ROXunreal

Is it normal to not get module contracts for stations currently? Because I'm not getting "expand station with x module" contracts, using the newest unofficial version posted here.

I like to see things and gizmos work, from the simple sight of solar panels extending at the push of a button and electric charge going up as a consequence, to complicated missions with 2-3 different craft separating from one and performing various functions (lander, orbiter which samples higher atmosphere, satellite relay). I love the sense of scale and effort involved even in getting to the Mun, let alone beyond. I like the cozy feeling of newly launched space station core modules and small ground bases. And I love the sense of effort and the impossible logistics involved in a manned mission to Jool or even Eeloo using TAC Life Support, which is the ultimate goal of my career game. Many a supply ships will be pre-sent.

Launching the first base for this career soon, to Minmus. Today I tested the Base Assembly Vehicle and docking the various base modules. Positioning the landing struts is somewhat puzzling due to Kerbin's gravity working on their springs a lot more than the gravity of Minmus would, I really don't want things to be misaligned. Maybe I should tweak the suspension? Haven't tried that. Also my Mun Prospecting Rover landed and successfully surveyed the Lesser Flats for a place where the base will be established. I can really never not ever get tired of the way Minmus looks up close with SVE

Ah ok, mystery solved. Much appreciated.

That's weird as I never installed a mod that adds resources. I have TAC Ls. I also have interstellar fuel switch, not sure if that has something to do with it, I installed it because it's a pre-requisite for other mods.

I'm in my third career game, and I've never fiddled with mining, but this phase is fast approaching now. I scanned Minmus with the big resource scanner and upon right clicking it, there is a button that says resource,a nd as I click it it cycles through all kinds of resources like Dirt, Rare Minerals etc...each having its own locations on the surface. This confuses me, as I know there's only one resource that you can mine and that's "ore". Sure enough, there is an "ore" option on that button as well. Can I mine any of these resources and it will turn to "ore" or do I have to select ore on the antenna and then mine one of those areas to get ore? What are the other resources for then, do they serve any purpose at all?

Completed my second-ever rover mission, again to the Mun. Unlike the first rover which was basically a science container with a thermometer, barometer, solar panels and small wheels, this was a proper full size vehicle that visited four different biomes and conducted five experiments in each. Without going into the specifics of the horribly implausible launch vehicle with a fairing five times the diameter of the rest of the launch vehicle body, which made me look up and seriously consider the Infernal Robotics mod in the future, let's just say we safely got to orbit with little difficulties. After Mun capture and orbit tweaking were complete, the landing rig started its descent. The landing target was just inside the northern rim of the Mun's North-West Crater. The landing rig performed adequately and fuel capacity was judged right, with only about 15% to spare after landing. After landing, the MunRover II detached from the landing rig, drove out from under it, then fired the retrorocket decoupler that separated and launched away the beam that connected the rover to the landing rig. MunRover II then set a course northwards, got out of the North-West crater into the Midlands, then onward further north into the Northern Basin, finishing in one of the Midlands Craters within the Northern Basin. Science was collected in all four biomes, and the rover's overall performance assessed. A very important aspect of this mission was to assess various rover systems, as MunRover II was a test bed for future rover missions to Duna, Eve and beyond. We found that speeds in excess of 15m/s were dangerous on more than very slightly varying terrain and speeds above 10m/s were extremely dangerous if coming up on a hill as the rover could jump and suffer terminal damage. The rover was fitted with four linear RCS thrusters on the underside, but these proved to be useless as they could barely get the rover off the ground in one second, let alone dampen its descent if it were to come up on a jump. We thus discovered that RCS ports on the top of the rover would be of much more use, to keep it from jumping in the first place. Lastly, with SAS and RCS enabled, we found the rover to be much more stable at high speeds, as the RCS would attempt to keep the rover from rotating on any axis when it would briefly leave the ground, thus lessening the chance of an asymmetric landing and subsequent rollover at high speed. All of this was of course determined through simulations, and not ever was the mission reverted twenty times. The large solar panels, tilted sideways to catch more of the sun's energy due to the northern latitude the rover was operating in, proved more than sufficient. Several smaller panels on each side would likely suffice. Launching retrorocket decouplers from the rover body at peak thrust also worked with no damage to the vehicle. With the science from the target biomes collected, the findings were transferred to the science container which also doubled as the fuselage of the small Messenger module, which is the part of the rover sticking out upwards. The Messenger then decoupled with a retrorocket decoupler which gained it around a thousand meters of altitude, and then achieved orbit using its own Spark engine. The Messenger performed far beyond its design expectations - not only did it achieve orbit easily, it had so much fuel to spare that the original plan of having a Kerbal from Mun Orbital station to rendezvous with it using the small Mun lander from the station was scrapped, and the Messenger actually rendezvoused with Mun Orbital by itself. This proved difficult due to the minimalist design of the Messenger not incorporating any reaction wheels, the gimbal of the Spark being deemed sufficient to attain orbit and inclination approximately matching that of Mun Orbital, which was what the Messenger was designed for. Thus all maneuvering during rendezvous and changing direction could only be done with the engine running at low thrust, by using its gimbal. This proved adequate to rendezvous at a distance of 200m from the station. Once a visual was established, Bob Kerman went on EVA from Mun Orbital to retrieve the science data from the Munrover II's Messenger. The data will be brought back to Kerbin in a planned Mun Orbital crew rotation and station expansion mission.

