Jakalth

Lag? Hmmm... you mean I'm not supposed to be getting only 12 fps when visiting the craft in the crater? Or have my frame rate drop whenever I switch view to Dres in the communications building? And to think, there is no debree around Dres, othern then the busted science module on the surface.

I do have a question for everyone. Did anyone else find a strange craft called "surface modules" in their game over the last day? Trying to figure out where it was...

Well, lets get those two modules down onto Dres and get our base setup. I started by undocking the two modules from each other. Setting up a descent node, I burned until I got the descent to lower the module down into the crater. I waited until the module was just over 2000m above the ground before starting the suicide burn. The engines on the module are pretty strong for the light module, so the twr is quite high for this craft. The descent was smooth and I had no issues getting it down to the ground. In fact I had enough fuel left after landing to take off and hover high enough to nudge the craft into a better landing site using RCS before descending yet again and making a second smooth landing. Next I send down the science module. This is when I suddenly realize I made a big mistake. This module has no SAS! How the heck did I forget that! The descent was a nightmare. I could not keep it pointing strait. And even once it was strait, there so little reaction control on it, any input caused it to drift off nearly aimlessly. it took everything I had just to get it to the ground... I had no time to get pictures. The landing... well, it was very ugly, a bit to fast, a bit at an angle, and on a bad slope. But the wide stance of its landing gear allowed it to somehow absorb all this mess. Once down, I raised the landing gear and started driving it towards the habitat module. It went a bit slowly and the craft was wobbly as sin... but I nearly got it there. When I tried to brake once the science module was close, things went all wrong. It started to tip, taking out the solar panels. Then the tire caught and it flipped the module up into the air, where it really started going wrong. The craft went end over end and crashed down a bit to hard on its end, blowing off half the module. It somehow ended up up side down with the central section still intact. The crew survived, but the science module was a total loss... With no way to salvage the science module, I rescued the crew and brought them over to the nearby habitat module. Well, the habitat module worked like a charm, but the science module was a total wash out... Completely my fault for forgetting to add the SAS modules it needed to be functional. I have the module repaired in the VAB, but now I have a choice, Hyper Edit the fixed module to Dres, or fly it proper behind Lamp Post 4, which is not scheduled to fly for a while yet... :edit: Wait... what the... *looks at craft around Dres* "surface modules" Where did that come from??? It was gone last time I loaded the save... It had vanished. Now it's back? Where... did it go??? Ok, now I'm getting worried...

Yeah Kuzzter, wonder where he gets that from? Must be something to teach him at school. >.> Anyways, he's got a good start for a comic, hope it can hold his interests enough to be enjoyable for him. More support for the next generation of KSP Experts.

We'll start off with the Lamp Post 2 again, since it's encounter is first. I let the Lamp Post 2 drift in closer to Dres, keeping an eye on it's encounter. This got a bit hit and miss since the encounter kept shifting from an actual encounter, to something that makes no sense. Nearly at the encounter node I had it all lined up nicely though. Just before the node though, the encounter broke once again. I lost all information about the encounter so had no way to know when to start burning to get into orbit with Dres... That is until about an hour from where I thought the burn should start, it finally came back again... So crossing my fingers, I warped ahead to 5 minutes from orbital insertion and started the retro burn. What I ended up with was a rough 92Km x 98km orbit that was at an angle. I'll be able to clean this up later. But at least I had the cargo in orbit. There was enough fuel left on the Lamp Post 2 to correct its own orbit and bring it down lower to wait for refueling. And the cargo its self has enough RCS to shift orbit as much as needed so I'm not worried about them. Leaving the Lamp Post and its cargo connected and in orbit, I switch to the Indignation and begin it's Dres encounter. With it's direct encounter orbit, it is coming in from under and outside the orbit of Dres. I did this to save fuel from the cost of transferring to Dres from Kerbin since the Indignation has less delta-V then the Lamp Post 2. It seemed to work out, but it did have the ship coming in at an odd angle. At least the Indignation did not suffer from the same encounter issues the Lamp Post 2 had been experiencing. So it was a lot quicker to get the Indignation to within 5 minutes of the orbital insertion and start it's retro burn for orbit. The Indignation ended up in a wonky orbit nearly 30 deg off the plane of the equator. It's 112Km x 138km orbit was not the prettiest I've done and with it only having 638 delta-V left, I would have to send up a refueling run to give it enough to land and fully refuel it's self the rest of the way. But at least it still had enough to clean up it's orbit and bring its self down to a low orbit to rendezvous with the refuel-er. Switching back to the Lamp Post 2, I disconnect the modules from it and get them ready for their missions. The fuel module, with the minitug module attached, will make its way to the Evolution station to dock and wait, while the habitat and science mdoules will be moved into low orbit before dropping down to rest in the crater I've been using as a refueling point. The crater seems to be the most reasonable location since it has a fairly flat area just east of the Lamp Post 1 and Octopus. And because the high ore concentration simply make sense for the base and what I plan to do. It is at this point I notice something is amiss and find out that the Indignation has vanished, and soon after, both surface modules as well. I ended up using HyperEdit to undo the loss of both craft by bring them strait over from kerbin. I also set a new quick save here incase it happens again... I'll continue as normal from this point and hopefully the issues don't get any worse.

