Nittany Tiger

Ahh OK. I learned the stock game through playing sandbox and doing incremental missions, but that's because there was no career mode when I played. I've been editing parts to either make them match what might be in the book, make them more realistic, or add functionality. For example, I added throttling to the F-1A engines in the FASA mod. They normally don't throttle, but in the book, they do. I went with the throttling range in the Real Scale Boosters mod, which is 60% - 100%, and this combined with editing the SRB thrust curve helps to keep G forces and dynamic pressure to realistic levels. The only "cheaty" things I've done is disable Remote Tech and use HyperEdit for warping craft around to practice parts of the mission. When I do the entire mission, I'll do everything as realistically as possible. Cheating would take the fun out of seeing if this mission is possible in real life. I never originally intended to use kOS, but I wanted to automate the F-1A throttling, and there was no other mod that could do this easily, so I installed kOS an made a simple throtting script after figuring out kOS (which took a bit, but good thing I knew how to program already). Now I'm trying to turn the script into a full launch autopilot just to see if I can do it, and it'll also mean I can focus on cinematic if or when I decide to make a video of this mission. I could theoretically program kOS to run the entire mission, but it wouldn't be fun to just type a few commands and the mission play itself. I'm also hoping writing a kOS script to fly a rocket by itself could be used to demonstrate coding ability to help land me a programming job. I know kerboscript isn't used outside of KSP, but the ability to program in what could be described as C#-lite might still be a selling point on an interview. Plus, I might be learning C# itself and writing some KSP mods soon as a further test of coding ability. This is all passion-driven work. P.S. Good luck on your RSS adventures, Fire. RSS is fun to learn, but the learning curve is very steep. Even with tons of experience in stock, RSS is hard to learn. I had to relearn how to make orbit in RSS and it took perseverance and luck to do it (because I tried to learn using the FASA Saturn 1B, which isn't the easiest thing to fly). My advice is don't be afraid to build something ridiculous and overpowered to get into orbit so you can get used to how launches work in RSS/RO.

This is sandbox. I've done a bit of RP-0, but I'm doing the Ares mission in sandbox. I might do it in RP-0 if I ever get back to that. This is pretty much straight to Mars in sandbox (well, swing by Venus to Mars). I'm putting an incredible amount of effort into this. Like I really could fly the mission now, but I want to make something presentable along with doing things in KSP I've never tried before but feel I can do like editing part files, programming in kOS, texture replacement, and whatever I can do to make this look realistic. It's been a lot of fun, but it's also taking me a long time to get to where I want to be to actually make an attempt. I should be flying this soon, though. I'm always happy to get likes and responses. It keeps me on this project since outside interest in my efforts drives me to make something presentable and hopefully enjoyable.

