Jakalth

Well I've been busy for the last few days, working on other issues besides KSP. But I do have some status to post finally. Octopus 1 and Lamp Post 1 are both down on Dres refueling. Lamp Post 1 is nearly refueled thanks to the rich ore vein it landed on. Octopus 1 is taking longer to refuel, a lot longer... Going with the smaller refinery seems to have been a bad idea. Or the craft is just barely missing the rich vein the Lamp Post is on. I even tried moving it a bit closer to no luck. Also, unlike Lamp Post 1, Octopus 1 is having a hard time staying cool. The radiators are running red hot, yellow under thermal view, and the drills and refinery also keep over heating. Possibly a heat generation bug or the craft is simply not viable. Ah well, Lamp Post 1 is at least working well. To restart the whole of the Drescapade Resurrection, I will start by getting the Evolution Mothership into orbit of Kerbin and assembled. To start this off, I will be launching the center section of the Evolution. The launch vehicle for this craft looked interesting, but once I dropped the first stage, the whole thing turned into a wet noodle. It was only moments before the craft spontaneously disassembled do to my bad design for a launch vehicle. I got the center section into orbit, but not in the way I would of liked. The center section is going to need a whole new launch vehicle before I even think of making it available. With the center section in orbit, I next sent up the Evolution Gig. This section, with it's launcher, flew quite well, and made a lot of noise doing so. The launch vehicle got a bit of altitude off the SRB's, but not a lot considering the TWR was so low. But, they are a cheap boost and looked good in flight. Once they ran out, I staged them off and ignited the main liquid fuel engines. At around 12Km I began angling the ship to perform a gravity turn. This went better then most so I probably could of started the turn earlier. But with the 4 side liquid boosters burning along with the main, I soon made it to space and was burning to circularize. A little ways through the circularize burn, I had to stage out the side boosters and rely entirely on the center engine. With the orbit cleaned up, and the central fuel tanks of the launch vehicle nearly spent, I jettisoned them and continued to orbit, slowly catching up with the Evolution center section. Using just the fuel in the small orbital booster section to assist the maneuvers, I soon found myself close to the Evolution center section. It only took a few short burns from the booster section to close the range to where the slightly limited RCS on the Gig could do the rest. (fyi: I like this picture for some reason.) Letting the Gig drift in a bit close, I wait for the right time to dump the booster pack. No point letting the fuel in it go to waste if I need a bit more then just a nudge. But once I got close enough to nearly touch the nose of the center section, it was time to dump the booster and start lining up the gig for docking. Docking this craft is not the easiest thing in the world. There isn't a lot of room between the two booms of the center section. It took a lot of little thrusts and even more time to slowly move the Gig into place. I burned nearly 200 units of monopropellant just lining up and sliding the craft into place. But for once, this was a nice challenge. It felt good and the Gig maneuvered nicely, all be it slowly. The real trick was getting the craft lined up so that the engines would burn between the support struts and not through them, as well as allowing the radiators to point out the sides of the craft without hitting anything. It all went smoothly since I was taking my time doing this. Once the Gig was docked, the Evolution Mothership now had it's command section. And a little over 7300 delta-V. I could fly the whole thing to Dres as is if I wanted to, but I really want to get the 4 shuttles loaded up and truckin'... I mean docked and ready to provide Moar Boost(ers). It was at this point that I noticed something odd... It seems the Kerbals had been busy on their own. Somehow they were able to make a clone of me? Or are they up to something else here? Odd... I better keep an eye on this crew... Next job, design a launch vehicle to get the shuttles into orbit and docked. This might be an interesting proposition to try and pull off...

And sometimes you just need to step back, take a look at what others have done, take a deep breath, then build something crazy.