Well, I'm still finishing the trajectories of the two craft, which will be entering Dres orbit soon. But some odd things are happening that are quite ominous... The Lamp Post 2 keeps getting faulty encounter readings that are making it difficult to line up the encounter. The encounter stays there, but the part of the flyby that is between the encounter end escape nodes keeps vanishing, making it difficult to judge how close I've moved the encounter to where I'd like it to be... The Indignation keeps changing orientation. I point the craft one way, line it up for a corrective burn, then before I can even start burning, it is no longer pointer where I had it. It shifted direction on me 3 times before doing the correction burn, even with stability control turned on and the craft completely stable before hand. :\ At Dres, I actually had to resort to using the mod HyperEdit... I really don't want to be using that mod for this... But after I had finished getting the two craft into orbit, and started disengaging the modules from the Lamp Post 2, The Indignation simply disappeared without a trace. One moment it was in orbit, the next it was not there. Henpond Kermen was found sitting in the Kerbalnaut complex, at the KSC, completely confused as to how he got there... But the Indignation craft its self was gone. Instead of having to spend the whole trip flying back to Dres, I hyper edited it back to Dres with Henpond back at the controls and most of the fuel drained so it had about the same amount as it had when it first reached Dres. I did a quicksave at this point just to be sure it didn't disappear again, and if it did, I could just reload it back instead of using hyper edit. I then went back to the Lamp Post 2 and started getting the modules ready for orbit shifts in preparation of deorbiting them. Problem is, both the habitat module and the science module were missing! The Lamp Post 2 was there, the fuel module and minitugs where there, but the two surface modules had also vanished without a trace. And this time the crew that was on board them had also vanished... So for the second time, I had to hyper edit both modules back into place orbiting Dres, with a new crew on board. This is getting a bit annoying. Another quick save after making sure all the craft where still there... In other news, all my surface craft are refueled and ready to launch back to orbit except for the shuttles. I decided to not refuel them so that I could move them. a bit safer, to a different site. Their current location has bad ore values and it too bumpy and uneven for the surface base. For some reason, whenever I load up the shuttles, shuttle 2 loads about 30 meters in the air and falls to the ground, harmlessly, but it messes with the Drill, IRSU, and solar panels. It's as though the game really doesn't want me to finish this time either... And I've still got 2 more sets of surface craft to bring over before this is all done.

Showing some Love for Duna and Ike. I was lacking the thrust to slow down and get into Duna orbit. Thankfully, Ike helped a little.

What is now my new Wallpaper. The craft is hard to maneuver and not the prettiest thing to look at, but the view more then makes up for it. 1440 x 900 wallpaper download: Here.

Lets do the orbital transfer burn for both the Lamp Post 2 and the Indignation. At the same time! Mwahahahaha!!! *cough* ok, maybe not. They are 55 days apart after all. First of all is the Lamp Post 2. It's orbital transfer is already plotted so it's only a matter of reaching the transfer node and performing the burn. But first off, lets get all the fuel transferred from the rear fuel module. Now that all the fuel is salvaged from this tank, in fact it is completely bone dry now, it is time to leave it behind. Save weight and make the Lamp Post a little more maneuverable. After dropping the rear fuel module, and lining up with the transfer node, it's a matter of going full throttle. The transfer burn was a total of 14 minutes. I started the burn a little early so I could do half the burn and let the engines cool down a bit before starting the second half of the burn. This worked quite well and I got the Dres encounter right where I was expecting. As for the Indignation, I allowed it to get close to the transfer and started the burn. I started the burn what I thought was early, 10 minutes, but once I started burning I realized it will take 20 minutes to complete this much longer burn. While the Lamp Post 2 only had to burn a total of 2000.2m/s, the Indignation had to burn for 2583m/s. Once the burn was going, I started transferring the remaining fuel from both fuel modules and into the main craft. This took a while as I was transferring fuel as it was being burned. But once both tanks were empty, I didn't wait, or even slow down, I simply dumped them, at full throttle. Well, once I had most of the fuel out of the fuel modules, it started to get a little wobbly. By the time the tanks had been drained dry, it was really starting to snake... Thankfully it held together and didn't throw off the transfer. So by the end of the burn, the Indignation was lined up nicely for a Dres encounter. And thanks to the discard of the fuel modules, another 300m/s delta-V is now available. The Lamp Post 2 handles a bit better with only the 4 modules behind it, one less then the last transfer. But the Indignation handles beautifully. And without the fuel modules, it now moves like a space fighter. RCS turned on and it turns a little to quick maybe? Ah well, we'll have the two parts of the surface base at Dres soon enough. And the Indignation to transfer crew around, with it's capacity of 6. On a side note: a 20 minute burn, with the medium sized radiator array to cool it down each engine, and they never got more then orange warm. And with the 4 small radiator arrays deployed as well, after the burn was completed, it won't take long to cool the craft down to cold red. So a bit of advice, if your going to have a very long burn with Nerv engines, make sure they have at least the equivelant of a medium array per engine. Or stage your burn so the engines can cool down a bit between burn stages.