My autopilot code as of this post. It's still a WIP, but it's come a long way. It's now two files due to a recommendation by the kOS documentation to put custom functions in separate files. So here's AresLaunch.ks: //Saturn VB Autopilot program RUNPATH("AresLaunchDisplay.ks"). SET ddyn to 0. SET dynzero to 0. //If variables are lists, can I accees each element in loops below and make code more efficient? SET Inboard to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("F1AInboard")[0]. SET Outboard to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("F1AOutboard1")[0]. SET SRB to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("SRB1")[0]. CLEARSCREEN. //in case we need this //Display event, throttle setting, F-1A thrust %, and SRB thrust %. LOCK THROTTLE to 1.0. STAGE. //Countdown here? UNTIL (Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST) > 0.88 { IF(Outboard:MAXTHRUST > 0) { //Prevent NAN LaunchDisplay(0,2,Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST,0). } WAIT 0.01. } STAGE. CLEARSCREEN. //Maybe countdown and abort mode display. //Display needs to update in real-time. //Display loop could continue on with a PRESERVE command after throttleback. UNTIL MISSIONTIME > 25 { IF(SRB:MAXTHRUST > 0) { //Prevent NAN LaunchDisplay(1,2,Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST,SRB:THRUST/SRB:MAXTHRUST). } WAIT 0.01. } //Pitch for gravity turn a svel = 100m/s //Print that gravity turn is in progress. //Adjust heading to meet propulsion stack inclination (or desired inclination). Could have this able to be set as input prior to launch. CLEARSCREEN. LOCK THROTTLE to 0.01. //check dyn pressure change //if ddyn < -0.004kPa/0.01s or so, throttle to 85% (was -0.04kPa/0.1s) UNTIL ddyn <= -0.004 { LaunchDisplay(2,0,Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST,SRB:Thrust/SRB:MAXTHRUST). SET ddyn TO (SHIP:Q*constant:ATMtokPa) - dynzero. //units are kPa SET dynzero TO (SHIP:Q*constant:ATMtokPa). WAIT 0.01. //change to 0.1? } //throttle to 85% LOCK THROTTLE to 0.63. CLEARSCREEN. //4+Gs before SRB tail-off. //Stage SRBs and throttle to 100% when SRB thrust < 10% UNTIL SRB:THRUST/SRB:MAXTHRUST < .1 { LaunchDisplay(3,1,Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST,SRB:Thrust/SRB:MAXTHRUST). WAIT 0.01. } STAGE. LOCK THROTTLE to 1.0. //Center engine shutdown at 26s before MS-IC burnout (G >= 3.8g) CLEARSCREEN. UNTIL STAGE:Kerosene/(Outboard:FUELFLOW * 500) < 26 { // 150 ~ 40s remaining - triggered at stage -8 seconds. Times by 0.01? PRINT STAGE:Kerosene at (0,3). PRINT Outboard:FUELFLOW at (0,4). PRINT STAGE:Kerosene/(Outboard:FUELFLOW * 500) at (0,5). LaunchDisplay(4,2,Outboard:THRUST/Outboard:MAXTHRUST). WAIT 0.01. } Inboard:SHUTDOWN. CLEARSCREEN. //Manage g-forces here? //Stage MS-IC UNTIL Outboard:FLAMEOUT = TRUE { IF Outboard:MAXTHRUST > 0 {//Prevent NAN LaunchDisplay(5,2,Outboard:Thrust/Outboard:MAXTHRUST). } WAIT 0.01. } STAGE. //Ignite MS-II CLEARSCREEN. WAIT 3. STAGE. PRINT "Second stage ignition.". //Skirt seperation WAIT 30. STAGE. PRINT "Skirt separation.". //LES Tower jettison WAIT 6. AG27 on. PRINT "Launch escape tower jettison.". //Ignite MS-II and develop guidance to achieve circular orbit at ~200 km - 250 km //Code should monitor vert vel and time to AP, but code should find optimal pitch profile for MS-II flight and orbital insertion (lowest possible dV usage) Here's the subfile AresLaunchDisplay.ks: //Display program for Ares Launch program. SET State to list("Ignition Sequence Start", "Liftoff", "Max Q", "Throttle Up", "SRB Sep", "Center Engine Shutdown", "Staging", "Stage Two Ignition", "Skirt Separation", "LES Jettison", "SECO"). SET Level to list("60", "85", "100"). function LaunchDisplay{ parameter statevariable. parameter throttlelevel. parameter liquidthrust. parameter SRBthrust is 0. PRINT State[statevariable] at (0,0). PRINT "Throttle Setting: " + Level[throttlelevel] + "%" at (0,1). IF statevariable <= 5 { PRINT "F-1A Thrust: " + ROUND(liquidthrust * 100,1) + "%." at (0,2). } ELSE { PRINT "J-2S Thrust: " + ROUND(liquidthrust * 100,1) + "%." at (0,2). } IF statevariable < 4 AND statevariable > 0 { PRINT "UA1564 Thrust: " + ROUND(SRBthrust * 100,1) + "%." at (0,3). } } Currently converting whatever units KSP uses for fuel to liters and kilograms of RP-1 so I can derive a stage time for center engine shutdown. STAGE:Kerosene is given in unknown units and Outboard:FUELFLOW in tons/s. I'll figure it out soon enough. Testing the program means tons of test launches. Somehow, there's fog in Cape Canaveral, so my rocket finds itself flying through a white abyss for a while. Hopefully it's not a thunderstorm. Don't need an Apollo 12 incident. I've had a couple of repetitive issues come up during launches. One is minor but irritating where some sort of glitch upon physics load tricks the game into thinking the rocket has launched and it starts ticking the mission clock. Since my code depends on the mission clock, it causes a minor timing issue with F-1A throttleback. A larger issue though is the SLA bending as a result of sideslip. This is sometimes so severe that the SLA actually bends over and eventually causes the whole rocket to pitch into a high AOA and break up violently. Tried to apply a bit of magical space tape (struts), but that hasn't corrected the issue. The only solution for now is to keep the rocket from pitching too far from prograde on launch until it gets mostly out of the atmosphere.

