Norcalplanner

Like a 3.2x scale version of Galileo's Planet Pack? I think this antenna is the solution for my comms problems - two monster satellites each with a few of these antennas, in synchronized highly elliptical polar orbits around Gael, should effectively boost the range of Gael's DSN while eliminating most signal LOS occlusion problems. My sincere thanks go to both of you for creating this mod. Edit - Here's the satellite which restored a link to my probes on and around Tellumo: Three of these antennas ended up being the magic number, simply because it looks good when they're angled 60 degrees apart from each other. Thanks again for making this possible.

Chapter 9 - Interplanetary Arrivals and New Stations With all three orbital stations now manned, and three separate labs chewing on science data, it's time to shift focus outside of the Gael system. The new focus - Tellumo, the gorgeous super-Kerbin type planet. The planet is a tease, having a breathable atmosphere and liquid water, but with 1.8x normal gravity and 10x normal atmosphere density ASL. Sounds a bit like the Hotel California - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. I'm liking it a lot. Hermes Ia is the first to arrive at Tellumo. This is my new favorite planet and a big part of the appeal of the GPP for me. Hermes Ia goes into a highly elliptical polar orbit and takes specific science readings to fulfill an orbital survey contract. Hermes Ia must stay in this orbit for over three months to fulfill the contract. Courageous I arrives a day later, passing through Tellumo's striking rings. The craft goes into orbit and then goes into a waiting mode, as the landing probes are dependent on the biome survey data to be provided by Hermes Ia, which won't be able to complete the survey until its contract is complete. The Hermes Ia eventually completes its contract, then gets into a proper circular polar orbit. Now it's time to get down to the serious business of finding out all we can about Tellumo's terrain, biomes, and resources. With the orbital scans largely complete, the Courageous I is placed into LTO in preparation for launching the probes. The first probe heads toward the southern ice cap with a fiery fanfare. The G-meter was pegged at 15G for at least ten seconds, and I have no idea how high the G load actually got. Landing Kerbals here and keeping them alive during reentry is going to be a challenge. Success! The first probe is down, and transmits the first science data from Tellumo. Funds are just rolling in at this point due to the combination of Strategia's "To Boldly Go III" and "Tellumo Probes" strategies, which are both active at the moment. The second probe landed in the Gulf of Pood. It started to capsize, so the heat shield was jettisoned... which promptly made the whole probe turn turtle, snapping off the solar panels. Oops. A bit of science was transmitted using the remaining battery power. The third probe came down in the Ranges biome on one of the southern continents. Absolutely gorgeous visuals. Well done, Galileo and team. With the bonanza of science coming back from Tellumo, along with the steady output of the orbital science labs, a certain 1,500 point node is unlocked containing the advanced Karbonite detector. Based on some comments dropped by the development team, Cornelius III is launched to go sniffing around Gael, Iota, and Ceti in search of the elusive resource. Based on the readings obtained from Cornelius III, the new Sustainer Station is launched. This station features four of the large exospheric Karbonite intakes, and a converter to turn it into LFO and/or monoprop. The station makes its way to Ceti, where it enters into a 1,200 km orbit which is co-planar with Thunderer station. Why is it here? Because the exospheric Karbonite concentration here is 2.52%, the highest figure anywhere in Gael's