Yes, as Snark says. Asparagus staging is still viable and can be more efficient then normal staging. The difference is more noticeable the larger the vessel is. From what I have seen it tends to be no more then a hundred or so delta-V difference for a launch vehicle. Or in simpler terms, a few more seconds of burn time. What asparagus staging gives you though is one advantage over all: THRUST. Using asparagus staging means your running all engines at once, making it easier to have the thrust to haul your payload to orbit. It also means your boosters can hold extra fuel and use slightly more efficient engines at the same time. Downfall of asparagus staging is that indeed, your rocket is going to be wider and produce more drag. But in larger rockets this can be minimized by careful placement of the fuel tanks, using narrower fuel tanks for the boosters, and by being clever in how you place the aerodynamic nose cones. Or simply using the mantra of "Moar Boosters", which simply means loading it with more fuel then it would normally need to get to orbit and just thrust your way through the extra drag.

And the little craft I'll be using as a crew transfer vehicle is... The Indignation. This little craft has around 3600 delta-V and a TWR of 0.38 in Kerbin orbit. It has a much lower part count then any other craft I have sent to Dres so flying this thing will be a dream. I had parked this craft in Kerbin Orbit with my good pilot Henpond Kermen. Ok, don't tell him this, be he's a bit of a coward. We had to bribe him just to get him into the cockpit for a "tour", then launched him before he could get back out. Yeah, I'm kinda mean sometimes. But it'll be good for him to get the Dres experience, and besides, he's a far better pilot then he'll ever admit too. Easily as good as Captain Zaltris and nearly on par with Jebadiah. Nearly... I sent up two of the Octopus fuel tanks to attach behind the Indignation. This upped it's delta-V to about 5800. With it's higher twr and much better maneuverability, I should be able to reach Dres with this much fuel on this craft since I'll be able to cut cost and make a direct transfer without corrective burning first. here we can see the craft in orbit of kerbin with its trailing fuel tanks. With a course plotted, it's time to burn for Kerbin escape. With some help once again from our champion of the Drescapades, the Mun! Thanks to the Mun's assistance, we'll be free of kerbins SOI in no time. It's hats off to you again Mun, your the true star of this mission. You've proven far more reliable then any of my craft, and your a true friend. The Lamp Post 2 will be reaching it's encounter transfer 50 days before the Indignation. Both craft will reach Dres within a few days of each other though. This should be fun. As for the indignation, I'll be dumping it's rear fuel tank as soon as it's empty, this will extend it's range slightly. But every bit helps.

Off we go! Time to burn for Dres with the Lamp Post 2. It's a 860m/s delta-V burn to break Kerbin orbit and get another gravity assist from the Mun. As we fly close by the Mun once again, we gain enough energy to break free of Kerbins SOI. Its another kick from our good friend gravity. From here we just wait as the ship drifts away from kerbin and closes in on escape. I really have to say, the Mun is becoming the real star of my Dres transfer vehicles. It has taken part in nearly every Dres transfer I have done and has performed its part of the transfer flawlessly. Here's to you Mun. Thanks a million! After escaping Kerbins SOI we let the craft travel for a while until we reach a point where the orbits of kerbin and Dres align. Here, we burn some fuel to shift our orbit. And finally plot a path to encounter Dres. It's a ways out there yet, so we'll tinker with another craft I'll be sending to Dres. This one will be used to transfer crew between Dres and the orbiting station. A smaller, shorter range craft with a little bit of style and a bit more thrust.

