Hannu2

Mission 3 Third launch Window opens at Y04 D255. It is not very good one. It is time to start manned operations. Crew Transport Ship is my old design and have enough DV for all Dres windows. However, it is uncertain is it capable to return. I am going to rotate four 5 kerbal crew. Typical crew have 2 pilots, 2 scientists and 1 engineer. Four with orange suit are bosses. http://imgur.com/a/vjpJB

In my opinion introducing axial tilts in the most important update. Next is working mission control tools and orbital mechanics. Reliable orbit predictions, precision maneuver nodes and UI to control them, possibility to see positions of ships and planets at future times (for example by scrolling time with mouse wheel), reliable SOI detection both in actual orbits and in prediction tools, getting rid of annoying vibrations, more precise detection of close encounters, precise prediction of atmospheric orbits (also calculated for next stage), complete orbital information windows etc. And all that also for hyperbolic orbits. MechJeb can give node contol and information and Trajectories mod atmospheric predictions (but not after staging which would be very essential). Most of things are in core KSP and probable not moddable at all.

I have noticed it but did not care. It does not need overheating. Just put Skipper with an orange tank and run.

This would be very interesting detail in engineering point of view. However, there should be suitable tools for timings for precise maneuvers. I suspect that it would be far too complicated for most players and against Squads oversimplified philosophy. But it would be interesting mod with MechJeb plugin. I think that it would be impossible to balance real world fuels and KSP's small world. Real ISP values would make KSP too easy. Maybe it would work better with RSS, but it have other problems considering playability. Real nerva would also immediately make all large chemical engines completely obsolete. It would have huge thrust, huge TWR, huge ISP and reasonable price (if not increased by artificial political decisions). I would not like that in KSP. Unlocking the technology is only beginning phase of my missions and I do not want to get an engine which would make gravity as negligible perturbation.

I tried to run through several versions ago but that rover was not able to run on steep terrain. Wheel physics have updated after that. I will make a new try.

OK. I changed Interstellar mods to Stock Fuel Switch. I like more it, because I did not know what things Interstellar do, but did not know that it works with 1.0.5. It seems that crew ship is unaffected and station got 360 + 440 units of LF & oxidizer. I will dump them with Ship Manifest.

It is OK for me. I will use stock Mk3 and cylindrical liquid fuel tanks in my upcoming transfer stages. It is only aesthetic problem. My crew transporter uses only stock tanks. I made report from my second mission. It is Dres Station.

Mission 2 Second window is good and I send a large station. http://imur.com/a/ATbax How can I embed imgur albums?

I use that KSPI Integration Patch only to switch fuel tanks to contain only liquid fuel. Is that allowed? My mission reports will be here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/127567-large-dres-exploration-project/ There is Hyperedit button in first mission reports but I uninstalled it and Trajectories (which I suspect is unstable in my computer) today. I installed them only to develop my Eve lander and of course did not use it in this project.

You can adjust force in VAB and decouple decouplers by hand (right click). Wait couple of minutes (couple of seconds with 50x warp) so that previous satellites and debris floats away. You can also rotate ship to avoid collisions.

At beginning or if small satellites are only payload I would attach satellites inline separated by decouplers and launch them with 1.25 m parts. I would use one long fairing for all (from Procedural Fairings -mod). Later when I have larger rockets and payloads I can use more complex arrangements, like this.

Dres Awareness challenge gave me an idea of large Dres project. I am not sure if my project is officially accepted due to mods or because it is not enough megalomaniac but I think that I do it in any case. It is more game and fun than official competition and I hope that gives Dres attention it deserves. Maybe it can serve also as tutorial for inclined parking orbits. I play science mode. I cheated all the tech but can get points for rolegame. I begin missions at first possible window. I have several mods. Objectives of the project is to found orbital station and surface base with necessary infrastructure and keep them manned several years. Visit and collect some science from all biomes. One objective is to found small surface refinery to get fuel. Mission 1 First window is relatively expensive. Therefore I take an easy start. First mission, Dres 1, send a scanning satellite and four small telecommunication satellites. I use AntennaRange -mod. I lost ascent screenshots because I had active MechJeb window. http://imgur.com/a/Ucdmf/titledesc

Actually it was yesterday but I developed my Eve lander. Success is very near now. I succeeded to keep lander one piece through descent but unfortunately I landed to a quite small lake. I did not try pinpoint landing yet. I have to land on relatively high area but ship is not restricted to highest peaks.

