RedDwarfIV

Today I completed Milk Run 4. Rather than using a Warlock, I decided this time to send up a second Paladin. It's a significantly more expensive vessel, but easier to fly, and as it turned out, easier to land as well. Expense also doesn't matter so much if you can recover it, Having proven that a Paladin could land with a half-load of Commodities, I found that I had just reduced the number of SSTO launches needed for a Milk Run mission from three to two, saving me time and effort. ...I guess I just made the Warlock SSTO redundant. Oops. Little runway overrun there. The brakes are set to 75%, which is too low to be effective. I need to fix that. Gained 8 mil from Milk Run 4. I'll be using that to finance the redevelopment of Mirage Station - adding a new Orbital Workshop module so it can return to operation. Tarasque Station out at Minmus is busy working on the replacement for Wyvern, and Leviathan is still out at Ike, so I need another orbital shipyard, even if I have to bring MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts up to it from Kerbin instead of manufactured from mined resources. I will also be launching a pair of fragment-drive freighters to carry large quantities of Commodities and construction materials from Minmus to Kerbin. The Commodities freighter will handle future Milk Run missions, having a much larger payload capacity than the Paladin, which will be relegated to bringing that payload from orbit to surface. However, it will likely not fill that role for long. It's overkill delta-V-wise, and landing it full laden involves walking a fine line between stalling and hitting the runway above safe speeds. Something lighter, with more wing area, could fill the role more effectively. When I went to investigate the mysterious presence of crew members on the Matador DAV, I received a pleasant surprise. Endeavour was not lost after all! Merely hidden, as for some reason the Matador was classed as a Station instead of a Lander, causing the vessel name to default to the lander's when they docked. The ship, its crew, and the data, are all perfectly safe. In fact, I discovered that enough fuel had been transferred to the lander that, with parachute assistance, it could make a second descent to Duna (though only at a single landing site, this time.) The engineer repacked the chutes, while the scientist and pilot boarded the DAV. I remembered to use the aerobrakes this time, though I'm not entirely sure how effective they are in Duna's thin atmosphere. The pilot went for a walk while the scientist took soil samples. He then planted a flag, and they prepared to return to orbit. This is very much a flags-and-footprints mission. Successful return! Though I did mess up the ascent a bit by leaving Ground Tether on and the airbrakes deployed at liftoff. Even so, the DAV had around 150 m/s delta-V in LDO. After rendezvous with Endeavour and the transfer of crew and data, I sent the Matador to Phoenix Station. Keeping the number of separate vessels flying about to a minimum seemed prudent to me. On a separate note, I have been quite pleased with the performance of my new PC. Where my old desktop would sometimes have lag spikes lasting several seconds when disassembling parts, the new one reduces it to a few frames. Where my old desktop could take ten seconds to load a base on Minmus, the new one does it in two. The only difficulty I have encountered is occasional crashes to desktop, which I have been troubleshooting. Since it also loads KSP faster, crashes aren't as much of an issue as they would otherwise be. We'll see if I can eliminate them. Overall, I can feel the improvement.

Today I mostly dealt with things within Kerbin's sphere of influence. The one exception being Vanguard's inclination change, lowering the Jool periapsis. Afterwards, I moved on to Harpy's intercept of what turned out to be a Class A asteroid. While Harpy returned to Kerbin with the rock in tow, I began launching sections of a new Minmus base. Sparrow Base would serve as an ore refinery, fuel storage facility and transit depot for Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals. Below is the Habitat section. The other two sections were Logistics (which included ore storage and converter) and the Fuel Tower. A crew composed of one Quartermaster and one Engineer were sent in a new landing/return vehicle. A small hab and supplies ensured they would make it to their destination in comfort. The Harpy entered Kerbin orbit at 500km. Another contract was complete. The Logistics module's descent. I chose to land the base on the same site as one of my previous bases, marked by a Manticore LFO tanker. Not due to any specific resource in the area, but because it was on the largest of the Flats, where spaceplanes can easily perform their horizontal takeoffs. The purpose of this base is to serve as a destination for Milk Run missions. One of my Paladins came in to land, had the cargo and LF transferred to it through Local Logistics, then headed back to Kerbin. It reached LKO, and remained there while I spent some time deorbiting reusable launchers, recovering them as close to KSC and as intact as I could manage. There were a couple of issues with the base which required extra missions to correct - the upper 2m docking port was replaced with a cargo container for Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals, which a viewing cupola was placed on top of. I also had to send a radiator to ensure the converter wouldn't overheat. All changes were made by landing the components nearby and having the base's engineer install them. The transfer window for returning from Dres is coming up, which means Valkyrie will soon be heading home. I have also learned that three members of the Endeavour crew may actually be aboard the Matador DAV, still in orbit of Duna. If this is the case, and not simply the life support panel lying to me, then it is possible the data is still present on board that craft. Certainly worth investigating. But alas, bedtime.