With everything at Dres under control, it's time to get the next set of parts sent over. So it's time to get the Lamp Post 2 up into orbit. It's a tried and tested design, this launcher, so not much to say but, lets get it going. Once the Lamp Post 2 is in orbit, the next thing to go up is the minitug module. This module will be useful to move some of the parts around. It might not see a lot of use though, but I'm bringing it anyways. Never know what you'll need sometimes. The minitug module is a simple craft to launch so no worries here. It was pretty easy to get this module close to the Lamp Post 2 with it's high RCS. And once the minitugs were snugged into place behind the Lamp Post 2, the train is started. Next to go up, is the surface habitat module. This module will provide the Kerbals on the surface of Dres a place to live when they're not exploring the surface. This launcher has a 2 stage asperagus staging system. Once the launcher was over 20,Km, the outer stage empties out and the center stage does all the work. The center stage gets the module into orbit where it can catch up with the Lamp Post 2. No need to keep the extra weight of the launcher anymore. In no time, the surface habitat catches up with the Lamp Post 2 and takes it place behind the minitug module. The third module to go up is the surface science module. This module is designed to connect to the habitat module, on the surface of Dres, but rolling its self into position. Both this module, and the habitat module have engines to allow them to land themselves on the surface. But the science module has more fuel to work with. To help stabilize this module, I added an outrigger strut system to keep the module stabile during the ascent. It worked flawlessly. So did the staging of the boosters. Catching up with the Lamp Post 2 was an easy task as well and soon enough the science module was parked behind the habitat module, ready to be shifted into Dres orbit. The last two module to go up are fuel modules. Both of these modules are essential to give the Lamp Post 2 the range it needs to reach Dres. This module is brought up into orbit using a 3 stage asperagus stage launcher. First stage burns out at about 6Km. Stage two goes out at close to 60Km just in time for the final stage to finish the orbit. Once in orbit, it's drop the nose cone and get the module close to the Lamp Post 2 before dropping the launcher. Up close and personal with the Lamp Post 2, the fuel module is docked in it's place at the tail of the train, followed closely by a second fuel module.(I like this pic, it's got the KSC and the island runway in the background.) Now the Lamp Post 2 is fully loaded and ready to fly. So next job will be to get this load of cargo to Dres.

update: Well, I dropped all the satellites out of the Evolution Station's two cargo bays and deployed them into orbit around Dres. Once again, the large satellite array is in action. I've got all 8 satellites intertwined into a pretty good, all coverage array. One of the satellites is also out on a journey to the edge of the Dresteroid ring and back. I want to know what's all out there so I can choose the right one for the asteroid tug I'll be sending over. In the process of moving them around, one of the satellites ended up bumping into the station as I was changing orbit... oops... Because of that, the satellite lost it's XL solar array... It still has a pair of RTGs to keep it running but the Ion Drive on it is severely crippled now and can only limp along at 15% thrust. Could be worse though. One other thing, It seems that I somehow deleted the orbiting Fuel tank from around dres while I was cleaning up the debree released while I was deploying the satellites. Kind of annoying since I was going to dock it with the station to add more fuel storage... Now I have to wait until I send over the rest of the Lamp Posts before I can add more fuel tanks to the station. Oh well...

Hmmm, since I forgot to mention this, the craft is completely stock. No modded parts what so ever are used on this craft.

I so look forward to the wheels on my Dres rovers working like... Wheels. Sweet news Squad! By chance will this mean having a 3 axle vehicle with the center axle at the center of turn of the vehicle, set to not turn, will actually be properly stable? I so can't wait. Got plenty of extreme terrain suspension system designs to implement on my rovers. Just right now, the wheel system does not correlate with the results in the real world. At least not when you use designs that are not conventional.