After the loss of most of the work, and craft, from the Drescapade Kraken Incident, I didn't think I was going to do anything else with this mission. But after having some time to think about it, and cool down a little, I have decided to resurrect the Drescapades. This run isn't going to be completely clean, there may be a few things I use the F12 "cheats" to help set in motion. But most of it will be a completely clean stock mission. Only mod I have installed is Kerbal Engineer Redux, in part-less mode. All the parts used are completely stock with no modifications to the persistence files. After having some time to think over this, I've decided to start again. Loading up the save I went through and looked at what craft I could salvage... Drescapade station was in pieces. But since the debarkel with the save files, the pieces were still in orbit, but not assembled yet. So all the parts were there, I just had to put it together again, for the first time. In front of the parts for the station was the trusty old Lamp Post 1 and its spare fuel tank. So after I undocked the parts from the Lamp post, and placed the space tank in a parking orbit, I sent the defunked satellite module(which had no SAS for the satellites) out into space and sent the Lamp Post 1 down to the surface to refuel. The Lamp Post 1 descended into a crater, in complete darkness, and was able to find the sweet goodness of a 6% Ore vein. Yummy! It wasn't until daylight that I actually saw where I had landed. Now for the Octopus 1... I did use infinite fuel to land it on Dres, but this was just to save me the time of waiting for something I can safely use to link it with the Lamp Post for refueling. Otherwise it would be a long wait before I can use it. I know... I know... Infinite fuel is cheating... But after the last time of linking with the Lamp Post 1, I wanted to play it safer. So down the Octopus went, trying to land near the Lamp Post 1 and the sweet, sweet ore vein. Down into the darkness. Only to find out I'm landing on the wall of the crater and don't have the maneuverability to shift my landing site over far enough to not land there. So, landing on a nearly 10% grade, with a slightly tipsy Octopus... What could go wrong? Nothing apparently. It did nearly tip over, but being basically out of fuel meant the craft was extremely light. So the RCS was more then enough to right it before it toppled over completely. Now that I know that the Train Breaker, which survived the Kraken unscathed, the Lamp Post 1, the Octopus 1 and most importantly, the Drescapade Station was intact and ready for use, I can prepare the rest of the mission. I actually have all the parts of the mission already built, save for the refueling vehicle, who's design I'm not that happy with... But first of all, I need to send over the satellites, once again. This time I'll be sending them with a new friend of mine. Meet the Evolution! The Evolution is a large, multi part, mothership made up of 6 different segments. The core of which is the Evolution Core. This section of the craft is a large fuel reserves with housing for 32 Kerbals. It has a few solar arrays to collect power and some SAS to help it align its self, but no RCS. This section of the mothership is going to act as a new space station once it reaches Dres. The cargo bays are currently loaded with the 8 satellites that will be distributed around Dres. The next section is the central command and control section, the Evolution Gig. This section is like the Lamp Post and Octopus in many ways, but is designed to sit in the center of the Evolution and provide about 32% of the thrust the mothership needs to fly. Once at Dres, this section will be able to refuel its self and fly missions around dres in place of the second Octopus. And the last segment, which will actually be 4 segments in total, is the Evolution Shuttle. This segment(s) will be able to land on Dres and act as parts of the surface base. Once the mission is over, the shuttles will be able to lift off from Dres, and be able to fly back to Kerbin, hopefully without a refueling trip between. But otherwise a trip to Minmus might be in order. Landing and lifting off with the shuttles is not going to be easy though. They do not have vertically aligned engines so will have to nearly land on their tail before rotating to land horizontally. Taking off will have to be done using a combo of thrust and RCS authority to pivot them into liftoff angle. I was planning on making these craft atmospheric as well, but due to bad aerodynamic issues, I threw that idea out the window. No worries though, I can send up a crew transfer vehicle when needed, and/or a set of parachute packs. So yeah, this should still be interesting. I can say right now, that I do have an asteroid tug designed that will be able to shift class C asteroids into Dres orbit. And as long as they are not on the heavy side of Class C, I should even be able to land one on the planet. But doing this will mostly likely take the life of the tug in the process. So, unmanned is it.

I don't have Hyperedit and have never used it, so no clue on that part. But I plan on doing things a little differently anyways. Although, it seems the Descapade Station is still around Dres, so it looks like I might not of lost as much progress as I though. Anyways, got two options to progress the resurrection of the Drescapades. Not sure which one I want to try using. Option 1: Trinity Starship. This is basically an upscaled version of the Lamp Post. It has 6 rear facing sr. docking ports for hauling cargo instead of just 1, and a lot more engines to do the pulling. It still has to sling its cargo behind it but with the multiple attackment points it should be able to haul more cargo at once and still be more maneuverable. Some of the attachment points can be used to attach more engines instead of cargo if I so choose. Option 2: Evolution mega ship. This craft is a combination craft using a slightly larger octopus style mining ship for its command and control core, 4 shuttles as the engines, and a 32 crew capacity central structure with 3 attachment points behind it for towing extra cargo/fuel. The craft it's self is made of 6 different vessels that split up and act as the cargo instead of hauling more with it. It's designed to be assembled in orbit before transfering and shouldn't need much of anything else to bring along. It is a surface base, orbiting station, and return vehicles all rolled into one. note: the design has changed in a couple ways since this picture. the craft is still evolving. The Evolution is mostly untested, but the design is promising. The command core or Gig, is designed to act as a refueler and go between from the surface and the core of the craft. The shuttles are designed to operate in low gravity environments, like Dres, but are also completely capable of reentry into higher gravity worlds that have atmospheres, like Kerbin/Eve. At least in theory... I haven't fully tested them in atmosphere yet other then doing full speed taxi runs into the water at the end of the runway. Like the space shuttle, they fly like a brick. A flattened basicly wingless brick... That's why they have landing parachutes and airbrakes. note: older picture missing the control surfaces and parachutes.