I forgot to mention in my large post that with my Saturn VB, I never stretched my MS-IC stage. One, I forgot that the real-life Saturn MLV-V-4(S) had stretched stages. I think F-1A throttling negates the need for the stretching though, as the stage + SRBs get me plenty of thrust on launch, and the rocket itself has more than enough delta V to loft the payload to orbit. My MS-II is stretched, but not to hold more fuel. It just has a modified forward skirt to house the OMM and bottom of the MEM housing. My Saturn VB will loft an empty MS-II stage into orbit just fine, so I think it doesn't need stage stretching. Also, I made a variant of the Saturn VB with J-2T aerospikes in place of the J-2S engines. This was created to show the guys at the NASA Spaceflight.com forum a Saturn MLV-V-4(S)-B. It makes orbit just fine.

I was going to post my own stuff, though my main build right now is something you posted already. Identical stats, just different looks. Note: Thrust stats are for a single engine. Saturn VB (Saturn MLV-V-4(S)) (Stats include Ares Mission Module (AMM) and Apollo CSM, exclude MEM): Boosters: UA-1564 x4 Fuel: PBAN Burn Time: 101 s Thrust: 19430.21 kN (Sea Level) - 21471.198 kN (Vac) ISP: 238 s (Sea Level) - 263 s (Vac) First Stage (MS-IC): F-1A x 5 Fuel: RP-1 x LO2 Burn Time: 2 m 21 s (at continuous 100% throttle) Thrust: 8003.845 kN (Sea Level) - 9189.599 kN (Vac) Throttle Range: 60% - 100% ISP: 270 s (Sea Level) - 301 s (Vac) Second Stage (MS-II): J-2S x 5 Fuel: LH2 x LO2 Burn Time: 6 m 14 s (actual burn time shorter) Thrust: 522.248 kN (Sea Level) - 1138.5 kN (Vac) Throttle Range: 76% - 100% ISP: 200 s (Sea Level) - 436 s (Vac) Orbital Maneuvering Module (OMM): AJ10-137 Fuel: Aerozine50 x NTO Burn Time: 2 m 41 s Thrust: 97.86 kN ISP: 314s Service Propulsion System: Identical engine and fuel to OMM. Burn Time: 10 m 4 s AMM RCS: 2 kN 3-port RCS Thruster Blocks x8 + 890 N RCS Thruster Blocks x 16 Fuel: MMH x NTO ISP: 280.84 s (2 kN 3-port RCS), 187.2 s (890 N RCS) Parts for the Saturn VB all come from @frizzank's FASA mod with ullage motors from the Real Scale Boosters mod and possibly stock. Added throttling capability to F-1As for Max Q. The F-1As in the novel did throttle, so this is canon. The SRBs also have a modified thrust curve where it throttles back to 60% thrust for Max Q. Both of these throttling measures are necessary to keep dynamic pressure under 40 kPa during ascent. FAR won't blow the craft up if it goes over 40 kPa, as I've had the Saturn VB endure 60 kPa on ascent and not fail, but I want to keep things real concerning vehicle stresses on ascent. I also shut down the center F-1A 25 seconds before MS-IC burnout to keep g-forces manageable, though they do reach 4 Gs before SRB tail-off and about 4.2 - 4.3 Gs before MS-IC burnout even with the center engine cutout. I'll likely throttle the F-1As back before burnout to keep g-forces below 4Gs. Again, this is an option measure, but one that adheres to realism. MS-II stage has vents provided by Smart Parts that activate when the MS-II is jettisoned after orbital insertion to vent the remaining hydrolox fuel and lower the orbit of the MS-II stage. OMM is a SPS engine and procedural tank. AMM is procedural parts plus solar panels and IVA from @raidernick's Skylab mod. Radiators are stock and purely for decoration. Venus probe is actually the Huygens probe from @raidernick's US Probe's pack plus procedural parts. Comms dish is the Pioneer 10/11 dish from Remote Tech and moves out thanks to an Infernal Robotics Hinge. Also contains a large reaction wheel hidden in the top of the AMM. This isn't really breaking canon from Voyage I don't feel because the real Skylab had reaction wheels (I think they were CMGs). The reaction wheels are better for roll authority and minor attitude control than anything else. CSM and LES is from FASA. Docking ports are stock. Uses @linuxgurugamer's Vapor Vent mod for launchpad effects. Ares Propulsion Module: First Stage (MS-II): Main Propulsion: J-2S x 4 Fuel: LH2 x LO2 Burn Time: 21 m 47 s Thrust: 1138.5 kN ISP: 436 s Secondary Propulsion: Lunar Module Descent Engine x 2 Fuel: Aerozine50 x NTO Burn Time: 9 m 27 s (might be inaccurate) Thrust: 43.9 kN ISP: 311 s Primary Ullage (J-2S Ignition): S-II Ullage Motor x 24 (Fire eight at a time) Fuel: HTPB Burn Time: 6 s Thrust: 102 kN ISP: 257 s Secondary Ullage (LMDE Ignition): Generic Separation Motor x6 (Stock motor, real counterpart unknown) Fuel: PSPC Burn Time: 6 s ? Thrust: 98 kN ISP: 250 s RCS: 2 kN 3-port RCS Thruster Blocks x 2 + 890 N RCS Thruster Blocks