As planned, construction of an interplanetary fuel tanker began. The first section into orbit; the Power/Propulsion Module. Second to orbit, the Primary Cargo Module. Third, the Ore Processing Module, which includes ore, monopropellant and LFO tanks along with a large converter. This section can be detatched at the destination to be used as an orbital fuel depot, freeing up the tanker to move from moon to moon. Fourth, the Meerkat mining lander. This vessel has its own nuclear reactor, since solar is far too weak out at Jool. This arrangement does mean the OPM has no power unless the Meerkat is docked with it, but that shouldn't prove a major obstacle. It just means fuel production will take longer in-game. It saves the extra mass of a second reactor, not to mention the cost. Fifth, fuel and propellant loading. The nuclear pellet transport is a one-off design, so has no name. The LFO tanker is called the Calypso. And finally, I sent up an engineer along with a few extra parts that needed installing - a pair of 600kw radiators and a long range comms dish. The radiators would serve the vessel's own reactor, on a separate loop to the main drive. The two loops would operate at different temperatures, keeping the reactor from being overheated under thrust. As for the dish, it wouldn't do to lose control of a ship I spent an entire day putting together because I forgot a single component. And so, the Inter-Planetary Cargo Vessel Andromeda was completed and ready for its voyage to Jool. Unless I build a nuclear smelter facility out there, this will be a one-way trip, as the vessel carries only a third the fuel pellets that the Vanguard does. Off it goes. Inclination burn in about a month. Just over half the fuel pellets are gone. If I can manage a Tylo gravity assist, most of that should be available for moon-hopping after arrival. The Andromeda carries enough LFO, even disregarding the Meerkat/OPM, to keep Vanguard's landers operational for a number of landings per moon. On a separate note, I managed to get the Tarantula rover to Eve's Shallows biome, where it scanned a Basalt Formation, completing one contract's requirements. It required the use of the InfiniteElectricity cheat, but only because the Support version of the triangular truss is glitched. The next mission will be capturing another asteroid. Harpy survived the Great Migration, so I will be using that again. With luck, the rock will be the right size to fulfill another contract.

Seems there was another casualty during the Great PC Migration, the IPTV Endeavour. While the crew mysteriously reappeared at KSC, the ship itself is lost with all data on board. Another mission will have to be sent. This time, I'll be sure to send a more capable lander.

Aw, thanks! The OPT Mk2 cockpit looks way better than the stock version. Also, before I go to bed: Vanguard is on its way to Jool. 12,000 m/s delta-V, so no concerns about getting stranded out there like Odyssey was at Dres. The ship handles fairly well at 3x physics warp, even with the mass of the Knight pulling it to one side a bit. Acceleration is about on par with the NERVA NTR, so I made two burns at periapsis. There will be another maneuver in about 200 days to adjust inclination. I intend to launch one more vessel, a fuel tanker which will also carry a mining vessel. Not all of Vanguard's landers were fully fuelled as of departure, and that was an intentional decision. I wanted to reduce structural instability at the docking ports. But it does mean that if I failed to send extra LFO along, at least one moon landing would become impossible. Most likely I would cancel the Tylo descent. It's the most risky part of this entire mission.

The PC cabinet took way longer to build than it should have, but it's done now. So I was finally able to continue assembling the Vanguard 1 mission to Jool. First up, the Knight SSTO. A two-man spaceplane capable of making orbit at Kerbin, so it should have no trouble on Laythe. Its science capabilities are fairly basic, so future missions to Laythe will have something to do. It has no nuclear engines, so flight time is limited. That may pose less of an issue as infrastructure develops, but that's not within the scope of Vanguard's own mission. Next we have the Lemming Tylo lander. It's a single man SSTS-ARTO (Single-Stage To Surface And Return To Orbit) vehicle. Tylo is a demanding moon, so despite its large size, it's capabilities are also quite limited. Most of the science equipment will be on the rover instead. I seem to have forgotten to take screenshots of the Honey Badger Tylo rover, or the Shrew lander. They're visible already docked to the Vanguard as I brought in the Orbital Science Package. The OSP contains a large number of experiments which can only be used in orbit. It also includes a communications array, which I somehow neglected to put on either the command, engine or support sections of the vessel. Oops. Shrew landers have a full suite of surface science instruments, and cargo space for a set of deployable experiments. With around 2,300 m/s of delta-V, they can easily handle Jool's less difficult moons. As for the Honey Badger, it's carried by a single-use skycrane. Only thinking to test it after having already launched the thing, I found it quite unstable on the ground at Kerbin, where the gravity is simila to Tylo's. Unforgiving terrain means that I can't afford to send a rover that can't drive well. So, after some redesigns and testing, I found that I could fix the instability in only four parts - two M-Beams and a pair of T7 tracks. This would give it a wide base, so it would become impossible to roll. Added mass was negligible. And hey, the end result looked rater fetching, I thought. Also heading out this Jool window, is Jool Surveyor X. I couldn't remember how many I'd already sent, so I decided to name it something with a sense of finality. This probe has a small nuclear reactor on board to ensure it always has enough power for its ion drive, and the drive itself exchanges some efficiency for an extra newton of thrust. Doesn't sound like much? It's 50% more. As it turns out, KSP's native alarm clock is wrong. The Jool window is at least a month away, not 5 days. It should be 90 degrees ahead of Kerbin, but it's more like 70. Last but not least, I took the liberty of checking out a probe in a strange orbit. It was Jool Surveyor 3 , which had a maneuver node set up in a year's time to intercept Jool. Considering I just mentioned I'd launched Jool Surveyor X, which would arrive at Jool at least a year before Jool Surveyor 3 would, I felt this situation was a waste of a scansat. So I renamed the probe Sarnus Surveyor 1, and changed the maneuver node to raise its periapsis until it crossed Sarnus orbit. As luck would have it, the planet would be in almost exactly the right position! It will take 19 years to arrive.

