purpleivan

Orange tanks.

I managed to find some time to take a look at your wallpaper image this weekend, so here it is. Hope you like it. I'll have a crack at this, but it might be a few weeks until I get to it.

Agreed. In the first few months of playing the game I used these all the time, especially when sending up large amounts of fuel to store in Kerbin orbit for missions going further afield. But now I almost forget that they exist.

In a crate in a huge secure warehouse somewhere I imagine

This evening new images were received showing more encounters on the moon as well as further evidence of the aliens' activities in earth orbit. One member of the Apollo 12 crew commented on the actions of the alien creatures during their mission. "Arrhh.. on 12 they kept getting in our shots. 11 had got a bunch of pictures of the little critters, so we were just focusing on getting good photographs of our landing site, without these guys getting in the way... something that could be given to the press when we got home. It was hard enough to take a decent photo with that Hasselblad strapped to your chest, but those guys kept getting in the way. It was as if they were doing it deliberately... jump into our shot any chance they got. But the worst thing they the would do would be take to off on those little rocket packs of theirs, just as I'd release the shutter. Half of the photos we took up there were just a cloud dust... we must'a wasted half our film that way." On an earlier mission that tested Apollo equipment before the first lunar landing was attempted, an alien spacecraft was captured on film during an EVA. The mission's command module pilot describes the experience. "I was doing a stand up EVA on day 4 and Rus was taking some pictures from the porch of the LEM and were just about to close up when this huge vehicle, I mean this thing ginormous... way bigger then the CSM and LEM combined, move out from the other side of the LEM into my view. At the time it look something like the Dyna-Soar X-20 that Boeing had been working on, but a lot bigger and I was getting a great look at it. When it stopped moving from around the rear of the LEM, the top half of it cracked open, two big doors swung back and inside it had a large interior space with some kinda module and some other equipment in there. Rus finished of the magazine he had, taking lots of pictures of it. We even got some good ones of the underside of it when they rolled that thing over. After a couple minutes it rolled back around which meant I could get another look into the interior of it then, what I assumed was a solar array sprang up from near the rear of the of that thing. The array seemed to orient itself towards the sun, but just as it seem to be getting good alignment, the craft started rolling again, this time bringing that big array swinging round towards the CM. I only had a moment to react, so I ducked down and swung the hatch half closed over my head and the next thing I new I had a cloud of debris around me. Darn crazy vehicle had swung that huge solar array right into the side of the CM and smashed it to bits... CM was ok, but that array of theirs was toast. After that we decided we'd better get some distance between them and us, so Houston gave us some burn numbers to get ourselves into a higher orbit. After our return the engineers took a look at our photographs of the alien vehicle and they got real excited. Apparently it had some design characteristics that they were interested in for the Space Transportation System that was going to follow on from Apollo. So I wasn't too surprised when I saw the designs for the shuttle a few years later and it look the spit of that crazy thing we came across up there."

Thanks.

Another image was released today showing one of the alien creatures in close proximity to a astronaut of Apollo 17. According to one of the crew. "A couple of these creatures had been shadowing our activities on the lunar surface since our arrival there. On EVA 1 we raised our flag and it seems this is part these aliens procedures on the surface too. But just seconds after putting their flag up, they must have changed their mind about where they wanted it. Strange thing is though I never saw them take the flag down, it was just there one moment and gone the next, before they headed round the far side of the rover from us, to go plant it there. I actually got a clear view of the face of one of these little guys towards the end of that EVA. Usually with the glare from the sun on their visors, their faces aren't that visible, but there was this weird moment when the creature closest to us must have decided it was time to eat. It just flipped its visor open for a moment before ramming what looked like an oversized cup cake into what I guess was its mouth, then slammed the visor down and started chewing away with what looked like a big grin on its face. These creatures must be more evolved for a the space environment than us, either that or they really like cupcakes."

Yep... it might be a while though as I have a lot of other things going on right now. Probably a couple of weeks or more.