Been a while since I've uploaded anything for you all to play around with. But I finally have something actually worth uploading. The: Indignation. <download link> The Indignation is a short to medium range trans planetary craft designed for smaller missions between worlds. It comes with mining and refining capabilities to keep it flying, twin Nerve engines for longevity and efficiency, a rear docking port from drop tanks and small cargo or for bringing it along with larger craft. It has a crew capacity of 6, but only really needs two to be fully effective, a pilot and an engineer. It's also equipped with 8 airbrakes and 4 parachute for atmospheric descent. Here it is with it's launcher. The Indignation has quite a few fold out parts, 6 radiator arrays, and 2 large solar panel arrays. The IRSU and the two radiators that keep it cool are stored inside the cargo bay. The large drill is tucked into the tail in such a way that it's mass is lined up with the Indignation's center line. So the craft remains balanced in flight. The craft performs best in the vacuum of space or in locations that have no atmosphere, like moons or the smaller planets. Stats(not counting the Launcher) Part count: 131 Weight: 43.3 tons TWR around Kerbin: 0.28 Delta-V in vacuum: 3,768 Landing orientation: Vertical Atmospheric landing: Yes Does it fly: Not Really, flies like a bowling Ball. Locations it can land easily and still take off again: Moho, Gilly, Mun, Minmus, Duna(with the fuel tanks not quite full), Ike, Dres, Vall, Pol, Bop, Eeloo Locations it can land with a bit of challenge, but never lift off from: Kerbin, Laythe Locations it might be able to land, but at very high risk: Eve Locations it can NOT land: Tylo, Jool The Indignation is like a normal lander in most regards. Most of the time you will be making powered landings like you would with any other lander. Keeping the nose pointed retrograde while landing, so coming down tail first. The engines will be enough to land you in most locations with no need for the airbrakes or parachutes. Duna landing: Duna is a special place that requires it's own landing profile. You start your entry like you would for any atmosphere lacking world. Tail first. Use the engines to slow yourself down as much as possible. As you enter the atmosphere, deploy the airbrakes to help slow the craft down and conserve a little fuel. Depending on where you land, you may or may not get any use out of the parachutes... Even with the chutes deployed, the thin atmosphere of Duna means they are not enough to land with, you'll need to use the engines on the indignation to help with landing. If you like, you can even just land using the engines alone, but at a slightly higher delta-V cost. Kerbin/Laythe landing: For atmospheric landing, treat the craft like a space plane with horrible aerodynamics. As you start entering the atmosphere, deploy the airbrakes. Point the craft to prograde so your flying in nose first, then using a little help from the RCS if needed, bring up the nose so that your pointed 10 - 15 degrees above prograde(nose up position). The nose up position will help the craft slow down faster. As the craft bites into the atmosphere, carefully manage the nose up orientation keeping it at or below 15 degrees up until your speed has dropped to at least 1,100m/s, preferably slower. At this point, bring the nose down a little to keep the craft under control. At some point, the craft will probably try to slide out of position, fight it. The craft getting out of position and/or trying to flip inverted is not bad, but fighting it helps with braking and will slow down the craft a bit quicker. In the thicker atmosphere, you can try flying the Indignation like a space plane, but it's aerodynamics are bad and it's not going to produce much lift. Once you've got your speed down to a safe speed, deploy your chute and get the craft facing tail first. Be sure to deploy the landing gear before landing as well. It helps a little. Eve landing: You should be able to land the craft the same as you would for Kerbin Laythe, but speed is going to be a huge issue here. Eve has much higher gravity, and that relates to higher orbital speeds. So finding a way to bleed off as much speed as possible is key if you dare to attempt an Eve landing with this craft. To increase its range, I've included the fuel module from the defunct Octopus tug. Adding one tank to the indignation should get you around 900 additional delta-V. A second should give you another 600-700, and so on. These fuel modules are simple and fairly cheap(they can be made cheaper by ditching the rcs and drone core) and are made to be docked with the craft in orbit. Use them wisely and leave them in orbit when you try landing, unless you want to soften the landing zone with debree. I hope you enjoy this craft. It is the first craft I've been able to make that can fly between planets and I actually like the way it looks. It has a bit of style instead of being fully utilitarian like my other trans planetary craft.

Remember how I said over the top? You know, that one time? Right? I did say that didn't I? Somewhere....? So, lets upgrade Drescapade Station. It's a nice station and all, 3 docking ports, plenty of science, room for 11. You know, a nice cozy little station. Now combine that with the central section of the Evolution... First off, we need to get the 2 craft/stations/buildings? close enough to each other to connect them. Easy enough considering I already the the Evolution in a parking orbit that was already closing with the station. It also ends up that the Drescapade station, despite being a tall and made of several parts, is also super maneuverable. Go figure. So getting them close was a piece of cake. Closing to withing 200 meters, I bringing their relative speeds to 0. I disconnect the communications segment from the rest of the station and get ready to dock it with the Evolution center section. The communications section is the one part of the station that is not very maneuverable, but I'm still able to move it down and under the Evolution so I can line it up with the docking port. Once it's lined up, its just a few puffs and the two craft are connected. Now it's time to bring in the rest of the station and connect it. Getting the rest of the station lined up proves to be incredibly easy. The station is nearly to maneuverable and can move around quite quickly. Now, with the shape of the station, and the shape of the Evolution, there is only one way they can be lined up properly. So I begin to slide the station in sideways to line up the docking ports. And once the station and evolution are lined up, I bring them together. Their combined form, of the Evolution center section and the Drescapade station, becomes the Evolution Station. All hail the glory of the Evolution station. Crew capacity for 43 kerbals, power generation like mad, 1 top docking port, 2 bottom sr docking ports, and 7 docking ports on each side, as well as a huge capacity for fuel storage along with the Drescapades science capacity. Now that's more like it. A nice Large station to watch over Dres. And best of all, this new station has 8 Ion satellites in it's cargo bay to deploy a new satellite network. Combine this with the 4 shuttles on the surface(none of which are over heating anymore, that issue was resolved by cycling the radiators), the Lamp Post 1, the Octopus, and the Evolution Gig and it's already a lot of stuff around Dres. And there will be a lot more to come.

