Clipperride

Have you visited the Pole before? I ask as, on the Mun at least, the terrain (is that the right word when talking about the Mun?) got brutal! I think it's due to the way the game wraps the surface around celestial bodies. Slopes over 45° become more about avoiding collisions rather than actual driving! Looking forward to the next installment and hope you're feeling better too.

There was some exciting news from the Space Launch Complex today. The Large Mun Rover has been given the go ahead, with testing already underway. I like to base my larger rovers around a Cupola and Science Lab. Add some wheels, batteries, science stuff, communications, solar panels and a landing system and it's done! The main problem is with the CoM. The Rover design tries to push the CoM as low as possible, which causes problems when you add it to the top of a launch vechile. I've been experimenting with offsetting the Separator between the Rover and Lander and conducting a simple test. Adding a small girder to the underside of the Separator and sending it, vertically, out to the launch pad, it's soon very apparent if everything is in line. If not, the whole thing topples over, showing you in which direction you need to move the attachment point. I'm almost there, but it's late and it can wait until tomorrow - when we hope to bring you pictures.

Those are certainly some "high visibility" rockets and rovers you have there! It's good to see a mission log that covers such a long period of (rl) time.

Yey! Nice to see a fellow PS4 KSPer submitting their mission reports. I look forward to seeing more.

Looking good for a circumnavigation, just keep on trucking! It seems that ~40km is near the maximum distance you can keep focused while driving over challenging ground. It's the same distance I choose when I was on my own Munar Marathon, a year or so ago. Hope you keep up with the Mission Reports. Map from Munar Marathon (most flags are 40km apart)

With the recent focus on building and testing Space Plane's, the R&D department has been rather starved of new science data to work on. In an effort to help unlock the last few, rather expensive Tech Tree Nodes, we have been working on conducting further experiments. Following the success of the Minmus Orbital Lab, it was decided to send a similar facility to Low Mun Orbit. In an attempt to be slightly more mindful of the Kerbal tax Roots the space program has been sucking up, a light weight lander was included as part of the launch. The lander will descend to the Mun, conduct experiments and return to the lab for data processing. On The Launch Pad Testing Shroud Jettison Solar Panels & Communication Dishes Deployed The Lab In Orbit (After the lander has repositioned)

First thing to remember - Docking is hard to master, but well worth the time. Just a note on the placement of your RCS thrusters if you don't have any mods installed. In the VAB, detach anything below the stage(s) that are going to be left when you dock. Reduce the propellant to approximately the amount you will have remaining when you dock. Experience helps here, or you can run a "simulated" mission (fly the mission, get the two vessels close together, then hit "revert") Turn on the overlay, place a ladder as close as possible to the CoM and extend the ladder. You can now position your first set of thrusters, rotate the ladder through 90° and place the second set the same distance from the CoM, using the ladder as a ruler! Having a well balanced RCS system reduces the amount of rotation induced from translations.

There has been less activity around the Space Launch Complex this weekend due to the outbreak of a particularly virulent plague (I've had a bit of a sniffle!). Jeb did find time to test fly the hastily constructed MK3 jet liner. As you can see, Jeb may have pulled back on the yoke just a little too hard and was heard to ask, "Did anyone hear that 'clunk' from the backend on take-off?" In other news, another Generic Lander was dispatched, this time to the Minmus Poles in an effort to restart the flagging R&D advances and plans are afoot for the Mun Orbital Laboratory.

After the successful test flight of "Lill Bug", some small adjustments were made to make a longer flight possible. The front MkII to 1.25m adapter fuel tank was replaced with the longer variant, a liquid fuel drop tank was added to the cockpit roof and the launch sledge was upgraded with a second SRB. Lill Bug Heavy On The Runway. The drop tank provides fuel to the Rapier engine during its air breathing ascent up to ~25,000m. As soon as the switch is made to "closed cycle", the roof tank is jettisoned for the last push to an altitude above 70km. For this flight the small cargo bay was equipped with a TR-18D Stack Separator attached to a FL-T200 + FL-T100 Fuel Tank combination. The flight plan called for Jeb, along with his preferred engineer Bill, to achieve orbit, demonstrate a few maneuvers and then return to the Space Launch Complex. However Jeb had other ideas...........

Not in career mode, but I'm pretty close in Science Mode. To get around the game forgetting which nodes you have just unlocked when you have spent Science Points, I've found a workaround. Enter the R&D building and spend the points, exit and then immediately re-enter. That way the game seems to update the available parts properly.

