Hotel26

In the Spamming Moho Dept.: On Moho, Mission Control had recently pressed HA2 Atlas ("moHo Atlas 2nd") into service, relieving HG1 Goblin of duty. HG1 descended back to the surface and fueled up; then went idle to await "further instructions". Then news of the impending arrival of (ehm, "forgotten") HA3 Atlas was received and the capture situation looked like a nail-biter. The boffins in Mission Control deployed slide rules and confirmed, "sorry, Gene, we're 205 m/s short". Not willing to let such a huge(ly expensive) piece of equipment slip through his fingers, Gene set the trajectory boys to work with a very stern, "no time to waste, guys!". This is what they came up with: Let's see how this works out...

One thing to note about landmarks, @Akagi, is that certain (smallish) features vary from user to user depending upon Terrain Detail Settings. This lake may be bigger or just a patch of dirt for others. (The mountains in the background help, as Natalorf was able to identify those from the general search area. She did report a likely lake location, but quite a lot larger than yours. Same general shape.) In general, for beginners, it's a good thing to first go exploring and find the landmarks that others have posted and have been successfully discovered by explorers. But nevertheless, if you don't get a successful discovery for this one, do have a whack at posting another one!

Yes. See my signature and you may R-click it and Copy Image Link to get the link. By posting this challenge, you are qualified (as I remember Ye Ancient Law)... Exploration Units have been scrambled. (Natalorf drew the short straw this very early morning.)

Another milestone. (= "moah champagne in Mission Control"). My first (ever) mining rig to land in the Jolian system (Vall, to be precise): The first fuel load back to space has been ear-marked to bring VX1 Nova (space station) down from 90x90km to a 10x10 km orbit. "Looking good, Mission Control". Later that evening... VG2 Goblin, steering VX1 Nova into LVO.

Congratulations and well done!! I can honestly say that my biggest-ever thrill in KSP was my first successful dock. (Now that you've done that, I earnestly recommend the NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicatorCE aid to you. It's a very effective instrument.)

I'm taking a close look at it now. Stay tuned for some feedback.

Atlas has finally landed! It's mining 3.47/4.24 kal/sec LF/OX respectively. It should fill in about 22 hours... although it is slipping down this hill slope now at 0.5 m/s. Slightly concerning.

Very interesting topic. Some thoughts: Kerbal Konstructs has a kind of airport direction aid ("Landing Guide") but it's not set up for ILS and would not be satisfying to IRL pilots. If there were some kind of Navigation Aid Definition standard (of a kind of "config file" kind that multiple mods could conform to), I'd be very willing to augment my airports with definition files. I have been interested myself in building a rudimentary mod to support enroute and approach navigation but I wouldn't have the skill to do anything IVA (hence #2, which would open things up to modders to use a common "backbone"). I do use Atmospheric Autopilot to enter coords for an IAF (Initial Approach Fix) to approximate the flavor of an instrument approach (typically VOR). (Sometimes pointing the camera skyward to simulate zero visibility as I fly the approach to "minimums".)

Outstanding and inspiring!

If you're not already using them, ejection SRBs can be helpful. (E.g. Sepatrons and even Fleas.) They only need to nudge a discard in the right direction.

Know how you feel; particularly on ascent. Part of my launch checklist (including from the surface of moons) is [V] to select Free mode. This isn't the most annoying thing in KSP.

Oh boy. Bulldozers. Tanks. Gargantuan launchpads...

[click + arrow => slideshow] A lonely ORB has been eking out a living mining/refining fuel on the surface of Moho. A Mule is mounted atop, receiving the precious fluids to take back to space, but it can carry only a limited amount of OX. Finally, a larger, Goblin miner (left-hand) has arrived in a 45-degree incline with only 3% fuel remaining by the time it finds and docks with HXZ6 Zenith space station (such as it is, middle-hand, pictured with an older model Mule, right-hand). The space station has only enough fuel to make a Goblin landing "risky". Space Command decides to make an exception and "dot 'I's and cross 'X's", this time. We wait... Meanwhile, a much larger-scale Atlas miner lurks above Moho, in a strange and quarky, left-hand orbit... A Spider has gone out to attempt a vain retrieval but everything now hinges upon the Goblin.. Nevertheless, Space Command is (literally) drinking champagne as we type this. Fingers "dotted and crossed"...