environs. The station is manned solely by Isane Kerman, our only two-star engineer, to make sure the Karbonite harvesting and conversion process goes as quickly as possible. A somewhat random interjection - a Nero transfer window was rapidly approaching, so the Hermes Ia was further refined into the Hermes Ib. With better comms and some RTGs to supplement the solar panels, it becomes the first craft slated to visit one of the system's gas giants. Back to Karbonite goodness. The Papago I, a nuclear-powered orbital tug, is launched with a mostly-empty fuel module in tow. This craft features many upgraded parts to increase its efficiency, and is lofted by a multi-stage SRB-only lifter. Papago I reaching orbit, ready to start ferrying fuel from Sustainer Station to wherever it's needed. The LV-Ns are each putting out over 90 kN of thrust at a vacuum Isp of 960. Nearly all parts in the craft have been lightened multiple times using R&D. Over the next few months, Papago I ferries full loads of fuel from Sustainer Station to each of the three other orbital stations. It's not a quick process, as efficient transfers from Ceti to Iota can take a while, but each station's fuel load is increased significantly. With fresh loads of fuel, the biome-hopping science harvesting can begin in earnest on both moons. Although it's a bit gamey, each experiment in each biome is first transmitted back to Gael for an immediate reward, and then additional copies are placed into the science container. These extra copies are then brought back to each moon's orbital station for further analysis and science churning. As an aside, I'm really enjoying the current version of KAC, which now enables alarms to be set for when a science lab is going to hit the 500-point cap. Science and funds are really starting to roll in - to balance it out, further upgrades to parts are starting to get really expensive. To start spending some funds and science, the Papago II is launched with parts which are upgraded even further than the Papago I. A new probe design, the Hermes IIIa is wheeled out to the pad. (The Hermes II was an intermediate prototype which didn't see production). Utilizing many upgraded parts,this is the most advanced probe built to date. Destination? Icarus. Delta V on the pad? Almost 28,000 m/s. The Hermes IIIa makes it to orbit, and waits for the transfer window. This probe (which is 200 tons in orbit) combines the orbital science and scanning capabilities of the Hermes Ia, the lander mothership ability and relay comms of the Courageous I, and the upgraded LV-Ns and fuel tanks of the Papago II. If I've done my math right, it should be able to complete the Icarus probes strategy all by itself. With over 8 million funds in the bank, my self-imposed role-playing rule says that KABOOM has to launch something impressive for fear of losing support from the general public. Vanguard Station is the result - a 200-Kerbal station sitting atop three 5m rocket cores with no particular purpose other than to look awesome. The gravity turn wasn't quite as aggressive as normal, but still healthy (45 deg @ 20 km), and the station didn't have any control problems. I attribute this partly to a somewhat lower TWR, 12 delta wings acting as fins, and an obsession with making sure that every docking port and exposed node anywhere on the station was covered by a nosecone. All of the nosecones covering up the docking ports and exposed nodes were staged while the station was still on a suborbital trajectory. All the struts were attached to these nosecones, so the final station has a much lower part count. The final result - Vanguard station in a 250 km orbit. Ironically, this has no comms or science gear, so we'll need to launch a module with experiments and antennas if we actually want to do anything with this. Whew! We're now finally caught up! Time to start playing again!

