Starhawk

Still no ideas. I've gone to EBCDIC, bitmasks, reading random bits of Wikipedia related to cryptography... I'm probably overthinking it, or maybe I'm trying to see it too much from a computer-encoding point of view. It certainly doesn't look very random. I wondered right off the bat if the pairs were significant. Happy landings!

Hmmm. Nothing obvious yet. It certainly appears to be hexadecimal. These are the six number blocks represented as both decimal and binary. 21862 0101 0101 0110 0110 43605 1010 1010 0101 0101 26331 0110 0110 1101 1011 19113 0100 1010 1010 1001 43669 1010 1010 1001 0101 22869 0101 1001 0101 0101 Cryptography you say... Well, the appearance of being hexadecimal could be a trick to throw us off. Hmmm... Happy landings!

The devnotes alone have an enormous amount of hype-fuel: - "rethought how Science Labs work" - "restore inoperable experiments (also something scientists can do now)" - "you can transfer data to the lab just as before, but instead of a quick process for a small boost in the xmit factor, the data fed to the lab will generate a steady output of Science for a very long time, ultimately yielding far more science than transmitting or even recovering" - "increase the benefits of setting up orbiting science stations and surface bases" - "revising the stats for every part" - "making sure they go in the proper tech nodes" - "Avionics Nose Cone... given a new purpose as a non-autonomous SAS device... provides SAS services to non-pilot crews" - "As for the atmosphere scanner, we’ve got a wholly new part for that job" - and much, much more!! There something for everybody who wants to be hyped! Happy landings!

No worries, Kasper. I'm sure they've got you working very hard just now. Thanks for all the riddles so far. Looking forward to the riddle this weekend. We are currently at 5 and counting. Happy landings!

We are expecting one. On with the countdown! Happy landings!

That would be great. Unless a lot of the work is already done however, there is not enough time to add another planet. Happy landings!

Maybe we should put in a special request. Would make for a very entertaining Squadcast, anyway. Happy landings!

Yeah, but didn't he also say that he had not yet successfully reentered with a spaceplane under the new aero? Happy landings! p.s. Sorry, I did quote you on that.

Delta-v readout Rad Alt Biome mapping? These seem like the most likely candidates that have been mentioned given what we know. These are both simple features that a single programmer could knock out in short order. I think clouds, KAS, or IVA stuff would take far too long. Happy landings!

* Raises glass * Here's to you SQUAD. And a thousand thank yous! Happy landings!

Wonderful devnotes! - "rethought how Science Labs work" - "restore inoperable experiments (also something scientists can do now)" - "you can transfer data to the lab just as before, but instead of a quick process for a small boost in the xmit factor, the data fed to the lab will generate a steady output of Science for a very long time, ultimately yielding far more science than transmitting or even recovering" - "increase the benefits of setting up orbiting science stations and surface bases" - "revising the stats for every part" - "making sure they go in the proper tech nodes" - "Avionics Nose Cone... given a new purpose as a non-autonomous SAS device... provides SAS services to non-pilot crews" - "As for the atmosphere scanner, we’ve got a wholly new part for that job" - and much, much more!! Unbelievable hype value here. Happy landings!

So yeah, we are at 6 and counting... Happy landings!

And another riddle solved moves us ever closer to launch. We are currently at 6 and counting... Happy landings!

Me too... - - - Updated - - - Oh, I hope not. I've been having such fun with them. Happy landings!

I am one of those who loves puzzles and after a moment looking at the crossword it was clear that it wasn't a 'traditional' crossword, but had words that were associated with various space agencies. Knowing that, it seems likely to me that the words would be names of missions, names of craft, or names of personnel. It only took a few minutes really to rule out missions, and a short time more to see that craft wouldn't likely fit, leaving personnel. Personnel is the hard category because there are so many people who have been in space, but it becomes immediately obvious that some prominent names fit in certain spots. Such as Hadfield, Tereshkova, Eisle, and Aldrin. From that point, it is just a matter of simple research (i.e. pattern matching against a long list) to find possible candidates. As far as I can tell one or two of the people named in the puzzle are ambiguous because there isn't enough info to uniquely identify the names. Nonetheless, once a number of items begin to fit it becomes clear that a pattern has emerged and (as Slashy mentioned) with several people working cooperatively, it doesn't take too long to piece all the clues together. That said, Kasper provided a real challenge in this puzzle due to the amount of info one had to peruse in order to find the various words. Even more challenge was provided by the fact that some of the clues provided were incorrect leading to a number of interesting guessing games. When all is said and done, for a person who loves puzzles this was a lot of fun. Happy landings!

In case it wasn't mentioned, we are currently at 7 and counting. I can't bring myself to go ahead with my Jool 5 mission with 1.0 so close. Especially since I have yet to simulate a single successful Tylo landing with the lander. I thought I could pull it off with 5100 m/s and about 1.7 TWR, but no luck. Anyway, maybe I'll try and build a modular spaceplane/Mun lander as my last project in 0.90. (Wanders off toward SPH, lost in thought.) Happy landings!

Ah, gotcha! It's doable, but it takes a lot of tweaking. When I participated in the fastest small step challenge, I used that same planning tool and it worked. I did find that I had to tweak the trajectory quite a bit by fiddling around with the maneuver node. I seem to recall that I lost the encounter after SOI transition and had to do another maneuver to reestablish it. Good luck, and happy landings!

In the initial image, you have moved the trajectory away from the optimal. The image shows required delta-v is over 7000 m/s! Click the mouse in the centre of the dark blue area inside the Delta-V Transfer Plot. The numbers will change and you will have a transfer with reasonable values. Hope this helps. Happy landings! p.s. When you first click the 'Plot it!' button, the crosshairs should be over the optimal transfer to begin with.

LOL. I barely remember any grade-school French, but enough to understand that. Maybe you're right, but I wonder if it's another mistake in the original. RogueMason's solution is starting to look more interesting. Happy landings! - - - Updated - - - That would be it! Don't worry about the errors, Kasper. It was a ton of fun anyway. I appreciate the work you put in. 7 Happy landings!

What about Guidoni? Happy landings!

They corrected the puzzle. There are only supposed to be 7 letters in that one. Kasper says to ignore the 4th or 5th box. I have Shepard for that one. Happy landings! The corrected puzzle is found here.

12 down has to be Guidoni. I can't make anything fit for 16 across, though. With the correction to number 8, I get -A----D and that's supposed to be Roscosmos. Happy landings!

They really did. We already know the next countdown value. The fun is determining the connection between the clues and that number. Happy landings! Still at 8 and counting...

I've never done an Asteroid Redirect Mission even though I started playing in 0.23.5. Happy landings!

That is hilarious. Kudos to whoever made it. Happy landings!