RedDwarfIV

Away go the heavy WOLF mining units. I noticed that, somehow, my space program's funding had dropped from 11 million down to 3 million. All that Machinery and Specialised Parts didn't come cheap. As such, it was time to prepare another shipment of valuable resources from Minmus. I repurposed the Cerberus' storage to carry Commodities and then Refined Exotics. Minmus is currently not in the best position for Asgard 1 to return to Kerbin. It will return after the WOLF miners get there, as that's when Minmus passes Kerbin's equator. Nagini had a short inclination burn to make. Miners arrive, and begin their descent. I landed one to mine Silicates and one to mine MetallicOre before figuring it was time for bed.

Two Super-Mudskipper RSV flights later, SpecialisedParts loading was completed. The next step was bringing up the rest of Nagini's crew. To begin with, I sent five engineers and a quartermaster up on a Wizard SSTO. Rather than faff about with the RCS like I did the first time Leviathan had a kit to dock with, I decided to bring a Finch tug on the mission. This little craft has no other purpose than to move kits from the construction bay to a docking port. It's not a skycrane. I was bothered by the lack of symmetry here. RCS should be unaffected by such a comparatively small mass, but the vessel looked ungainly with only one spaceplane docked. I could have sent it back to KSC, true, and Nagini could certainly build spaceplanes after arriving at Jool, but I decided it was more realistic that there be some means for the crew to return from orbit or descend to celestial bodies at all times. Certainly there would be a use for them at Laythe. A few extra tons wouldn't make or break the mission. The second SSTO carried a crew of one pilot, two farmers, a biologist, a miner, and a technician. Aside from the pilot, these Kerbonauts would be there to crew any stations or surface bases the IPEV might construct. The quartermaster who came with the previous flight would also fill this role. After boarding, I sorted out the crew's new accommodation and workstations. The two pilots now man the control centre (which requires two crew to operate), the engineers are in the workshop, and the passengers are relaxing in the large spin-hab. Finally, everything was set. Cargo loaded, crew on board, maneuver planned. It was time for the IPEV Nagini to be on its way. Travel time, two years.

I noticed and rectified another issue with the Warlord, that symmetry hadn't worked properly when I was putting some extra RCS blocks on. (It was bugged, saying it was mirrorred when it wasn't.) I also installed some aerobrakes, though I can't say they were very effective. On a more positive note, I discovered an ascent path that allowed me to save significantly more hydrolox. It meant spending more time flying on scramjets, but that's what physics warp is for. Nagini was now almost fully fuelled. I didn't feel it neccesary to completely fill the tanks, as the vessel now had 32,000 m/s of delta-V in afterburning mode. Supplies delivered. Fertiliser, SpecialisedParts and Machinery still to go. Spent a while deorbiting reusable boosters. I discovered when deorbiting the Supply RSV that I received funding from it "landing", and finally understood how StageRecovery works. Salvaged 1-2 million VF this way, in a fraction of the time it would take if I were shepherding each of these boosters down in person. Fertiliser delivered. Machinery up next. This is an incredibly heavy resource, neccessitating an incredibly heavy rocket. With a half load of Machinery, Nagini's delta-V was reduced to 22,000 m/s, I could run up another load and be confident the vessel could still make it to Jool, but I'm beginning to worry about its acceleration. I'd prefer not to saddle the ship so much that it acts like it's running an ion drive. Besides, it's still got to load another 100,000 units of Specialised Parts, and 60,000 Machinery is gonna be more than enough to set up industry anyway.

As part of the project to refuel the IPEV Nagini, I designed a new SSTO for carrying LH2 up to Kerbin orbit. This is the Warlord. It needs a few minor adjustments (setting the elevator/aileron/rudder configuration, increasing braking power on the landing gear) but otherwise, I think this might be my favourite SSTO to fly that I've ever made. She handles like a dream, and there were no CoM/CoL issues whatsovever. It does need a powered landing, but there was no danger of the LF burning airbreathing engines running low. The spaceplane is driven by a pair of heavy turbojets, turboscramjets, and a nuclear aerospike. That last being the only engine I could find that was efficient enough and powerful enough to lift this massive bird to orbit and still have worthwhile payload remaining. Nagini is going to need at least one more Warlord flight to fill its LH2 tanks.