It's been a while. I've been waiting for all the parts of my new PC to arrive... and now they have! KSP and most of the mods are installed. Unfortunately, several vessels were lost in transition: Wyvern, Centaur, Aurora and the Workshop. I'm also wrangling with visual mods, trying to get EVE'S volumetric clouds working. At least Duna stopped being purple. There's a few more things I have to do (such as build a new PC cabinet) but then I can continue this series, which I've enjoyed making and hope to continue soon. Thanks for bearing with me.

The orbital assembly of the IPTV Vanguard began with the command and habitation section. I have a lot of trouble with Engine Plates failing mid-flight, so this launch required a lot of structural additions to get it up to orbit. The CHM has a rotating habitat, storm cellar for radiation (essential for its mission to Jool), a lab and a pair of garden modules (one for Agroponics, the other Life Support.) Next came the Service/Power Module, with a gigantic solar array and a Garnet nuclear reactor capable of putting out up to 400ec/s. It also held the storage for Supplies and Fertiliser. Vanguard has six crew, and the mission to Jool will be long. I may decide to send a freighter along, carrying extra Fertiliser. And finally, the Propulsion/Propellant Module. Like the Basilisk, this vessel uses a Verne pulsed fission drive, but it has three times the fuel load. At the front of the PPM is a large reserve of LFO, for use by the landers that the IPTV will carry. It also serves as a radiation shield. Also helping with the radiation is the long truss structure. I'm going to need to move those docking ports so they aren't blocked by the solar array. I plan to use them to carry a spaceplane and a rover lander. The spaceplane for Laythe, the rover for Tylo. I still need to bring up the science instruments package and a heavy lander capable of making a descent to and ascent from Tylo. A MaterialKits shipment allows the habitat to deploy. With all habitation running, the vessel can support a 17 year journey.

In preparation for resupplying Leviathan, I launched the new Basilisk Automated Freight Vessel (AFV). For this mission, I decided I'd need thrust moreso than efficiency. What's being moved is incredibly heavy - 30k of Machinery, 30k of MaterialKits, and 30k of SpecialisedParts. I've ditched the glitchy PersistentThrust mod, as it kept preventing me from time warping at all, but the alternative - BetterTimeWarp - has its own limitations. Even stock 4x Physics Warp can be dangerous for craft of questionable structural integrity. Going at 8x, 16x, 32x or even 64x basically requires that you use incredibly low-thrust engines so as not to break anything. My point being, if I'm going to have long burn times, I'll want those long burns to be as short as possible. Also, I've never used the Verne before. It has some quirks of operation. The capacitors must be charged before firing, requiring extensive battery arrays and an effective means of charging them. Every maneuver requires this, so every maneuver needs to be planned. Also, dropping below 5% throttle (or simply never raising it beyond that to begin with) will result in engine shutdown and, you guessed it! Another capacitor charge cycle before you can go again. This is not an engine for fine maneuvers. It's a big adjustment from the Advanced Fission Fragment engines, which were simple enough to use. I had launched the Basilisk with a small load of Fission Pellets on board, so that my launch vehicle - the Earthquake 50-ton-to-LKO reusable rocket - wouldn't have to lift quite so much mass. That meant sending up a refuelling vehicle, which I discovered had far too much LFO on board for its job. Next came the RSVs carrying 30k of a particular type of resources. These also used the Earthquake. landing in the rain just landing in the rain what a glorious feeling i'm crashing again The next Duna launch window is over a year away. That sucks. I don't think I can set up even a basic Ike base without a resupply of LFO. I might manage if I can build and land a mining vessel with a converter on board. A Jool window, however, is coming up in a mere 20 days. I began work on a new exploration vessel, to be launched in sections (Tarasque is busy with Meridian 2) but KSP crashed right after I saved the command section. I'll launch it tomorrow.

After evacuating the Quartermaster from Meridian Base, I discovered that I could no longer use the Menu options, or change to a different vessel outside of physics range. Confused, I opened the debug menu, and discovered that there was a serious problem. I was being spammed with an error. Searching it up, I discovered that this was a bug with stock KSP called Docking Rot, that could occur in any vessel created from docked parts, though Kerbitrail ports seem to get it worse. There was no solution. I had to revert to an earlier save, and terminate the base from the Tracking Station. Sadly, this meant killing the base's lone crewmember. Rest in peace, Whats-his-name Kerman. In an effort to resolve the lag issue, I decided that the best solution would be to replace Wyvern with a brand new facility, one that could perform all the same duties with a much lower part count. To do this, I would need to shift manufacturing to an MKS Atlas factory dome. Six assembly bays. With those bays, I can produce pretty much every advanced resource worth making in a single dome. One part instead of six. Not a massive reduction, but these things add up. Once happy with the design, and having tested it on Kerbin to ensure all the drills worked, I went to Tarasque Station and started work on the Ground Kit that would be used to deploy the base. ...oh wow. 210 days, and that's just for orbital assembly! Construction on the ground will take even longer. I'd better send more engineers when the time comes. Kraken reached Dres and successfully captured. Valkyrie did likewise. Within a couple or orbits, she's rendezvoused with Odyssey. All gathered data was transferred to the Valkyrie, over 200 of it. The crew followed, no doubt grateful to finally have clean air, power, and functional living spaces. And food. Next up, meeting the Kraken for refuelling. Propellant load complete. 4,196 m/s of delta-V, more than enough to return home without having to worry about any misjudged burns or inaccurate transfer windows. Speaking of, the window back to Kerbin is only 97 days away. The crew of the Odyssey marooned out at Dres, will finally head home. As for the Odyssey herself... She was an outdated design, improperly built for her mission. There would be no attempt to fit the Kraken's drive to her forward section, the refuelling ship had no propellant left to burn with. At best, the vessel might serve as a minimally capable space station, and even that would only be possible if the Kraken's fission reactor was salvaged to provide power. I saw no further use for her, and that meant her destruction as an anti-lag measure. But simply terminating the flight wouldn't be an honourable death for a spacecraft that had come so far, carried the crew to the first landing on Dres. And further, it would be wasteful. Instead, I chose to deorbit the spacecraft, She would forever be a part of the planet she'd flown to, a permenant piece of Kerbin on a world that would likely never see the Kerbals return. And I got 600 science from the seismometer, which is nice.