Yeah, it does happen. There are still a few Krakens in the game that you sometimes can't avoid. Not much you can do about them but step back, take a deep breath, and either keep going or do something new. I know for a fact that I am not the only one to have a mission ending Kraken attack. Ah well. Life happens. I can say for a fact now that I will be recovering what I can and continuing from there. I'll probably be making liberal use of the F12 commands to get back to roughly where I was, but will be doing it a bit differently. Got something new in the works for sending supplies. It will use less craft to do the job by being able to send pretty much everything else in one go. I'm talking big, Really Big. But using the F12 commands will disqualify it from the contest so I'll be redoing this just for myself, and posting the log in a new thread. Drescapades Resurrection.

Can't say the Kracken hates Dres. Think it was more that the Kracken hated the Octopus. And it tried to erase the evidence that is was ever there. Every craft that ever contacted the Octopus was effected. But the trail breaker probe and the satellites were unscathed, until I lost the progress... They never had any contact with the Octopus. Could be that naming it that was a bad idea. I will go back to Dres again some day. It's to nice of a world to not revisit again. Such welcoming, flat terrain, and nicely placed ore deposits. Just have to love the big potatoe.

Well. The Drescapades is over. A major Kraken incident ended it early for me. I'll have to settle with just the satellite network, Drescapade station, and the 3 Orbiting tugs as my final show for Dres love. It is all gone at this point. My craft were destroyed by the Kraken, my save is lost(where it was in the previous post), and I would have to pretty much start over from scratch just to get back to the point I was at... So yeah. That's all I got.

Why does this game hate me so much? Everything... All the work... Gone... Just like that. I had a small incident when undocking two of my craft where the kracken caused one of them to explode which chain reaction-ed into the other craft. When I tried to salvage it, I found that all the major craft around Dres had been effected. The Drescapade station was in pieces. Lamp Post 2, which I had fueled up enough to make a Dres landing, was destroyed. And Both Lamp Post 1 and Octopus 1 were gone. I tried to do a revert to my last quick save but it reverted way back to my first craft reaching Dres. And the persistant file got over written before I could try going back to that one. So it's over... I don't even feel like trying to redo the mission at this point anymore... So much work gone. I had just brought up the Lamp Post 1 from the surface of Dres. I had successfully docked with and partially refueled Lamp Post 2, and was in the process of refueling Octopus 1 when the Kracken attacked... I was undocking Octopus 1 to see if it had enough fuel to land and finish refueling its self when it exploded. I've only got 2 pictures to show before the end arrived... The two Lamp Posts docked. Looks interesting... The Lamp Post 1 docked with the Octopus 1. Used one of the minitugs on the top of the Octopus 1 to act as an adaptor so it can attach to the Lamp Post 1. But that's it for this... I might revisit this again at a later date, but it won't be for the contest... As for now I'm just to frustrated to even want to play KSP.

Well the Drescapades are going well. I've got a lot of craft at Dres allready. Enough that the planet is literally surrounded now. Still need to assemble the Dres surface base and bring at least 3 more ships over from kerbin. But so far so busy. I believe I have 17 Kerbins around Dres already, between the various craft. Not sure how many more hitched a ride over unseen by me. There is also 8 satellites in orbit and 1 survey probe along with the Drescapade Station, 1 Lamp Post and an Octopus. One other Lamp Post is still on the surface, fully refueled, waiting to fly up and refuel the Octopus and the two parts of the Dres surface base I have in orbit. So lots going on still at Dres.

Stage 3 Late: Satellite deployment. It is time to deploy the network of satellites around Dres. The satellite module houses 8 small ion powered satellites that I'm going to disperse in such a way as to cover as much of Dres and its surroundings as possible. Each satellite consists of 2 zenon tanks, a pair of large solar arrays, 2 RTGs, a small sas module, an Ion engine, an OKTO2 probe core and an antenna. They each have pretty good TWR and close to 4500m/s Delta-V. A bit much for Dres, but considering they were designed to be dispersed from a single place in the Jool system, not bad. The first satellite I placed was the toughest burn. This one I placed into a polar orbit that is shifted up 90deg off from its original orbit. The second one I stretched its orbit out into a 150km x 150km orbit to slow down its movement relative to Dres. The third satellite had its orbit shifted up 60deg and into a 91 x 91 km orbit. This was the start of the sensor cage that will surround Dres so that nothing will go unseen. The forth one had its orbit tilted down by 60 deg into a 92 x 92 km orbit. The fifth one was moved into a low orbit of only 50km x 50km. This way it can scoot around the planet quickly. Satellite number 6 had its orbit tilted up 30 deg and into a 93 x 93 km orbit. This nearly finished the sensor cage. And satellite number 7 had it's orbit tilted down by 30 deg to finish off the full coverage of the sensor cage. The last satellite, number 8, I sent out far from Dres. This satellite is out far enough to tease the orbiting asteroids around Dres. With an oblique orbit of 985km x 14,300km. This last satellite completes the coverage of Dres and its surroundings. Now that everything around Dres can be monitored, I can start exploring further using the Octopus 1. That is once I finally get it refueled. The remaining cargo for the Lamp Post 3 and Octopus 2 are still in developement. But once those are ready, I can bring them into orbit as well and I'll have all the pieces for the exploration of the surface of Dres. I will also be sending an asteroid tug to drag one of the Dresteroids down into lower orbit where I can use it for cheaper refueling and possibly other uses as well. Who knows, I might not stop at just 1 Dresteroid.