I'd been considering having Tarasque build an entire station over Minmus for the sole purpose of mass-producing MaterialKits, SpecialisedParts and Machinery, to replace the disappointing Wyvern series. It would also allow the Asgard freighters to dock directly with the manufacturing and storage facility. Problem is, I'd still have to ship raw materials up from Minmus... and that would actually increase the number of flights required, since there's at least five raw resources the station would need. However, there is a solution to this, and it's one I'd been considering for some time but hadn't delved into out of a sense of dread at the apparent complexity. The solution is WOLF. With WOLF, I could set up the infrastructure on Minmus and then completely forget about it, and the orbital station could gather the raw resources from Hoppers instead of landers flown by yours truly. This is probably better for the Kerbals, too. The Minmus crews have come over all jelly from the low gravity, and could really do with a spin-ring. The first mission aimed at this goal lifted six WOLF Depot modules, the most essential module for setting up any virtual base. Launch 2 sent up six basic harvester modules. I would later discover that I could have sent the more effective version instead, but that's a genuine case of hindsight. I didn't know until I'd set up the infrastructure that WOLF Depots provided 5 power. While those flights (along with a third launch that lifted a new survey rover) made their way to Minmus, the Otter FTV arrived and docked with Nagini. Now fully loaded with He3 and Deuterium, and partially fuelled with LH2, the engineering ship had a delta-V of 6,000 m/s in afterburning mode. More than enough to get it to Jool, except that it hadn't been fully loaded with cargo yet. Though it also wasn't fully loaded with LH2 either, so it's likely to balance out. The survey rover reached Minmus several days later, and after landing began performing surveys of the various biomes with a ground scanner. Once surveyed, it would become clear what resources would be available to WOLF. Next up, the Depots and Harvesters. In the end, it turned out I'd sent one too few harvester modules. Each could only be set to gather a single resource. I had used one to mine Water, and was left with nothing to gather Exotic Minerals. Ah well. I'll be sending another flight out soon enough, carrying eight of the more powerful miners. That'll leave me with one spare. Kind of annoying that WOLF doesn't include Uraninite among the resources it handles. I'll still need a physical mining facility for nuclear fuel. ...scratch that. I just checked the MKS resource flowcharts. I forgot about Silicates. I can use it for that instead. The last piece of news: I sent Nagini to Kerbin orbit. That may have been premature, as I could have launched a lot more MaterialKits and Machinery from Minmus. Oh well. This way will be more expensive, but I've got the cash and I'm happy to have confirmed that the vessel's fusion drive was fully functional. There was some confusion with the cooling loops, but that was soon resolved. Next up, sending the heavy WOLF miners and loading Nagini with its fuel, payload, supplies and crew.

Tarasque Station completed the kit with 10,000 units of SpecialisedParts left. Unfortunately, it couldn't do the same with MaterialKits, and I had to do four lifts from Wyvern 2 with an MKCV. In hindsight, given that I'd later convert the larger SPCV to a MaterialKits carrier anyway, I could've saved myself a lot of hassle if I'd used that to begin with. One of the commsats made its adjustment burn, to get the closest approach to its target planet as possible. I realised that I'd left the reactor running unneccesarily, and it had been busy converting EnrichedUranium to DepletedUranium for no good purpose. I shut it down and let the solar panels handle things. After several delays, and coming at least a week after the Jool transfer window had already passed, Tarasque finally completed the Nagini, a Naga class engineering vessel. It shares design features with the earlier Leviathan, with an almost identical front end, but the control centre on backwards is all new. Featuring twin rotating sections, for extremely long mission duration, massive LFO tankage for both RCS and supplying daughtercraft, extensive SpecialisedParts and MaterialKit storage to enable huge construction projects, all sitting atop a fusion drive designed for maximum fuel efficiency. Efforts to fill its MaterialKits storage have already begun. However, due to Wyvern2's inability to rapidly manufacture SpecialisedParts, Nagini will have to proceed to LKO and load the remainder of its cargo and crew there. I was previously considering retasking Tarasque's engineering staff to crew the vessel, but they have already been in space for some time, and are due to rotate home soon. Besides, I have many Kerbonauts waiting in the wings for a chance to fulfil their dreams of heading out into deep space. There is no time to complete the He3 mining infrastructure on the Mun. As I noted, the Jool window has already passed, and the longer we wait the harder it will get for Nagini to reach its destination. As such, I decided to send a tanker of fuel from Kerbin, despite the cost. On the positive side, the Naga class only mounts a single large tank which is shared by the deuterium and helium 3 fuel. Filling it will not be too difficult, and if this proves insufficient, can be rectified in Kerbin orbit. Also of note, the vessel was constructed without a communications system or probe core, and as a result requires two crew members to control. We had to pilfer a short-range antenna from the Wolverine docked with Tarasque just to get a Commnet link. A long-range comm system will need to be installed as soon as possible, along with some form of automation.

