Hotaru

Some day I'll actually send a mission somewhere again. Until then, more logistics. Lot of ships going in and out of the growing Coalwood Base on Minmus, which now has a habitat module and second solar array, with a science lab and another hab on the way out. The tug used to carry modules down to the surface returns to orbit after delivering the first hab. It was there for a while, since the hardware to link up the hab to the mining rig came on a different ship. Sungrazer 1, a re-purposed Jool Orbiter whose mission was rendered redundant when the Dauntless visited Bop, completed a Jool encounter to put it on a trajectory for a low Sun flyby. Jebediah and a couple of rookie scientists visited Ardan Base on the Mun for a crew rotation.

Haven't posted much last couple weeks, have been only playing intermittently in and around school and other things. Seems like all I've been doing lately is sending ships back and forth between Kerbin and Minmus, fuel going down, Kerbals and modules going up. Shuttle Altair flew its first mission in a while, to deliver a science lab for Coalwood Base on Minmus and recover a stranded Kerbal and her spacecraft from LKO. I'd been thinking of retiring the shuttle fleet in favor of reusable passenger rockets, but with the VAB running at capacity on a number of different projects and several new stations and bases under construction, the ability to launch 2.5-meter space station modules from the runway is turning out to be very useful, not to mention they're the only ships that can return large payloads from orbit. Even giving some thought to ordering more, the current two cargo shuttles can only do so much with a two-week refurbishment time. Among a number of other crew-rotation operations, the crew of the asteroid-retriever Pequod finally came back to Kerbin on Spacebus Arnold, a prototype heavy passenger rocket. A lot of ships came and went through Kilgore Station in LKO, carrying parts, Kerbals, and fuel to and from Minmus. Lots of launches from KSC as well, including a new Super Aqualung tanker, Green. The VAB is turning around reusable rockets faster than the ground crew can refurbish the launch pad, even with shuttles carrying some lighter cargo from the SPH as well.

I'd be strongly in favor of a preference for more, simpler parts as opposed to "prefabs" like the Twin-Boar and Mammoth, if not for the part-count limitations imposed by performance. As it is, it can be basically essential to use prefab engine clusters--either stock or modded ones--and other part-count-saving parts in order to keep the frame rate tolerable. On my system, I can only get so far with a zillion orange tanks and Mainsails. I severely dislike having to make gameplay concessions for performance reasons, but there you have it. As for the turbine, my question is--are we ever actually going to see this new model outside of the VAB/SPH? It sounds and looks like it will basically always be clipped into whatever is in front of it, in which case it's just wasted performance and memory in a game where memory usage is a serious issue (although hopefully 64-bit in 1.1 will help with that). I agree that a separate turbine part would be cool, but again, I kind of have to be against anything that increases part count unless it adds serious gameplay value.

Lots of complicated logistics in career mode in preparation for a second round of manned expeditions. Several mapping orbiters departed Kerbin for Dres, Eeloo, and Jool. Super Aqualung Red took off from Minmus with a full tank for LKO. A hab module destined for Coalwood Base on Minmus (a pilot program for similar bases planned on other airless bodies, currently just a mining rig) went up on an RLV-220 reusable rocket. Red, Starlet Elizabeth, Spacebus Valerie, and an expendable transfer stage completed a complicated refueling operation in LKO before the transfer stage sent Valerie and Elizabeth on their way to Laythe with a crew of five to rendezvous with the Dauntless. Red offloaded the rest of its fuel at the LKO depot and departed for Minmus with the hab module.

Opened up a new 64K save to try out some different mods, particularly Tantares, which I've always liked the look of but I've tended to find the parts a little on the lightweight side for the stock system. Figured they'd be perfect for 64K, though. Sent up a few comsats with this Soyuz-ish rocket. The main booster puts the satellite nearly into orbit; the final stage is a solid motor which kicks it into about a 150x2000km elliptical orbit. Sent up a manned mission to try out a heavier booster. The Soyuz-type spacecraft makes orbit with plenty of delta-v left for maneuvering, though not enough to actually go anywhere in 64K.

After a few days off, made my first non-explosive landing on the Mun in 64K. The primary mission was to rescue the crew of the first non-non-explosive landing. Since the lander wasn't built to land back on Kerbin, I had to send up a node to the Science Dragon IV space station to allow it to dock. Good chance to use the KW petal adapter for an Apollo-Soyuz style mission. With the node installed, the Mun rocket arrived at the space station and the crew of the original landing finally returned to Kerbin. Which itself was a bit of an adventure, but that's a story for another time.