x 4 Fuel: MMH + NTO (from AMM) ISP: 280.84 s (2 kN 3-port RCS), 187.2 s (890 N RCS) Second Stage (MS-IVB): Primary Propulsion: J-2S x 1 Fuel: LH2 x LO2 Burn Time: 7 m 8 s Thrust: 1138.5 kN ISP: 436 s Secondary Propulsion + Ullage: Auxillary Propulsion System Fuel: MMH x NTO Burn Time: 19 m 44 s Thrust: 320 N ISP: 280 s RCS Auxillary Propulsion System Fuel: MMH x NTO ISP: 280 s Core of the MS-II and MS-IVB created using FASA parts. Tank types were changed from "Default" to "Cryogenic" to mitigate LH2 boil-off, and boil-off rate was tested Fueling port is a procedural part and a large docking port. External tanks are procedural tanks. Ullage motors are from Real Scale Boosters, stock, and FASA. LMDE fuel tanks are procedural with stock caps. ET caps are from RSB and procedural fairings. MS-II/MS-IVB interstage is RSB as well. Solar Panels are from the Skylab mod. The MS-II J-2Ss have three ignitions, and ullage for each ignition is provided by eight sets of ullage motors. The first ignition will be used for trans-Venusian Injection, the second Mars Insertion Orbit , and the final for part of the Trans-Earth Injection. I used S-II ullage motors, though these are actually more than needed to settle the propellants for MS-II ignition. The smaller ullage motors for the LMDE course correction motors will do the job as well, but I'm trying to make the APM as close to the novel as I can. It mentions eight ullage motors at the base of the MS-II for one of the MS-II ignitions, so I put three sets of eight for each ignition. The LMDEs also have three ignitions and thus three sets of two standard ullage motors of their own. The MS-IVB's J2-Ss also has three ignitions, but I don't see but two being used: one for the Trans-Earth Injection, and the second for the Earth Orbital Insertion. Course corrections are currently provided by the APM, but the APM is quite weak. It has trouble settling propellants for MS-IVB ignition, so I may exchange the APM for something stronger. MS-IVB contains a reaction wheel just like the AMM. This is pretty close to what @Chris P. Bacon created for his video, and mine was created from looking at his APM from his video and adding parts he omitted while trying to get it closer to what it might have been in the novel. I am concerned about the ET caps adding dead weight to the Ares craft, and those may be removed if needed. Overall, I haven't worked on the Ares Propulsion Module near as much as I have the Saturn VB and Ares Mission Module, and that's because the propulsion module hasn't needed as much work I feel as the mission module. The APM may be tweaked as I fly the Ares mission to make sure it can handle the entire mission without cheats. Mars Excursion Module: De-orbit Stage: Solid Rocket Motor (unknown real-life equivalent) Fuel: Solid Fuel (generic) Burn Time: 20 s Thrust: 204 kN ISP: 325 s (this seems high for a solid motor) Descent Stage: Toroidal Aerospike Descent Engine (unknown real-life equivalent) Fuel: Liquid Methane x FLOX88 Burn Time: 2 m 41 s (max throttle and max fuel use) Thrust: 568.783 kN (Sea Level) - 621.448 kN (Vac) Throttle Range: 4% - 100% ISP: 345.6 (Sea Level) - 377.6 (Vac) Ascent Stage: Toroidal Aerospike Ascent Engine (unknown real-life equivalent) Fuel: Liquid Methane x FLOX88 Burn Time: 5 m 45 s (max throttle and max fuel use) Thrust: 121.456 kN (Sea Level) - 132.8 kN (Vac) Throttle Range: 4% - 100% ISP: 345.6 s (Sea Level) - 377.6 s (Vac) Reaction Control System: MEM Base and MEM Ascent Vehicle (unknown real-life equivalents) Fuel: CIF5 x Hydrazine ISP: 260s (Sea Level) - 336s (Vac) The MEM is all thanks to @TiktaalikDreaming's North American Rockwell Mars Excursion Module mod. The MEM in the novel is somewhat different, but I went with Tik's mod since it saved a lot of time figuring out how to make a functional lander. I probably could make a lander like Challenger, but this is good for now and I don't want to throw Tik's hard work away. Tik did a lot work improving his mod so that it would work in Realism Overhaul. He also included an airbrake system, which could be attributed to an idea I had to slow the MEM and which isn't canon to the novel, but it's kind-of necessary since the MEM won't land without it unless you like crash landings. The real MEM proposed used ballutes and chutes to slow down before descent engine ignition, but the MEM in the novel didn't use these features. I included a small rover that folds out on Infernal Robotics hinges and pistons, and unfolds out. Might add another couple of solid descent motors depending of if I need them or not.