Mechjeb has readouts for both gravity losses and aero losses, which I used in my "A degree makes a difference" posts, which can help optimize a craft's ascent profile. Your numbers seem right on to me. I find that a good rule of thumb is to add 2,000 m/s to each launch requirement as you increase through the common rescale sizes. Thus stock is 3,500 m/s, 3.2x is 5,500 m/s, 6.4x is 7,500 m/s, and 10x is 9,500 m/s. Although it's possible to get to orbit using less delta V, you'll rarely go wrong with these numbers as a general guideline in rescaled systems.

You could celebrate this: Project Ares seems to have slipped into another dimension (again) and landed on a certain planet with a volcano right across the water from the launch complex.

I'm also loving GPP at the moment. I look forward to what you do in this new system.

Chapter 8 - Turbo Time Warp As indicated in some of the posts above, I'm having much more fun and spending much more time actually playing through this career than posting about it. Everything above occurred no later than December 9th, and as I write this it's the 22nd. Something needs to be done... something drastic. This chapter is going to be an experiment in minimalist storytelling in an attempt to bring the KABOOM Kronicle closer to the current state of the playthrough. The goal is to average one picture and two sentences per mission. Let's see how this goes. All Contract Configurator packs were removed, and stock base and station contracts reenabled so we can get some funds for launching stations. A three-Kerbal Mission using the Martlet II landed on Iota with a bunch of SEP experiments in KIS containers, but I suck at KIS and neglected to bring a scientist. All the experimental parts were left in a heap on the surface of Iota, while the craft did a bit of biome-hopping then safely came back to Kerbin. The tiny Pisa I lander probe, launched aboard a single SpaceY SRB lifter stage similar to the Samwise I, finally landed on Iota and completed a contract to test a size 0 decoupler while landed there. The contract had been one of the first accepted, but somehow it was never completed until now. Samwise I was undocked from Pioneer station and sent to Ceti orbit to pick up some more science and bring it back to the station. Before heading back to LGO, it docked with Samwise II, a slightly larger probe, to fulfill a contract to dock in orbit around Ceti. Hermes I departed LGO for Thalia, and returned the first science data from interplanetary space while making the journey. The Cornelius I scanning satellite was lofted aboard a "poor man's asparagus" three-stage SRB lifter, combined with the newly named Achilles upper stage (an FLT-800 plus a Terrier). The satellite went on to scan both Ceti and Iota for resources, biomes, and high-resolution terrain data. The Courageous I probe mothership was launched to accompany the Hermes Ia to Tellumo and complete the Tellumo probes strategy. Six lightweight probes were carried to make sure that at least three different biomes would be explored. Communications were upgraded by launching the Inquisitor satellites, each with three of the largest relay antennas mounted on an Achilles upper stage. These large comm sats were placed in synchronized highly elliptical polar orbits to minimize blackouts due to LOS blockages from other planets. Smaller commsats were launched as part of the Monarch program, which launched two craft each carrying three commsats. At the conclusion of the program, both Iota and Ceti had three equidistant commsats in 2000 km equatorial orbits to pave the way for future exploration and colonization efforts. Two identical orbital stations, dubbed Conqueror Station and Thunderer Station, were launched using a triple-core 3.75m launcher with an assist by SpaceY SRBs. The stations were sent to low Iota orbit and low Ceti orbit, respectively, to aid further exploration and pave the way for more scientific research. Val managed to stow away aboard Thunderer station; thankfully it launched with a full complement of TAC-LS gear and provisions. Hermes I arrives at Thalia, and thankfully has enough delta V left to enter orbit. With a little fiddling, the elliptical orbit it enters is just a stone's throw away from Eta's orbit, making for an easy future transfer to Thalia's moon. The Bluebird II, an extra-long range version of the Bluebird orbital shuttle, is launched attached to an Illustrious I one-man lander, bound for Conqueror Station around Iota with a station crew on board. The craft docks with Conqueror station, delivering the lander and the station crew of two scientists, one engineer, and one pilot. An identical craft is launched to go to Thunderer Station, except that no pilot is a part of the crew (since Val already stowed away when Thunderer Station launched). Closing notes and observations for this chapter: 1. Some of the Kerbal R&D investments are starting to pay off. Each of those landers is highly capable, with over 4,000 m/s of delta V on tap. Improved vacuum Isp of engines seems to be the favorite upgrade so far. 2. Some of my habits gained from playing with USI-LS are showing. Both Conqueror and Thunderer Stations with the Bluebird attached have room for 24 Kerbals and two cupolas, even though TAC-LS doesn't model habitation. 3. We've now chronicled missions flown up through December 17th. Hopefully with the shorter style and the upcoming time off around the holidays, I'll be able to get caught up. We'll find out... in the next chapter.

Here are my settings. I'd note that I'm still running KSP 1.2.1 because everything is fairly stable and working at the moment: // Base Settings SigmaDimensions { Resize = 3.2 Rescale = 3.2 Atmosphere = 1 dayLengthMultiplier = 2 } // Advanced Settings @SigmaDimensions { geeASLmultiplier = 1 landscape = 0.4375 atmoVisualEffect = 1 resizeScatter = 1 CustomSoISize = 0 CustomRingSize = 0 atmoASL = 1 tempASL = 1 scanAltitude = 1 } Please note that I kept the atmosphere height unchanged, which isn't for everyone. With Kerbal R&D, I'll usually upgrade the heat tolerance of all my heat shields by one level, so this isn't an issue. If you're not playing with Kerbal R&D, I'd recommend increasing the atmosphere height to at least 1.1 or 1.2. Also, I haven't yet landed a Kerbal on Tellumo. My probes were pulling over 15 Gs, while entering Tellumo's atmosphere, so I may need to tweak the atmosphere settings to avoid killing my intrepid explorers. Thanks both of you for your input. I've decided to do a quick catch up post hitting the highlights, then be a bit more selective moving forward rather than trying to capture the entire breadth of KABOOM's space program. The new guideline is: no more than 3 photos per launch/mission, with duplicates only being described in the text, and lesser missions only getting one or two photos.