In the "You Can't Win Them All Department"... Just ending a 3-day long weekend which -- although it was far from enjoyable -- has finished OK (I hope). Following a behind-the-scenes module update(???) on Feb23rd, scene changes and quick saves were crashing with little evidence in the log except sometimes normal log messages "Saving Achievement Tree". Nothing to identify a culprit. (I've been working on this "world" since January 2018 (4 years), so you can imagine my life has been flashing before my eyes. Ouch.) I've been wrestling with this all weekend and, after doing lots of system maintenance, it's all suddenly come good: which is entirely consistent with some transient, erroneous mod update. Not much point in posting this except that if anyone else out there chimes in "me too", I know I will feel better. Call that the "Misery Loves Company Department". Or the "All's Well That Ends Well Department".

Happy ending. Module Manager has straightened things out for me now...

No doubt nothing was obvious and people found out the hard way after a lot of trial & error. I can guarantee you one thing, though: "the very first person who suggested 'medium-rare' got burned at the steak for his bloody suggestion...". But nowadays, all gourmets know this is the right way. So it goes with invention: only the last inventor of a valuable concept lives to get credit for it.

A complicated scene ... and the work of the last few days: [click + arrows => slideshow] I had just launched a couple of High Energy Transfers to Duna while simultaneously commencing exploring & mining operations on that planet; when I thought it might be nice to send a brace of Shuttlecocks to see how they perform on the red planet (despite that requiring the single NERV engine to operate well enough in 20% atmosphere)... I discovered the Shuttlecocks were not stackable, but hit on the idea of sending up an Asterisk space station hub to mount five of them. After refueling all those at my KX2 Pole Star space station, I've assembled the Asterisk/Shuttlecocks with an Escort transfer injection booster and we are Go for launch.

Doubleplusgood.

Ha ha! Nice try and bully for you. +1 KSC Command Airfield Protocol clearly states that the specific purpose of R6-24 is for "aircraft carrier landing practice". You, sir, are a barnstormer! You might also like R15-33, in front of the SPH doors... (I sometimes (try to) use it after a long day flying when I can't be pooped to taxi any great distance.)

R6 is a pretty unforgiving runway at KSC. Congratulations for giving it a go!! (Unless of course this was an attempted R9-27 landing gone awry and this is just where the airplane finished its extra-curricular tour! In which case also, "well done".) I wasn't going to post this (code-named Anion), but since I am here... 04:01 from KSC to Minmus flats. Shaved that down to just 2h back, meaning the round trip could be done in a total of 4h.

FWIW, the default shift-translate limit appears to be 20m, node to node.

I am laying the keel for a slightly bigger aircraft carrier in the SPH. In the image below,the center of the green plate you see is just above the root node. I am attempting to slide the Blue Axis of the Shift-Gizmo a little further toward the back of the hangar but hitting a limit. (I can slide it left and back but no further right in the view.) Is there a configurable limit I might be running into? I cannot see anything applicable in the settings.cfg... I'm quite accustomed to sliding the root node around to shift the whole craft within the hangar so that I can work at the edges. And I'm not ready to install a mod, (e.g. Hangar Extended). Any advice will be appreciated!

This is Pizzicato Due, cleared for take-off on KSC R9, Group Captain R. Kerman and Flight Lieutenant K. Kerman at the controls. Kerman will take the lead, acting as combat instructor. [Click + arrows = slideshow] Kurt's job is to regain and maintain formation once 5km altitude has been attained. Quite hard work really... Pretty close now! Hands sweating inside the gloves making the controls a little bit slippery. Kurt made a little discovery during the flight. Setting his Atmospheric Autopilot to 200 knots, heading 090 and 5km altitude made things a lot easier. And, si, Atmospheric Autopilot is most happy to run two instances airplanes simultaneously. (I'd been thinking about aircraft carriers all day and wondered what the point of them is unless you can launch a whole squadron. Then, of course, you have to know how to fly them in formation to the target. Which leads to the little puzzle of how to launch multiple planes...) (And, yeah, I'm sure there's a mod for it...) (Half an hour later and I'm having some intense feeling of deja vu, like I've done this some time long ago. Oh well, "twice the enjoyment".)

1x NERV for prograde propulsion 1x Terrier for SAS Sfc Radial Out for very brief lift-off/touch-down assist 1x XL chute for final descent 4x Mk12-R drag chutes for final approach (these should probably be Mk2-Rs...) It can pinpoint a landing on the Duna surface and handily go back to orbit. And that Duna thing where you can twist the attitude and point where you like but the atmosphere studiously feigns to ignore your pitiful efforts... Lots of aforethought in planning, challenging to fly, but most rewarding!

Learning to fly Batwing Mk2 on Duna. It's easier now that I've earned how to pack the chutes properly... It launches upon an Archer Tomcat that will send it all the way to the surface of Duna. Works on Ike, too!