Stage 4: Lamp Post 2 on its way. Now that the Lamp Post 2 is fully loaded, nothing left to do but burn for Dres. First thing I did was plot an escape trajectory, once again looking for a Mun gravity assist to save fuel. This time out, the burn node was a bit to close to the Lamp Post 2, so I had to do a stepped launch, a short burn to bring out the orbit, then a second burn to get the Mun encounter. Once I got the burn finished for the Mun encounter, and had finished the gravity assist, I plotted a small burn to turn the arced orbit into a full kerbin escape. After this burn I had an escape trajectory out of Kerbins SOI. Once out of Kerbins SOI I could plot an orbital correction to line the ship up with the orbital plain of Dres. Next step, plot a burn to get an encounter with Dres. On the way to the encounter, I made a few small correction burns to bring the encounter in close enough so I can turn it into a good orbit. It was at this point that I found out my calculations for fuel were wrong. I had been getting some strange readings from Kerbal Engineer Redux. I am currently using an unreleased alpha so that may be part of the reason... Anyways, I had to steal all the fuel from my cargo just to have enough to make the orbital insertion burn. Once I had the orbital insertion burn plotted, I time warped in close to the burn and started bringing the Lap Post 2 into orbit of Dres. The orbit was completed, but with only a handful of fuel remaining... I ended up having to burn nearly a third of the mono-propelant on the whole craft to help bring it into orbit. If I had not done so, I probably would not have achieved orbit... But anyways, orbit achieved, even if it is not a very good one. Once the orbit is stabilized, I separate the different modules and start moving them where they need to go. The first module I move is the minitug module. For this module, I plot an intercept course with the Drescapade station. After getting it close, I split one of the tugs free from the module and dock that with the Octopus 1 so I can refuel it easier. The other half of the module I dock to the other side of the Drescapade station for storage. The rest of the module parts I have linked in pairs. The science rover and habitat module are linked together. These two I bring down to a lower orbit and alter their orbital plain so it matches that of the Drescapade station. The fuel tank and satellite module are also paired. These two I alter their orbit so that they will be able to link up with the fuel module that is already in orbit. I do this mostly to keep the orbits clean around Dres. This will especially be important once I have all 8 satellites released. Next task will be to place all the satellites into orbit and bring up the Lamp Post 1 from it's refueling rest on Dres to refuel the Octopus 1, the science rover, and the habitat module. Once that is done, It's back to the labs to design the rest of the Dres surface base.

you know your craft has low frame rates when: you start making a turn to do an orbit correction, and you have enough time to check the forums, read a few threads, and post something like this all before the craft has finished turning... I don't know if I should laugh, or cry...

Stage 4: Lamp Post 2, more modules. The next module to be sent up to the Lamp Post 2 is the Habitat module for the Dres surface Base. This module was simple enough to launch without needing an aero shell to smooth it out. The Habitat module will be the start of the Dres surface base. It contains the minimum requirements for Kerbals to live on the surface of Dres, but it will be followed by other parts to make the base more homely. It was a pretty strait forward launch with the module cooperating enough to get into a circular orbit. Once it had caught up with the Lamp Post 2, I jettisoned the launch rocket so I can use the RCS to fly it to the Lamp Post 2 and dock it up. Next is the modified and fixed satellite module. This time with working sas for each satellite. Still can't believe I goof this one up... Here on the launch pad, the launcher looks quite simple with its aero shell closed up over the satellites. Staging of the satellite launcher goes smoothly as the boosters are shrugged off. It's a simple thing but still quite satisfying. Once in orbit, the module was circularized and brought in fairly close to the Lamp Post 2 before I jettisoned the launcher and flew it in the rest of the way using only RCS. The forth launch is to bring up the minitugs I will be playing around with in Dres orbit. These little guys can shrug around a bit of weight, but mostly will be there in case things go wrong, like the Octopus running out of fuel. They have both standard and sr docking ports so I can use them as an adapter to go between the Octopus 1 and Lamp Post 1, when they do their refueling rendezvous. The minitugs have a bit of authority when it comes to pitch/roll/yaw so the flight of this launcher was a bit more of a hands full then some. It was a little too easy to over steer... But at least staging went well. Once again, once I got this module into orbit and close enough to the Lamp Post 2, I jettisoned the launch vehicle and flew her in using RCS only. But with how much RCS the minitugs have, it flew like I had a lifting rocket pushing it around. A bit harder to control and not very good at subtle maneuvering... I did finally get it docked with the Lamp Post 2. But I must say... LAGGY!! So Much lag... With the satellite module and the science vehicle, that is a lot more parts then the last alucnh, and my computer can certainly feel it... After checking on the delta-V numbers, and finding that the alpha version of Kerbal Engineer Redux was having a hard time calculating what was going on with the Lamp Post 2, I kind of guessed. When the Lamp Post 1 reached Dres, it had around 2K delta-V left. I plan on having only a handful of delta-V left when the Lamp Post 2 reaches Dres. So I'm only adding a single fuel tank to the Lamp Post 2 train. I do really like the way the asparagus staging works on the fuel tank launcher. It has 3 stages instead of 2 like my other modules, and they go off in pairs instead of all at once. Stage 1 away... And goodbye stage 2... With stage 3 being all that's left burning, I can circularize the orbit and bring the fuel tank in close for docking. Once the fuel module is close enough, I jettison it's launcher and fly it in under RCS power. Once this is docked, all that is left is to plot the Kerbin exit burn and head for Dres. Lamp Post 2 will be making it's trip to Dres on its own. Lamp Post 3 and Octopus 2 will be flying later, once the last few pieces of this puzzle are pulled together. This includes several more parts for the Dres surface base and some more small rovers. Only other things that will be needed are an asteroid tug and possibly an asteroid lander to try landing an asteroid on Dres. The asteroid won't be going anywhere once landed, if I even attempt this. I don't have any designs in mind for driving one around, let alone even a design to try land the asteroid...