No update on the game today, but I do have news. Recently I've noticed an increase in load times when entering physics range of Wyvern Base, and spikes of lag as well. I'm unhappy about this because it means I'm approaching the limits of what my computer can handle. But fear not! I have purchased many parts, and shall construct a new computer, one far more powerful! So with luck, we will be seeing many more updates to come. On the meantime, I'll do some debris gardening to lighten the save file. Maybe deconstruct Meridian Base for the MaterialKits.

So, we finally get to play with the Leviathan. It's only got a limited amount of resources, however, and if I waste them, they can't be replaced until I can send a transport at the next Duna window. I designed a base that would be able to produce MaterialKits, Specialised Parts and Machinery. Not in any great amount, admittedly, but it would hopefully produce enough to keep the Leviathan stocked. I can use that to build a larger base with greater output later. I set Tarasque to building two things - a Banshee RSV that could carry Supplies, Fertiliser and Machinery, and a copy of the planned base. The Banshee had an insuffiently capable probe core, so I swapped it out for a better one before having Leviathan carry out construction of the redesigned version. It was at this point that I discovered a problem. Endeavour was not the only spacecraft in the Duna system with limited supplies of LFO. All of my planned landing systems were reliant on it. And while Leviathan is absolutely flush with liquid hydrogen, there's no spare EnrichedUranium for nuclear engines. This bottleneck could seriously put a crimp on the operation. In happier news, Harpy successfully brought its second captured asteroid into orbit over Kerbin. I'm honestly surprised at how well this vessel works. Duna Surveyor arrived at Duna, and carried out its capture burn. The moment I'd been dreading arrived. Would this probe suffer the same fate as Jool Surveyor 2? Would it have the juice? Yes! Yes it did! In fact, its EC count barely moved during transmission, as the giant solar arrays kept it well supplied throughout, and the survey of Duna was completed. A few orbits later, the probe was on its way to Ike. Getting there was a little fraught, as the Patched Conics orbital simulation was lying to me again. But I got it there. Once again, the scanner activated. Once again, it produced results. Now I was able to choose a good landing site for the first base. Good thing too, because Leviathan finished building a Kodiak GCV. I discovered the Resources tab in the Workshop window, allowing me to transfer fuel, supplies, fertiliser, materialkits and electric charge across before launching the kit into a vessel. Seems the effort I went to to fit a Logistics module to Tarasque was redundant, even if it had worked, which it didn't. The GCV found a fairly flat spot in the area I'd chosen, a region of Ike where multiple resources overlapped. Including, to my suprise, Water. Apparetly it's really abundant on Duna's moon. I somehow managed to lose the screen-cap, but the test version of Angel Base landed on Minmus was completed after 23 days of construction. All systems functioned, at extremely low efficiency. This was because of a lack of Machinery. It was at this point that I realised, I had sent very little Machinery along with Leviathan, just the 200 units in the Orbital Assembly Workshop. This... could be a problem. The base is capable of producing Machinery, so theoretically it could bootstrap itself up to full efficiency, but this might well take so long that sending a transport could prove the more effective option in the end anyway. Ah well. Designing a freighter could be interesting.

