VincentMcConnell

During a trip out of the Solar System, Kerbals traveled for 10 years and found a new planet, far away in another Galaxy called 'The Milkyway'. This planet seems to be in the correct place to support life, although the Kerbals are not sure if it will support intelligent life or not. Interestingly, the planet seems to be only slightly larger than eleven times Kerbin\'s size and has its own Mun in orbit. The newly discovered IL-543 is only slightly less dense than Kerbin, leading the Kerbals to believe that a gravity roughly identical to Kerbin\'s is present and holds an atmosphere slightly thinner. Future missions will be planned to land somewhere among the large land masses of IL-543 to attempt a search for life, no matter how evolved it may be.

Are you actually going to release any of this, or just tease us?

It sure is a nice planet from up above. Can\'t wait for clouds!

That\'s a great idea... Something like this:

Wow! Reading the first few posts on this thread is really interesting! Especially seeing that image that is currently the loading screen... Before it was the loading screen. What was the loading screen like before that?

Yeah, we\'re all kind of disappointed about some aspects of the Lunar Surface. I think what would be nice is a surface like last time but with a terrain generator that makes everything high quality even from high orbits. Kerbin\'s surface is PERFECT.

Images from Kerbin Orbit of my SIVB stage drifting away.

haha Yes. I do agree. Landings seem very easy. On the old engine, we used to have to do a lot of piloting during final approach to avoid mountains, hills, ridges etc. Now as soon as you come down, you\'re just in an open plain with some boulders.

So I wasn\'t so impressed with the Munar Surface in all the pictures that were released. I do like it from orbit, though! No tiles and whatnot. I decided to take a LEM down to land and see the surface for myself. I picked the Sea of Instability for my landing site and burned into my Powered Descent. First off, I did like how tall the mountains were. It required a 30KM orbit to feel nice and safe while in the orbital phase of my mission. As I neared the ground, I saw all the boulders and all was going well. Touchdown occurred with about 2 m/s of velocity and was one of the smoothest touchdowns I have ever had. Engine shut down. Here\'s my landing site: Anyway, my suggestion: Is it possible that the Dev\'s can go back to having the Maria Regions as dark as before, with the same smooth terrain, yet have the lunar surface look cratered and ridgy like it used to? The whole place is pretty much uniform color now and the ground looks like gray sand with sparkles in it... EDIT I have since began the return back to Kerbin, having left nothing on the Mun. No descent stages, no debris. Just the shallow imprints of the footpads that once made history for the Kerbals of Kerbin. Ok, but seriously... Enough dramatic story-telling aside, here is a photo of my descent stage separating as I return to Kerbin.

What??

All struts and fuel lines instantly detach as soon as they are separated from the main rocket.

Apollo 12 much?

Exactly. That\'s how I feel. The Mun is great and all, and I\'ve landed countless times, but since 14.2 came out, I haven\'t landed on the Mun. Partly because I\'m not a fan of the new lunar surface up close, and partly because... Been there, done that.

Yes, I know. My post specifies that we\'ll have to wait until they\'re almost lined up. The exact degree... I don\'t know, because Mars isn\'t in the game yet. To be honest, I\'m kind of waiting for Mars. KSP needs to have some more planets or it will continue to get more dull.

This is a really cool thread. Honestly, the arctic surface looks cooler than the Mun at this point. Count me in. Just booted up my game for a mission.

So it\'s no secret that someday, this game will include the solar system. With some simple orbital mechanics, most of us know how to get to the mun and land on it. While drawing up diagrams on how I thought I might make it to Mars, I realized that it will be more difficult than previously believed. The mun orbits Kerbin. You can make Trans-Lunar Injection from just about anywhere on Kerbin, as long as the Mun is in the right spot, but with Mars, this will NOT be the case. The situation will be much different, in the sense that Mars will be orbiting Kerbol, not Kerbin. We have probably about a 100 degree wedge in which Mars will even be in an okay place to shot for it. I\'d have to measure the exact orbit, and of course, I can\'t, because they game doesn\'t have Mars yet. I have a couple of ideas that may work and I wanted to get some feedback. I have decided that the best way to treat the Martian missions will be like a rendezvous situation! Really, how much different could it be than that? Think of it this way. Kerbol is Kerbin, Kerbin is our docking vehicle and Mars is our target vehicle. Our ship simply represents the transfer. I was thinking that we could use a parking orbit around Kerbin, wait until Mars is directly in front of us and shoot outward, away from Kerbin at around 20 degrees. Mars will orbit slower than the Mun so there will be times when Martian missions will be ideal -- when the two planets are almost lined up. Of course, this does result in the question: How do we get back? I don\'t know. And that\'s what I\'m working on. My second idea is slightly more dangerous. It is to shoot straight away from Kerbin until we break into a Solar orbit. Then, from there, we use a Hohmann transfer to get our orbit around the Sun to be just a few hundred kilometers short of Mars\'s orbit and then wait several orbits until we meet up. This, of course, will take forever, and we\'d have to shoot at the right time to be closest to Mars. If anyone thinks of any other methods, draws any diagrams etc. Please post here.

I made transit from Kerbin Orbit to Munar orbit in 3.5 hours while in video production, playing KSP. It was the fastest I\'d ever done it and I\'m not even sure how it happened..

Kerbal Space Program - Transposition and Docking Sequence.

Sorry about that! I totally forgot I was quoting an image. Fixed now.

Cool rocket launch!

Lunar orbit. This is from 50KM up, so it\'s quite obvious how well the surface is textured from a distance. I\'m not too happy with the lunar surface, honestly. The rocks are cool, but the actually regolith itself has lost all the little zap pits and ridges and craters that it used to have. Aside from that, it looks really good.

Hey, just stumbled upon this thread. Thanks for mapping my crater. Actually, McConnell crater was arbitrarily picked while still in orbit. Then I made the landing there and found that the ground actually wasn\'t too bad of a landing site. Very cool that you did this. I\'d like to do something similar for a mountain I named after my dog on the near side.

That can\'t be Kerbin rise... You\'re on a fixed point of the Mun and because it\'s tidally locked, you\'ll never see it rise up while on the surface....

I would gladly work as both a tester and someone who writes summaries on what I experienced during that session. It\'s much like a post-flight briefing or an after action report in combat. I have no issues with that idea.

I\'d like to be a tester, please, if you still have a slot open!