Been a few days hasn't it? Well, got some work done on the mission and have a bit to upload. Stage 4: Lamp Post 2. The Lamp Post 2 is ready for launch, it has the modifications I missed on Lamp Post 1, which is basically just added radiators for the IRSU. This should at least improve it's mining efficiency when processing ores under a high load. Here we can see it on the launch pad ready to lift off. The burn to orbit went about the same as for Lamp Post 1, only difference being I've gotten a little better at launching wobbly rockets. So it didn't take very long to get it up into space, where I could burn for orbit with everything it has. I did end up having to burn some of the Lamp Post 2s fuel to finish circularizing. In fact it was a bit more then I had to burn for Lamp Post 1. So i prepped and launched a quick little refueling craft to top off the Lamp Post 2s tanks. There was not a whole lot to the refueler, just a couple tanks with just liquid fuel in them, some mono propellant and rcs blocks, and a drone core. So the flight to the lamp Post 2 was pretty mundane. Any ways, I snapped a shot of the refueler undocking before I sent the craft into an atmospheric plunge to clean up the orbit space. After refueling, the first craft I sent up was the large science rover I designed for exploring on Dres. This is a pretty big vehicle but doesn't weight very much. The part I ma most proud of through, is the fact that the rover is balanced both left to right, and through it's central axis. This means the rover can be moved in a strait line even while being pulled/pushed vertically. The launch vehicle for the rover has a nice Aero shell to house the rover inside until it reaches orbit. The launcher is an interesting craft using 7 vector engines hooked up to an asparagus staging setup. The vectors all have their gimboling turned down a bit so the rocket doesn't swing around too badly during flight. But ignoring the science behind it, it does give off a nice blue glow when launched. The launch for this vehicle was pretty uneventful. Staging went smoothly, got in a bit of a gravity turn and circularized the orbit of the craft with the central stage. Now that the science rover was in orbit, time to throw around some confetti...I mean jettison the aero shell. It sure makes a mess doing this... I used what fuel was left in the central stage to bring the rover close to the Lamp Post 2. From here I undocked from the launch rocket and used the extra RCS on the science rover to make the rendezvous. Having forgotten to add an RCS block to the back of the science rover was a bit of a pain, but it's sas was enough to hold its direction while maneuvering. And finally, docked with the Lamp Post 2.

Stage 3: Lamp Post 1 refueling. It is time to send the Lamp Post 1 on its refueling run. First step is to simply lower the Lamp Post 1 into a close orbit and look for a promising site. There are a few spots on Dres with good ore concentrations so I looked for one in a nice spot that's directly under the Lamp Post's orbit. Having found a likely spot, I burn the Lamp Post 1 until it is nearly at 0m/s and begin the slow plunge down to the surface of Dres. We'll be descending into the darkness so the pictures may not be the best here. On the way down, I turn on the Lamp Post's landing lights. This is something I did not have for the Jool mission. This makes dark side landings so much easier. And... touchdown! Just like during my Jool mission, the Lamp Post 1 is an easy to land craft that can handle some odd angle landings thanks to it's wide landing stance. This landing was quite flat though. Thank you Dres for having such welcoming terrain. With the sun coming up, and the mining operations under way, I send out Lagertina Kermen, the scientist and Ale aficionado. She surveys the surrounding land, takes some readings from the Lamp Post's science equipment, and checks the mineral content of the ore being mined up before planting a flag for a photo shot. Mining operations will take quite a while to complete due to the voluminous fuel tanks on the Lamp Post 1. So far, the crew has dug up and processed enough fuel to launch a probe to the Mun from Kerbal. But this is merely a drop in the tanks. We've got a lot of mining to do. And while that is going on, I'll be prepping the modules for the Dres surface base and launching Lamp Post 2 with the replacements satellites, a set of mini tugs to fiddle around with parts in orbit, and the two parts of the surface base I have ready to fly.

