Brownhair2

TIL you can use the offset tool to clip out of the VAB It angers the Kraken however. (image taken less than a second later)

Some of this happened yesterday, but I forgot to post. Woops. Second lander arrived: Actually, you know what? I was originally going to dock the landers on each of the three docking ports. But I have a much dumber better idea: CONGA CONGA CONGA! In all seriousness, this will help protect the landers during re-entry. Plus it lets me bring a fourth! I can go to Nolas now! Had enough delta-v to de-orbit. And I successfully landed! You know, for such a massive plane it glides really well. [TRANSITION] The Kraken hates my spaceplanes. Reasoning: 1. A wing snapped off 2. Unbreakable joints is on One pair of struts later and the Planey McPlaneface (I can't think of a name) is operational! The latest in orange-tank-to-LKO technology, she has more delta-v than the Zeus. But my favorite part is the cargo bay! Ok, so the rover looked awful. But that's not the point. The point is that kerbals have easy access to the cargo bay. You can still access the bay from above.. And then I used it to carry the third lander. I also used it to bring a fourth. But when I tried to dock it, the conga line couldn't handle all of the conga, and tore itself to pieces. I guess I'm not going to Nolas. Back to the original plan. Although I might not be able to go to Nolas anyway if one of the landers gets destroyed during re-entry. I tried to leave three in the conga line, but docking to the side made the conga line tear itself to pieces anyway. So I guess there's a 3-ship stability limit on conga lines. Although 2 ships is hardly a conga line

I've used it as an omni-port for refuelers and whatnot. "One size fits all," if you get what I mean. --- Used my new SSTO (which I have named Zeus) to deliver one of the landers! Unfortunately I ran out of fuel before I could de-orbit. So I had to send up a small refueler Another perfect landing!

Could be worse. You could have realized you had no antennas when you reached Jool.

Finally built a functional Mk 4 spaceplane: An SSTO, no less. And then I turned it into a cargo SSTO. Barely carried an orange tank into orbit. And by barely I mean 70 km orbit with only 128 m/s delta-v left over (216 m/s without the heavy orange tank.) Successfully splashed down with no parts destroyed. I probably could've pulled off a ground landing. From sending spaceplanes to Serran to barely putting orange tanks in LKO. Truly, this space program has come a long way.

--- New MOTHER design: Noteworthy changes: - Replaceable heat shields. - A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S. - No delicate solar panels. This is powered by 3 RTGs in the nose. - Slightly more streamlined truss structure, to help protect docked crafts. And then I put one in orbit I'm going to be sending it to Jool with three of those landers I made the other day.

I think I may have found a use for the unnamed Mk 3 spaceplane I made the other day. Let's just say a certain Franlie and Beadrien Kerman are getting bored on the surface of Titanus... Also built this: (Chemical SSTO) And this: (Small passenger jet that works in atmospheres without oxygen) Meanwhile, the Sundiver has returned to Sonnah: But it's not coming home just yet. It's instead using this encounter as a gravity assist to slow down. It's going to be another 3 years before they come home, but they'll be in a much more convenient orbit for recovery. I've been doing testing a new MOTHER design. It's intended to be able to aerobrake, which will lower delta-v margins greatly. So far tests have been promising, although I'm concerned about the survivability of any docked vehicles. The cockpit actually managed to survive impact during one of the tests: Too bad I'll have to revert.

You will need a probe

So after reinstalling New Horizons and Kopernicus, it seems I have fixed Aptur and Titanus (and probably Eli, but I haven't actually checked.) So I'll try not to break them again. They're already broken again. So it looks like it's good for one flight before it re-breaks. Anyway, one of the main reasons I came back to KSP was to see if 1.2 fixed the Emerald's front landing gear. And then I abandoned it on the surface of Serran for 13 years. In my defense, the mining equipment is really slow. Which isn't helped by the lack of power sources (only an RTG and four puny 1x6 solar panels). It only just recently had enough fuel to return. Anyway, I finally brought it back. Is it just me, or did they increase the heat tolerance of the Mk 2 parts? It feels like I can pull off much more aggressive aerobraking. Maybe I'm just better at handling re-entry. Landing went smoothly. I wish all of my landings were that easy... And then I attached two Waders to the Amber. Now it's ready to accompany the Horizon to Laythe!

I tried to do that, but I just decided quicksaves were easier.