Excuse me while I go consult CKAN Okay... Aesthetic: Quality of life: Gameplay: Part packs: Support mods: (Most of these will come bundled with other mods, since they're dependencies.) Usernames given are not intended as credits, but as the easiest means to find the most updated version of the mod if you aren't using CKAN. There will be names in there that aren't modders, but the forum users hosting the mod thread. Anyway, thankyou!

So, yeah, Global Construction bugged out again and Tarasque's project won't be launched for another 60 days. As for Mirage, 20 days was for the kit fabrication, not total construction time. It will be done in 26 days. The problem is that while GC has a countdown to completion, it doesn't seem to track progess unless you're actually focused on the station or ship doing the building. You can't have anything produced in parallel. I think the best I can hope for is that, as my space program goes on, I will have an increasing number of highly experienced Engineers to assign to the construction jobs. Kit deployed. For some reason, they're much larger than the vessel they're actually building. Ran out of MaterialKits, had to send up a resupply. I really need to figure out WOLF so I can feed some real manufacturing capability on Minmus. Wyvern 2 is still too slow, and it can't even produce all its products at the same time without going into the red. With the extra resources, Mirage completed construction of Kerbin's answer to Elysium - Valhalla Station. This things is immense, massing around 1,700 tons dry. It features a Bussard ramscoop for collecting hydrogen and antimatter, extensive living quarters for personell waiting to be assigned to an interplanetary vessel, and an ungodly amount of fuel storage. In order to move it to its desired orbit, I sent up a tug with a Colossus Magneto-Plasmadynamic Drive. It could make use of Valhalla's existing solar arrays and pair of nuclear plants to gradually push the station to an ever higher altitude. Not quickly, but the small package contained 1,600 m/s of delta-V and added very little mass. It would also be reusable if I ever have anything else in need of being pushed around. At an altitide of 590km, the station was parked at Kerbin's inner antimatter shell. This shell was half the density of the outer one, but much more accessible to spacecraft coming and going from Kerbin. There are likely better places in the system to aquire antimatter, so this was never going to be my primary means of gathering that fuel anyway. Density of hydrogen was 8.6e-13 u/something, wheras out at Minmus' altitude Zroni Dust Observatory found it to be just 5.9e-13. So it looks like it gets thinner the further away you go from the planet. Another reason to stay at the inner antimatter shell. After two days, I was able to confirm that the ramscoop was successfully gathering resources. It was doing so so slowly, however, that I doubt this will ever be my main way of getting this stuff. They're just too thinly spread out. I think I'll have to design a cloudscooping craft for gas giant diving if I want substantial quantities in a reasonable timeframe.

They're fine for LFO (if a bit out of the way) but you won't get deuterium there. Personally I prefer Vall. It's well positioned and the gravity isn't too high.

Oops

True, but that's why I specified my first fusion drive vessels would have to be fuelled from Kerbin. A colony on Laythe is a high priority, but the Jool system hasn't even been fully surveyed yet. My science ship is still en route. I'll get round to it eventually.