What is the real problem? If you do not want to quicksave at pad you just do not quicksave. Game does not do it automatically. In my opinion it would be waste of resources to define strict rules and try to program game so that all "cheating" is impossible. Everybody should have so much self discipline that can obey they own set of rules. There are so much real bugs and deficiencies in this game and they are much more annoying than possibility to "cheat" against myself.

It may also be futile to use significant resources to this now and delay porting to Unity 5. We do not know if Squad have some plans for planets. If they have plans to make larger overhaul, this bug will be fixed anyway. But they must do migration first. If everything goes as expected they get more resources (like memory) to do other things, like planets. Migration is so essential that it may be cheaper to hire some guys to code a new planet mod to replace Pol. Delaying migration would effect to sales. Nobody knows how much, but probably couple of orders of magnitude more than bug on Pol. I think that (unfortunately) quite small percentage of players will ever land on Pol. If you can not stand bug just do not land on Pol. At least I want to keep current Pol instead of take it away. If something crashes, I roleplay that it is failure of part. It does not prevent landings completely. I have made maybe 5 succesful landings after last Kraken attack.

20 min is just a guess. Probably it would be much shorter time, if it is programmed well. It depends on what things would be precalculated, what kind of details there were etc. Precalculating time is needed only when you begin the new world. Game can save tings and it is not needed every time. Default world could be precalculated by Squad and those who do not want to wait could start as fast as now. But programming would need quite much knowhow and interest which I think Squad does not currently have. It is certainly not an easy task to make a good and believable planet generator. It seems that procedurally generated worlds will not be KSP's thing even they are technically possible. I think that it may be a good decision even I personally would very much like to see procedurally generated planets where I could make real exploration in every save. It makes things boring if I remember interesting places (for example anomalies) from previous games. But bad implementation of procedural planets would certainly be more annoying than fun.

They have not had time and interest to planets in long time and many updates. There are also not any official announcements. Maybe they will do some kind of overhaul, at least fix the most annoying bugs, but certainly not before porting to Unity 5 is ready (and I guess that not before hundred spaceplane parts because there seems to be many plane enthusiasts in dev crew now). Quicksave works well with this kind of problems. I know it is annoying, but unfortunately we do not live in perfect world and can not make world to be perfect.

Would you accept if I do a set of missions and found an orbital station, surface base, small ISRU-refinery and small telecommunication network, try to get some science from all biomes, maintain base 10 Kerbin years and try to get all Kerbals back to Kerbin? I will not make huge systems, but have about 5 Kerbals on surface and 5 on orbit with life support and room of 3 places per kerbal. I will play with Science mode to get points for rolegame purpose but cheat all the tech before beginning (I manipulate save file). My mod list is here. Is there something you can not accept? 20151111 Scansat 14.3 20151111 Module Manager 2.6.13 20151111 Kerbal Construction Time 1.2.3 20151111 MechJeb2 2.5.4.0-522 20151118 TAC Life Support 11.1.20 (virallisesti 1.0.2:lle) 20151118 AntennaRange 1.10.3 20151118 Editor Extensions 2.12 (1.0.3:lle) 20151118 Final Frontier 0.8.9.1414 20151118 Kerbal Alarm Clock 3.4.0.0 20151118 kerbal Invention System 1.2.3 20151118 Kerbal Attachment System 0.5.5 20151118 Ship Manifest 4.4.2.0 20151118 Surface Mounted Lights 1.1 20151118 Transfer Window Planner 1.3.1.0 20151118 Station Science 1.5 (1.0.4:lle) 20151118 HullCameraVDS 0.51 20151118 ScanSat 14.4 (korvasi 14.3:n 20151111) 20151118 Taurus HCV 1.5.2 (ei varsinaisesti 1.0.5:lle) 20151118 Procedural Fairings (1.0.4) 20151125 Modular Rocket Systems 1.10.1 20151125 Stocklike Station Parts (1.0.4!) 20151125 Waypoint Manager 2.4.3 20151126 Interstellar Fuel Switch 1.18 20151128 KSPI Integration Patch Set 8.7.1 20151203 Kerbal Alarm Clock päivitetty 3.5.0.0 20151203 Kopernicus 1.5.2 20151203 Transfer Window Planner päivitety 1.4.0.0 20151203 Outer Planets Mod 1.8.1 20151203 Sigma OPM Tilt 1.1.0 20151203 Stock Bugfix Modules 1.0.5a.2 20151208 Trajectories 1.4.5. 20151208 Päivitetty KSP 1.0.5.1028. Siirretty kaikki modit 1.0.5:n GameData-hakemistosta.

