Zosma Procyon

I pulled off a safe landing on the water with the next test. I'm going to keep tinkering.

I built my second flying base experiment, and it has way more thrust than I need for my proposed seaplane base on Laythe. I've never used these engines before, so the flames were surprising. Despite the massive wings, the takeoff velocity is still around 100 m/s. I'm not sure I could get a seaplane up to that velocity in the water. And i've never tried to land an airplane. I like rockets, but Laythe has a lot of science to get in the air. Anyway this plane I slapped together in 20 minutes topped out around 1300 m/s at 14,000 m. Score! Oh the engines are on top of the wings because I'm a real aerospace engineer, and in the real world there are aerodynamic benefits to that. I also love the Honda Jet.

Do the mobile science labs float? And if they do, how much of them sticks above the water? I'm not at my home computer and will not be able to test this for some time. If someone could drop a lab in the sea and post a screenshot, that would be great. Also, could you take a similar length of the new structural tubing of the same diameter as the lab, capped by "Rockomax Brand Adapters 02s" at both ends, that would also be great. I strongly considering sending a sea plane base out to Laythe, but I am not sure how to build a craft carrying the required (for me) two science labs. But if I can use the labs as part of the floats, might be easier. I already know I'll need to build massive wings and between 4 and 8 jet engines (depending on the model I use). So if anyone isn't doing anything (I'm ADD-ing in a lecture on the basics of MS Word), some you mind dropping some things in the water for me?

I realize I'm rather late to the party, but I have been using what I think is a clever way to trick the game into allowing multiple attachment points in my mobile ground bases for some time. The trick is to hide docking ports inside the parts you want to attach. Put one port on each face/end/surface you wish to connect, and use the offset tool to slide one of them back into the part it is attached to. The two smaller sized docking ports work best for this. Now the tricky part is to position the docking ports so that they just barely touch each, so that as soon as the craft spawns they dock. To do this you have to zoom way into the part with the port offset inside it, so you're actually looking beneath the rendered skin of said part. It might be helpful to offset the entire craft off the vertical axis of the VAB, since the game will only zoom in so close to said axis. Then select the offset tool, and select the port you tucked inside the part/ This can be very tricking, usually takes me a few attempts. Once you have it selected, offset it to be in the proper position right up against the other port. The ports should NOT overlap or have a perceptible distance between them. On the outside of the craft, it should just look like the parts the ports are connecting are just attached to each other, as the ports are tucked inside one of them. If I were currently at my own computer, I'd provide you with picture demos. When you have all the ports set up, you should send it to the launch pad, zoom in on the part with the docking ports hidden inside it, and see if the ports are docking as desired. The newish "aim camera" option when you right click on a part in game play makes this easier. Whenever i'm designing a craft, I always have the "part clipping" "cheat" turned on. I'm not sure if that is required to make this trick work. Also in some craft designs, like ring shaped space stations where some larger components overlap, the "unbreakable joints" cheat seems to be required if the final craft using this trick is sitting in a gravity well (i.e. on the launch pad). I don't know if that's because the ports are tucked inside of larger components, or because the method I use to construct ring stations involves overlapping larger components (like fuel tanks and hitchhikers). when sitting in the free fall of space, no cheats are needed to hold these stations together. Lastly, if you haven't already you should go into the game settings and enable "Advanced Tweakables", so you have access to the "rigid connection" and "autostruct" features. You want the hidden docking ports to be rigidly connected to their mother parts, and this trick seems to work better when the ports are also autostructed. I used to autostruct them to different parts, one to the root part (usually a cockpit module or medium sized fuel tank) and the other docking port to the heaviest part; but I'm not sure that made a difference. And it might have contributed to the deadly "ground vehicle shimmy of death" or summoning the Kraken in the case of my space stations. More experimentation is needed. I've tested the strategy extensively, including in a huge mobile ground base on Eve, and it seems to work beautifully. In fact in a few destructive tests when i've deliberately crashed my creations, often the two parts the ports are connecting will remain connected even after breaking off their own parent parts. I hope this finds you well.

For the first time in I think 145 in game years, I built an airplane. I'm thinking of sending a sea plane base out to Laythe, so wanted to see what it took to get the requisite two science labs and full science suit off the ground. Turns out its quite a bit of wings and probably more thrust than I used today. I think using big sections of structural tubing for the floats will work to keep the weight down, but obviously a lot more experimentation is needed. To end the test I crashed it. I'm not confident I could actually land.

I made this for a base contract on Vall. I had a long, boring, annoying, expensive day waiting for my car to get serviced, came home in a bad mood, and made this. I like it and I'm going to use it. It has VTOL capability, mainly so it can hop up a few meters and get data from flying over biomes.