Already posted a few weeks ago, my first attempt at landing on the Mun in 64K:

Lots of logistics missions in preparation for windows to Jool, Duna, and Eeloo all coming up at the same time. The Mega Aqualung (tweakscaled 5-meter tanker ship) landed at the Coalwood mining rig on Minmus. Although the landing was successful, barely, it is proving too ungainly to be practical; for now it's parked in Minmus orbit. Two new Super Aqualungs went up from KSC; I've finally got a lifter configuration that doesn't explode when the boosters separate. Decided to start color-coding them to make them easier to keep track of. Here Super Aqualung Red departs for Minmus after refueling Silver for a transfer to Duna with a space station core module. Finally, Dres Orbiter 1 burned into orbit, checking off the last unvisited body in the solar system. So I've accomplished my original goal for this career of visiting every planet and moon (plus asteroids) with at least a flyby probe. Now to set about landing Kerbals everywhere.

This is generally what I mean when I say "Oberth effect" or "Oberth maneuver." For instance, I had a ship departing Ike for Kerbin over the weekend using a ~200m/s burn out of low Ike orbit to lower Duna periapsis to about 70 km (as though transferring to low Duna orbit), then a ~700m/s burn at Duna periapsis to depart for Kerbin, for a total of about 900 m/s. By comparison, another rocket departing directly from low Duna orbit at the same window needed about 1300 m/s to put it on basically the same trajectory, so the savings from the Oberth departure compared to a low orbit departure was on the order of 400 m/s. The difference was substantial enough that I'm giving serious thought to a refueling depot in Munar or Minmus orbit for departing interplanetary missions.

Got a lot done in career mode over the weekend. The Dauntless successfully completed a transfer from Bop to Laythe, where it will remain in a parking orbit until a resupply mission arrives in a year or two. A few expendable transfer stages went up to LKO for use on future interplanetary missions. Spacebus Valerie, the prototype of a new class of nuclear interplanetary shuttle (and heavy landing craft for low-gravity bodies) was successfully launched to Kilgore Station in LKO. The explosions are perfectly normal, nothing to worry about. Why do you ask? The return window from Duna finally came up; the Rumfoord departed Ike via an Oberth maneuver, saving about 400 m/s compared to a transfer straight out of low Duna orbit. I was surprised at how substantial the delta-v saving was, in fact; seriously considering putting a refueling station in Munar orbit and having interplanetary missions depart from there instead of LKO. Val's rocket lifted off directly from Duna and departed for Kerbin; she will arrive back around the same time as the Rumfoord. The prototype Mega Aqualung tanker ship went up to LKO to replace the decommissioned Super Aqualung. Still trying to reduce the number of round-trips to Minmus needed to keep LKO supplied with fuel; the Mega Aqualung is built out of 5-meter TweakScaled Kerbodyne tanks and adapters. I could've probably done the same job with lots of regular-sized Kerbodyne tanks, but as with my Mark 3 SSTOs, went with the TweakScale option in the name of keeping the part count civilized.

Still working on my 1.0.2 career. Cargo shuttle Belatrix completed a mission to refit air brakes onto the Super Aqualung tanker and a claw onto the asteroid-retriever Pequod, which is now off to acquire a Class-E asteroid to (hopefully) become a new LKO fuel station. Meanwhile, the Dauntless explored the Jool system, completing encounters with Vall... ..and Laythe... ...before arriving in orbit of Bop, where Tiyane went down to the surface to plant my first flag in the Jool system. The Bop encounter was especially satisfying because Bop was the last place in the stock system I had never visited in any save.

Landed Jeb, Bill, and Bob on the Mun in a completely stock game for the first time: I'd done every individual maneuver needed for such a mission without MechJeb before, but never all of them on the same mission; wanted to satisfy myself that I could. Still, was reminded why I installed MechJeb--and KJR!--in the first place. Completing a mission once with no autopilot, no delta-v information, and a noodle rocket was an interesting challenge; doing it a hundred times in career mode would drive me nuts.

Personally I use them pretty frequently as vernier motors on larger rockets, to improve control authority and get a bit of extra TWR. I generally use 24-77's for the same purpose on smaller rockets. I've never tried using Thuds as main engines.

Very cool ship and video. Nice backwards takeoff! I've never done this myself, have given some thought though to following a rule of always rescuing Kerbals who land more than a few kilometers from KSC instead of using the magic "recover" button to get them back from halfway round the planet. Basically it would give a little more incentive (beyond just funds recovery) to try to land at KSC rather than just any old place on Kerbin. The main thing that's put me off doing it is the lack of plane parts in early career mode, which would potentially mean permanently stranded Kerbals from suborbital flights until I have enough parts unlocked to build a rescue plane--not to mention the difficulty of retrieving spacecraft and splashed-down Kerbals. Those seem like solvable problems though.