I'm not sure if this counts as a bug, or a design issue, but tonight I found its possible to get stuck in the Space Plane Hanger. If you are in flight and choose the "Revert to Hanger" command )from the menu you access from the Options button) the game will often revert the craft back to the runway and then place you in the SPH. When you then select "Launch" from the same menu, you will get a dialogue box saying there is already a plane on the runway, along with 2 options. "X" to clear the runway and proceed or "Circle" to abort the launch. All works fine if you have the parts displayed on the left hand side of the screen however, if you have switched from "parts" to "assign action groups" neither the "X" or "Circle" will work. In this situation, you can't switch to Cursor Mode and there seems no way to dismiss the dialogue box or do anything other than move about the action groups. The only way I could find to solve the problem was to press the PS button, close the game and then restart. I haven't had the chance to try the same process in the VAB.

Another swift answer from @bewing thanks! As you say, you only really need to use Force Node Attachment once in a while (for me, only when placing something inside the MkII cargo bay). The radial control setup does a pretty good job of mapping the most used keyboard shortcuts, so I'd not tried the Simplified version. I'm also pleased that they've included "gear up" and "toggle brakes" without needing to access the radial menu.

It can be tricky, when trying to attach something to the nodes inside a cargo bay, to get everything to line up properly, so it attaches to the node rather than the side of the cargo bay. When playing on PC you can hit a key that ensures the part you are adding will only attach to an open node. Is there a similar feature on the console (specifically PS4 for me) version?

The famous phrase coined by Gene Kranz (Mission Controller at NASA during the Apollo mission's - but with your interest I'm sure you knew that!) was "Failure is not an option". When it comes to KSP, not only is failure a sure thing, it is also a great teacher. As others have said, the learning curve with this game is pretty steep, but the rewards when things go well are all the greater for it. My advice to a new player? Science Mode. Sandbox mode can be very daunting as there are so many parts available and Career mode requires you to make a profit from your launches in order to fund further flights. Science mode is the happy medium between the two. You unlock new parts to experiment with, at a steady pace but without the financial worries. It sounds like you are doing the right thing with the videos and tutorials. If you find anything particular that you struggle with, you're sure to get some help on this forum.

Congratulations on getting this monster into space!

Hehe @Geschosskopf - the newer version accelerates the plane to close to Mach 1 by the end of the runway! Makes taking off from an aircraft carrier look like child's play.

Today saw the return of scientists Mitmin and Hedbo after a 173 day stint on the Minmus Orbital Laboratory. Their replacements, Johnfry and Nedbo are now working hard, generating valuable science data for Kerbalkind. In other news, the development of the Rapier engine saw the first in a new class of space plane undergo initial testing. "Lill Bug", named for it's rather diminutive size, uses a novel launch system which is designed to help the Rapier engine reach optimal speed as soon as possible. Once again the Jeb family sponsored the flight, although Jeb himself was unavailable to take command. Val did a wonderful job of the single orbit mission and was the first Kerbal to land her space plane back on the Launch Complex runaway. And

Sounds interesting! Have you read the Lunar Exploration Scrapbook ? It's got some good illustrations of the various proposed variants. Once again, keep up the good work!

I love the look of the Landers. Plus, they are very much based on designs discussed during the Apollo mission's, when it was thought that at least a couple of Saturn Vs would be built & launched per year throughout the 1970's. Using the descent stage design that was actually used during the landings, there were various ideas for replacing the ascent stage that we've all seen, with other versions - eg longer duration living quarters, a science lab, large rover or a cargo version. As none of these configurations were meant to leave the Moon's surface, the weight of the ascent engine and fuel would have been replaced by other supplies. A double launch would have taken the CSM+LEM on one rocket (which would have operated just as it did on the actual lunar missions) with a second carrying one or more of the other variants. (With no command module required on the second launch vehicle, it was thought 2 additional Landers could be sent and automatically landed at a suitable site, chosen by the astronauts) Keep up the good work! Additional: the only one of the many planned versions to actually get built (well, sort of) was the Apollo Telescope Mount which was used on Skylab.

Not too much to report today. The focus has been on gaining more science data to help the R&D people in their search for ever more powerful stuff equipment. This has been achieved with further Mun landings as well as the continuing work of the Minmus Orbital Lab. With over 1000 points to spend on research, there was much discussion about whether to go for some heavy lift rocket engines and tank or the Rapier engine. Taking note of the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy, which grouped 27 smaller engines, it was decided that the immediate lifting needs could be met by "strapping on more motors!", so the Rapier was researched and developed. The first flight of the new jet was a resounding success, with a single orbit of Kerbin and a landing that was within a short drive of the launch complex. Despite his ongoing disciplinary hearing, Jeb was allowed to take control - mainly due to a sponsorship deal with his family's junk yard. Next will be a crew rotation mission to release the crew of the Orbital Lab - after more than 150 days in space.