You'd steal it like this (well... Jeb would).

That moment that you realise that with your ship in orbit, the paying passengers that you had planned to take on a combined Mun and Minmus excursion are still back at the KSC. No problem just send them up in a cheap vehicle to rendezvous with the excursion vehicle. But then there's the moment that you realise that tourists can't EVA and your cheap vehicle to lift them to orbit was built without a docking port. I also had a moment of realisation similar to 5thHorseman's when I sent a manned rescue vehicle to Mun that only had one (obviously full) seat. The solution was to have the rescued kerbal hang on to the ladder and after liftoff from the surface repeatedly switch between controlling the vehicle and the guy on the outside to move him to the top of the ladder, to stop him sliding off. A slow and rather irregular ascent, but it made orbit.

In more images released today, the strange alien creatures that shadowed the Apollo space program, can be seen in close proximity to the various vehicles of Apollo. An astronaut speaking on the condition of anonymity described the activity of an alien rover vehicle at their landing site. "We'd just got back to the LEM from EVA 2 and had just finished the close out procedures and I decided to take a couple shots of the rover next to the flag, when all of a sudden a couple of these little guys, that the previous crews had told us about, shot past on some kinda rover of their own. They were really tearing it up out there and we were considering our abort options, 'cos we were concerned about them crashing into the LEM, when all of a sudden they stopped and hopped off that rover of theirs." The two of them walked around for a couple minutes, took a quick look at our rover... seemed 'specially interested in the TV camera... started yanking at it, thing almost snapped off. Weird thing was that although the pair of them left their rover, they only seemed to move around one at a time. While one of them would be taking a walk, the other just stood there like a statue... kinda creepy really. In the end they got back on their rover and took off round the back of the LEM... didn't see them again after that." "On the way out the CM pilot was taking some film calibration photos inside the capsule and the processing guys must of had the shock of their life when they developed this one, as one of these creatures was right outside the hatch window. We never noticed it at the time, I guess it was drifting past just the moment the photo was taken." On an early Apollo missions one of the alien craft attempt a docking with one of the American spacecraft. "The LEM had just detached from the CM and was in a roll so that we could inspect it when I noticed an unidentified object approaching at high speed from forward of the spacecraft. It was traveling at a heck of rate straight at us, but when it was about 100 feet out, it fired what looked something like our retros and slowed down to a foot or two per second. After that, the vehicle maneuvered in towards our docking port and seemed to make an attempt to connect with us. I didn't expect the vehicle would be able to dock with us, couldn't imagine that their equipment was compatible with our, but that didn't seem to stop them trying. They must have bumped into the docking ring 3, 4 times before they gave up and each time they hit, their vehicle would wobble around like crazy before they backed off and tried again. Just glad the LEM could still dock with us again after the hammering the docking gear had taken."

I'm thinking of taking a vacation to Florida later this year (possibly October) specifically to visit the Kennedy Space Center and I'm looking for suggestions for other astronautical and aeronautical places to visit in the area (within say 100 miles of the KSC). If there is anything particularly good that's a bit further afield (taking a short flight would be a possibility) but it would have to be something that was possible to travel to and from in a day from the KSC area. So any ideas?

Now that it's a sticky, I'll have to make some more images... errr... I mean obtain from my secret source, deep within NASA I had already planned to tell more of the secret encounters of Apollo astronauts and Kerbals, but work, Christmas/New Year and my 2010: The Year We make Kontakt story thread got in the way.

Thread the needle and blast them through one of the moon arches.

Kicking off 2017 with some screenshots. A rescue vehicle on its way to Minmus to pick up a paying passenger. An asteroid grabber waits in Kerbin orbit for its chance to snatch a space rock. Fiery dawn ascent of the asteroid grabber. Happy landings... and rovering, EVAi'ing, submerging, grabbing, ISRU'ing, Science'ing and general crazy contraption building in 2017.