The feeling of achievement you get when your first two craft dock for the first time in space is priceless! Never forget that feeling. I know the first docking I did was with two craft that had no RCS(my mistake there) so you at least did it right from the get go. Nicely done.

Well, the shuttles are next on my agenda. So I disengaged them one by one and moved them away from the Evolution center section. That is, after I had moved the mothership into an intercept orbit with the Drescapade station. Each of the shuttles were moved into a lowered 60Km orbit where I could bring them down one by one far easier. The first drop wasn't planned very well and ended up coming down in the dark. It was also a test run to see how close to theory they actually follow, when it comes to landing. After that success I brought down shuttle 2, but waited for daylight so I could document it's landing. Starting out, I plotted a descent that would bring the shuttles close to where the first shuttle ended up. Then its a bit of burning to slow down the craft and start it's descent. Another short burn once the craft is getting close to the ground to finalize the landing site. And the final suicide burn to bring the craft to a slow enough speed to land on its tail, 2m/s for example. At that slow speed, touchdown was soft and easy. Next was the tricky part. Intentionally tipping over the shuttle to get it on its landing wheels. Thankfully(as planned) the shuttles have a lot of SAS and enough RCS to make a nice soft transfer. The transfer never exceeded 1.4m/s so it was an easy switch. Now that its on its wheels, the shuttle can be rolled around using small bursts from its main engines to keep it moving. As I brought them down, I moved them all to the same area so I could keep them corralled. That way they could graze on the lower Ore values here, but still top off their tanks. Each shuttle has slightly different amounts of heat built up. The second one down being the coldest, but the first one landed, the one on the far right, is having strange heating issues. The whole craft it quite how, bright orange on the thermal displays compaired to the deep red of the others. No clue why this is happening other then the overheat bug. I cycled the radiators, the drill and the IRSU and this has seemed to have stopped the problem from getting worse. But time will tell. I'd prefer not to loose any of the shuttles, but that is why I brought 4. They look like a small herd, grazing on the soil of Dres. Silly things that they are. The shuttles landed and move about of the surface even better then I had hoped. I doubt this would be true of the gravity was higher. But in low g's, they land nicely and are fairly stable while moving about.