Another day, another asteroid to capture. The Harpy goes forth. There was a lot of burning to get an intercept. This rock was way further out than the last one, and travelling in the opposite direction. Intercept! Lots of RCS needed to turn this pig. This maneuver put Harpy on the Mun's inclination, and brought the periapsis down to 100k over Kerbin. It'll take a few days to get there. Also, note how wonky this asteroid is. The clamp is aimed at centre of mass, and I had no control issues. Kinda got lost in everything that was happening, but Leviathan reached Duna and swung back out to Ike. Braking into Ike orbit. Before any serious work could begin, I needed to address a problem that should've been solved about a hundred and fifty days ago. That being, I forgot to send a tug vehicle for moving empty construction kits from the orbital assembly unit to the docking port. So I designed one and set the ship to building it. As you can see, I had to do a fancy dance to get the kit attached. Didn't want to have to do that every time. Deployment. I discovered that I could Autostrut the kit and it wouldn't go Kraken on me. So long as I remember to do that, I shouldn't need the NoCrashDamage or UnbreakableJoints cheats on in future. Tug completed, and a very quick job it was, too. Under a day, I think. Tug moved to its rest position. Thanks to the Claw, it needn't take up any of the limited docking ports. I missed Duna Surveyor's encounter, and had to maneuver it into another one. Good thing this vessel has the generation capability to power its advanced ion thruster. Hopefully this scansat has enough batteries on board to do its job, or I will be very sad. Another arrival at Duna was Endeavour, the manned mission to finally land Kerbals on the orange planet. The pilot and scientist transferred to the Matador Duna Ascent Vehicle. Minmus' Lowlands were a very rocky, sloped area. Not fun to land on. The Midlands were much nicer. Also, I remembered to use the airbrakes on my second landing. Not sure how effective they actually were... What I assume is ejecta from the crater, which I have a contract to survey, but no scanning arm to survey it with. Ah, something a Kerbal can smash with a hammer! We collected some Blueberries and a Duna rock. Duna's gravity is just low enough that jet packs work after you jump in the air. It's a perilous activity, as you can easily find yourself landing faster than intended. Having surveyed three biomes - Lowlands, Midlands and Crater - the Matador was ready for return to orbit. Slightly under 1,600 m/s of delta-V remained after the biome hopping. I was hoping it would be enough. And it was! Squeaking into orbit, the DAV waited in LDO for the Endeavour to rendezvous with it. Since the mothership had no shortage of delta-V, it seemed the better option. Blue dawn. Rendezvous. The fuel remaining in Endeavour's LFO RCS tank was not enough to fully replenish the Matador, leaving me uncertain whether it was worth sending it down again, where it could be marooned. This struck me as especially unneccesary when I had a Manticore FTV in hanging around in Ike orbit. Only minimal fuel on board, of course, since most of that was used up by Adventure's mission to Ike. But there's no reason that a fuel refinery couldn't be added to Leviathan's project list, is there?

I switched to the Ronin 3 hours before it's Eve intercept alarm, to find something very strange had happened. That... isn't right. Somehow, the alarm had set itself for Eve escape, not Eve encounter, despite having been created in interplanetary space. As a result, by the time I had switched to the vessel, it had performed a gravity slingshot around the planet and was being flung onto an interstellar trajectory. It was moving at 6,000 m/s, and had 4,000 m/s of delta-V., so an Eve capture had been made impossible. I came up with a contingency plan. If I couldn't send the Ronin to Eve, perhaps it would make an excellent Laythe explorer. It's tentative, but it looks like I can swing a Jool intercept in 9 years, 132 days. Not brilliant, as I may well have expanded my industrial operations out to Jool by then, but it's the best I can get from the vehicle. Quite a shame, I was looking forward to seeing whether it could escape Eve's atmosphere or not. 2 days later, Valiant arrived at Gilly. Travelling in retrograde, it had 300 m/s to shed in order to make orbit, but this was no trouble at all. I'd forgotten about the Garden Station in Gilly orbit, and even after re-discovering it later on, felt no need to dock Valiant with it. The IPTV carries a tremendous amount of Fertiliser for its on-board hydroponics bay, which is more than capable of generating enough Supplies for a four-man crew. First descent. It was successful, but the next screenshot I have is of the Valiant's engineer following the lander to the surface using the EVA jetpack. All scientific instruments deployed. I was forced to hack gravity because they weren't landing fast enough to deploy. Gilly only has three biomes, and it's low gravity means hopping between them is a breeze. It also meant the last crewmember, scientist Gilus, was able to EVA down just to plant a flag of his own. This done, the crew's performance was reviewed in the Science Lab and all personnel received a rank up to Level 4! I considered leaving the lander behind at the Garden Station, but it's the only vessel I have with a Surface Scanner on board. This component has somehow disappeared from my VAB Parts list, so if I want to scan WOLF biomes, I'll need this lander available. The transfer window from Eve to Kerbin is in 1 year, 129 days. Plenty of time for lab work.

After going through the Near Future Technologies .cfg files. I have absolutely no idea why the octagonal Support truss has both EC and monoprop, while the hexagonal one only has monoprop. They're both using the same MPEC code. Since this appears to be another KSP bug, I will be permitting myself to use the InfiniteElectricCharge cheat while using the Tarantula rover. If the Support truss was working as intended, it would be very difficult to use up its entire power supply.

The Tarantula rover arrived at Eve, capturing then separating from its transfer stage. The transfer stage performed an inclination maneuver to enter a polar orbit of Eve, where it could serve as a comms relay. After this, the descent vehicle performed an aerobrake to enter Low Eve Orbit. To prevent re-entry heating damage, each pass would be fairly shallow. The heat-shield couldn't be deployed, because that would bock the thrusters. It would remain in LEO until a suitable landing site was chosen. Many aerobrakes were needed. Both the Valiant and Scylla arrived in the Eve system during this time. Final descent. With the landing site decided, the braking thrusters fired, and the ballute deployed. At first, the ballute's drag tried to pull it toward the back, which would have resulted in the drogue chute being destroyed by the heat of entry. Eventually, though, the ballute faced forward, and took the brunt, keeping everything safe behind it. Drogue chute deployed. Velocity 200 m/s. Aeroshell ejected. At this point, aerodynamic forces began interacting with the rover, sending it spinning. I had no choice but to deploy main chutes and separate the rover from the descent stage. So long, and thanks for all the fish. This layer between the clouds looked like a gigantic cave system. No wonder the surface is invisible from orbit. What the...? Bubbles? They are bubbles! ...plants? Eve has plants? Firing retros for landing. At 6 m/s, it was unlikely to be neccesary, but it still softened the landing. Touched down, safe and sound! And an old friend happened to drop by. I performed a number of science experiments, but transmitting them to Kerbin will have to waitt until I can take a look at the .cfg file for the triangular truss that makes up the Tarantula's body. It's set to Support, which is supposed to have ec storage, but for some reason does not. The larger octagonal truss does, and both have batteries as part of the model. Until then, it's stuck with 150ec, barely enough to send basic science. ...oh, and to top it off, I forgot to include a Bon Voyage controller. So any journeys to other biomes will have to be done on manual control. Good thing these wheels have a top speed of just under 40 m/s, and Eve's gravity should prevent any shenanigans. As I mentioned earlier, several other events occurred while the Tarantula made its way to LEO. Valiant arrived at Eve, making a capture burn then maneuvering to intercept Gilly. The Scylla FTV also arrived, braking into a 200km high orbit over Eve. It will stay there until the Ronin needs it, if that vessel actually succeeds in its test flight. The Ronin SSTO itself is still a day out from encountering Eve's SoI. And finally, Leviathan arrived at the Duna system. It will perform a braking burn at periapsis, with the aim of intercepting Ike.