@EpicSpaceTroll139 Are you running x64 bit? I used to crash all the time when I was running x32 bit. Decided to try out my new lander on Aptur. Daphlinne got out to plant the flag and open the service bay: What's inside the service bay? A rover! Tanald also got out to help copilot, and to shut the bay behind Daphlinne. And then I immediately flipped it over. Oops. And that's why we have quicksaves. After driving it around a little bit, Daphlinne and Tanald hopped back into the pod to wait until night. This time Franalla got to copilot Almost flipped it over two more times, but I managed to save it both times. All in all I'd say this was a successful test drive. ...Except now I've broken Aptur too... Let's check one of my satellites... yep, definitely broken. I can see Kerbin through Aptur I know it's dark, but trust me. Wait a minute... I've seen this before... Yup, Eli's broken too I wonder how long it'll take for me to break the entire solar system

After years of waiting (in-game years that is), the stars (or planets rather) have aligned! The Sundiver's fairly eccentric orbit has aligned with the return burn, which has brought the delta-v down just enough for a return trip! Yay! That being said, I think it's safe to say that I'm retiring the Sundiver. The delta-v margins were way too slim. As it is I'm going to have to send a rescue ship or something; they just barely have enough delta-v to get into orbit around Sonnah. Meanwhile, the Amber is refueled. All I need to do is attach two Waders and it will be ready to accompany the Horizon to Laythe. I'm also thinking of visiting Jool, which means I need to make a lander, since the only moon with an atmosphere is Duna, which I'm not planning on visiting.

Thanks! This was exactly what I was looking for Unfortunately, they seem very prone to snapping off the Mk IV parts, despite seemingly working fine on other parts Well in that case, let's use other parts! Unfortunately I don't really know what to do with this. It doesn't have any cargo space. It has a Hades nuclear rocket, but for some reason KER won't show me the delta-v, so for all I know I might have a single cm/s delta-v. I don't even have a name for it yet. I'd imagine it has pretty high delta-v margins however. I could probably replace some of the fuel with mining equipment, and get that spaceplane-that-can-land-vertically-on-bodies-without-atmospheres that I've always wanted. In the meantime, the Amber has returned home. I'm thinking I might send it with the Horizon to Laythe. Having two MTUs traveling together seems cool, even if they would be too far apart to see each other.

I decided to download the Mk IV Spaceplane System, but the stock wings are too puny. If someone could recommend a mod with large stock-alike wings, that'd be greatly appreciated. Anyway, I refueled the Horizon and attached two Waders. Now it's ready to go to Laythe! Too bad I missed the window. I hope they're ok with waiting for about a year or so... And yeah that's basically it. I want to do stuff with the Mk IV parts, but until I can find some giant wings I'm not gonna be doing much.

@Sharpy I'm impressed you built it without it floating into space --- Encountered a weird glitch. I decided to create a "vacation home" for the Kerbals on the Horizon so I could avoid accidentally putting them on any missions. After all, they've been in space for 11 years. I'm not going to immediately send them back up again. Anyway, I build a detachable chassis that would drive the base to a location, then detach. But when I went to the tracking station to recover it, it was gone. Instead I found this: And when I went back to the base, the chassis was gone. I know better than to ask questions. Meanwhile, I've restocked the Horizon! There is now a fresh batch of victims Kerbals ready to crash on some godforsaken rock explore new worlds! And hey, this time the engines are still intact! no, that is not the Horizon... Now all I need to do is refuel the Horizon and attach planes/landers/planes and landers.

So, while thinking about how to get my crew back to Kerbin, I was reminded of crew transfers on my old space station (RIP ). Which then got me thinking about crew transfers on a certain International Space Station... Came in over water, as I wasn't confident in this thing's ability to glide, or the strength of the landing gear. Anndd... nailed it! Only lost the engines, winglets and the nose cone! Wow, this thing floats really well.

The MTU Horizon is back in orbit around Kerbin: And her tired crew are ready to leave after spending 11 years cooped up in the crew cabins, only to end up not going anywhere. I figured "Hey, let's use the Duneshifters to get some of them back quicker! They should be able to do that, right? It doesn't matter if they get damaged, so long as the crew cabin is intact!" Nope. Started tumbling out of control. So then I decided to de-orbit them using the Horizon, then return to a stable orbit. But when I tried to burn prograde, one of them hit a solar panel. So I came up with a solution that worked out for me: Undock Duneshifters Push them away from the Horizon Wait for them to float a safe distance away Whack-a-Kerbal them to smithereens And now there's a giant cloud of debris. worth it

Having issues trying to get the Mosquito onto the Wader. It's so unwieldy... Also, didn't they fixed water being liquid death? Because I have 6 parachutes strapped to this thing, slowing it down to a mere 12 m/s, and the plane still melts. More testing required... EDIT: New plan: don't attach it to the Wader. Instead, launch it separately! Also features a buoy for obvious reasons.

With all of the crew back on the Amber, it's time to head home. And waddya know, the Sonnah window is right now! Convenient timing. Back at the KSC I've been working on a little water vehicle: Isn't it adorable? It's able to zoom across the water at almost 30 m/s, and has more than 22 minutes worth of fuel. That gives it a range of about 40 kilometers. Guess where it's going. And then I just drove it around a lot. It's so much fun! Minor problem: I have no idea where to put this. The buoy is already on the back of the Wader, and I don't think the underside is a good place to put delicate machinery.

