Boganaut

Landed in a nice valley near KSC after first orbit and it seems Bill got (ahem) a-head of himself while investigating something akin to Minecraft sugarcane... This would have been a great pun if I could locate the screenshot of him up to his neck in the ground.

I commenced downloading! Excited to start launching things and exploring. Exploding too, that's always fun

I'm getting this problem too. I've found that tinkering with the Scattering Exposure can help. It starts at 0.23, try something like 0.005 and then adjust up/down to your taste. Also be aware of the config points up at the top of the settings - Kerbin has different config points for zero, 1000 and 250,000 altitudes. I dialed down the opacity at 250,000, but when I was flying at 80,000, it was still all white & pearly because I hadn't edited the 1000 config point. I hope that helps. I also increased the Extinction tint a bit to breath a bit more colour back into the world. My next task is to figure out how to save the settings! The buttons don't seem to be doing the trick, so it might be a matter of editing the config files once one works out what looks nice.

I would be proud! Yep, it makes sense. I'd dong a bit of reading a while ago and it dawned on me I should give it a go due to my rather non-Kerbal under-engineering. Got a bit of an assist from Ike which kept the fuel spend nice and low considering the weight of the craft. The ore shipment enabled the Duna Invasion Fleet to propel itself out to Ike to get dragged over to an eastward orbital direction around Duna. I'm glad that despite my propensity for setting up infrastructure to make fuel plentiful in the long run, that I encounter these scenarios. Oh man, if I saw a Kerbal in retrograde solar orbit, I think I'd just organise a lovely memorial for him/her! On a game mechanic note: this evening, after a cup of tea, I moved a relay satellite into a nice wide polar orbit around Duna. I had thought that the 2 pilots on the nearby space station might be able to bounce their remote control signal off the satellite to one of the ore barges making another run up to Ike, but it seems that probe control signals don't relay - there has to be direct line of sight. Fortunately, I had full probe control at all the right times anyway. I'm thinking a small auxilliary outpost in same orbit, 180 degrees apart will be necessary to reduce blackouts. The Duna landing rocket DAVE II has just completed a series of aerograzes (ultra-cautious aerobraking?!) to lower its orbit for a minimal fuel landing.... again, I think I have another under-engineered machine here. All orbital adjustments were being done using monoprop as far as possible. Just needed to keep enough mono left over for 1 docking manouvre in the coming days. A bit of orbital plane adjustment was required to land near the stranded Seanwell's pod and Bill & Jeb were able to touch down 5.9km. They estimate the can break orbit using about 75% of available fuel reserves. Bill & Jeb are currently arguing about whether they will risk rescuing a non-equatorial Kerbal again and also about who has to go for a few kms walk to make contact with Seanwell. And me? I'm going to have another cup of tea! Goodnight!

Solved an interesting problem with my "Duna Invasion Fleet" clump of vessels (DAV, orbital lab, fuel storage and refinery, 4 comms satellites, Ike miner & 2 ore barges all bolted together with struts & couplers). Scenario is this: Due to me being sloppy, the fleet arrived in retrograde orbit around Duna and with very low fuel reserves. There was just enough for one of the nuclear powered ore barges to shunt the miner into Ike orbit and the miner had enough fuel to land. When it cheerfully returned from the surface with a full load of ore, it refuelled the ore barge and itself. THEN things got interesting. The ore barge broke Ike orbit with its 6000 units ore and 400 liquid fuel. I quickly found I had only a fraction of the fuel I would require to get it into retrograde orbit from Ike. Managed to get it back to Ike for a top up then performed the following excellent manouvre..... Instead of dropping into Duna obit again, I accelerated 107m/s using Ike as a slingshot to put me on a Duna escape trajectory. At the edge of SOI, velocity was about 90m/s. I killed that to zero with a retro burn and it fell back into a needle shaped orbit. I then burned at 270 degrees to achieve the desired direction of orbit, leaving the periapsis at 23km to make use of aerobraking. After a few grazes through the atmosphere at different heights and some orbital adjustments, the ore barge finally docked with the (ahem) "Fleet". Had about 10 units fuel to spare and about 25% monopropellant remaining (I used this fairly gratuitously at apoapsis when making adjustments to aerobraking altitudes and relied on it entirely for raising periapsis all the way back up into SPAAAAAACE!!!). With the 6000 units of ore, the increasingly asymmetric clump will be able to alter to an eastward orbit for easy Ike-Duna transfers. I've shared this little series of events in case the manouvre is of some use to someone in a similar situation. Not sure if there is a name for it... I'm referring to it as "The Arrested Slingshot".