Okay, so I've learned that Deuterium cannot be found in space. The atmosphere of gas giants, yes, the oceans of planets and moons, yes, but not space. I will have no choice but to lift it from Kerbin's surface to fuel my first fusion-powered interplanetary vessels. What is in space, is antimatter and bog-standard hydrogen. Both are worth collecting. It would be quite useful if there were high concentrations of the latter around the Mun, because then Elsyium Station could be modified to capture it. I've certainly had no luck producing the stuff from Ore, what with the option bugging out and telling me that near-empty LH2 tanks are full. Well... frick. There goes that plan. Before we figure out what to do about the LH2 situation, I promised to put a tug on Mirage. Quick and easy job, simple design. No weird fuels and oddly positioned engines, just some good RCS and a strong reaction wheel. It's docked just below the kit factory, the best possible position for it. Tested it out with a dockable kit and it worked perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that I'll be making it standard for all orbital construction facilities, as saoon as they're free to build one. After surveying the Mun, I sent the Zroni Dust Observatory to Minmus to search for resources there. ...oh dear. Well, a quick read of the Space Dust thread on this very forum said that it can take time for the sensors to find anything, so maybe if I leave them running, they'll eventually come up with something. One of my other contracts involves tourists, one of whom is scheduled for a trip to Duna's surface. For that, we'll need a lander, and Phoenix 2 didn't bring one. So we'll be taking Phoenix 1's. It may not be clear in the image, but there's a suspicious looking dust storm down there. It stretches from pole to pole and covers an absolutely huge area of the planet. Better go a bit further along our orbit before starting descent. This looks clear enough! Quartermaster Seepond Kerman rode along on this trip, to give him a bit of extra experience. I have no idea if that translates to more effective quartermastering or not. Not a lot of data was collected, but the extra money is nice. And they're safely back to their home away from home. Several days later, Antelope arrived at Duna. Since it still had 14,000 m/s of delta-V, I figured it'd be a better plan to have it stop in LDO to fill Phoenix 2's storage tank before going on to Ike, than to go straight to Ike and send a conventional tanker down to Duna. That'd be a massive waste of LFO, and I don't have a fuel refinery in the Duna system yet. Or rather, none I actually intend to use. Phoenix 2 has an ISRU unit as required by the contract, but with Ike around I see zero reason to lift ore or fuel off the surface of the orange planet. While I didn't screenshot it, after Antelope had finished fuelling Phoenix 2, it left the rover behind to dock with the station. I now have the happy situation where the fully fuelled lander can support a rover mission to the surface. There's no risk of anyone getting trapped down there, and running out of supplies. The great bottleneck is opened! For over a year, Leviathan has been sitting in orbit doing nothing but watch the grey surface go by, its engineering crew resigned to tending the hydroponics garden or playing board games in the spin hab. With access to plenty of LFO, the Skycrane can do its job, and tugs can move kits about. It's just generally quite useful. The Basilisk cargo vessel followed Antelope's lead, except for the part where it would head straight for Ike. MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts and Machinery, oh my! As much as could possibly be needed to set up a base that could produce these things on Ike's surface, which would in turn permit the construction of larger bases. Eventually leading to the ultimate goal of shifting Leviathan to Duna to support the development of our first extraplanetary colony. The next alarm I have set is for Urium Surveyor, carrying out an adjustment burn. Its a ways off. There are two projects currently under construction at Mirage and Tarasque. The first is due to complete in 20 days, the other in 24, assuming it doesn't bug out and act like no work was done. It does that sometimes.

In service of moving a docking port to the other end of Elysium station, I launched this: Featuring four deuterium tanks and a container for Supplies, this module would greatly enhance the station's utility as a fuel depot for outbound interplanetary vessels. One slight problem... the only docking port I put on it was on the tug, not the module itself. Annoying, but certainly something that could be fixed later so long as I could get an engineer on site. In the meantime, I'll just keep the tug attached. I must say, I quite liked how it looked from certain angles, and might replicate it for an interplanetary vessel. For a change of pace, I decided not to do anything for the 12 days until Phoenix Station arrived at Duna, and instead skipped straight to it. This completed a mission contract worth 800k VF, which is almost certainly less than I spent building the thing, but it's still useful infrastructure. Funny story, the NSWR engine still has 3,000 m/s d/v left. I could totally send this thing back to Kerbin when the crew need to go home. Which, uh... kinda makes this not quite a station, doesn't it? 30 days until Antelope enters Duna's SoI. My next move will be giving Mirage its tug, and possibly building a small He3 transport. Only needs to carry enough to get fusion drive vessels from Minmus to the Mun. Also gonna want some sort of dueterium collector. I think there was some floating around near the Mun, so that might be the easiest way to get it. Otherwise I'd be shipping it all up from Kerbin. It may not be as expensive as He3, but if nothing else the tanks are pretty awkward and limited in size.