Fredner Kerman works on science experiments on the Dauntless during its approach to the Jool system: The Constant returns to Kerbin after a mission to orbit Eve and land on Gilly:

Finally achieved several firsts in my 1.0.2 career, which has gotten much farther than any of my previous saves, thanks in part to the long wait for 1.1. Passenger shuttle Canopus completed its first mission, a long-overdue crew rotation to Kilgore Station in Kerbin orbit, Barbicane Station in Munar orbit, and Base Ardan on the Munar surface. The prototype Super Aqualung tanker ship made its first round-trip to Base Coalwood on Minmus. Eeloo Flyby 1 finally encountered Eeloo after a nearly four-year-long transit. Fredner, Tiayne, and Janjorie aboard the Dauntless arrived in the Jool system via a Tylo encounter--my first Kerbals ever to do so. Dauntless is on course for a second Tylo encounter followed by a low pass over Jool and encounters with Vall and Laythe in the coming weeks. Depending on the fuel situation at that point it may visit Bop, Pol, or both before parking in Laythe orbit to wait for a follow-on mission to bring extra fuel, additional crew, and a landing craft. Most satisfying of all, the Constant burned back into Kerbin orbit and docked at Kilgore Station at the conclusion of its expedition to Eve and Gilly, my first completed interplanetary mission.

Regarding point 1, you don't have to go back to the astronaut complex to figure out your Kerbals' professions: you can do it in map view. Click on the tab on the right with a little Kerbal on it while focused on your ship in map view (or tracking center) and it'll show all the Kerbals aboard, which module they're in, their rank and their profession. I'm not sure if I'd like to see point 3 in the stock game or not--I tend to agree it's better to let the player fill in their own backstory if they so desire--but it'd be a great idea for a mod. Especially the part about procedural backstories for new Kerbals--just so long as they're a little more coherent than the procedural contract descriptions! Might even try to write it myself, I wrote a program a bit like that in Python once and it wasn't too hard.

I believe Stock Bug Fixes fixes that. (I haven't had it happen since updating them, anyway.) I actually meant to agree with you: my point was that free fuel is already available, albeit requiring a bit of busy work, in a completely stock game, so adding it in this way doesn't seem like a big deal. I already use the FASA umbilical this way anyway, if my lifter happens to have KW engines, which take a second to reach full thrust. If I don't, the rocket might settle back onto the pad before lifting off. Also it looks cool.

In 1.0.2 and especially in 1.0.4, part count is a huge factor in my design--I have a slow CPU (at least until we get multi-threading!) and a low tolerance for frame rates lower than 15 or 20, so I generally keep my part count under 100 wherever possible. My current career save in 1.0.2 doesn't have a lot of part mods , but some of the few it does have I've installed in the name of keeping part-count civilized. For instance, my Mk 3 shuttle uses TweakScale for its engines, wings, and intakes, and thrusters from SpaceY instead of stock Vernors, resulting in a part count of 27--compared to 100+ when I tried to build a ship to do the same job all-stock.

Point of interest: you could also have very nearly free fuel--and thus free launches if your vehicle is fully-reusable--by setting up an ISRU refinery on Kerbin, launching your ships empty, and transferring fuel to them via a rover with a claw (or via KAS if you don't mind mods). It's not quite 100% free (you still have to amortize the cost of the refinery) but pretty close if you use it over dozens of flights, especially seeing as you could always recover the refinery for 100% if you needed the money for something else. Also, I believe the FASA umbilical tower does this as well.

Suggestion: maybe add separate options to the poll for 1.0.2 and 1.0.4; for me the most noticeable performance difference has been between those two versions. (I never really pushed the part count in 0.90 so I can't say for sure how fast it was, beyond a general feeling it was faster than 1.x.)

Demo Jeb is still orbiting Demo Mun. He's got enough delta-v to get back, I just bought the full version before I finished the mission. Must go back and get him one of these days. 0.90 career Jeb was killed when the first 2.5-meter "Walrus" rocket exploded on the pad due to not having enough TWR to lift off, and also not having a launch escape system. 1.0.2 career Jeb is currently in command of the Pequod, in Kerbin orbit after retrieving its first asteroid, awaiting a refit before it goes off after another one. 1.0.4 64K sandbox Jeb is on the Science-Dragon IV space station orbiting Kerbin.

In terms of performance with many-part ships, 0.90 (where I came in) was the best. Each version since then has been laggier than the last. I launched at least one 250-part ship in 1.0.2; in 1.0.4 the practical limit is down to about 100 parts.

"Family portrait" of the stock Kerbol system from low Ike orbit: Left to right: Ike, Kerbin, Jool, Moho and Eve (next to each other), Dres (just below the sun), Kerbol, Eeloo, and Duna.

Finally getting to make some progress on my interplanetary missions in career. The Constant departed Eve for Kerbin. The Rumfoord burned out of Duna orbit for Ike... ...where Bill took pod "Niles" out to rescue Seanbrett and his ship (which had been adrift in Ike orbit for years) using KAS struts... ...and Nedmon took pod "Winston" down to the surface for the first landing on Ike.