Current version of the Saturn VB launch autopilot. It's incomplete and based on the previous F-1A throttling program. I want to display F-1A and SRB thrust levels on the terminal, so gotta figure out how to do that. //Saturn VB Autopilot program SET ddyn to 0. SET dynzero to 0. //If variables are lists, can I accees each element in loops below and make code more efficient? SET Inboard to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("F1AInboard")[0]. SET Outboard to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("F1AOutboard1")[0]. SET SRB to SHIP:PARTSTAGGED("SRB1")[0]. CLEARSCREEN. //in case we need this //Display event, throttle setting, F-1A thrust %, and SRB thrust %. LOCK THROTTLE to 1.0. STAGE. PRINT "Ignition sequence start.". //Display F-1A throttle here? WAIT UNTIL (Inboard:THRUST/Inboard:MAXTHRUST) > 0.88. STAGE. CLEARSCREEN. //Maybe countdown and abort mode display. //Display needs to update in real-time. //Display loop could continue on with a PRESERVE command after throttleback. UNTIL MISSIONTIME > 25 { PRINT "Liftoff.". PRINT "Throttle setting: 100%". PRINT "F-1A Thrust: " + (Inboard:THRUST/Inboard:MAXTHRUST)*100 + "%". IF (SRB:MAXTHRUST > 0){ PRINT "SRB Thrust: " + (SRB:THRUST/SRB:MAXTHRUST)*100 + "%". } WAIT 0.01. } //Pitch for gravity turn a svel = 100m/s //Adjust heading to meet propulsion stack inclination (or desired inclination). Could have this able to be set as input prior to launch. LOCK THROTTLE to 0.01. //check dyn pressure change //if ddyn < -0.04kPa or so, throttle to 85 (done) UNTIL ddyn <= -0.04 { PRINT "Max Q.". PRINT "Throttle setting: 60%". PRINT "F-1A Thrust: " + (Inboard:THRUST/Inboard:MAXTHRUST)*100 + "%". PRINT "SRB Thrust: " + (SRB:THRUST/SRB:MAXTHRUST)*100 + "%". SET ddyn TO (SHIP:Q*constant:ATMtokPa) - dynzero. //units are kPa SET dynzero TO (SHIP:Q*constant:ATMtokPa). WAIT 0.01. //change to 0.1? } //throttle to 85% LOCK THROTTLE to 0.63. PRINT "Go at throttle up.". PRINT "Throttled to 85%.". WAIT 10. //Stage SRBs and throttle to 100% when SRB thrust < 8% - 10% //Center engine shutdown at 20 - 30s before MS-IC burnout (G >= 3.8g) //Stage MS-IC //Ignite MS-II and develop guidance to achieve circular orbit at ~200 km - 250 km //Code should monitor vert vel and time to AP, but code should find optimal pitch profile for MS-II flight and orbital insertion (lowest possible dV usage)