Year 1, Day 7: The crew is getting very restless, the long days out in space are wearing nerves thin. The long burn to reach Dres encounter is completed without a hitch, save for the fuel imbalance. Having moved the fuel around into different central tanks has made no difference, the fuel imbalance persists. Looking at the fuel numbers and fiddling with the tanks shows the problem to lie with the docking ports on the shuttles not showing the fuel available properly. The issue is not as bad as it seems. So we continue on, monitoring the fuel levels closely. Year 1, Day 131: the encounter with Dres is not ideal, so a corrective burn is needed to get us into a better encounter. This burn only requires a measly 4.4m/s, but it's duration and direction is critical. Luckily, at this range, even small puffs from the RCS will be enough to finalize the encounter position. So lets burn for it. Year 2, Day 312: we finally reached Dres. It can be seen now as a small dot in the distance, visible to the naked eye. This has brought the hopes of the crew up. It has been a trying voyage, far longer then it should of been. The sight of Dres is a welcome sight to all as we prepare to make our orbital burn. Year 2, day 313: Burning for Orbit! It's going to take less fuel then we had predicted meaning we'll have plenty left to get the shuttles down to the surface and prepaire the site for the surface colony. But first, we need to achieve a stable orbit. One that is about 104Km x 104Km sounds about right. Now that the mothership is parked, lets get the Gig down to the surface to start the refueling process. Just in case the remaining fuel is not enough for the shuttles. First off is getting the Gig freed from its commanding position in the center of the mothership. A quick burn to alter course and another to slow the Gig down and it's on it's way to the crater, to meat up with the Lamp post 1 and the Octopus. Homing in on the landing site, from high up in the sky is not for the faint of heart. But what a view! Captain Zeltris has the site in her sights and will get us down nice and clean. Closing in on the surface, we've drifted a bit off course, so a corrective burn to move us close it done. This burn didn't take much fuel at all and got us a lot closer to our target. So now it's time to touch down. And... We're down! Drills deployed, solar panels extended, and radiators at the ready. We'll mine this site for all it's worth. The Gig is only 1.4km from the Lamp Post 1 and in the 6% Ore vein, Nice! Refueling won't take long at all with this rich site. The Gig has landed, the Evolution Mothership is in orbit, and the shuttles are ready to be sent down as well. All is going well with the Evolution. Without the Gig, the Evolution's FPS has risen to a wonderful 6fps. That's a 50% increase. Ok, that's not really much, but every frame counts. Next steps are to deploy the satellites, land the shuttles, and combine the Evolution central section with the Drescapade Station to make a huge orbital refueling base. Evolution Station. There will be 3 more Lamp Posts dispatched to Dres, instead of the original 2, due to the failure of the Octopus tug. These three Lamp Posts have a lot to bring over yet, the 4 parts of the surface base and 3 sets of rovers to keep the base running. I could probably bring the parts over on two lamp Posts, but that would be dropping the frame rates lower then I would like. And besides, 3 is better then 2 any day.

Small update: Octopus 1 is a dead horse. Lamp Post 1 was able to refuel its self in under 11 days. Octopus 1 took nearly 300. The small drills are not working correctly on Octopus 1. I will still be making use of it to perform a few missions, but it's inability to self fuel makes it basically useless. I have two options here: use the Evolution Gig to perform most of the missions the Octopus was supposed to perform, even though it is a large craft. Or, send over the little space hot-rod I've got sitting around, and use that instead. I'm thinking use the Gig, it already there and has the same refueling capabilities as the Lamp Post, but with less range. So in conclusion: The Octopus design is not good. It still works as a light tug, but it can't effectively refuel its self making it a mission failure.

You know what they say, good things come to those who wait. Well, I'm not waiting... I plotted the course and sent this info up to the captain Zeltris. Our honorable captain took the helm and sent us on our way. Dres, here we come. The Evolution, despite some worry among the crew and engineers who designed her, flies strait and true. She's accelerating well and lighting up the sky with the beautiful blue of her atomized fuel. Her engines are pumping out a lot of heat as well, keeping the radiators nice and toasty. Several minutes, and 830m/s delta-V later, our course is set. It's a little bit off course though, Zeltris, you missed our burn window! What? Oh, I see. Zeltris, your a genius at the helm! Exit route from Kerbin SOI achieved, medium/low altitude Mun`er pass plotted. Not only did missing the burn alter the course, bringing us closer to the Mun, it also shorted the time to Kerbin escape by 5 days. Nice job Zeltris. Direct escape burn estimate, 1,500m/s, actual cost 830m/s, with a savings of 670m/s. You gotta love those gravity assists. Day 1: hour 3.5, the Mun looks so close you could reach out and touch it. The gravity assist has pulled our speed up to a good 725m/s from the paltry 217m/s it was at before Mun encounter. What a rush. 0.7G acceleration without even lighting the engines. On close approach to the Mun and the gravity can be felt from here. The Evolution is making a bit of noise but it's just the panels shifting a bit, nothing to worry about. But what a view! Day 11: hour 2, we're peaking out at the edges of kerbins SOI. Not long now and we'll be in open trans-planetary space and on our way to the planer shift burn to align ourselves with Dres orbit. The world seems so tiny from out here, and soon it will be even smaller. 188 more days to burn, time to sit back, do some science and wait for the designated burn time. Crew moral is high and should continue to be so for some time now. We'll keep them busy enough to stave of space madness, no worries. Day 199: hour 4, the planer correction burn is completed is planned. We are now aligned with the orbit of Dres, making the transfer burn far easier to plot. In 352 days, we burn for Dres. The crew is starting to feel the time in space and some of them are getting a bit, antsy... Hasgun for example. How did the Kerbalnaut program not figure it out with a name like that? I mean come on! This guy is amazing! Patching up a leak in shuttle 3 with some string, a bit of sticky tape, and a discarded snack bag. What a guy. But the leak led to another problem being found. Seems the sensors were out of calibration. There is a problem with fuel distribution between the command Gig and the 4 shuttles. The Gig is showing 2/3 fuel reserves remaining, while the shuttles only show half. If the next two burns aren't done carefully, we might be limping into orbit on the command Gigs engines along... That's 1/3 thrust for a 600,000+kg mothership to brake into Dres orbit... Not a promising prospect...