Ok... I'll just have to tweak my screenshots. Photoshop to the rescue

This has probably been answered on here before, but how would I go about changing the colour of a planets' atmosphere, specifically I'll be making Jool a stronger and darker shade of green. The Scatterer in-game menu doesn't have anything obvious in the way of colour control, so I'm guessing that this is tucked away in a config file somewhere. Any help appreciated.

Glad you like it. Might have some more images to post here from my 2010: The Year We Make Kontakt thread, once I get around to posting more chapters.

The title image from my sequel to 2001: A Space Absurdity. 2010: The Year We Make Kontakt

Must be me then... I did spend a lot of time staring at text yesterday, so possibly that explains my sensitive to it today. Thanks for letting me know it's just my wonky sight

Chapter 1: Joining the Party Chapter 2: Band on the Road Chapter 3: A Hot Gig Chapter 4: A New Riff Chapter 5: Raising the Curtain Chapter 6: Reforming the band Chapter 7: Final Performance MISSION BACKGROUND: YEAR. 1999. LOCATION: THE MOON, TYKO CRATER. A BLACK, RECTANGULAR OBJECT FOUND BY ACCIDENT WHEN RESCUING A KERBONAUT AND RECOVERING A SINGLE PIECE OF THEIR SPACECRAFT. COMPOSITION… UNKNOWN ORIGIN…. UNKNOWN GIVEN NAME… TYKO MONOLITH SIGNAL SENT FROM MONOLITH TOWARDS JOOL. REASON… UNKNOWN YEAR: 2001. LOCATION: VICINITY OF JOOL. SPACECRAFT: K.S.S. DISKOVERY AS SPACECRAFT APPROACHED JOOL’S TWO INNER MOONS… LAYTHE AND VALL… ARL – 202L COMPUTER MALFUNCTIONED. CREW: CO-PILOT BOB KERMAN KILLED BY ARL-202L WHILE OUTSIDE THE SPACECRAFT. COMMANDER JEB KERMAN DISCONNECTED LOGIC CIRCUITS OF ARL-202L. ARL-202L UNIT TAKING A TIME OUT. FINAL MISSION STATUS COMMANDER JEB KERMAN ENCOUNTERED OBJECT BETWEEN JOOL AND VALL. THE OBJECT IDENTICAL TO MONOLITH FOUND ON MUN… EXCEPT IN SIZE. MONOLITH NEAR JOOL IS BIG… LIKE REALLY BIG… YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE HOW BIG IT IS…… AND DARK… AND SPOOKY. COMMANDER JEB KERMAN LEFT DISKOVERY TO INVESTIGATE. LAST TRANSMISSION FROM COMMANDER KERMAN: “BY THE KRAKEN, IT’S FULL OF SNACKS.” REASON FOR MALFUNCTION OF ARL-202L… UNKNOWN. MEANING OF LAST JEB KERMAN TRANSMISSION… UNKNOWN. LOCATION OF JEB KERMAN… UNKNOWN (PRESUMED DEAD). COMPOSITION OF SECOND MONOLITH… UNKNOWN POSITON OF SECOND MONOLITH… LA GRANGE POINT BETWEEN JOOL AND VALL POSITION OF K.S.S. DISKOVERY… ORBIT OF VALL. CONDITION OF U.S.S. DISKOVERY… UNKNOWN. END MISSION REPORT FILED BY; HEYWOOD KERMAN… DIRECTOR, KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM. 2001. NOTE TO SELF: KNOW MORE THINGS!!! Chapter 1: Joining the Party "By the Kraken, it's full of snacks" "By the Kraken, it's full of snacks" "By the Kra…” The ringtone on Doctor Heywood Kerman’s phone cut short as he tapped its screen, taking a call from KSC security. “Yeee’llo… how can you help me” answered the head of the Kerbal Space Program cheerily. “Uh huh… ok… a strange guy hanging around the tracking station” said Heywood, repeating the message from center security “so why tell me instead of sending one of your minions to check it out… oh you have… and this stranger asked for me. Ok then, I’ll head over there now”. On most days Heywood would have considered posting the minion from security to a less desirable position for pestering him with this kind of nonsense, like parts retrieval in the arctic. But he was intrigued to know what this stranger had to say, plus it gave him the opportunity to try out his new executive transport pod. Heywood had taken delivery of his new conveyance a few days earlier and he’d only had a couple of opportunities to take it for a spin. As well as saving him time travelling around the center, it also allowed him to glide effortlessly past those less fortunate, less deserving than himself, who had to hoof it around on foot… what a wonderful feeling. On his arrival at the tracking station Doctor Kerman stepped out of the ETP and strode over to the KSC security guard that was waiting there for him. “So how’s the golf cart” asked the security guard. “It’s not a golf cart, it’s an executive trans…” “…port pod” completed the guard. “My boss said to remember to say that… sure looks like a golf cart though, even has some clubs in the back”. Ok… no matter how beautiful the morning was, this guy was getting the arctic posting. “So where is this stranger” queried Heywood. “He’s hiding on the other side of the dish” replied the guard “said he wanted to look like he just snuck up on you when he starts talking”. Ah…. A fellow gamesman mused Heywood, possibly someone worthy of my great intellect; let the games begin. With that thought in mind, Heywood climbed the stairs of one of the mighty dishes that allowed the KSP to both track the position and communicate with its vehicles around the Kerbol system. It was one of the greatest achievements of the KSP, although its communication function had recently started to play up, losing contact with the more far flung of the program’s craft, necessitating the launch of many vehicles, with dishes bolted to them, to act as relays. Having ascended high enough to clearly have the upper hand (well two of them to be precise) over his unseen opponent, Heywood sat down to get his breath back. A moment later a kerbal in a dark suit stepped out from the other side of the dish and walked around its massive base before stopping at the foot of the stairs. “Heeloo… Doctor Heyvood Kirrman?” enquired the stranger. “Kerman… yes, I am he” replied the Doctor “so who might you be?” “Errrr… Might be?