PT

Continuing from last time... Some corpo really wanted a useless space station above Kerbin, so they ended up financing part of Watchtower II refuelling depot. We do not talk about Watchtower I. Albion arrived on fumes, puffing monoprop to match vectors, while Luna puffed LOX due to unexpected monoprop shortages... Based around triple core of https://spacedock.info/mod/364/Davon Supply Mod, it will serve to simplify boring parts of space fleet supply chain. Refuelling process highlighted lack of docking port pumps in my modset... Once both cruisers were neatly tucked in and pumped full of explosive goodies, empty drop pod arrived to take current passengers down dirtside. Next pod will be sent full, and wait at Watchtower for return trip, launching Albion full saved a bit of kash but made managing contracts annoying. Tourist bus looks like something made from medical silicon would, and lacks proper deorbit engines so RCS took half of hour to do it... at least it was compact enough to not invoke kraken an physics warp. Bill took a free seat on Albion and organized an adhoc show on servicing a satellite. Turns out nothing was broken, so it took some convincing for contractee to pay out. And after few weeks hoffmaning between moons everyone was back together. Albion got so famous that kerbs want to visit it for bragging rights, however civilians have some trouble booking tickets for docked ships... Not very eventful day, but important milestone non the less.

After harvesting kerputation and kash with Albion I cobbled together a modest science cruiser, added too much science cargo, added boosters, filled remaining docking ports with more landers and drones, so needed a quick and dirty tanker/booster... And then slowly seeded satellites on the way to Mun Sherfal played with wild rocks And then Luna shed its tail while Jeb made fun of scientists for calculating transfer to Minmus instead of just doing full burn at second start to the right... While previously detached satellites began magnetic field survey After some time Minmus got encircled for the first time, and pair of crappy drones got dropped to test structural integrity of surface Followed by obligatory taste test of new rocks. Apparently they taste like frostbite. And on suboptimal return trajectory last satellite was ejected into solar orbit With station-science modules not yet finished with experiments cargo had to be rebalanced a bit, then Jeb took Bill and Sherfal down to surface in drop pod to satisfy some annoying contract requirements.

After a year+ of A break, I stared new career. And of course I had to start building a space fleet yet again... As nice looking starships are expensive I whipped up a passenger cruiser to bounce from LKO to Mun and Minmus to drain cash from civilian sector for my orbital endeavours.

Today I got surprised that my new toy took only 3 days for delivery so of course I had to check out KSP... Default "steam controller" bindings turns out to be either unplayable, or unintuitive, or both.

I took Astarte to Mun, and finally drained last ascent boosters... Got some science from two biomes... Failed to establish comsat constelation with micro drones, RCS dV readouts are problematic, but at least they looked nice. And upon return to Kerbin Bob fiddled with secret cargo mumbling something about "only way to be sure".... ... Then there was time to replace one screaming gaggle of tourist to another. I probably kerbed around too much in this game if I can make ugly SSTO droppod from random parts in first attempt, wasn't it supposed to be hard?

I managed to scrounge enough funds to send a gaggle of drones.... ... inside double ribbed rocket, for science and pleasure I guess... ... choke full of space goodies ... .. and after surprisingly stable flight it reached its destination... A new and shiny space cruiser! It was financed by advance payments of both science and tourist missions so it ended up as a ship for nerds, where they can engage in such experiments as testing ice cream in space! At impressive ~0.6 TWR under full load. As experiments are comfortably nested in cargo holds, for aesthetic reasons, a servo is used to rotate MOLE segments for easy clicking! Not the ugliest vessel I have cobbled together, and even somewhat practical. To be continued ...

Switch to other craft in higher orbit? There's always some contract junk satellite floating around in silly orbit. But it would be good to have some kind of KAC to not miss maneuver. Tonight I continued looking for funds, thus I sent some cost-optimized trashcans on silly missions, and even managed to make them not look too ugly. And then I discovered MOLE research stopped working after last modding foray, blah.

Tonight started by doubling KSP load time with moar mods, and then I started looking for funds for next overly expensive spaceships.... Three satellites got launched to do some magnetic field science for long time ... but of course I had to do in in single launch of experimental vessel ... Due to some staging issues Jeb landed with more parts than expected ... In meantime I found not just a boulder, but a rock!

I made a horrible thing Then flew that thing to Mun... ... and back after dropping two horrible landers Being capable of harsh aerobraking came at a cost of ~300m/s dV while saving over 800 on return trip.

Standard ports stick out further so it obstructed bigger cargo using Juniors. So mixing port sizes works only for micro cargo, like that tug drone, or if port is designed to stick out. Which I forgot to do so mission was mostly a failure.