Well, a bit of updates... The Octopus 1 looked to lonely out there on it's own, so for now, I moved it to and docked it with the Drescapade Station. Something it was designed to do from the beginning. It looks a lot happier waiting there with its friend. As for the satellites, I undocked them all to place them in their designated orbit, only to find that they had no SAS... I had built them based on a design where the probe core had built in sas, forgetting that the core no longer has any reaction wheels... So they are a complete bust, until I can send the fixed version of the satellites out to Dres behind Lamp Post 2. Lamp Post 1 will still be landing on Dres. It has plenty of fuel left to land and start refueling. But I also noticed a flaw in it's design as well... I forgot to add radiators for the IRSU. With 1.0.5, they can over heat and loose efficiency and/or shut down entirely, if no cooling is used on them. But with the way I operate it, 1 drill supplying the IRSU, it will not over heat easily, even running non-stop. So I can still run Lamp Post 1 as is. But Lamp Post 2 and 3 will have a radiator array added. I'll be sending the habitat section, some mini tugs, the fixed satellites, and a science rover to Dres when I bring over Lamp Post 2.

build prototype, place on runway, mine, get results. could always do that before building you main craft. give it a probe core, so you can disembark you kerbal engineer and see if the numbers change.

For a probe. If you planning on scanning, how about an extreme range ion powered surveyor? I call it the Trail Breaker. 13,900 delta-v of long range flight, all from low Kerbin orbit. Launcher included. The probe has both a planet scanner and a narrow band scanner installed so it's good for finding mining sites for your other craft. Long Range Ion Surveyor.

Stage 3: Drescapade Station. Now that everything we need is in orbit of Dres, I can finally put them together to make the Drescapade Station. But first, lets get the Dres Survey under way. To that end, we get the Trail Breaker into a clean polar orbit and activate its scanners. From here we can pinpoint the best landing sites for our refueling craft. So, lets find those Ore deposits. With that out of the way, I separate the modules from the Lamp Post 1 and prepare them for their scheduled missions. This includes preparing the core for the Drescapade Station. After altering it's orbit a bit, the Core is once again reconfigured into it's final form. Some of the parts used for transporting it are jettisoned and the communications array is deployed. Switching to the Octopus 1, I disconnect all but one of the fuel tanks from it and leave it in a parking orbit. The two solar arrays and the other fuel tank are sent of to where the core of the station can catch up with them. The core of the station is able to fairly quickly catch up with the arrays and spare tank allowing me to get them close and dock the parts onto where they are going to be. The Drescapade Station is complete, for now. Switching back to the Octopus 1, I prepare it for its refueling mission, only to find out this craft is stranded. The Octopus 1 only has 190 delta-V remaining. Not enough to go anywhere except for the station. But seeing as there is no fuel at the station there is no real point to do it right now. So for now it waits, restlessly stretching and retracting it's many tentacles in anticipation of being mobile again. Other then that, the satellites still await deployment and the Lamp Post 1 is still in a holding pattern. I'll be sending the Lamp Post 1 down to the surface of Dres on a refueling run, bringing back as much as it can to refuel the stricken Octopus 1. Although I'm not sure how I'm going to perform the refueling due to the lack of MK1 docking ports on the Lamp Post, and the fact that the Octopus does not have a docking port sr.

Stage 2: All the pieces come together. With every ship on their way to their orbital corrections, I can combine this into one go. Starting with the Lamp Post, who somehow got the quickest orbit, I'll be adjust each crafts orbits to match that of Dres and bring them into orbit. The orbital maneuvers are a bit tangled up here so it's hard to see which craft is going where. Ah well, makes it more fun that way. But the first to change orbit is of coarse, the Lamp Post 1. It's full burn for the Lamp Post 1, followed by the Trail Breaker and Octopus 1, as they get lined up to make the final burn to Dres. The changes to how the radiators work really does help a LOT. The engines and radiator still get dangerously hot after a long burn, but now the rest of the craft stays nice and cool. Thanks for those changes Squad, they work great! With the orbital corrections made, the burn to Dres can be plotted. It's going to be the biggest burn to date for this mission. a full 12 minutes. This will be pushing the radiators to their absolute limits. Good thing they work so much better now. The burn goes well and brings the Lamp Post 1 into a close encounter of the Dres kind. The Lamp Post 1, as well as the other two craft, are traveling fast, so this will be a long burn as well. Dropping nearly 1,800 delta-V to bring them into orbit takes some finesse, and a lot of thrust. I performed half the burn right after reaching Dres encounter, this way it was easier to setup and perform the burn needed to circularize. Dropping the delta-V from 1800 down to only 900. So burning for gold, I bring the ship in. Dres, we have arrived! The Octopus 1 will have the same entry profile as the Lamp Post 1. But the Trail Breaker will be coming in over the Poles instead. Both encounters go the same as the Lamp Post 1 so there isn't much point in posting the same thing again. But once these three craft are orbiting Dres, then the fun will begin. For it will be time to assemble the Dres Space Station and setup the satellite orbits for all 8 satellites. So until then. May the Dres be with you.