After several hours of play time, I was able to get all 4 shuttles docked with the Evolution Mothership. It is now sitting in orbit waiting to be sent on its way. The last shuttle coming in to dock. These shuttles are not much fun to fly into orbit... The thrust is slightly off center due to how the launch vehicle is attached to them. But I was able to get all 4 into orbit. Here we see the last one on its final approach to the Evolution. It is coming in backwards to make it easier to align the ports. Once I had attach the last shuttle, the Evolution Mothership is waiting in orbit to receive a quick topping off of its fuel tanks, and to receive the rest of the crew it will be bringing along. 35 brave Kerbals to stand vigil over Dres. The refueling was done easily with a cheap little refueling pod but transferring the crew was not so easy. I could only transfer 8 Kerbals at a time before the transfer menu would quit working and I'd have to close and reload the save. This got to be quite annoying... I did finally get all the crew transferred, refueled the Evolution, and ditched the transfer vehicle. The Evolution has a lot of parts on it... This has dropped my frame rate to just 4 fps. But unlike the Lamp Post train, the Evolution is quite rigid, so turning is far easier and quicker. Docking the shuttles was not quite as easy as the pictures make it seem. They each have 3 seperate docking ports to like them with the center section. Getting all three docking ports lined up took quite a while, and quite a few trys with each shuttle. But the job is done now and hopefully their alignment is good enough to allow the craft to fly strait. If not, then hopefully the considerable amount of adv reaction wheels will be enough to force it strait. We'll just have to wait and see. Oh, and once I had everything docked, I extended all the radiators. When doing this, it seems the craft had gained a bit of heat in orbit for they all went red with heat, but started to slowly cool down. Hopefully if I leave it in orbit for a while, it will dissipate the extra heat so the radiators can keep the engines cool. I'll just give it a little time before I setup the escape burn to Dres.

Something simple, but would be extremely useful for assembling complex craft. The ability for docking ports to be held together by their "magnetic attraction" without fully linking the two seperate craft(soft dock), by a simple right click menu option. By default, the docking ports would be set to hard dock(the way they normally act now) and link the two parts together into one craft the moment they touch. Changing between the two modes using a right click menu would not be overly hard for the player to do and would be worth the extra clicking. Having a simple flag like "hard dock = 1" to designate the port as being able to link and "hard dock = 0" to designate the port as not being able to link should work. Then just a check to look at the hard dock flag could be done prior to linking the two ports. This way, only 1 of the two ports would have to be in soft docking mode to prevent the two from linking. And when the soft dock mode port is switched, it would be able to see the other port as hard dock mode and link the two. Hard Docking the two ports together makes for a rigid connection that keeps the parts in relatively the same place. It works nicely in most cases and there is little need to change this. Most of the time. The docking ports would simply act the same way they do currently. Soft Docking the ports would allow the ports to move relatively to each other by only having the magnetic effect holding them close to each other. The two ports would not connect rigidly to each other in this mode until Hard Docking is toggled back on. This way the ports can be held close to each other while the two separate parts are realigned so that they are strait relative to each other. This would be most useful for side mounting things like booster engines, where their alignment is critical to the craft flying strait. It would be even more useful in situations where the parts you are trying to link are large enough that they require multiple docking ports to remain stable. This way, you can have the linking ports set to soft dock and allow them to hold the parts close to each other while you make final adjustments to their alignment before locking them all together. It would be a few extra menu clicks to use this idea, but I think the benefits of being able to soft dock the ports outweighs the tedium of having to click on ports. The reason I see this as a useful addition is with the issue of linking multiple ports between just two parts. Once it gets close, unless you have the two parts exactly aligned and completely level to each other, the multiple ports do not connect properly. If say, your using three ports to connect the two parts together, then only two of the three might link correctly while the third is out of alignment and doesn't link. This leads to wobble as the two parts are not solidly docked. This also means having to undock all the ports, moving the parts away from each other and then bringing them back together, while adjusting alignment, only to have them not link properly once again. By having soft docking, you can bring the two parts together, let the ports hold them in place, while you adjust one of the two parts alignment, until all three ports are lined up. Then you can toggle to docking mode and let the whole craft link into one. This way linking can be done in one go instead of the even more tedious job oh having to dock--undock--dock--undock--dock--etc... until it's right.