Switching IVAs turned out to be easy. Switched a 6-person crew cabin's IVA to @raidernick's Skylab IVA with no trouble and embedded the part in my AMM. Also spoofed the mass of the part to 10kg so it doesn't add weight that's not supposed to be in the AMM. I'll show the part I embedded the custom AMM later. EDIT: Here's the part and the reduced weight:

Rover is pretty much done. I added two more hinge sets and pistons, and now the rover deploys just fine. Drives around fine as well after moving the wheels out. Test drive on Earth. MEM landed just fine with the crane and rover. Rover seems to drive just fine on Mars, too. And the Saturn VB launches just fine with the rover. Didn't really see that being a problem. Got a really nice view of SRB sep here. Did encounter some strange problems and regular mishaps, though. Bad hyperediting of the MEM to Mars caused the Kraken to have fun with the rover, and me not paying attention during descent caused a crash. Quite a spectacular crash. Up next: IVA replacement, then finally the kOS script.

Wow. I'm flattered that I was inspiration for your project. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope to have my own Ares flight ready soon. I really like the Ares mission out of the sheer awesomeness of bringing Apollo technology to Mars. Before even reading the book, I wanted to fly the mission myself, and it's why I bought KSP. Hopefully, you can get that stockalike Saturn VB together. Also, I wonder if you've considered ways of lowering your RAM usage so you don't get monster levels of lag from having vessels with high part counts?

I'm test streaming on Twitch if anyone wants to join. http://www.twitch.tv/nittany_tiger I'm be testing the MEM with the rover setup and may try to install the AAM IVA. May also fly the Saturn VB if you wish to see it fly. I probably should get the game clock set to March 1985 soon so I can set up the mission. The only things left I want to do is the rover, IVA, and a Saturn VB autopilot coded in kOS. Stream's done. Went well until I tried to practice a landing with the MEM, and then I ran into game lag that made it pretty much impossible to do the landing. I'll try to see what I can do to reduce the game lag during stream. Thank you for anyone that stopped by. I will be streaming again. Hope to get these lag issues ironed out for the main mission stream if I can.

More progress on the rover. Now I've made it able to fit into the MEM and currently trying to figure out a way to deploy it. I have IR hinges in places such that it will fold up quite well. Put on another IR hinge and extendable piston, it creates one way to deploy the rover: Unfortunately, it drops down too far on deployment, so I'm going to need to either build a longer deployment mechanism, or use something like a winch to get it down. I'm also concerned about weight, and I don't want to add too much extra weight to the MEM and have it unable to land safely, but I won't worry about that until I test the MEM with the rover and deployment crane added on. At worst, I'll either have to add more fuel to the descent stage, shave weight from the rover and crane, or omit it completely.

This pack makes me wish I was done with my stock career run so I could install this and do what @Scott Manley is doing except with mods like Kerbalism and other realism mods. I haven't even explored the stock system and there's so much more to explore now in KSP. Good work on this.

Having the same primary issue, but I wanted to show off a more humorous side effect of the bug that causes the ocean to vanish entirely off of Kerbin. I'm either going to roll back SVE or wait for the fix as recommended, but I'm curious if others are getting that same problem? Don't want to dev to worry about vanishing oceans, as his proposed fix coming Monday should correct this, but I found the sudden lack of oceans humorous and wanted to share it.

Pics from probe tests: Also starting on the Mars Rover. This is going to be tricky to fit on the MEM, along with the weight restriction I'm going to abide by to keep the descent delta V high enough for a safe landing. All that's left is the AMM IVA, the possible enhancement of the Saturn VB autopilot, and some texture replacement, and Ares will be ready to launch. Months of work finally comes together! I think what I'm going to do is fly the mission once, post pics, maybe livestream it, and then fly the mission again and create a video for that.