[Editorial mode on] So the mismatch between time spent playing KSP and posting about it continues to grow. Today I launched Vanguard Station, a 200-Kerbal outpost, into a 250 km equatorial Gael orbit. It's intended to be a replacement for Pioneer Station, which has been in LGO for over a year at this point and is growing a bit long in the tooth. I won't give any details about the other stations and craft around Iota and Ceti (as well as some other planets), but this picture gives you an idea of where the KABOOM program is at in terms of capability: So, dear readers, what is your preference? Keep slogging away the way I've been doing? Doing an epic one-photo-per-craft post to bring things up to the present? Or just briefly describe what happened with only the occasional photo to illustrate the absolute most noteworthy achievements? Just check in every now and then when something cool happens, and abandon any sort of a comprehensive record?

Looks like my upgrade path from 3.2x is clear. When it's time to make things harder again (after R&D has made things a bit easier) 6.4x will be on the menu.

Now that I've unlocked a certain mod part in the 1500 point tier in CTT, I'm beginning to figure out what you guys did. So I made a thing.

Chapter 7 - Interplanetary Preparations Even though the Tellumo transfer window is a few months out, it's decided to launch a large interplanetary probe anyway. It'll hang out for a few months in LGO before heading out. The craft which finally emerges from the VAB is christened Hermes I. With a slightly improved Mainsail beneath three orange tanks of LFO and four of the medium 1.875m SpaceY SRBs, KABOOM is finally making highly capable craft that are consistent with their overarching Cheap & Cheerful design philosophy. We'll see this craft more in detail later. With Stage Recovery enabled and the large radial parachutes from Lithobrake Exploration Technologies unlocked, staging boosters for recovery is now an easy and reliable exercise. KABOOM finally obtains a few contracts which require a Kerbal presence on Ceti. In a feat of dazzling uninspired bureaucracy, the Glorious III is tweaked only slightly and renamed the Glorious IV. Even though the parts are no longer cutting edge, it's still a reliable way to get a Kerbal to a moon and back. Siuna Kerman is tapped as the lucky scientist to go all the way to Ceti. After landing and mugging for the camera, she does a lot of science, visiting three biomes. Many kudos are given upon Siuna's safe return, with over 1,000 science points in tow. A new probe is rolled out of the VAB to fix a problem. Dubbed Samwise I, the probe is designed to bring some science to Pioneer station in LGO. The station, which was launched with fairly early technology, has never had a full tank of science data to convert into science points. Now that some new parts are unlocked, including the gravioli detector, the plan is to gather a lot of science, then transfer it to the station. The launcher is a single SRB with a Terrier-powered upper stage. After gathering a lot of science in both LGO and HGO, Samwise I heads in to dock with Pioneer Station. The probe didn't quite fill up the science data tank, but it's a lot better. The station should be able to churn out science for several months with this data. After a careful reading of the requirements for the Tellumo Probes strategy in Strategia, it's discovered that it's OK to enter orbit and won't prevent the full use of the strategy. With this in mind, the Hermes design is retrofitted with orbit-friendly scanners, including those for resources, terrain, and biomes. Named the Hermes Ia, the probe is sent aloft. A somewhat better view of what the probe looks like. With a partially fueled Ajax upper stage, the probe has around 7 km/s of delta v while waiting in LGO. The original Hermes probe, without the orbital scanning gear, is retargeted towards Thalia, which appears to be within its capabilities (and also has the next open transfer window). With some time to kill before the probes go interplanetary, it's decided to finally build a plane and do a little bit of exploring on Gael. The optimistically named Galileo I (to honor the creator of the planet pack) looks good as it makes a close pass by the volcano. Alas, the Galileo one turns out to be a piece of garbage. Although it has a cargo bay full of instruments and a scientist on board to reset them, insufficient air intakes result in a starved engine which is low on power. To top it off, a field landing results in the engine smashing into the ground, putting an abrupt halt to further exploration. The powerless craft is recovered, and KABOOM administration agrees to strip the Galileo I moniker from the craft - it's just not worthy of the name. Since no station contracts have been offered yet, it's decided to remove the Bases and Stations contract pack and reenable stock station contracts. Hopefully some will come up... in the next chapter.