The first mission I carried out brought a container with 8,000 units of Fertiliser up to Mirage Station. Pretty routine operation, wasn't worth screenshotting. Next I sent up the repair mission. Two engineers on board, for reasons that will become apparent later. In order to replace the Hyena's nose gear, I used its powerful RCS to lift it to a vertical position, then had one of the engineers jet pack up with the replacement part. I chose a conventional spaceplane landing gear for this role. Even if the lander wouldn't be rolling anywhere, I knew the suspension would do the job. That done, my Kerbonaut set about moving various refuelling ports and hoses, so that Supplies could be transferred to the Reaper and He3 to the Hyena. A pair of single-Kerbal life support recyclers were removed from the lander and attached to the mining rover. At only 60% efficiency, the were by no means the most effective possible option, but they were lightweight. I couldn't guarantee that two engineers could life the 3 ton module with higher efficiency, and there would have been no good place to install it in any case. Primary mission completed, the lander launched and rendezvoused with Elysium station, where the Kerbonauts deployed the habitat. Crucially, this required two Kerbals to perform. Secondary mission completed, they headed back to Kerbin. You may have noticed, the lander was not capable of reentry, and the mission had not included a descent capsule. That's because the crew's final destination wasn't to be the ground, but Mirage Station. After transferring the Kerbals stationside, the lander was deorbited. Designed for a single use, therewas no point keeping it around. Though in hindsight, it might have been better to scrap it for MaterialKits than to let it burn in the atmosphere. Oh well. Meanwhile in a simulation that definitely didn't happen

In the end, I decided not nuking the Mun was the better part of valor. Besides, what's the point in building giant tanker ships like Antelope if I can't use them to carry fuel from Minmus to the Mun? So I decided to go with a conventional kerolox powered design. Cheap and cheerful! And to be honest, it's not like we'll be needing so much He3 that a single chemical engined transport would put a massive strain on logistics. Presenting the Hyena He3 FTV! It made a stopover at Elysium to refill the tanks, before making its first descent. Oops. Front landing gear was destoyed, despite a fairly gentle touchdown. I'd mounted it at an unusual angle because I liked the aesthetics, but apparently it's rather less functional when you do that. Reaper drove up to the Hyena, and a significant problem became apparent. The transport carried a transfer hose, but the mining rover had nowhere to attach it. I had included spare attachment points on the Hyena, but there was no engineer present to move it across. This would be quite annoying, but for the fact that this, the landing gear, and Reaper's lack of life support recycling capability could all be solved in a single mission. I would just need to send out an engineer, a new nose gear, and a recyling unit. The engineer could install those parts at the same time as they move the transfer port over. Extra Supplies could be brought along too. On a side note, I noticed Mirage station was completely out of Fertiliser. It was in no danger of the crew starving, they had over 150 days of supplies remaining, but a resupply vehicle would need to be a priority. That'll be the next launch. After that, a tug to move docking kits from the on-board kit production facility to a docking port for construction. I'm also going to need to install an extra module to Elysium, which would include a smaller docking port. Clearly the Hyena can't keep docking near the command deck, it'll interfere with the habitat after deployment. If I attach the module to the other end, it'll have the bonus of being near the He3 tanks, which seems more realistic.

PEBCAK error confirmed, I followed your instructions and the mod was loaded successfully. Took a look at the tech tree, and the reworked scramjets and such sounded like they'd be pretty useful. I hadn't made use of them before because I felt they were too soft sci-fi for the save file. Supertech engines can be fun but more for sandbox play. The only issue I had was that I was still getting the antimatter popup even without antimatter tanks on board. Perhaps I misunderstood what was meant in the update log.

Ah, I did not. I merged the folders, because I assumed that anything new would either be added or replace existing files. I will try your recommendation tomorrow. I assumed it was something to do with my save, since it wasn't happening to anyone else. Didn't intend for it to come across as an accusation, just reporting the issues I was having.

Okay, I tried it out. Unfortunately, I can't give you any feedback on how it worked in-game, because I didn't get that far. I would post the log file but I can't see any way to attach it to this post. There are a lot of errors and warnings. I've reverted to the 2021 version of OPT, as I don't want to cause problems with my current save file.

Cheers! I'll check it out. If nothing else, I appreciate this: Updated Antimatter configs so containment cost only applies when tanks are set to hold Antimatter. It's a small thing but those matter too.

It does!?!?!? That's... mindblowing. I didn't see it anywhere in the documentation, the closest I can find being "Factories are designed for processing mined materials into other resources." I had no idea! That means my newest Minmus base is way overbuilt for it's job... and in fact the basic resources being converted to advanced ones must be taking resources away from the Atlas to no useful purpose. I've gotta test this out ASAP.