Stage 2: lamp Post 1 on its way. With the Lamp Post 1 fully loaded there is nothing left to do but launch this puppy! So I plotted a coarse to try and get a Mun gravity assist once again. And what do you know, I can. It's not as nice as the one the Octopus 1 got to use, but beggars can't be choosers. It took a full 7 minutes just to get the Lamp Post 1 turned in the correct direction to start the burn. And here we go. Full burn for kerbin escape! It's not the longest burn I've done before, but with the lamp Post train at 6 modules, the whole thing is as wobbly as a wet spaghetti noodle. So the craft had a hard time holding a strait burn. But the minor deviations off the intended burn direction were not enough to throw it off by to much. So after the full 6min 3sec burn, the final flight path looked as follows. Nothing to do now, but head for the Mun encounter. Along the way, I transferred all the fuel and mono propellant I could out of the read tank, leaving it nearly empty. This way I could undock the solar boom and the rear tank modules and reconfigure the lamp Post 1 to have one less module in it's train. As for the dropped fuel module, I adjusted it's orbit using some of the remaining mono propellant in its tanks and left it in a high parking orbit. Now that the second fuel module is off the train, the Lamp Post is a bit more responsive and a bit less spaghetti like. So I can warp to the Mun encounter and do the fly by that saved me around 400 delta-V in fuel. It's well worth it for that savings in fuel. Not to mention the savings in time. Doing burns with the Lamp Post are a slow process. Hello Mun, thanks for the assist. Now that the encounter is over, the Lamp Post can head out of the system and join the other two craft on their way to their orbital Plain adjustments. It also looks like the Lamp Post 1 is going to beat the Trail Breaker to it's orbital correction by 4 days. Meaning the Octopus 1 is going to be the last to reach this point by 12 days. So, next task is to get the craft to their orbital corrections and then find an encounter with Dres. Stage 3 will begin once all craft are in high orbit of Dres.

Stage 2: Lamp Post 1 communications module, solar array boom, and fuel modules (x2). With the Lamp Post still in orbit, the final bits of payload are readied to be sent up to it, starting with the Communications module. The Launch vehicle for the comms module has a nice aero shell to reduce the drag the module would otherwise produce. Plus it looks good. And with the solid rocket boosters, it's able to reach orbit easily. Although, it also suffers from the inability to make a gravity turn so a less efficient burn is needed. The flight profile is a bit better with this module then with the last few, thankfully, and I am able to angle the launcher over a bit early enough for the gravity turn to at least do something. The boosters separated nicely as well. The rest of the burn to orbit is achieved without any issues, so I'm able to circularize nicely before jettisoning the aero shell. From here it's just a matter of catching up with the Lamp Post 1 and docking. It's easy some might even say. Docking. And in this case, it sure was. The Lamp Post wa sfacing the right way when I got close so I only needed to move in and make the connection. With the comms module docked, I do a quick check of how much delta-V the Lamp Post 1 has and figure I'll need two fuel modules once again. So it's time to launch those up to the craft again. After a redesign of the fuel module launch vehicle, everything looks to be go for launch. The Launcher is a tiny bit wobbly, but not really that bad so the launch goes well. The 4 liquid fuel boosters are all hooked up in pairs with asparagus staging to route the fuel around the craft. So as the first pair of boosters run dry, I jettison them and continue burning for orbit. Dropping the first set of boosters also drops the TWR quite a bit, so the craft starts getting a little tippy for a bit meaning I've got my hands full keeping it going to right direction. But all in all, it flies well to orbit and I snap a shot of the craft just after finishing circularizing the orbit. Once in orbit, I drop the launcher and nose cone and Use RCS to bring the fuel module in close to the Lamp Post 1 for docking. This is followed by the second fuel module, using the same flight profile. But for some reason I end up comming at the Lamp Post from the wrong way. Ah well, can't win them all. Just have to slowly swing around and come at it from the other side. Finally, the last module to send up to the Lamp Post 1 is the solar array boom. This module is very light and I'm able to launch it as a single stage to orbit using just 1 engine and fuel tank. The flight up to orbit is the easiest so far, with the launcher being able to do an actual gravity turn, meaning my circularization burn was tiny. The flight was so simple in fact that I actually had time to get a nice snap shot of the beacon being lit on the end of the module. No clue why it seems so bright... Catching up to the Lamp Post 1 was easy as pie so I was able to get quite close before separating from the launch vehicle. The module is so light, the RCS accelerates it nearly as quickly as some of the other modules lifted off the ground... Docking went fine and the Lamp Post 1 is now ready for its burn out of Kerbin SOI. So until next time I leave you with this picture of the monster I have made.