Tested the Galileo atmospheric probe and Huygens probe in Venus entries. In both instances, RealChute and Venus' intense hit cause parachute failure, leaving both probes to free fall. With the Galileo probe, the small size of the probe caused it to fall too fast through Venus' soupy lower atmosphere and crash. In contrast, Huygens' flat profile allowed it to never exceed 30 m/s after parachute failure, and it landed intact on Venus' surface at 12 m/s. So this is the leading candidate to represent the Venus probe in my Voyage mission. For right now, I have Huygens attached to my Ares craft, but I might try to make a custom craft so the probe reflect more of what might been seen in 1985, unless having an ESA probe from the 90's - 2000's real time line isn't a big deal.

Alright, I'm back to work on this project and on the home stretch. Working on making a probe for the Venus flyby. The stock parts make it difficult to make a small probe, so I'm trying out the US probes pack to see if I can't find and use something that might have flown on Ares. Right now the top two candidates are the Jupiter probe from Galileo and Huygens from Cassini. They are good for size and can survive a Venus descent, but they both didn't exist in 1985, and Huygens was made by the ESA, which may or may have not been doing co-operative missions with NASA in the book. Another possibility is finding the Pioneer Venus probes, though they weren't designed to land on Venus. Still, they would be more era-accurate than something that flew in the 90's or 2000's in our timeline.

Update: Been playing stock KSP again to take a break from this. I'm also testing out KSP TOT to see if it can accurately plan flybys. I'm going to do an Eve flyby mission in my career save. If that works out, then I can use KSP TOT to plan this mission easily. I want to get back on this soon to build the Venus probe and Mars Rover and finish my kOS script for the Saturn VB launch. Furthermore, been talking over with the guys here about this mission: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35720.520 They gave me some ideas on post-Ares missions. I'd also love to integrate Ronpur's patch into this somehow as a texture. I think he'd be thrilled to see it fly.

Wonder what's a good day to stream the mission? I want to finish up the minor tasks I have and then stream my attempt. I also want to configure KSP TOT to plan the mission.

Alright, @artemisrain's syntax correction works and now I have all of my text correct. My supposed regex for Find and Replace was bad, though. The correct search regex is \[#<=(([0-9]:"[0-9a-fA-F]{8}";"[0-9a-fA-F]{8}";"[0-9a-fA-F]{8}")|([0-9]:[0-9a-fA-F]{6};[0-9a-fA-F]{6};[0-9a-fA-F]{6}))=>\] and the replace regex is <#<=\1=>>. So in my instructions to use Find and Replace, after doing the find and replace for single-color codes, repeat those instructions using the new search regex and the new replace regex for the multicolored ones. That should be all you need to do to make this mod work properly for 1.2.

No problem. I need to go ahead and fix the other colors on my save. I think both of our methods plus Find and Replace will fix it, and in fact either us or the mod dev can just run that on their install files and call it a 1.2 patch.

I'm getting an issue when talking screenshots in KSP. Whenever I hit F12 in the atmosphere of Kerbin to take a screenshot (in Steam), and it disables aerodynamic forces display, it causes the game to freeze when I hit F3 to bring back up the GUI. When I take screenshots, I usually disable the GUI first. This only happens when F12 disables the aerodynamic force vectors, not enables them, and the freeze happens when I re-enable the GUI in atmospheric flight, such as flying a plane or ascending a rocket. End of output log including crash (whole log is too big to paste): http://pastebin.com/XdM5RFCH Error file: http://pastebin.com/L2kVDqgb Mod list: [x] Science! 5.3b Alternate Resource Panel v2.9.0.0 Asteroid Day 1.2 Better Burn Time 1.5.1 Chatterer 0.9.91 Contract Configurator 1.21.0 Contract Parser 5.0 Contracts Window + 7.2 Easy Vessel Switch 1.1.1.0 Environmental Visual Enhancements 2:EVE-1.2-2 Kerbal Alarm Clock v3.8.1.0 Kerbal Attachment System 0.6.0.0 Kerbal Inventory System 1.3.0.0 Kerbal Space Ponies 1.2.4 Kopericus Planetary System Modifier 2:release 1.2.1-1 KSP AVC 1.1.6.2 Modular Flight Integrator 1.2.2.0 Module Manager 2.7.3 Olympic1's ARP Icons v0.10.12 PlanetShine 1:0.2.5 Progress Parser 6.0 Real Plume - Stock Configs v.0.11.0 SCANsat v16.11 scatterer 2:v0.0256 Smoke Screen 2.6.19.0 Stock Visual Enhancements (High Res) 2:1.1.4 Stock Visual Terrain - High Res 2.0 TAC Fuel Balancer 2.11c Texture Replacer v2.5.3 TriggerAu Flags v2.9.0.0 Waypoint Manager 2.6.0 Steps to Replicate: Load any craft and launch it. While in the atmosphere: (optional?) Press F3 to disable GUI Press F12 to enable aerodynamic forces overlay (default screenshot button in Steam) Press F3 to re-enable GUI (if disabled) Press F3 to disable GUI Press F12 to disable aerodynamic forces overlay Press F3 to enable GUI Game should either freeze up or crash on GUI re-enable. Sound should continue playing. If the game freezes, force-closing the game sometimes produces a crash message and outputs a crash log. Hope this is enough info for you guys to help figure out the issue.