So, uh, nearly 3 months since my last upload. Helldivers 2 came out, and I was playing that instead. Having worn myself out of it, I return to KSP, where there is much still to be explored. We begin with the Odin comsat bound for Sarnus, which carried out its inclination burn, followed by an adjustment that lowered the periapsis at Sarnus to a mere million meters. Before doing anything important, I decided to deal with some of the junk in Kerbin orbit, landing a few of the boosters for the sweet sweet cash. Minus the one that lost its engines and airbrakes on descent, and subsequently blew up when it reached the ground. Not getting a refund on that one. Now we return to the meat of our space program - that thing Mirage was working on. It's finally ready for deployment! Ta-daa! This is Elysium Station. Since I couldn't build it in Mun orbit, the engines will get it there before being dismantled. I took the opportunity to transfer the last of the MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts from Asgard 2 to Mirage, before sending it back to Minmus. I also decided it was high time I dealt with a persistent problem the station had been having - the way it would start shimmying and then shake itself apart. This was due to clipped parts, an odd distribution of mass, and it's having so many modules docked together. Since the LH2 tanks were empty, and I actually have very little intention of using them, I decided to dismantle that section. Not before moving a Fission Fragment storage unit over and transferring everything of value, though. Phase 2 of this project involved taking the Senior Docking Port from the now removed LH2 storage to the Cupola, which would become the new centreline of the station. Moved the adaptor and Junior Docking port over to the habitat - waste not, want not. At this point, I detached the Asgard 2, as it would only get in the way of the reconfiguration. I first had to detach the station core and move it over to the Cupola docking port, which was finnicky (limited SAS and off-centre RCS) but didn't take too long. The really hard part was separating from the reactor module, and moving the entire station in order to dock it to a different port. Now that it is no longer on the end of a long arm, it is more structurally secure. According to the on board dosimeters, the new radiation levels in the spin ring were "not great, but not horrifying." With work on Mirage complete and Elysium launched, Asgard 2 carried out its burn to return to the minty iceball. As for Elysium, it would need fuel to reach the Mun. As there happened to be an Olympus FTV-L in Kerbin orbit with a bit left, I docked that before deorbiting it. Annoyingly, some silly sod had forgotten the difference between an FTV-L and a standard FTV, and hadn't labelled the tanker properly. I launched one, thinking it would do the job of filling Elysium's tanks quite nicely, only to find that it could barely provide anything at all. Certainly nothing worth the cost of launch, and now there's just a giant ship full of liquid fuel circling Kerbin. Since I at least knew what a Manticore was capable of, I sent one of those up next. That brought Elysium's delta-V up to 1,500 m/s, plenty to reach the Mun and brake into a low orbit. And finally, I sent up a custom resupply vehicle, carrying Fertiliser and MaterialKits. The station would need the former to grow food, and the later to deploy its spinning habitat. Neither are really required for it to serve as an orbiting fuel depot, but I couldn't be certain it would never need to serve as something more than that. If nothing else, Kelpie Station was now woefully insufficient for my space program's needs. Fully stocked, Elysium was off to the Mun. It slid into the same 50km equatorial orbit as Kelpie, low enough to be quickly reachable from the Mun's surface, but high enough to allow for easier plane changes. The Reaper He3 harvester landed quite a ways from the equator, so any lander bringing the precious fuel to orbit would find that extra leeway useful. Since being deployed, Reaper had been carrying out its mission quite effectively. As for the lander design... I had two options in mind. One would take advantage of Elysium's substantial LFO storage, using conventional engines to lift the payload... but this would require setting up a mining base on the Mun. While that could pay off down the line, as any exploration ships receiving He3 at the Mun would surely need it for their lander craft, or if I chose to use tankers to move the He3 to Kerbin orbit it would be cheaper in the long run to have a mining operation than to refuel them from Kerbin every time... there was an alternative. Option 2: The proposed Camel lander would use a single Nuclear Salt-Water Rocket for thrust. While this would be a terrible option on Kerbin, the dangers of irradiating the Mun were less worrisome. With only a small measure of fuel, it could obtain obscene amounts of delta-V. Even fully loaded, the Camel would have 15,000 m/s to play with. It could operate effectively independent of infrastructure. On the other hand, it's probably not the safest option for Reaper's crew. What do you think I should go with?