Now that Extension 3 is in place at the Minmus Orbital Lab (see image below) it was time to free up the two docking ports that had played host to Extension 1 (Solar Panels) and Extension 2 (Communication Dishes) As the automated probes had been drained of fuel, they both used the RCS thrusters to move to safe distance. Mission Control decided to see if the probes could be brought down to the surface of Minmus, using just the RCS thrusters and the remaining Monopropellant. Extension 1 ran out of fuel just a couple of metres from the ground, but thanks to the weak gravity, it survived the drop. Things were looking good with the second landing attempt however, at around 2,000m the probe core lost line of sight with the relay satilite and all attempts to reconnect with the probe were to no avail. A small crater now marks the final resting place of this mission.

I wonder if playing on a laptop that was only just able to run KSP made a difference when docking? When playing on the aged laptop, as soon as the game needed to render the station as well as the docking vessel, the timer would always be yellow rather than green - and would already be yellow if the visiting craft was of any real size. So, basically, I was often playing in "slow motion" with 1 second on the MET being around 1½ seconds in real time (I checked it against my watch a couple of times!). I think that could have made docking more forgiving when approaching at 2 or 3m/s. I will be making all my final phases of docking slower in future. Stay tuned to discover the reason behind Jeb's recent disruptive behaviour!

Just a quick update tonight (one issue with playing KSP on console is access to the TV, when others want to watch something!) I realised something was missing from the Minmus Orbital Lab. There is no spare room for shuffling Kerbals about when changing crews, unless you leave them hanging about in space. As the original crew were starting to gibber and drool uncontrollably, I thought it was about time to address the issue. Based around the PPD-10 Hitchhiker Storage Container, a robotic supply vessel was dispatched to fill this need. The first attempt was fatally flawed due to a lack of reaction control wheels. This meant firing the RCS thrusters to position the ship during the final phase of docking. As this can often lead to some residual velocity (especially if you haven't placed the thrusters in quite the right place) the whole thing bounced about and eventually damaged the station. After this simulation (ie I reverted to the VAB) some beefy looking giros were retrofitted and we tried again. Docking seems a little trickier on console than I remember it being on PC. I'm used to lining up and approaching at 2-3m/s until the magnets around the docking port are close enough to do their job. I tried this approach a couple of times, but bounced back each time. Slowing the final approach to just 1 m/s seems to be what was needed and the habitation facility (aptly named Extension 3) is now in place. I also added an upgraded communication dish and some of the largest solar panels, which means Extensions 1 & 2 are now redundant and can be drained of their propellant and cut loose. The advantage will be, with only one of the four docking ports now taken up with Extension 3, returning Landers and resupply missions will have a better chance of one of the ports being in a suitable position without too much faffing about. Pictures to follow.......

Thank you @Geschosskopf . Whilst it's easy to take screenshots on the PS4, it took me a little while to work out how to get them onto my tablet and then onto the forum. I now send them to a friend via PS Messenger (who doesn't play KSP, but he's kind enough to put up with multiple pics being sent to his account) then I use the Messenger app on my tablet to save the images. After that I can upload to Imgur and post here as normal. PS you have to love autostrut for this "unconventional" builds!

This weekend has seen some controversy at the space port after Jeb's Media Agent released the following picture to the Kerbal Associated Press Corp. It was issued along with a statement claiming Jeb and his machanic Bill has flown to space and back in the programs first jet powered space plane. Although not quite capable of orbital flight, the image clearly shows the pair at an altitude of over 113,000m which is indeed above the internationally agreed 70km mark, where space is officially said to begin. However, several Kerbals took to social media to question the authenticity of the claim. Close examination of the vessel shows it is powered by two J-X4 "Whiplash" Turbo Ramjet Engines. Critics were quick to point out that these engines will cut out due to the lack of oxygen at around 26,000m and their thrust drops to 0KN by Mach 5. Further doubts on the facts as Jeb told them surfaced once the picture was enlarged. Three stubs on the wingtips looked suspiciously like the remnants of the TT-38K Radial Decoupler, suggesting the use of additional propulsion. The whole thing came to a head on Sunday when a second picture from the flight was made public. It was taken by a member of the ground crew on their mobile phone and clearly shows two BACC " Thumper" Solid Fuel Booster attached to the wingtips! A flight plan, seen by this reporter, indicates that the Whiplash engines were used up to to an altitude of 26,000m and then the Thumpers boosted the speed and altitude making the original image possible. Jeb was unavailable for comment when I reached out to him earlier today.