Didn't do much. I figured I'd actually try to get the Peregrine to space, since it was night, lowering Titanus's glitchy terrain down to tolerable levels. Now I can say with certainty that it will not make it to space. Then I did some testing to see if Kerbals could get into orbit when launched on a suborbital trajectory (No, I did not shoot them out of a cannon. I used a plane.) Results were conclusive: they could not. So it looks like the Pulsar probably won't work on Titanus. So let's meet in the middle, shall we? The Mako features a scramjet and 6 Candle radioisotope engines for maximum efficiency. That being said I still don't think it'll be enough to get into orbit, but it'll come close enough (hopefully).

Kelble, Aldan and Helcee decide to stay the night and do some stargazing! Not that there are many stars to see... I didn't take any pictures of the Wader taking off yesterday, so here you go: Those engines on the pontoons aren't just for show Once the Fleas burn out, the pontoons are ditched, since at that point they're just dead weight If case you were wondering, yes, the Wader does look an awful lot like the original Duneshifter. That's because the Duneshifter is just a Wader, but with drop tanks instead of pontoons and no buoy. Now all I need to do is get all of the Kerbals onto the Amber and head home! It's nice having a mission actually succeed. I think I'll come back with more Waders. Back at the KSC, I've updated the Pulsar: And I figured out a use for it! Re-enter atmosphere Deploy parachutes over target location Descend Do whatever you wanted to do Return to orbit! This will be very handy for precise landings. I'm thinking of trying it out on Laythe, since the islands are rather small. Titanus may also be a target destination, since the Pulsar is complete overkill in atmo. My main concern is I won't have enough delta-v for circularization. Although I could use the EVA pack... (I'm only talking about Titanus btw. Laythe will be fine.)

Umm... is the sky supposed to be a lovely shade of pink? You know what? We'll roll with it. Besides, it looks pretty. Anyway, you may have noticed a mysterious payload attached to the back of the Wader. If you read my posts before I took a break from KSP, you might remember what is is. But let's face it: you probably don't. So I will tell you! It's a buoy! Since you can't plant flags on water, I figured I'd use buoys to mark my location! Milberta, Magxy and Aldbur decided to have a little fun before they left. Anndd... orbit successful! Finally, a mission that worked! EDIT: I should probably wait until later to make these posts so I don't have to make two/edit a previous post. But so much exciting stuff happens that I want to share! Anyway, time for the second Wader! Hey look, there's the first landing site! And I managed to get a landing where I didn't have to do a somersault and nothing broke! That is, until the wings realized "OH NO WATER" and flew away. No, I'm serious. They just suddenly snapped off for no reason. I had already come to a stop. And now I keep flipping over. So it looks like I'll have to retry over and over again until I nail the landing, just like yesterday. Unless... I have a plan so crazy it just might completely backfire. ...or it could actually work. And just in time for a pretty sunset! Okay, I know from these images you can't tell what I did. But I'll explain: The buoy is designed to detach from the Wader and fly straight up into the air, at which point it descends by parachute and (hopefully) lands nearby. So I just used the parachute at the last minute to slow me down and help me pull up! And the best part is I can just have a Kerbal repack it. So there's nothing lost! Meanwhile, back at Kerbin I've decided to return to my roots and re-create my very first SSTO, the Pulsar: It's not an exact replica, as there have been many changes since then (if you want proof just look at the parts ). Apparently it's good enough however, as it's managed to get into orbit! One of the intakes exploded however, but I'll work on that.

So the Amber arrived at Laythe, and used a gravity assist with Derso to reduce the capture burn delta-v. Which gives me plenty of time to admire how much Derso looks like an eye: Ah yes, I can totally see why someone would think this looks like an eye. I can almost feel it glaring at me! If looks could kill! Yes, I very much enjoyed this opportunity to see firsthand how much Derso looks like an eye [/passive-aggressive rant] But alas, good moments cannot last. It's time to land one of the Waders! And lo and behold, I actually did it! Without any parts being destroyed too! Impressive! Too bad it flipped over. Ok, let's try again... It flipped over. Again. FINALLY, after about TEN TRIES, I have FINALLY managed to land this thing. Jeez... Actually it flipped over again, I just did a complete somersault. Gymnastics: saving missions since [arbitrary date] Alright, I'm done for the day. This was stressful.

That seems a bit cruel

Where is she if there are no hatches? A Mk 1 crew cabin? --- Alright, so I have two unused Duneshifters on the Horizon. And we know now that the Duneshifters are useless on Arin. Which was the only place I planned on using them... Hmm... Let's visit Serran! Nevermind. Revert! Worst part is I actually had that. It's just that my front landing gear decided it didn't want to land today. Rear landing gear was fine of course. I'm not going to waste another half an hour to try again however.