Stage 2: Science and habitation module and ion satellite module for Lamp Post 1 Well, with the Lamp Post 1 in orbit, it's time to get some cargo up there for it to haul. Namely some more parts for the space station and the cluster of ion satellites that will be placed in Dres orbit. The Science and Habitation module, Sci-Hab for short, is the first to go on the launch pad. This module is simple enough that an aero shell is not really needed. Although in hind sight, giving it a nose cone may have helped. This rocket is fairly simple with a central upper stage and outer solid rocket boosters to get it up into orbit. The Sci-Hab it's self currently houses 6 kerbals and has room for an additional 4 more if needed. The launch went uneventfully with the Sci-Hab launcher burning it's way up to orbit in a fairly inefficient vertical launch. I really need to get these rockets designed so they can handle doing a gravity turn much earlier, instead of having to go vertical until the 20Km mark... After catching up with the Lamp Post, the module is detached from the launcher, and using RCS, makes it way to the rear docking port on the Lamp Post for it's trip to Dres. The ion satellite module is the next cargo piece to be sent up to the Lamp Post. It's launcher has a nice aero shell to house the module for it's trip up into space. this module, once again, doesn't like doing a gravity turn so it also needs an inefficient launch to reach orbit... :\ Dang I need to fix this issue in my cargo rockets... The flight to first stage separation was smooth and the boosters separate correctly. This gave a nice photo opportunity that I actually caught in trying to get the craft into orbit. I've missed quite a few others in this mission series already... Anyways, it's up to a 20km height before starting a partial gravity turn after this. I got the craft into orbit, barely, and blew off the aero shell as well as decoupled the spent launch vehicle. RCS can handle the rest of the rendezvous maneuvers from here. With small puffs from the RCS ports, and several orbits of the planet later, the ion satellite module is finally docked with the Lamp Post, right behind the Sci-Hab module. The Lamp Post is now forming a train once again, and acquiring it's horribly laggy frame rates... But it's to be expected. In other news, both the Trail Breaker probe, and the Octopus 1 tug have left Kerbins SOI and are on their way to make their first orbital corrections to line up for their Dres encounter. It's still in the air as to which craft will reach Dres encounter first. The Trail Breaker is in a cleaner orbit and has more fuel to work with, while the Octopus 1 is traveling faster, thanks to it's Mun gravity assist. This could get interesting very quickly. Ok, not so much interesting as complicated. But I doubt it, both their orbits are good and have no risk of crossing each other.

Stage 2: Lamp Post 1. Now it is time to get the real workhorse of the fleet into orbit to bring the bigger pieces to Dres. It's time for the Lamp Post. The Lamp Post launcher is barely enough to get the craft into orbit and requires burning some of the Lamp Post's fuel just to finish circularizing. It's not a pretty launcher by any stretch of the imagination, but it does make some noise when launched. And the whole launcher uses asparagus staging to keep all the engines lit and fully fueled. The launch rocket needs to fly strait up for quite a bit of it's flight due to the not so favorable aerodynamics of the Lamp Post. And at about 2km up the drop tanks run out, time to jettison those and keep burning. That only raises the TWR by a few points, but that's not the real point of them. 2km in height just burning the fuel from them makes it all worth while. The second stage goes for a lot longer then that. Getting the craft up to 20km before beginning the gravity turn does reduce it's efficiency. And this craft turns like a pig... :\ But needs must. As the craft passes into orbital height of 75km, the second stage finally runs out and needs to be jettisoned as well. This just leaves the third stage and the Lamp Post it's self to provide the final push into orbit. The Lamp Posts engines are kicked on shortly after the second stage separation to give the added oomph needed to circularize. Without them, the third stage alone does not have enough power to do the job, and the Lamp Post its self definitely does not have the kick to reach orbit of kerbin. So with both sets of engines burning the orbit is circularized at an orbit of approximately 76Km x 76Km. The last few corrective burns being done solely using the Lamp Post, after jettisoning the third and final stage of the launch vehicle. It's good to have the Lamp Post in orbit of Kerbin again. Now it's time to load it up with the modules it needs to build the Dres space station and deploy the satellites that will keep the planet under constant surveillance.

You could also go with a design like this: The tug has a TWR of 0.55 in Kerbin's gravity meaning it can land on places like Vall, Moho, Dres, and even Duna. It's got 4,600m/s delta-v by it's self, and can have it's range extended simply be trailing more fuel tanks behind it. It's a design based on suggestions and tips from Rune. This little guy may not be able to effectively pull the 64 tons behind it, but if it's scaled up to 6 engines, with it's stance widened a bit, it should be able to handle that much cargo weight easily. Although, this type of craft works best if refueled on site. But with it's TWR, it can undock from the cargo train, drop down to the surface of the world of choice, preferably a moon, refuels using it's ISRU, fly back up with it's tanks full and refuel the train, only needing to do a few trips to top it all off and go to it's next destination.