Norcalplanner

I think that perhaps, just perhaps, 24,000 ton asteroids are predisposed to collide violently with other celestial bodies. Perhaps.

Introduction I've been a long time fan of Galileo's Planet Pack and the companion Grannus Extension Pack. So when the new JNSQ planet pack arrived from Team Galileo, I knew it would be the setting for my next career. This thread is intended as a single repository for all the noteworthy screenshots in my JNSQ career, peppered with occasional tales of achievement, setbacks, and derring-do. Notable mods include BDB, SSTU, nearly everything by Nertea (including FFT), Snacks, and Kerbal Health to make long-term missions a challenge. More will be posted soon, but we'll start with a few artsy shots:

I'm a fan of Career Evolution as a career contract pack. It does a lot of things similar to SETI, but a bit better IMHO. There is one little fix you have to do to prevent nullrefs for not having an agent, the same as other older contract packs, courtesy of Tonka Crash. You can use Career Evolution with either a probes-first tech tree such as Unkerballed Start or Simplex. Or, since you mentioned BDB, you can simply use the standard CTT (which is what I do), as BDB provides some probe cores (such as Explorer I) in the first node. And yes, I'm also running Strategia. With some of the strategies available, launch costs can be brought down quite a bit.

Just thought I'd share a dramatically lit picture of a probe ascending from an Exotic Crater on Mun:

Just a quick note to say that I'm using this in my new JNSQ career and loving it. My first manned mission to Minmus nearly ended in disaster, simply because I forgot to put an antenna with sufficient range on the craft. While the landing was successful, the craft had to hightail it home to keep Gusemone Kerman alive and functioning. Here's a screenshot right before reentry:

I have the same problem as DriftedCougar.

The simple workaround I've adopted is to never accept any one star rescue contracts. The two and three star variants are generally high enough so there aren't any problems.

I was planning on doing this in my new JNSQ career, so I'd definitely be up for the challenge. At best, there could be a new JNSQ category. At worst, we could be gatecrashers but still share our mission reports here for others to enjoy.

Some may find this heretical, but I delete entire folders from BDB, including the Titan folder.

Au contraire, mon Capitan! I was delayed by having to restart after removing Probes Before Crew, but just landed a probe on the Mun for the first time last night. I'll start a thread with pretty pictures once I get a bit further.

IMHO engine configs would probably make the most sense if they were in a different mod. I also recall reading Nertea's long post on the subject, and I remember it making sense to me at the time.

It looked like Antimatter, LqdHe3, and LqdHydrogen were already spared in the current config. The only one I had to add was LqdDeuterium. Of course, it's going to be a long time before I get to this stuff in the tech tree...

Yes, please!

Interesting. Looks like I'll need to write a cfg for Nertea's Far Future Technology, since it populates a few resources in atmospheres or in space near certain celestial bodies (such as low above Jool). Thanks to the way you've designed this, I feel like I should be able to figure things out fairly easily.

So if one wanted to build things in-situ in this lovely new system, is there a recommended mod for doing so? EPL vs. Global Construction? Just looking to pick one that's going to play nicely with the system and Realistic Resources.

I am officially a fan of the new Mun topography. Such an improvement!

Anyone aware of any significant downsides to the 1660 Ti besides its lack of ray tracing? Looking for a replacement for my GTX 960, and this new card looks like the shizzle.

I was originally thinking 1070 or 1070 Ti when I first started thinking about this after Christmas, but it looks like the 2060 is either equal to or ahead of the 1070 in most benchmarks, for over a hundred dollars less. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever go to 4K on a desktop - my eyes are "maturing" and I already have to wear my near distance glasses when I'm on the computer.

Currently 1920 x 1080, but my goal is to upgrade to 2560 x 1440 sometime in the next 12 months and use the existing monitor as a second screen for Internet and whatnot while playing. As I said in my post, I'm looking to increase performance in RP-1 with all the visual mods. This would include Scatterer, EVE, TU, KS3P, and many large part mods such as BDB, SSTU, and FASA, which combine to over 60K MM patches when loading. Currently I'm compromising on visuals to get decent frame rate, including lowest res ocean in Scatterer, no volumetric clouds in EVE, 4K textures for planets and clouds. I'd love to up some of these settings and upgrade to 8K or higher textures. Edit: And just to be clear, RP-1 includes both RSS and Realism Overhaul by reference, along with other compute-intensive mods such as Remote Tech, TAC-LS (with processing of unloaded vessels), TestFlight, RealFuels, RealPlume, and KCT.