"Gregfrod Kerman, this is Hilda Kerman at Restitution II Station, do you copy?" "Copy Hilda, whats up?" "We're monitoring your descent... why didn't you burn at the designated time as per Valentina's instructions?" "I lost the bit of paper, but I improvised." "Not so well, it would seem, Gregfrod. Are you aware you're about to engage in a litho-braking manouvre well in excess of spacecraft structural integrity?" "Sorry, is this Hilda or Sir Humphrey Appleby??" "YOU'RE GONNA CRASH AND DIE! POINT YOUR LANDER DUE.... UP... AND KEEP THE ENGINE ON FULL THROTTLE!" "Oh that. Er... I was just testing you... yeah, thats it! Pointing the pointy bits towards space....... OK now I'm in scoot mode. This feels weird. Vertical velocity zero, lateral 136... commencing gradual tilt west....... Overshot Jeb's Landing by 6.7km but I'm down safe. Well, I think I've stopped sliding... I can't hear grinding noises now. Don't worry Restitution, I'll get your ore!" "Gregfrod, if you've broken our miner, you'll be on indefinite shore leave pending an appearance in KOURT!"

Today I brought the interplanetary cruiser SS Torg Mathar back to Kerbin from retrograde Duna orbit.... Nope, I wasn't going for extra drag to target a better LZ - fuel tanks practically dry and the centre of migrated up to a silly place.... But the fuel tanks weren't *completely* dry - bit of a gentle spurt on the nuclear engines to take the edge off the landing speed.... She came down with a bit of a bump (landing capability was a half baked afterthought when I designed this ship!) but managed to stay upright, holding aloft Steylin Kerman's capsule recovered from a very silly orbit of Duna. This ship's journey took it from LKO to the Mun to fulfill a contract there and drop off an ISRU. It then made its way over to Ike (via an accidentally retrograde orbit of Duna) where it fulfilled another mission. It then picked up passengers including a couple of rescued Kerbals and made its way back into the aforementioned silly retrograde orbit of Duna to rescue Steylin Kerman. The motley crew have all returned to KSC where they are enjoying snacks and games of snooker. Also for your enjoyment from an earlier day: using an asteroid as a heat shield while aerobraking over Eve - I call this shot "The Flaming Potato"

"What fire?"

Got a screen grab of work in progress mobile Duna base built to fulfill a career mission, rescue Daxie Kerman and establish a better presence on Duna than the current horizontal rocket and debris from previous rescue mission. Image is a test-hover over the KSC launchpad using engines on detachable Duna Ascent vehicles. Aside from hover test, I have set staging to kick one rocket off at a time and ignite engine at the same time - works quite well! Haven't spent more time on the various rover mission elements though. This evening, the interplanetary cruiser SS Torg Mathar departed Tilenna's Mobile Truckstop in Ike orbit... ...and used a bit over 25% fuel loading to intercept Steylin Kerman's floating cupola module in retrograde orbit of Duna. The reaction wheels are going to have to work hard to keep the SS Torg Mathar flying true, but the piece of paper says we gotta get that piece of junk landed on Kerbin! There are two Kerbonauts aboard who have been rescued from the vicinity of Duna, so the next burn may be to place the ship on a return trajectory to Kerbin. Its not a science vessel, but it has a lab because the bean counters at HQ figured they could turn a buck on it... and it has worked out quite well as one of the passengers picked up from Ike was a scientist and had gathered a fairly large amount of data from Ike. It has also been handy to level up the crew at various voyage milestones.