… ah, am Dimitri Kerman, chairman of the Kirrbil Institute of Space Science” rolled the ex-stranger. Hmmm… Heywood thought, KISS, the organisation responsible for the only other national space program on Kerbin. He’d heard of these guys and what he’d heard wasn’t good, at least that’s what they all said on those bastions of truth, NiceBook and Kwitter. “I vish to speak vith you about your problem” stated the kerbal now known as Dimitri, “de problem of your kosonauts dat disappeared”. “Kosonauts… oh you mean kerbonauts” corrected Heywood. “Nyet… kosonauts” counter corrected the chairman of KISS “dat you shoot into space”. What with the comically strong accent and the moustache twirling of this guy, Heywood didn’t trust him one bit. Ok, he didn’t actually have a moustache, but if he did, then he would be twirling it, Heywood was sure of that. “Which disappeared kerbo… er… kosonauts do you mean?” Heywood asked, as they lost those guys all the time. “Kosonauts dat vent to Jool after you dig up mirnolith on Mun” specified the chairman. “How do you know about the monolith” questioned Heywood, then realising that its existence was a huge secret “… er, which monolith… I mean, I didn’t say monolith”. Damm, he’s good thought the KSP director, we only rediscovered a couple of months ago, what we sent those guys to Jool for. The existence of the monolith and the implication that it proved the existence of something other than kerbal life in the universe, had been deemed such a huge secret that memory wipings had been ordered regarding its existence, for all but for a select group who would direct the Diskovery mission. But due to a clerical error, they had also had their memory wiped. It was only when people started asking why there was a large black slab being used as a lunch table in the break room, propped up at one end by a box of files marked “Classified - Top Secret” and a stack of disks at the other, labelled “Diskovery crew mission briefing video – only to be viewed once at Jool” that things fell into place once more. “So the mirnolith dat you say does not exist, vat did you discover about it?” asked Dimitri “all ve know is dat it’s black”. Hmmm…. looks like the game is up thought Heywood, seems like he knows everything. “Nothing, it’s impenetrable” answered the Doctor “we tried everything, on it; flaming rocket fuel, whacking it with a hammer, even threw some super hot chilli sauce on it, nothing worked”. This talk of chilli reminded him that it was at least an hour since his last meal, so he’d better wrap up this conversation quickly so that he could go get himself his 3rd breakfast. “Why don’t you try just saying what’s on your mind” said Heywood, with same curt tone that he reserved for interns that brought him the wrong lunch order. “Well, ve know dat you are building de Diskovery 3 to return to Jool” (the Diskovery 2 had to be scrapped when it was discovered it had been built with all the fuel lines connected the wrong way round) but we are ready to go next month in the Keonov” replied Dimitri. “I thought it was going to be called the “Jool Exploration Ballute Experimental Deceleration Interplanetary Access with Heat shield” asked Heywood. “Da… but we thought Keonov sounded much cooler” replied Dimitri “So you’ll get to Jool first, what of it” said the increasingly hungry and impatient Heywood. “Vell, ve heard dat computer on Diskovery vent a little… la la la” the chairman said, pointing a finger at his head and spinning it in little circles. “If our crew vent onto Diskovery it might do something crazy to dem or Keonov”. “But it was deactivated by Jeb Kerman before he left the ship” said Heywood. “Vell, to be safe ve thinking dat some of yoorr peoples would go on Diskovery first, you know… just to be safe” said Dimitri, wiggling his fingers in front of him as he did so. If he’d been closer to his previous meal and if it wasn’t chicken Tuesday at the KSC (he did so love his chicken) Heywood might have asked “safe for whom?” but instead decided to leave that question for now, after all it wouldn’t be him going on the mission. “Hmmm… I’ll take it up with the politicians, but I might get some problems with taking you up on your offer, you know… with you people being