Ok much appreciated, I'll wait it out a bit more.

Can someone give a quick one-sentence answer for someone who doesn't feel like reading through several forum pages of mostly unrelated content: does this mod work mostly ok with 1.2.1? It looks extremely interesting and I feel the need for something like this now that I'm launching my first bigger rover because of which my rocket has a ridiculously fat fairing on top that houses it. I thought "if only it was foldable".

Thanks, I didn't click on the hatch, will try that. Actually I remember this being the case before, I just haven't played in a year and forgot.

The Minmus Prospector station is fully operational, after two flights more than planned. The first flight brought the core module, the second one the Cupola power module and life support module. The later was installed successfully, but the solar panels on the Cupola broke somewhere along the way (likely during launch, noticed when I rendezvoused of course), so mission not complete. Then when we brought a new separate power module, we had no antenna so mission not complete (had an RT antenna but the contracts recognize only the stock ones). The last flight brought a stock antenna as well as a surface scanner merged with a docking module for small craft (featuring two Jr. Clamp-o-trons for pods docking). The station is currently manned by a pilot and a scientist, the plan is to bring more scientists and StationScience parts, as well as mining parts/craft when I unlock them because the prime purpose of this station will be a fuel depot for manned interplanetary flights. Core module launch Prior to jettison of second stage rockets and continuing to Minmus with the transfer stage. Core module arrives at Minmus and is soon after set into a ~100k m polar orbit. After the life support and power modules were installed, the latest module in the process of docking Station as it is now During the power module delivery we had a secondary mission Minmus orbit: the guys whom fund us were again, just like with the Mun, being little demand making whiners and said "Hurr hurr you totally can't bring a craft that was on Minmus back to Kerbin". So we decided to salvage the abandoned Grasshopper lander from the Apollo-like mission in which the crew left in a command module, the lander being intended to crash into Minmus but due to a control error ending up in an oscillating orbit until running out of fuel. So without having to make another, new landing, we just salvaged this module and brought it back to Kerbin so the guys would shut up.

Only once, I noticed the one on the north rim of the East Crater, and corrected my burn to land close-ish. Then drove the rover to the arch (it was an unmanned rover mission).

Why don't I have transfer crew options when right clicking on the parts from this mod? I moved a Kerbal into an inflatable part on my station. Due to the station design, the hatch is blocked and she can't go out, but when right clicking I can't transfer her to another part with a door, effectively making her and anyone else entering this part trapped in it.