So I'm looking to spend some money on my system, primarily to increase performance in KSP (RP-1 with all the visual mods) as well as some other games (Kingdom Come Deliverance, Cars 2, Fallout 4, etc). Current specs include a 6600k in a Z170 mobo with a mild OC, 16 gigs of ram, a gtx 960, and ssd and spinning drives. I know upgrading the graphics card will help (leaning towards a RTX 2060), and I'm going to try a more aggressive OC, but would it make sense to bump up to 32 gigs of ram? Or would it be better at this point to look at upgrading the mobo and CPU? Looking to keep things under 500 USD atm.

Any pressure-fed thruster should fit the bill, although they're not terribly useful until hydrazine is available.

I think it depends on the mod. If the contract calls it out by part name, then it's hit and miss. If it does it by whether the part contains a science lab module, then it should.

KABOOM at the Kape - Getting into orbit The KABOOM space program continues to progress, albeit in a slightly suboptimal manner due to some missteps regarding initial allocations of funds into build rate vs. research vs. KSC improvements. We're doing many things similar to other programs, but frequently with a larger craft at a lower tech level. Nevertheless, we're pressing on and trying to slowly turn the ship to a more favorable heading. Played around a bit more with sounding rockets, resulting in this smaller design: As well as this larger one. We didn't fully commit to the lucrative sounding rocket grind. We also upgraded our suborbital astronaut-hucker to use a slightly more sane cockpit: Our first (barely) orbital capable craft was the Glorious IIB, shown here ascending from the Kape: With further refinements, this series was also able to reach polar orbit. Problem - how to quickly increase the reliability of the Snubotron for consistent upper stage ullage. Solution - 36 Snubotrons in three stages on the bottom of a boilerplate testbed: The Corsair IV series was the craft that eventually got us to lunar flybys and impacts. Unfortunately we didn't have a fairing large enough to enclose the RN Sputnik core, so the design looks a wee bit silly: But the result was worth it: We'll end this entry with a tip of the day - if you're heading to the moon or high orbit with a probe or satellite, be sure to grab a sounding rocket altitude contract before you launch for some free funds.

SSTU. Seriously. The command module includes RCS thrusters, drogue and main chutes, a docking port, and a heat shield. One part. And the tanks are customizable too. I frequently play with USI-LS, and will have a procedural tank with fuel, oxidizer, monoprop, thousands of EC, supplies, mulch, and fertilizer. Again, one part.

KABOOM at the Kape - The Beginning The Kerbal Administration for Big Overpowered Orbital Machines (KABOOM) is proud to be competing against other space programs to see who can advance their RP-1 career the fastest. Many thanks to @soundnfury for writing the mod that makes this possible and for hosting the challenge on his server. The early stages of the KABOOM program are focused on the 0.3m Argus series of rockets. First up is the Argus 0, a simple solid rocket with a sounding core: The two scientific instruments are placed asymmetrically so that the rocket curves away from the pad. There's just enough time to transmit the science before it crashes into the sea: The Argus I was a proper sounding rocket. Alas, all of its launches were at night, so here's a shot in the VAB: The Argus II series was our first rocket which carried cargo to complete some contracts and get some science from other biomes: Got a nice shot of the Argus III, which had a parachute to allow a safe return after dipping into space briefly: We shall not speak of the Courageous I. The Courageous II, however, was a tail-sitting SSTM1 (single stage to Mach 1) craft which looked like a cousin of the Bachem Natter: And if a little bit of rocketry attached to a cockpit is good, a lot must be better. I give you the Courageous III: Crewed above the Karman line? Check. I really don't like this craft all that much. The crew blacks out on reentry and the cockpit wants to blow up if you stray too far from prograde. I don't think we'll be using it much more. Here it is with chutes: Woohoo! This is going to be fun.