evil and everything. No offense” stated Heywood. “Errr…. none taken” replied Dimitri and then muttered something under his breath, before slinking off towards the perimeter fence. The follow morning saw Doctor Heywood sitting on a bench next to the Secretary of Space Affairs, Victor Kerman, his immediate boss (urghh… how he hated that word) outside the President’s official residence. “Is this some kind of joke” asked Victor. “You want me to go in there” he said jabbing a thumb over his shoulder “and ask him if it’s ok to for some of our fine brave kerbonauts to jump on a KISS ship for a two year trip to Jool”. “Er… yup” replied Heywood. “The same KISS that gave your people that crate of extra strong vodka last New Year and then while you were all passed out, snuck in and stole the entire stock of nuclear engines” Victor queried. “Well they…” Heywood started. “and the same KISS that dug an 80km tunnel under the border, so they could drain one of our subkerbinean liquid fuel lakes” continued the Secretary. “But…” Heywood blurted “Not forgetting the wooonderful gift they gave the president on his re-election” said the Secretary “You remember; the box of rocks, with the message “even these are smarter than you”. “So… you think he won’t be too keen on the idea then?” asked Heywood. Victor Kerman gave Heywood a look that others would have taken as a simple “no… not in the lifetime of this universe” but instead he took it as “This just needs a little bit of the Heywood magic to seal the deal”. “Well we could tell the President that once we get our people on the Diskovery that we won’t tell KISS anything about what we find on board, we could even lie… tell them a bunch of crazy nonsense that no-one understands.” Heywood could sense that for some reason Victor wasn’t quite buying the idea. “Oh… and we could steal stuff from their ship” he offered as a sweetener. Victor tilted his head to one side, contemplating this last idea. They had been on the receiving end of many KISS acts of pilfering over the years; perhaps this would be an opportunity to finally take something from them. “Tell you what, I’ll go in there and speak to the President and you go on the mission” suggested Victor. “Err… what” Heywood blurted, not expecting this turn of events. “Me… go to Jool. Not a chance, do you know how far away that is, do you know how dangerous it’ll be, do you know I have kids” all the while thinking “do you know what they will do to my office while I’m away”. “If I’m going to go in there with your hair brained scheme, then the least you can do is go on the mission to make sure that we get something nice from that ship of theirs” insisted Victor. Heywood had to admit that he did like the “idea” of going to Jool, if not the reality of it. Oh well, at least if he went, he might discover something that he’d get to put his name on. A few days later on a dusty road at the edge of the KSC, Heywood was jogging; engaged in a grilling physical and mental regime to prepare himself for the mission to Jool, accompanied by his son Christopher. “Something beginning with R” shouted the excited child. “Errr… Space Center” replied Heywood “No silly, that don’t begin with R” corrected Christopher. Hmmm… this would be tougher than he’d thought “Railings” Heywood responded “I don’t see railings” replied the child. “Well, they’re planned to be installed next month and they begin with R so I win” stated Heywood with even more pride than usual in his voice, having used four dimensional thinking to take the game. “No you don’t win, they not here… try again” admonished the child. “Ok, ok… er… so… daddy is going on a long trip and I’ll have to sleep most of the way” said Heywood, changing the subject. “Are you gonna die” asked Heywood’s son. “What! No, why’d you say that” said the shocked Heywood. “Well, you go’in on a long journey and it’s with those naaasty KISS people and the people you sent last time all died… and… and… the Kraken, he lives in Jool doesn’t he” listed the child, slightly too excitedly for Heywood’s liking. He had a point though, considered Heywood, there is a whiff of danger about this mission and there hadn’t been a Kraken related incident for quite a while, we’re about due one by now. “Don’t worry… daddy will be back in a couple of years, to tuck you in with a bed time story” said Heywood. “Two years” said the child “I be too old for bed time stories by then. Maybe you take me parachute jump’in” Parachute jumping! The kid was much too like the pilots at the KSC for Heywood’s liking, showing no interest in the exciting world of project management, but two years was a long time, he might have grown out of it by then. Yeah… two years. Next in Chapter 2: On the Road to Jool Heywood meets his other compatriots from the KSC aboard the KISS ship the Keonov as they make their way to Jool. For the complete 2001: A Space Absurdity go here.