Landed on Minmus first time in this career, and unlike previous ones, decided to make it a big fuel-laden lander and do some biome hopping on the first landing. The result was the Grasshopper, which performed excellently. An Apollo style lander and orbiter craft (apart from the lander being single stage), the lander was designed with 3-4 biome hops in mind, but in the end it did 6, and could have done one more if I wanted to risk it. Jeb was the lander polot, Valentina the orbiter pilot and newbie Karry Kerman was the mission scientist who conducted and reset experiments. Minmus Highlands, Midlands, Lowlands, Flats, Great Flats and Greater Flats were visited and a total of 38 experiments, 6 crew reports and 6 EVA reports conducted for a grand total of 3400 science! This unlocked all 300 science nodes in the tech tree. Grasshopper after dropping bottom stage On the way to Minmus we (tried to) recreate Apollo's Lunar/Command module docking Departure of the Lander for Minmus surface This game can sure be beautiful... We also visited the MintCan I lander probe. Jeb's high speed jetpack collision with it and trying to right it for ten minutes not pictured. Our space program can now branch out with all the new parts available, and unmanned Eve and Duna missions are now on the horizon, as well as an unmanned Mun rover mission that will visit four different biomes, a Minmus station and surface outpost and Kerbin orbital station and fuel depot.

We made our first Kerbin SOI grand tour - visiting and conducting missions first in Mun, then in Minmus orbit with a single craft (without landing...well strictly speaking). The craft name is M&M. This was our first test of the new K2 pod (2-man pod Gemini-inspired mod - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/94581-112-k2-command-pod-two-kerbal-stock-alike-pod-v14/). The mission was to first expand the Mun Orbital station with another habitat module, rotate its crew of one and collect the science from the lander docked to the station for transfer to Kerbin, and then fly M&M to Minmus to collect a derelict part and bring it back to Kerbin. Mission details with pics: Takeoff... Mun Orbital operations... Minmus object collection Reentry

Finally our craft have started exploring Minmus! And what better way to do that than to make a horribly over-complicated craft that's supposed to split up into three pieces with no fuel redundancy which are all supposed to complete their own different contract objectives and two of them also return to Kerbin. What could go wrong? Behold the MintCan I mission! It all started with some mentally ill rich parachute company owner who wanted us to test their parachute on Minmus! While LANDED! Did you take your meds, sir? But who are we to complain when he offered 198,000 money-things? Thus we decided to design a trashcan with legs and a bottle-rocket landing system, which should suffice for Minmus. But then more contracts came in, someone wanted a satellite in polar orbit of Minmus, other people wanted us to return a craft from a flyby and from and orbit of Minmus. So we thought why not, let's make separate craft that will also gather science from high and low above Minmus and bring them back to Kerbin. And thus, the mission, and follow-up probe rescue: After repeated difficulties with achieving Kerbin orbit due to under-powered rockets due to being cheapskates, we finally made it off Kerbin and on the way to Minmus. As the craft made the encounter, the transfer stage burned until almost-orbit, and then separated from the orbiter and lander. The transfer stage then did high Minmus science experiments, before continuing on its escape trajectory back into Kerbin's SOI, where the engine and fuel tank detached from the science stage which then landed safely. Meanwhile, the orbiter-lander combo entered polar orbit and completed the satellite contract. The MintCan lander then separated from the orbiter and landed on Minmus, transmitting science data and testing the parachute, which did nothing. The orbiter also did some science experiments of its own in low orbit, and then departed for Kerbin. Only it ran out of fuel and ended up in a highly eliptical and inclined Kerbin orbit with a periapsis of 200,000 meters and an apoapsis near the orbit of Minmus. But NEVER FEAR! The Object Towing and Recovery Vessel is here! The OTRV took off and directly intercepted the MintCan orbiter in its exotic orbit with ease and without even matching inclination or periapsis, because the OTRV is all business. Perhaps we should have sent it to Minmus and not the MintCan.... Buuuut then it ran out of fuel as well, but not before an uncomfortably steep suborbital trajectory was targeted to somewhat near the KSC (for signal). The mission was a success. Next up, having discovered that the gravity of Minmus is as pathetic as a heatshield made out of dragonfly wings, we plan to send a three man crew to do 3-4 biome hops on Minmus and get all the science needed to close the 160 science nodes and unlock parts of the 300 nodes for unmanned flight to Duna and Eve, as well as for feasible space stations and off-Kerbin bases,

Launched my first station, Mun Orbital, to the Mun of course. I'll wait for more parts to become unlocked before committing to a Kerbin station. Then sent Jeb on our third manned Mun mission. He explored the Mun highlands between the East crater and the Twin craters, the familiar areas our manned and unmanned missions have visited before. Jeb also evaluated the minimalist MMS (Miniature Mun Shuttle) lander craft, before taking off and docking with the newly launched core module of the Mun Orbital. Running out of fuel, Jeb performed the final stages of rendezvous as well as the docking with RCS alone. Jeb will stay on the station for several weeks before a craft is launched to expand the station and replace him, as he is needed for new frontiers (it's Minmus time!).

