if the other lifter mods can't cut it. I'm also going to throw in MKIV spaceplanes for the heck of it - not that I think I'll be using them for SSTOs, but it might be an interesting dynasoar-like thing for taking cargo up and then reentering. I'm also considering deleting the exospheric Karbonite/Karborundum collectors. Being able to fill up a fuel depot in orbit with little to no effort was just too easy - I need to work for my fuel. And if 10.6257x becomes too tedious, then the plan is to bring everyone home, remove SMURFF, and give 2.5x a try.

Just for the record - I've decided I'm going to do two more things in my 3.2x career. First, a Kerballed trip to the surface of Icarus and back; the Ace needs a shakedown cruise. Second, a Kerballed trip to the surface of Tellumo and back in my Karbonite-powered spsceplane. Once those two items are done, we'll close the book on that career, then crank up the 10.6257x one with a very different mod list.

Bob, I guess I didn't explain myself very well, since the rotational velocity was one of my big concerns. Right now the included 10x config specifies a day length only 1.75x as long as standard, which is going to make landing on most airless worlds easier. On the other hand, landing on Lili will be even more difficult. I think I'll tweak the settings a bit and see how things actually affect both realism and gameplay.

You might want to consider linking to that patch you extracted from the Mk2 expansion mod so that Intake Atm works correctly.