When I checked out the forum this morning I noticed that it seem harder to read than I remember it being previously. Has there been a change to the font that's used? I get the same issue viewing it in other browsers and don't get it with other sites, although this is just a subjective thing, so it could all be in my head.

I'll give the "thrust up a bit, then drop on the chair" idea a go a couple of times, but if that doesn't work I'll take the 2nd option you suggested. When I first landed on the scene I was pretty puzzled as I could see the kerbal standing on the surface, but no debris that I could see. It was only when I switched to other "vessels" in the scene to get the kerbal in my vehicle that I came across the command seat, half buried in the surface, it was only after a quickload that it was fully above ground.

I accepted a contract to rescue a kerbal from the Mun and to recover a piece of debris to Kerbin allow with her. However on arrival at the location on the Mun of the pair, I found I had a slight issue, in that the debris part to be recovered was a command seat. As far as I knew this was an un-grab-able part, but I gave it a go, maneuvering my vehicle over the top of it, then activating the grabber and raising the landing gear to drop on top of it, but as expected the grabber unit do not latch on to the command seat. Other than sending another vehicle up with a cargo bay that opens at ground level, then using a kerbal to nudge it slowly into it (not really a dependable solution for a contract) I can't see any way of satisfying the contract requirement of bringing the part back to Kerbin. So my questions would be 1. Am I correct in thinking that command seats are not grab-able and 2. If so, has anyone had contracts that required the recovery of other seemingly impossible to recover items. Actually a 3rd question would be if I'm just being an idiot and forgetting something obvious as a solution. BTW... I'm looking for a stock game solution to this. Thanks.

This is a wallpaper image I made for Stickman939, based on one of his screenshots. This will be the last image I'll be making for my wallpapers thread for a while, what with Christmas, work and the other KSP things I want to do (hoping to get the first chapter of the "2010 the Year we Make Kontakt" out soon).