Heh. I was a little surprised, but to be fair, that's almost all from Ike. Plus you can add a thousand science points from the research lab that was made on the journey there and back. Thanks! It pleases me that at least one of my IPTVs managed to avoid needing a rescue mission. Life support makes vessels much heavier than they would be in stock, so it can be hard to gauge how much more fuel they need. Duna is not a hard planet to get to and from, and Adventure still wouldn't have made it back without taking fuel from the FTV and the garden station. It needed much more fuel storage than I gave it.

We begin today's update with a science probe arriving at Asteroid TRK-003 to perform some science, both nearby and while grappled to the surface. It wasn't all that valuable scientifically, but it allowed me to complete a mission contract. Next, the Harpy Truss Extender was launched, which was met in orbit by an engineer. Parts were rearranged, and the two sections welded together with Konstruction ports. About a week later, Adventure entered Kerbin's sphere of influence, with 1,200 m/s of delta-V remaining. The braking burn began. Capture was almost instant, but there was still another 900 delta-V to go to reach LKO. Finally, Adventure was back in low Kerbin orbit, running on fumes. 149 experiments had to be moved from the Adventure's command pod to the descent vehicle. It took a while, and looked like the end credits of a movie on fast-forward. The descend vehicle detatched, made its decel burn, and fell back through the atmosphere to land in the sea by the KSC. Pretty good! It'll only unlock one or two more science nodes, though. I haven't built a nuclear saltwater rocket yet, so I'm gonna leave it alone until I have.

Completing Milk Run 3 took a couple of flights of the Warlock before the Paladin could descend. The first Warlock lost an engine and wing on landing. Hard landings being a recurring problem for that class of spaceplane - it had a tendency to max out pitch control at low speed without being able to complete its flare, resulting in a high vertical speed touchdown - I finally got around to redesigning its landing gear arrangement. Upping the size of the main and nose gear would give it more suspension distance to play with, though it would (annoyingly) remove the nose gear steering. This worked! The second Warlock landed perfectly intact! It spent most of its landing offroad instead of on the runway, but that's more an issue with my piloting skills. And the fact that it survived the offroading is also a testament to how effective the new gear was. I'm happy with it! 8 million VF. All in all, a successful mission. Even if we did irradiate the runway, I built a small FTV for Fission Fragments, then sent it to Minmus. Meanwhile, Tarasque began construction of a new vessel, the Harpy ARV (Asteroid Redirect Vehicle). Asteroid TRK-003 will enter Kerbin's SoI in 38 days, and I have several contracts regarding various sizes of asteroids, so I wanted to make sure I caught it. The Harpy is a very large, very capable unmanned vessel mounting a pair of Advanced Fission Fragment drives in tractor configuration. A number of events interrupted construction - the arrival of the Eagle FF-FTV at Minmus, my moving an FTV to Wyvern to refuel a Ferret SPCV before it launched for Tarasque, along with the inclination burns to intercept Eve made by Valiant, Tarantula, the Ronin and the Scylla. Turns out I forgot to put anything more than the most basic comms antenna on the vessel. Oh well. The Tarantula's interplanetary stage may become a relay satellite once it's completed its primary mission, since it does have bigger dishes. Assembling the Harpy kit took 25 days, while construction only took 5. 26,000 m/s delta-V, and a TWR of 14.34 on afterburner mode. TRK-003 enters Kerin's SoI in five days. It will have a periapsis just inside Mun orbit, and a high inclination. As Harpy has such high delta-V and acceleration, I can send it out to meet the asteroid on the Descending Node, then match velocity there before grabbing the rock and making capture burn. No messing around with long orbits, trying to rendezvous while the rock hurtles toward perigee. I tried that a few years ago and didn't much enjoy it. With the asteroid in tow, Harpy's delta-V and TWR dropped significantly, to 10,000 m/s and 0.31 respectively. No worries, the rock was only travelling at 700 m/s. Slowing it down and changing planes, or even reversing the orbit to match everything else flying about, wouldn't even use a tenth of the fuel on board. Success! We have a 90km orbit, perfect for conducting research. This test went extremely well, but Harpy will likely have problems towing any larger asteroids, Not because of the mass, but because of engine angle and truss length. I'll need to add a long truss section to the tail end. LKO is a good place to do that, too. 19 days until Adventure returns to Kerbin.