Sent more garbage cans to space, this time to the Mun. Unlike the ones I had up before, these are the Mk 2 garbage cans, featuring upgraded systems such as red paint. They also actually have more or less the same orbital parameters and are spaced out evenly above the Mun. Later I also replaced the garbage cans above Kerbin with....well, trash piles to be honest.

Apparently I wasn't using 64 bit, I feel stupid now. Works good so far. I only restarted playing KSP after 1.2 came out and I had no idea the 64 bit is now the thing to play.

I have very much the same issue, only in my case I could undock the lander from the orbiter, land, go up, rendezvous and dock, then I entered Kerbin's atmosphere and near the surface I activated parachutes and undocked the ship into two parts that descend separately, side by side. And EVERY time I would pan the camera from the craft I was piloting to view the other craft that was descending not far away, the game would instantly crash.

The guys in suits that throw money into our space program were basically like: "Ok so you went to the Mun and did all sorts of science and stuff, but you left half the lander on the Mun, the other half in Mun orbit and all the launch and transfer stages are now space garbage or ash rain on Kerbin and it's expensive! Our finance board has decided that we totally bet you can't bring a craft that was on the Mun back to Kerbin!" So our Office and Decision Making Department replied: "Well tell you what finance board, not only will we bring the lander back, we'll also bring the whole transfer rocket back as well, so you can talk less and throw money more!". The result was the Reincarnation It launched at night because the Mun was in a favorable position to KSC and because we needed to test that the lights on the launch pad pass the impressiveness test. According to ancient Kerbin lore, an eclipse is the sign of a Mun lander and transfer stage successfully completing their mission and reentering and landing without unexpected explosions. So it was written. The Lander Comeback detaches from the automated Orbiter and tells it "Stay here, I'll need you!" through a long sequence of ones and zeroes. The target landing area is the smaller, north crater of the Twin Craters. This is Valentina Kerman's first Mun mission. Landing is phenomenally successful, almost as phenomenally as how phenomenally we'll rub the amount of money this mission saves into our financier's noses. Valentina forgot to take a picture with the flag, because she's still new to the Mun, and remembering to do seven things is too intense a mental process. After taking rocks and pressing buttons on instruments on the Mun's surface was done, the Comeback took off and successfully docked with the Reincarnation, which then burned for low Kerbin Orbit. Re-entry was smooth with fuel to spare and slow down. At 4000m the parachutes deployed and the Comeback lander detached from the Reincarnation vessel. Both landed safely in the desert. The humiliated financiers of our space program complained about not landing in the KSC itself...

Ok thanks for the input, I am using some outdated mods that weren't updated for 1.2 but nothing very game changing. Sorry for my post perhaps not being related to this mod.

This may be a lazy and/or stupid question, but what can I do to make the game crash a little less while using this? I use the HD pack and, well, don't have the heart to use a lower definition version, and I have no FPS problems that I would notice. I got used to crashing around one out of six or seven times I load a new ship/area, but today I happened to use 16 parachutes above the desert on Kerbin and...well....that descent lasted for about seven game restarts, quicksaving every 5 seconds while descending to the ground in order to reload after the crash. I know KSP crashes for a trillion reasons, but if anyone knows what's most taxing in SVE crash-wise, or some useful tweaks relating to that, or something..... I'm not sure if today's crashes were because of the long descent over the desert and the textures involved, or due to having two different craft each with its own parachutes descending side by side at the same time (I activated all the chutes and then undocked the craft into two parts), which as far as I'm aware would indicate a CPU thing since I assume it's about physics, not textures.

Filled Minmus orbit with trash cans. Will have to make a new Kerbin relay network soon, the trash cans there with one omni antenna and one dish won't do after I go to Duna and Eve soon.

I don't have FAR installed yet because it's not ready for 1.2. That's the only thing I can think of.