I think somebody needs SpaceY. Spamming Kickbacks on a lifter is so... stock. Really like the station design and the color! I'm still unlocking parts, so my designs haven't quite reached their full potential yet. Here's Conqueror Station around Iota, which was launched tonight:

Chapter 6 - Speeding Towards Destiny [Editorial mode on] It's become increasingly clear that my aptitude and desire to play my 3.2x GPP career far outstrips my aptitude and desire to post about it. I'm really missing the embedded imgur album thing that the forums used to allow, as things are now a bit more tedious. The KABOOM Kronicle is now almost two weeks behind where my career is currently at, so things are not as fresh in my mind when I'm writing about them. With this in mind, I'm going to try and do fewer pics to move things along more quickly. For those of you following this, please let me know if there's any aspect of what I've done so far that you'd like to see more or less of. Ship design and discussion? Operational action shots (docking, staging, landing, etc.)? Beauty shots of Galileo's Planet Pack system? Let me know. [Editorial mode off] With the seismometer and spectrograph unlocked from the Impact! mod, it's time to place some sensors around Ceti and Iota. First off the pad with this new effort is the Vulcan I, lifting off on a brand new lifter featuring the newly-unlocked Mainsail and four Kickbacks. Now things are starting to get fun. Vulcan I approaches Ceti, using a slightly modified version of what is now known as the Ajax upper stage (Poodle plus Rockomax 32). Before landing for good, the Vulcan surface probe with the seismometer does a bit of biome hopping to grab some more science. Since there's still fuel left in the upper transfer stage (Terrier and FLT-800 - hmmm, maybe that needs a name too...) the first few hops are spent perched precariously on the Terrier engine bell. Eventually the Terrier is discarded and the probe lands for real. The Vulcan I orbital satellite logs the first biome-specific impact on the poles. The next launch is Pioneer Station, an early-ish LGO science station. There was no contract for this yet (still hadn't figured out problems with Contract Configurator and Bases and Stations at this point) but I wanted to start cranking away on some science. Here it is heading skyward, featuring dozens of Z-1K batteries to power experiments and life support during the dark side transit of Gael. On the way to final orbit, and enjoying the Engine Lighting mod. The newer version models glow coming off of hot engines. Me like. The Martlet I heads skyward to deliver a crew to Pioneer Station. Pretty basic design, but it has some nice 5-way RCS ports from one of the many mods I'm using - not quite sure which one, though. In orbit and docked with Pioneer Station, Martlet I's crew transfers to the station to begin the science grind. There's Jeb to pilot the Martlet (since there's no probe core fitted) along with Hadzon and Seested to churn out the science. The Vulcan I design is refined into the Vulcan II, taking both a satellite and a lander to Iota for further Impact! experiments. Stacked lander and probe showing what was hiding under the Vulcan II's fairing. A nice shot of the Vulcan II lander almost down on Iota's surface. Time for a dedicated impact probe to reach Iota. The few experiments done so far have generally been empty stages, but the Sisyphus I has no job other than to smash into Gael's inner moon. That's more like it. Almost a ton of spacecraft headed straight towards a specific biome on Iota at over 5 km/s. It worked even better than expected. With that one impact measuring over 23 GJ of energy, all of the science to be had from the seismograph is gathered on the first impact attempt. [Disclaimer - this is not my first time using the Impact! mod, but I didn't expect things to go quite so well.] An identical craft, the Sisyphus Ia is launched at Ceti with similar results, but without any photo documentation. Wow, that went pretty quick. Some transfer windows to other planets are coming up, including Tellumo. We have some contracts to do orbital surveys using specific instruments, so we'll need to launch some larger, interplanetary probes so they're ready to go when the time is right... in the next chapter..

I was heading back to 3.2x Gael after a partially successful Iota landing mission, and managed to get this nice shot. Enjoy.

KAC, Landing Height, and Better Burn Time get my vote.

I both appreciate and am just a tiny bit sad about this change. I'll probably get over it in about two minutes or so. Ooooo! Just realized that it will make final approach for spaceplanes a bit harder with the cliffs. Something fun to try!