When you recover a craft on Kerbin, you get the value of its parts back (less, the further you are from KSC.) Resources also have value. In this case, I'm shipping Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals from Minmus to Kerbin, as (barring Enriched Uranium) these are the most valuable resources by weight. Uranium is difficult to transfer from one vessel to another, and is so heavy that landing it at Kerbin is a risky business. That same difficulty in transferring between vessels would also make splitting the return between multiple spaceplanes a more complex operation than simply docking two vessels together and transferring resources from one tank to another. You would need separate tanks, and to physically move a tank across. It could certainly be done, but I feel it's not really worth the extra hassle. When I recover the spaceplane at KSC, I receive the value of the vessel and the resources. This means a profit in the millions of VF per mission to Minmus.

Launched Milk Run 3. Waiting in Minmus orbit for 12 days, when the moon passes Kerbin's equator. Tenacity 2 made it's Neidon intercept burn. At this distance from Kerbol, the solar panels had fallen from an energy flow of 40 to just 6. Happily, the probe has a big fat RTG as a maintainer, and a KerboPower fission generator to run the ion drive, even at full throttle. After a successful burn, I set an alarm for when the probe would enter Neidon's SoI. 55 years. I wonder how much could have been cut off that if the transfer window calculator had been more accurate? I'm once again left thinking about how my probes will likely be overtaken by crewed missions later on, using higher energy burns to take a more direct route. Jool Surveyor came to its next Laythe pass. This too was an unsuccessful capture, but the gravity assist did bring it into another encounter on the other side of Laythe which would require a far more maneageable 100 m/s to capture. The probe would be capable of that! Yes! Successful capture in Laythe orbit! Starting the resource scan... ...oh my fricking god So, uh... Jool Surveyor 2 is now just a glorified comms relay. It's 338 days to the next Jool transfer window. Sigh.

The Wolverine GCV worked well enough on Minmus, but I always had to pair it with the Workshop lander just for the habitation and life support. Its tiny wheels were also an absurdity that really only worked because of Minmus' perfectly flat terrain. For worlds with higher gravity and rougher ground, not to mention the impossibility of rapid crew rotation, a more advanced vehicle would be needed. And here it is, the Kodiak GCV. Not only does it have a 200% efficient Workshop that can hold eight engineers, but it also carries a 3.75m Kerbitat and a hydroponics unit. This vehicle is built for long-term operations in remote areas where support is limited. Its likely first destination is Ike, where it will be assembled in-orbit by Leviathan, but the Kodiak should be capable of handling almost any world I'm interested in building something on. Places it can't get to, like Tylo, are places I'm unlikely to want it to be anyway. Not shown in the picture are the extra fuel tanks for descent from orbit, or the parachutes I added for target worlds with atmospheres like Eve or Laythe. For the moment, not much is going on. I launched a large rover toward Eve, which will hopefully fulfil one of my mission contracts while gathering science. So even if the Ronin proves unable to return to orbit (I plan to carry out an unmanned test flight into Eve's atmosphere before transferring crew to the spaceplane) I will at least get some science from it. So unless I want to carry out another Milk Run (and I am getting low on funds again) I'll be timewarping to the next event on the alarm clock. For the next 64 days, it's all adjustment burns. Adventure will arrive at Kerbin in 114 days, Leviathan will arrive at Duna in 144 days.

The right engine for the job. This is the Scylla FTV-L, with the Charybdis 2 interplanetary drive. Ignore the Skipper engines, they won't be doing anything. I'd originally planned for the two craft to be capable of separation, so the Scylla could land at the fuel production facility. Instead, I used Konstruction ports to weld the two craft together. I liked the aesthetics better, and honestly, the Scylla is far too big to be landing on its own. It would probably work at Gilly, but I don't want to take the chance. It doesn't even have any landing legs. As you might expect from something this heavy, its delta-V is rather lower than the other vessels I've launched using the same drive. This one has 8,000 m/s, which is plenty for my purposes.

Technically the Eve window is still two days away, but with 24,000 m/s of delta-V, who cares? On Valiant's nose is the lander that was originally intended for Adventure to carry. I figure, why waste money launching a new lander with only marginally more science gathering capability when this one still has most of it? It's only going to Gilly, after all. We can use the saved money to put a full suite of scientific instruments on the nuclear spaceplane that will be heading to Eve in the same transfer window. That spaceplane being... The Ronin SSTO. While designing this vehicle, I looked into high-tech options like nuclear lightbulb aerospikes and fission fragment drives, but ultimately settled on tried and tested Project Eeeloo nuclear jet engines, something I've previously used on my Warrior SSTO. Their capability for high-thrust propulsion without using fuel just could not be passed up, not when Eve's thick atmosphere is the primary barrier to any return vehicle. Turning it into an asset would be a massive advantage over any other design I could think of. Of course, the Project Eeloo engines have quite poor closed-cycle efficiency, with around 570 ISP. Fine when I need the extra thrust, but the interplanetary burn was going to need another engine. For that, I turned to the standard nuclear lightbulb. Compared to the lightbulb aerospike, its thrust was mediocre. But, if you're choosing an engine for efficiency, that's not so important. 500kN is plenty for orbital maneuvering. To ensure the Ronin would be fully fuelled - and therefore have its maximum delta-V - before Eve descent, I decided to send as big a tank of liquid fuel to Eve as I could manage. The second largest 5m tank served that purpose, and with it I built the Scylla FTV-L. It would then dock in orbit with its interplanetary drive, the Charybdis. For that drive, I chose the lower-tech version of the Fission Fragment engine. I thought that since I'd been able to get good results from its higher-tech version, it might do well enough for an unmanned fuel transport. Boy, was I wrong. When I got it to orbit, I found that it could barely move itself, let alone a 150 ton fuel tanker. I attempted a 120m/s rendezvous maneuver, and at full throttle, received an estimated time to burn completion of three days. For an engine that requires an extensive array of extremely expensive radiators! Rather than view it as a gigantic waste of time, I'm considering this an experiment, The results being that I plan to never use that particular engine for anything ever again. I would have literally been better off using an ion engine. Its thrust-to-weight ratio is absolutely abysmal. Next time, I'll send up the right engine for the job.