I'm not gonna do half-measures. The transfer station will have a substantial habitation capability, along with a large amount of tankage for He3, LH2, and LFO. That way it will be able to service all the needs of a fusion-drive spacecraft... except for deuterium, which can't be mined on the Mun anyway. That will have to be lifted from Kerbin, but it's so much cheaper than He3 that I'm not too bothered about it. Rather than send Asgard 2 interplanetary as previously intended, I decided to bring the MaterialKits and what SpecialisedParts had been loaded on it back to Kerbin orbit, to be transferred to Mirage. The size of the kit is deceptive. Sometimes Global Construction just does this, making the kit way bigger than the vessel inside. While that was being worked on, the inclination burns for Valkyrie and Arkangel came up. I'm quite sad that PersistentThrust isn't compatible with the current version of KSP. BetterTimeWarp is good enough for small craft with low-thrust engines, but even stock PhysicsWarp had Valkyrie wobbling about. I had to have the 4 minute burn happen in real-time.

So, it turns out there's no Helium 3 on Minmus. None whatsoever! Which presents a problem in that all my infrastructure is around Minmus, not the Mun. The project Tarasque is working on requires Helium 3. So I will either have to pay through the nose to lift Helium 3 from Kerbin, or start putting some new infrastructure around the Mun. Here's how that went: This is the Reaper Mining Rover. I did try launching it from Kerbin, but the tracks broke immediately for no apparent reason, and even the cheat panel couldn't fix them. Once they're broke, they're broke. I aimed to land in the spot of highest concentration. It's 80% here. Veery Kerman inspects the mining equipment. All good! Mining operations have commenced. The Reaper harvests He3 at a rate of 0.1 units per second. Next up, putting a transfer station around the Mun for storing He3, ready for transport elsewhere, and making a lander for shipping He3 from the rover up to the station.

As planned, the Long-Range Communications Satellite, designated Odin. I launched two of these, one to Urium, the other to Sarnus. These satellites have a plasma drive, Garnet 1.25m nuclear reactor, Nautilus solar arrays, and a fold-out robotic arm for deploying a giant reflector. Odins will serve as comm relays in the outer system, helping keep other craft in contact with KSC even when line-of-sight to Kerbin is blocked. With the exploration ships being years away from Kerbin, the ability to transmit science home will be paramount. Endeavour, the second mission to Duna, returns to Kerbin. In order to recover the crew and research data, I sent up another Wizard SSTO, with the wings moved a bit further forward. This seemed to solve its issue of pitching irretrievably nose-down after using all its fuel. Another highly profitable venture! Tarasque starts work on something new. Another surprise. Valkyrie, Arkangel and one of the Odin LDCRs all started their burns for Sarnus. The latter two were able to complete the maneuvers in two orbits, while Valkyrie required three. Science gathered around Kerbin is no longer worth very much to recover, but provides data for the on-board research lab. Gilus and Seeuki at least will have plenty to occupy them on the journey. The vessel's pilot and engineer, not so much. I'm sure there's a Skrabble set in the hab somewhere, and they can play I Spy with the space telescopes. The last burns are particularly long, leaving the vessels' engines still running long after Kerbin has started receding into the rear-view mirror. Valkyrie happened to intercept the Mun's SoI on its way out, allowing it to collect some extra data high above several biomes. The next alarms on the list are 56 days away, when Valkyrie, Arkangel and the Odin relay Sarnus Voyager all make their inclination burns to intercept the gas giant. After that, they face a six year journey out. Tarasque Station's latest project will have finished kit construction in 80 days. After that, it will take about the same to turn into a vessel. That should give me plenty of time to prepare for the project's completion. Minmus will need some new infrastructure shipped in from Kerbin.

I reused the Honey Badger rover with some slight modification - removal of the LFO tanks and fuel cell, replaced by a second heavy duty RTG. Also, having learned during my last update how comms reflectors work, I decided to install the largest reflector possible on the Valkyrie. It's possible that the extra 50 gigameters of range won't be needed, but if it is, then I'll be very glad I bothered. By comparison, the reflector on the Arkangel only adds 5GM. Speaking of Arkangel, I was only able to lift it on the 300 ton to LKO Blizzard booster by leaving the LFO tanks unfilled. I sent up two of these unnamed refuelling vehicles top it off, and to refuel the Meerkat mining lander I also sent up. With that, Arkangel will be capable of resupplying itself until the lander's reactor runs out of uranium. Urium Surveyor 1 was launched and sent on its way. It will arrive in 17 years. Like Neidon Surveyor, I expect it will be overtaken by craft with high-end drive systems, but given the relatively low expense, I figured why not launch it anyway. I'm also going to send a com-sat with a reflector dish, because I suspect the on-board comms of the Surveyor series probes aren't going to cut it over such a long distance. Sarnus window in 20 days.