Continuing from last episode... I screwed up. A lot. I forgot that standard docking ports are higher that Juniors, so I couldn't dock most of payload for Mun mission. So I took just one rover, left engine section in low orbit... Successfully landed and deployed rover... And found out that all deployable science experiments felt out of boxes somewhere on the way... At least elevator works fine.

Continuing from last episode... Today I noticed that in-flight resource meter shows OX above LF, while VAB numbers and part info shows LF first which explained why my tankers kept arriving with not enough fuel... In meantime I did the usual stuff, surprisingly without any (unplanned) explosions and amazingly docked everything in sunlight. I upgraded Alpha with a module designed to balance weight of its passenger cabin while looking nice, because MJ Differential Throttle couldn't keep it on course once Mun probes landed back on Kerbin. Turns out it was not needed, as I just had wrong control point selected after last docking. But at least I can get rid of that dorky bolt-on battery sticking on its nose while telling VIP's they got better seats available Once Snail upgrade was in place I added some more fuel.... And told MJ to do its job while I wrote this post... Of course four maneuvers with low TwR and SoI change made a mess, but it was expected so I planned-in significant margin of error and only LKO injection had to be recreated to avoid unexpected lithobraking. Two fresh tourists dumb enough to pick my space program for LKO visit were (ab)used as sponsors for return flight of Munar tour. From now on ascent rocket will await in LKO to get civies back to sea level, previous flight got mixed with crew return so there was imbalance in available seats. After getting paycheck worth of 13 tourists with fresh PTSD I snatched sponsors for two space stations a small LKO yacht for orbital slave hunt and another for finally leaving Kerbin SoI... but for that I need some moon rocks to discover how to build relay antennas.

Continuing from last episode... I enjoyed some structural integrity issues at night But after some redesign a freshly commissioned Carryall ejected spent ascent stage and unfolded its stubby solar wings. One tedious launch later a temporary engine section arrived. Nuclear replacement should become available after landing on Kerbin moons. Now it awaits some tanker flights and up to 72 tonnes of cargo to Munar surface.

Continuing from last episode... I went back to Mun with a cargo of two landers, contract satellite, and a gaggle of screeching tourists. Due to limits of early career lander barely managed to return,. With ~1300 dV and 4+ TwR it should work, but it was too unstable to be reliable. A look at Alpha remaining 3700 dV lead to quick visit to Minmus where landing was, obviously, a breeze despite imbalanced thrust. I decided against strip-mining and returned with just one drop per pod. Safe return of landers to Kerbin was primary objective to push forward World's First missions. Few wasteful burns later pods were dropped into atmosphere, cabins got re-kerbed with second batch of tourists, and Alpha officially became a passenger ship. On the way a fresh Kerbonaut was kidnapped from stranded pod, but she turned out to be disappointment engineer so I'll have to enslave some pilots for hard cash. While designing a starship for mission a problem of size came out. Having 5k LF and 7 seats conflicted with requirements for unassisted Mun/Minmus landing, so order was put for basic Carryall to finally obtain Mun rocks while a fresh, big, model will wait for better antennas... and some interplanetary transfer window.

Continuing from previous episode... I rescued stranded Alpha starship with freshly contracted passenger module expansion, already packed with terrified civilian space frogs wishing to fly around Mun. For some reason my starships tend to count as space station for contracts so I decided to keep requested expansions as permanent modules, thus lack of deorbiting capability in passenger module (and matching visual style, which is important!). Resulting mass saving allowed me to bring a hefty space tug drone and enough leftover fuel to get back into LKO. Continuing with headcanon that station=starship, I accepted request for new cruiser from Reaction Systems LTD capable of reaching Mun orbit with 4000 LF and 5000 EC. Hopefully Alpha second Munar voyage will get me enough science and funds to resurrect Carryall class from my last campaign. With limited funds, lacking base upgrades, and stone age technology, I struggled on to equip some fancy cargo on Alpha, but first I needed some more dV and raw omph to carry all that junk and dead mass around. And that joy of carrying satellites to space without cargo bays or fairings... But just in three launches I got Alpha blasting toward Mun for second time. Just a tad shy of 100 tons, with modest ~4500 dV (depends on cargo weight and thrust vectoring loses) powered by five measly terriers to get some extra mileage out of it. I refueled center tanks with leftovers from rendezvous stages of boosters, so that's one launch successfully avoided! Should be enough for Kerbin SOI tourism and lightweight science. Cargo: 6x tourist 2x reusable unkerbed Mun landers 1x contract satellite loooots of spare fuels for landers