This touch would actually be pretty awesome. No idea how easy or hard it is to do, though.

Chapter 5 - Setting Out for Ceti With fresh science to be had and a new contract for a Ceti flyby, the by-now venerable Eagle probe design is updated yet again. The Eagle IV emerges from the VAB, and heads to the pad. (Eagle III was a polar surveyor for Gael, which managed to avoid the camera's prying eye.) Eagle IV in orbit with the trusty Centaur-ish upper stage. Need to come up with an actual name for that thing since I use it so much. Making a minor correction burn near Ceti. As before, it's important for this initial probe not to go into orbit so it won't compromise the Ceti Probes strategy in Strategia. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Heading back to Gael and coming in over the southern hemisphere. Because we had some fuel left (KABOOM engineers are still getting familiar with the 3.2x Gaelic delta V requirements) it's put to use scrubbing off some speed from the returning probe before it hits the atmosphere. Reentry. Thankfully the magnetometer and telescope remain unscathed, even though it looks like they should be getting some heat. And this is why you choose the appropriate strategy for the body you're heading toward. World milestone rewards get very lucrative. Eagle IV is followed up by Eagle V, a slighly updated version of the Eagle II probe. It does the same thing as Eagle II did, only for Ceti - scan the body first, then head down as a lander. Eagle V after the SRBs being staged (which are the first of the 1.875m SpaceY motors). This probe did a great job, visiting three biomes and fulfilling the Ceti probes contract. Sadly, no photos were taken after this one when it was preparing to leave LGO. Following Eagle V was Pegasus I. This was the first use of the orbital telescope and giant eavesdropping dish, needed to complete a contract. This also marked the first launch after a minor universe-altering cataclysm - all the terrain became higher (now 0.4375 on Sigma Dimensions, for a final height of 1.4x standard) and the sun became a little brighter. Hopefully this and future screenshots will be a bit easier on the eyes. Ummm... NO. (I think contracts need a bit of work with GPP, since I haven't gotten any station contracts yet, even though I have Bases and Stations installed. I'll fiddle around with this offline.) Now that we've gotten some science from Ceti, it's time to start having some fun with the Impact! mod. We'll start landing seismometers and smashing things into the moons... in the next chapter.

Chapter 4 - Iota or Bust After the lackluster showing in the previous chapter, KABOOM's public relations department has decreed that future chapters should have more interesting pictures. And more excitement! And more exclamation points! With the Iota Probes strategy in hand, the existing Eagle I probe is further developed. The new Eagle II emerges as a do-it-all scanning satellite and biome hopping lander. However, no return capabilities are fitted. This one is going to Iota to stay, and it has a lot of delta V for biome hopping. Heading up. This is the part of a career game where things really start to feel alive and interesting for me. With the Skipper and Kickbacks in hand, a lot more possibilities open up. In orbit atop the remains of the Poodle-powered orbital insertion stage, plus the Terrier-powered transfer stage. I'm liking the look of the top of the probe - kinds of reminds me of the Sears Tower (or whatever it's called these days) in Chicago. After arriving at Iota, the Eagle II is put into a polar orbit, and the ScanSat gear is deployed for terrain and biome scanning. It's always a bit awkward with the solar panels and batteries at this point in a career - hopefully I'll have enough juice to keep all the scanning equipment going. Scanning complete and transfer stage discarded, it's time to head down. Contact! The Eagle II has landed. It visits a total of four biomes during its trip, then remains on the surface to take advantage of the occasional "science from the surface of Iota" contract. You can also see from the MET clock that it spent over a month doing its scanning. The trip to Iota with Eagle II was a rousing success. So rousing, in fact, that KABOOM administrators (in consultation with public relations) decided to ride the wave of enthusiasm and conduct a manned landing on Iota next. The Glorious III is developed and Bob Kerman is tapped as the lucky explorer. Heading to orbit and staging the SRBs. This design, while functional, is squarely in the adolescence of KABOOM's space program. We have the knowledge and some of the parts to pull this off, but the Skipper is still the biggest LFO engine we have. With the higher delta V requirements of 3.2x, things look a little awkward - still, we've better balanced the SpaceY decouplers with the Kickbacks and the parachutes, so nothing is crashing into each other any more after staging. Staging the side stacks. One of the rules I have (which really should be added to the OP) is that any fuel crossfeed is limited to two side stacks feeding a central core. Asparagus is right out. Once we have bigger parts this won't be necessary, but for now it is. Enjoying the Engine Lighting effects after fairing jettison. Engine Lighting is one of those mods, like Scatterer or SVE, which just kicks things up a notch. And now that I finally built a new rig earlier this year, I can finally run all the eye candy. Burning for Iota. I've come to the conclusion that a Poodle and a Rockomax 16 is effectively KABOOM's Centaur. It tends to be the default upper stage for a wide variety of loads, sometimes a bit too big, sometimes a bit too small, but nearly always effective. And easy to slap together in the VAB. :-) Heading in to Iota. A bit better lighting on the lander on this one. I'm honestly not sure why I used the conical tank, since the whole thing ended up being inside a fairing. Weird. Parts of Iota look a bit pixelated at certain altitudes, typically above 20 km or so. Not sure if this is a GPP thing, a Sigma Dimensions thing, or a Kopernicus thing. Doesn't bother me too much, though. Action shot! Almost down! Shot for the front page of the New Gael Times confirming that yes, Virginia, there is a Santa... strike that, I mean, yes, it is possible to land a Kerbal on another world. After hitting just two biomes, Bob heads for home. After going EVA to transfer all the science to the capsule, the rest of the lander is ejected, destined for fiery destruction. Bob splashes down uneventfully, and is awarded many more accolades thanks to Final Frontier. The public is clamoring for more moon missions. To keep pushing the boundaries of exploration while giving the public what it wants, the eye of KABOOM focuses on Ceti. Exploration of Gael's outermost moon awaits... in the next chapter.