Have you looked at Stock Visual Enhancements? That mod has some amazing retextures of the Kerbol system planets including Jool. I really wish Astronomer's Visual Pack still updated. That was my favorite, but I only got to use it for a short time before 1.1 made it incompatible and it was never updated past 1.0.4.

Excellent. That takes care of the majority of the bugs. I think those overhead switches are just for show. They don't do anything but you can still flip them. Regex for finding the multi-color syntax should be /[#<=[0-9]:("[a-fA-F0-9]{8}");\1;\1=>/]. I'll refine that later for use in Find and Replace. The remaining unchanged syntax might be six-character hex multi-color code and you just find and replace using the regex /[#<=[0-9]:("[a-fA-F0-9]{6}");\1;\1=>/]. If so, then we officially patched the mod.

You'd have to go through hundreds of files by hand to fix that. I think downloading Find and Replace is a quicker option. If you don't know how to use Find and Replace to fix the cfg files, here's a quick tutorial. Download Find and Replace and extract it. Run the executable. Go to FAR -> Settings and uncheck the "Exclude binary files from replace operation" box. Go to the "Find" tab. Under the "Base Directory" box, click Browse and find your ASET_Props subfolder (It's in Gamedata/ASET in your KSP game directory). In the "File Name Pattern" box, type "*.cfg" (no quotes). In the "Content Pattern" text box, type the following expression: \[((#[0-9a-fA-F]{6})|(#[0-9a-fA-F]{8}))\] (Copy-paste this expression if you wish) Below that text box, make sure the "Regular Expression" check box is checked. Click "Find" and wait for the program to find all the files. It should find all of the files with an instance of [#******] or [#********] in the .cfg file. Go to the "Replace" tab. In the "Replace With..." text box, type "<color=\1>" (no quotes) Click "Replace" Load the game and check the IVAs. Most everything should be back to normal. Some text will still be broken though. If you're wondering what the jumble of letters is you have to type into "Content Pattern", that's a regular expression, which are used for searching for text, and there are tutorials online for understanding what that says. I personally had to look up some tutorials and get a bit of help to get a regex that works for an easy find and replace for the .cfg files. I'm assuming the syntax for any line in a config file that looks like "labelText = [#<=1:"fff600ff";"00FF0000";"00FFFF00"=>]..." should be "labelText = <color= #<=1:"fff600ff";"00FF0000";"00FFFF00"=>>..." If so, correcting the rest of the files should be easy. Also, this will work until the mod is updated (unless updating the mod is literally just fixing these syntax errors). EDIT: Syntax change for the lines with multiple color codes doesn't work. I'll have to get the correct syntax later.

Yeah, it saves video, but not locally. I also probably won't use that to make a video with music clips and text. When I talk about making a video, I mean videos like what @winged and @Chris P. Bacon do, except with my video of the Ares video, I want to spend more time on details. It's partly why I want to make a Venus probe, Mars rover, give my AMM an IVA, and change the Apollo capsule IVA so I can do some basic cinematics. I actually think Interstellar music would go perfectly with this mission, but if I tried to post a video with it on Youtube, I would be Content ID'd in a heartbeat or worse.