I have not played with colonization style. But USI Kolonization system seems to be very suitable for this kind of large scale long term activities. TAC life support would give challenge so that it would be just load of kerbals to Dres and forgot. USI have also own life support mod. As far as I know it is more simple and forgiving as TAC but I do not know current details. Scansat could be used to map Dres. RemoteTech would give meaning to network of communication satellites. Challenge could be for example found a 20 kerbals scientific base, maintain it 10 years and get scientific data from all biomes and some asteroid around planet. User could choose if he utilize local resources or make supply ships. Maybe there could be crew rotation, some predefined points where you should go with rover etc. MechJeb is necessary if you want to use effective transfer orbits without annoying maneuver grinding. Many part mods gives practical large parts, which give aesthetics and keep part count low but their performance is well balanced with stock parts. So that you can replace many stock parts with one larger but do not get mass or dv benefits. I use MKS (engines, tanks, adapter parts), Stocklike Station parts and Taurus (7 kerbal command module & some 3.75 m parts). Station Science mod have interesting and massive science modules and activities on orbit. I think that all of them would give practical possibilities and interesting content for this kind of challenge but would not make it too easy.

Procedural generation could base on single seed number (for example 64 bit integer). Then there could be one default seed which would give a standard system (it could be current one) but if user changed it before first play, he would get a new world. It would give endless possibilities to real exploration or possibility to create a galaxy with billions of unique solar systems. However, it has been suggested from beginning of development and Squad does not want to develop game to that direction. It would be great idea for another game in this genre.

Your first stage should have about 2000 m/s dv. Then you can make staging at about 30 km where aerodynamic forces are quite negligible. Solid boosters are not very cheap anymore and their thrust profile is typically not suitable for only engine (at least it is difficult for beginners). Use Swivel and two smaller SRBs if needed. Put fins only at bottom of the rocket. Small fins you have used are good. Second stage does not need fins if you stage at 30 km. It can use Terrier as an engine if you have it. It saves mass and cost.

What else can we do in stock KSP? Basic Dres mission is actually relatively challenging for most of players. Is it somehow better if I replace the return ship with large numbers of Hitchickers loaded with kerbals, call it a "colony" end leave them on Dres? Or is it somehow better if I multiple basic mission by some factor and get tens of meaningless debris around and on Dres? In my opinion, if you expect much more complicated things than basic flag putting mission with resource utilization and couple of experiments, you should allow heavy modding. You should even demand some mods for example life support. Stock KSP's game logic is based on very basic missions. It does not have parts, resources or mechanics to mode advanced colonization with large scale resource utilization. I do not deny your opinions. If you feel this is right way it is. But maybe you would get more participants with little different set of rules. Your current set demands very much rolegaming. For example I am very interested in Dres (especially because its orbit), but my playstyle is very different and I can not take part of your challenge. I use mods and try to do well planned basic missions with tight timetables and resource budgets like first real world missions would be.

In my opinion it is very boring to plan and execute routine burns. First ones were interesting, because I learned new things, but after hundreds of hours they are just boring. Therefore I use MechJeb to do such boring routine stuff. For me best thing is planning of missions, building crafts and checking if they work as I intended. It is more interesting to be an engineer who plans missions or ships than an actual astronaut who pilots crafts.

It may be some very old plan. Squad released future ideas several years ago. They stopped because too many readers took them as promises in spite of all disclaimers that they are just speculation what would be nice to do. I do not believe that it will be made. There should be massive overhaul in planetary modeling before it would be sane to add large number of celestial bodies. It would also change the basic idea of the game. KSP is a spaceflight simulator under Newtonian gravity. Interstellar traveling would need such dv that gravity in solar system would be negligible. Or there should be some stupid and very artificial restrictions. If they made procedurally generated planets with high details there would be more to explore in Kerbol's system than anybody could do in human lifetime. In my opinion other systems would work best so that you can generate a new system when you begin a new save. There is no need for traveling between systems, because it would violate the most interesting thing in KSP, realistic traveling between bodies in solar system.

There was a mod for Orion like spacecraft. I do not know if it is updated anymore. But what purpose you would use it? Original Orion was intended to enormous payloads and very high dvs. There is not such need in KSP. You can not handle masses of tens of thousands on tons. Game engine can not handle such amount of parts. There is also no need for tens of km/s dv. Orion could be part of some mod which have for example huge and insanely massive colonization or mining units or other solar systems at distances of light years. But there are no plans to develop KSP to that direction.