I'm going to be a bit heretical here - don't use MJ's auto-landing feature. The way I use MJ when landing is a bit different, and you can still use the auto-landing feature at the very end. The critical thing is to add one of the data points hidden in the custom window editor under "misc", in this case the suicide burn timer. Do a slight initial deorbit burn so that your orbit line intersects a bit past where you want to land, but you're still coming in at a fairly shallow angle. Then lock your heading on surface retrograde using SmartASS. Once the suicide burn timer gets down to 3 or 4 seconds, go to max throttle and start watching the suicide burn timer like a hawk. As long as it doesn't go more than a second or two negative, you're fine. If it goes more negative, dial in a few degrees of positive pitch using SmartASS until the timer gets back up to zero. The trigonometry works out such that burning 5 or 10 degrees off retrograde results in minimal losses. As you approach the surface and the timer starts to increase, remove any positive pitch and reduce throttle slightly. You should end up going less than 10 m/s only 100 or 200 meters above the surface, then complete the landing using whatever method you choose (including hitting the auto land button at this point). I tend to use SMARTASS all the way in, switching to "up" orientation at the end to make sure the lander doesn't flip accidentally.

Chapter 3 - Paying the Bills So there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm gathering a lot of science, helped by the Kerbal Environmental Institute mod. The bad news is that funds aren't keeping up, so I'm lagging behind in building upgrades and parts I want to unlock. It's time to embrace the commercial aspects of the KABOOM space program and earn some dough. A contract is obtained to place a small satellite with no special characteristics into a 10,000 by 12,000 km equatorial orbit. The Glorious II lifter is altered and a new small satellite placed on it instead, under a fairing. Dubbed the Unicorn I, the design is wheeled out to the launch pad. Not many points for style or originality, but the payload with half of the upper stage fuel still intact makes it to orbit. Final transfer to HGO is uneventful and undocumented. Following this uneventful but lucrative launch, an even more lucrative contract is secured for the first tourists in space. Since there are four wanting to go up, KABOOM decides to try and recreate one of their favorite designs, the Bluebird. However, because not all the standard parts for the design are unlocked yet, it's decided to call it the Bluebird 0 so nobody will confuse it with a real Bluebird. Looks OK, but not great lifting off. In all honesty, KABOOM's designers like the Bluebird way more than they should. It's just designed to be a simple space taxi to get four untrained Kerbals to orbit. In the fully developed version, however, every single part is either picked up with Stage Recovery or recovered after landing. We'll get back to this design later when we have better parts, but for the moment, the four hapless tourists enjoy the ride back down to gaela firma after an uneventful deorbit and reentry. I'm still waiting to see these awesome tourist clothes on a real Kerbal walking around the KSC. With new parts unlocked and a fresh level 2 Admin building, it's time to grab another strategy and choose the next goal for the KABOOM program. Iota probes it is. We're heading Iota's way, and this time we're going to land in multiple biomes to collect as much science as we can... in the next chapter.