I experimented with this new design for a mobile base for a contract on Vall, but I'm having some trouble with those giant wheels. I very much want to use them, but in a straight line I can't get this thing to accelerate past 13 m/s. But if I hold a turn key, it will accelerate past 40 m/s in a spiral, and then roll. Anyone have any idea why? Anyway in the VAB I was struct by how small and adorable the Kerbals are.

Self explanatory. When "Advanced Tweakables" are engages, give players the option to disable staging on engines. Should be a small coding change. Also make it possible to change action groups on the fly, while using a craft. There are mods that do this I'm told, but it would be better if that was built into the game.

Yeah I figured that out for myself about minute after I posted. Thank you very much, though.

I just landed a boat on Laythe yesterday and drove it into its natural habitat tonight, the water, but whenever I use science instruments, the results say I'm still in Laythe's Shore biome. How far off shore do have to go before I can get data from Laythe's water biomes, or do you have to be flying to get that data?

Question? What are the odds of landing on land when your aiming for water...on Laythe? They're obviously pretty high because that's what I just did. I was trying to land in the water between two islands, but I overcooked my deceleration burn and ended up parachuting onto one of them. I filmed the entire landing, and will edit that and put it to a song I really like whenever my schedule permits. Here are some screen caps after the landing. A low ranking scientist was sent out to test the air. Here he is planting my flag. Here it is from the front. Having successfully landed, I granted this mobile base a name: Vespucci. Named for the first European to realize that the Americas were not in act part of East Asia. Oh and here is a bit of a punchline: This mobile base is a boat. I accidentally landed a boat base on an island, on Laythe. Landing on land is fine, since I intentionally launched it with empty fuel tanks to save weight. I left just enough fuel for a short cruise to a nearby land mass where it would mine and refine liquid propellant.

I got Screenflick2 and started a Youtube channel. Mostly because I have a boat base almost at Laythe, might land it tomorrow. Hear is my first clip. Revetting film.

I'll try it. You know what's more boring than driving on Duna? Driving on Tylo! At least Duna has a nice color scheme. One of my favorite creations just arrived at Eeloo. It's a rescue craft picking up two castaways and a shipwreck. NERVs look so much more impressive than they actually are.

Over the last 2 days I drove one of my mobile bases down the South Western Canyon of Duna. It was a long, boring, drive. FINALLY got down to the MIdland Sea.

I could watch that for minutes.

Because I didn't think of that when I was designing it. I've sent a second generation science rover to Tylo that maintains VTOL capability. After gathering 44 pieces of data, at least half of which I expect to be worth processing, I'm driving my Duna Science Rover back to my base (Arrakis Base) in the middle of the South Eastern Basin.

Helicopter 1?

I landed the creatively named "Duna Science Rover" (I know, i'm a creative genius) near my "Arrakis Base" on Duna, to go get more science for the depleted labs. Science is a finite resource and it is getting harder to find. MechJeb nailed this landing. Here is it plugged into the base, delivering the science it was able to gather on the way to Duna. An extra scientist crewman that didn't have lab space then transfered to the rover and started a long road trip. On the road again... I think this is about 100 km. Just thought this was a good shot.

I'm preparing a new mobile base design for dispatch to Dres. The large ore tanks in the "pontoons" are there to provide more weight so it will drive better in a low gravity environment. The RCS tanks and hitchhiker containers are there because the contract wants more crew capacity and RCS fuel.

I dispatched this space station to Bop, where it will arrive in 2.5 years: the asteroid it is destined to feed off of will arrive about a year earlier. The solar panels are mostly for show, since the primary power source is several dozen nuks. This one of a half dozen craft heading out to Jool's moons this week.

I made this tiny little lander. I'm going to send it Bop along with a new space station. Rather than establish surface bases on that low gravity rock, I'm going to send down the lander to get science, and process it in orbit.

I just did something so stupid I have to tell people about it. A transport carrying 16 Kerbals back from a mobile base on Duna just arrived back at Kerbin, and rather than ditch the heavy engines (NERVs) and fuel tanks in orbit, I decided to try to recover the whole think. Well even with the single XL parachute it hit the water at 25 m/s, and most of the transport ceased to exist. But miraculously the entire cargo of Kerbals survived. This is the aftermath.

I didn't take any pictures. Sorry.

Ribming and Phoebe Kerman just returned to Kerbin after over 40 years on Duna. Before I had the Kerbal Alarm Clock addon, I would forget to transmit science from my bases for in game decades at a time. Here is their adorable little return craft.