Valkyrie performed it's mid-course burn to intercept Dres. Its solar panels weren't providing enough power, so I brought the reactor online. After getting an encounter with Dres, 1,700 ms/s of delta-V remains. However, the capture burn should take far less delta-V than for Odyssey because Valkyrie's current orbit has its periastrum beyond Duna orbit already. Also, the Kraken will be available to refuel it after arrival. The Liberator engine at least seems far less hungry for uranium than the stock NTR or the Emancipator, so I have no concerns there. I was surprised to see the Eve transfer window alarm so close, less than three days away. Not enough time to build anything out at Tarasque, so any mission to take advantage of it would have to be assembled in Kerbin orbit. So that's exactly what I did. Launched in three sections (two of which use Konstruction ports that can weld together), the Valiant is a medium sized explorer. It has the science and life support capabilities of it's larger cousins, but a much smaller engine section. It's the Fission Fragment drive that makes this possible, with its absurd efficiency. The central support section holds an LF tank and an LFO tank, for supporting any missions that might happen to need them. I plan to design and launch a nuclear spaceplane that will be capable of descending to Eve's surface, carrying out science there, then either returning to orbit or launching a pod that will return to orbit instead. Apparently the vessel will require 6 km/s of delta-V. That's a tall order, but I'm sure it's possible. COLONISATION PLANS: Moho: N/A. Far too hot, gravity too low, exceptionally difficult to reach. Of interest for scientific purposes only. Eve: Viable target. Kerbin-like gravity, thick atmosphere, fairly easy to reach. Low priority due to atmosphere making any colony there essentially isolated by delta-V requirements, at least until propulsion technology progresses far enough to make SSTOs not just feasible, but easy. - Gilly: Valid industrial site, only option in Eve system. Products to be ferried to Eve orbit. Kerbin: Colonisation successful! Nothing more to do here. - Mun: N/A. No atmosphere, gravity too low for colonisation, too high to compete with... - Minmus: Valid industrial site, with orbital construction capability. Duna: Viable target. Low gravity, thin atmosphere, fairly easy to reach. High priority due to proximity and comparative ease of base construction. IPEV Leviathan already inbound to support that effort. - Ike: Valid industrial site, only option in Duna system. Will have orbital construction capability and serve as resupply station until the Duna colony is self-sufficient. Jool: N/A. While a floating platform would be cool, it would be entirely reliant on resupply missions with a high chance of catastrophic failure. Of possible interest for a research station. - Laythe: Oustanding target. Kerbin-like gravity, Kerbin-like atmosphere, liquid water. Best location for a colony in the system, certainly for whoever has to live there. Easy access for SSTOs, making resupply, crew rotations and base construction simple. - Vall: Valid industrial site. Fairly low gravity, proximity to colonisation targets, large areas of flat ground. Will have orbital construction capability. - Tylo: Borderline target for colonisation, useless for industrial purposes. High gravity, no atmosphere. - Bop: N/A. - Pol: N/A. Sarnus: N/A. Same story as Jool. Hale: N/A. Of scientific interest, but too difficult to encounter with for industrial purposes. Ovok: Possible industrial site. Eeloo: Viable industrial target. Likely to host orbital assembly facility. Slate: Borderline target for colonisation, useless for industrial purposes, and for the same reasons as Tylo. However, it's gravity is 1/3rd lower, so it's at least a better candidate on those grounds. Tekto: Viable target. Low gravity, but Kerbin-like atmospheric pressure. Urium: N/A. Ditto. - Polta: Viable industrial target. - Priax: Viable industrial target. - Wal: Borderline colonisation target. Comparable to Duna, but far more difficult to reach. Unfortunately, it is the best option in the Urium system. - Tal: Good industrial target. A low-gravity moon orbiting a colonisation target. Its presence makes Wal look like a slightly better candidate. Neidon: N/A. Ditto the Second. Thatmo: Borderline colonisation target. Comparable to Duna, but far more difficult to reach. Worse, its retrograde orbit gives it no viable companions for industrial exploitation. Its low gravity and very thin atmosphere do mean that Thatmo should at least be a viable industrial target also. Nissee: N/A. Of scientific interest only. Plock: Any colony here would not be serving as a second Kerbin, but as a launch platform for interstellar vessels. - Karen: Viable industrial target, supporting any development on Plock. This is going to be a long project, but hopefully the various planets and moons will provide varied challenges. Much as I like the idea that I'll figure out MKS well enough to design a base that can be put down all in one piece, it would get boring if I had a standardised design for every single place and it was just a matter of getting there. I wonder, will any of my future crewed missions have such advanced engines, that they'll reach the outer planets before the probes I've already launched do?