Chapter 2 - Leaving LGO With the basic Glorious I design able to take a single Kerbal to LGO, it's time to see what more this general configuration can do. A revision is ordered for the greater delta V requirements of a polar orbit, including additional science gear (including the newly-researched materials science bay), along with more batteries and some fixed solar panels. Combined with an upgraded astronaut complex to allow EVAs, there are high hopes for a lot more science. The Glorious II ascends to the heavens. The new craft has more fuel in both LFO stages, along with four of the largest size 0 SpaceY SRBs. Fins are added to the SRBs in an attempt to keep them from crashing into each other, but this is only partially successful. Once in a polar orbit, the Glorious II proves to be a much more capable craft. With a probe core fitted, it is Bob's turn to get some serious science done. After getting science from many EVAs and a brief stint to HGO, Bob comes back down after two orbits. It's a bit more challenging coming back down in 3.2x, but it's not bad if you use some common sense - like actually retaining some ablator in your heat shield. Many accolades are given, courtesy of Final Frontier, and 133 science points are added to KABOOM's total. This image also shows that I have Kerbal Environmental Institute installed, which is helping the science progression of my career. After doing KSC science rovers/rollers/wingless-jets more times than I can remember, this mod is a welcome addition. KABOOM administration has secured an Iota flyby contract. We'll need to be careful not to enter orbit, otherwise it will compromise the Iota Probes strategy from Strategia. A new design using the freshly-unlocked Octo probe core is ordered, christened the Eagle I. The lifter is a modified version of the Glorious II, this time featuring an additional center stage and four of the size 1 SpaceY SRBs. These are a bit larger and more powerful than Thumpers, and include thrust vectoring. We're also using a fairing for the first time. An attempt is made to save the SRBs by attaching radial parachutes to them for the first time. The effort is only partially successful, as two of the SRBs come back together and explode shortly after staging. On a totally unrelated topic, I'm really liking the volcano. I think I need to turn up my terrain height a bit - right now terrain is 1.28x normal height, and the volcano loses some of its panache with the flatter profile. North of 50 km and the fairing is staged. This shot shows a lot of craft info for you data hounds out there. Let me know in the comments if you like me to include these every now and then. With orbit achieved, it's time to deploy the dish antennas and head for Iota. You can see a bit in this shot that most of the small probey bits are hiding behind a 1.25m heat shield. Oh yes - we're going to recover this thing. Eagle I makes its approach to Iota. Definitely not the Mun. After furiously taking as many science readings as possible during the low orbit flyby, Eagle I emerges from Iota's shadow and continues its trip back home to Gael. A small burn is made to lower the Gael Pe to 30 km. Reentry is flamey, but uneventful. Everything behind the heat shield remains unscathed - even the DMagic magnetometer boom which is sticking out a bit. If it were sentient, the Eagle I probe would have been proud of how much data it retrieved and it would have received a medal. (It might also have been upset at the heat and G's experienced during re-entry.) Although a few readings were transmitted en route, recovery of the probe with the full value versions of the goo and science bay experiments added 341 science to KABOOM's pool of knowledge. So it's possible to go to another body, and make it back to Gael intact. But before we head to Iota again, we need to earn some scratch to upgrade some facilities and unlock some more parts... in the next chapter.

Haven't used Kethane in a very long time. Based on the extensive discussion and documentation provided in this thread and the wiki, Karbonite is already installed. I'll add it to the list of mods in the OP.

Thanks. And thank you and your assistants for making such an awesome mod!

Just wanted to drop a note that I'm starting a Mission Report thread for my 3.2x GPP Career. This will be the first extended thing I've documented since my Kethane-powered Jool-5 mission back in 0.24.