Love it! Will try it for my next unmanned landing on a moon.... I've used extending solar panels to try and tip rockets back up the right way if toppled over (they are surprisingly strong!), and in a similar manner, I've used them to keep a small probe upright on Gilly (not designed as a lander, so no legs to speak of). Sometimes I use legs to re-orient rovers, but I feel that hardly counts as a hack - they're practically designed for it! Jeb keeps talking about using Bill as a heat shield :-/

I successfully tested a "rocket orientation failure reversal rover" next to the KSC launchpad. Treating my ongoing careers save as the epic story it is, and responding to a mission to deploy a large base on Duna, I decided that not only would I rescue the scientist Daxie Kerman from the surface, but I would also look to recover her ship from its embarrassing position whereby the long axis of said craft remains approximately parallel to the planet's surface. Jebediah, the architect of this debacle will be required to return to Duna to pilot the rocket back home to Kerbin. A replica of the rocket (currently known as Jebediah Station) was launched from KSC and made to land on its side just like the real thing on Duna. Jeb, in true form, remained supercool throughout the precarious manouvre. He remained on board to operate the gyros while the "rocket orientation failure reversal rover" was "launched" and drove over to latch on to the top of said rocket. The test was a great success and the bean counters over in the admin building were pleased with the recovery price on the rocket and rover! The new mobile Duna station was deployed on the launchpad to test whether this excellent new rover could be deployed OK from one of the cargo ramps, but de-coupling caused a very stupid explosion. I need to work on that tonight or tomorrow! Something to do with the wheel position, springy suspension and a fast-moving fuel tank, I think. Once that hurdle is cleared and the various rover types are stowed in their cargo bays, I'll look to re-attach the two detatchable Duna Ascent Vehicles which will double as landing rockets because lets face it, chutes alone ain't gonna cut it with this hulk of a base! Will post pictures once mission underway and craft design more final. Currently looking a bit like a giant hi-tech catamaran who wants to be an army tank. Bill has been spotted just staring at the blueprints, alternately drooling over it and then losing his cool when he finds something stupid. I'm pretty sure we won't iron out all the stupid before launch time, and I'd be not-so-secretly disappointed if we do... Perfect mission? Wheres the fun in that!? I like the fact that this is the 2nd rescue mission centred around the same damn rocket!

Earlier test flights of Spaceplane 2 had been performed, but performance records were erased when Gene Kerman spilled some Koke on his laptop. A second test flight was performed with a test payload of an orbital crew return vehicle. Whilst in space, the ship was ordered to recue a wayward engineer who decided to return with the plane due to his lack of piloting skills, leaving the crew return vehicle adrift in orbit. Spaceplane 2 landed between the end of the KSC runway and the shore. It was incredibly rough and there is some debate surrounding where one of the wings and landing gear ended up, but the crew survived! In the days that followed, Suina Kerman was escorted from her refuge on the LKO fuel depot, laboratories and docking facility to rescue Nelfry Kerman from a very low orbit. The escorting pilot Doodcal took both Suina and Nelfry to the re-entry vehicle left by Spaceplane 2, but things got a bit scary when he refused to undock unless they would fully refuel his ship. Suina refused at first, but eventually agreed after computing the remaining reserves would be plenty to de-orbit. Nelfry and Suina are currently cruising at 14km altitude looking to splashdown shortly. Doodcal Kerman has been advised he will be arrested when he next makes landfall.

Holy Moly Magzimum! Nice fleet! The boffins back at KSC are concocting a new space station for Minmus orbit.... they're gonna make mine pretty much redundant and I've heard nasty words about the lander Ultraminer being over-engineered and in need to replacement. I'm considering using the Nerva on my space station to relocate to Dres along with Ultraminer. It seems a cool place to get away from it all and won't require aerobraking which suits me! And being Dres, I don't think KSC will be coming after us any time soon! PS: Any tips on getting an ISRU to output snacks? We've been out here for a while.

Took on a "Build a space station into a class E asteroid and bung it into orbit around Eve" mission. Intercepted the 'roid OK, but realised I didn't have nearly enough battery power. I was pretty much ready to say "bugger it" and had started adjusting the orbital plane when an intercept with Kerbin appeared. It was offering to give me an extra 0.1 degree for free and also do 75% of the work in bringing my periapsis close to Eve's orbit! With the flyby plotted to come withing 800km of Kerbin, I decided it was time to fix the power problem and add some manoeuvring thrusters to the 'roid. Made a successful intercept and ended up with a nice distribution of units at 6 points around the... well look, I'm going to rename it to "The Potato". The Potato now handles exceptionally well for a 1000t+ object and is now in the process of final burns for Eve intercept. The rookie crew aboard have been learning as they go and somehow, they still haven't run out of snacks!

I use it whenever my phone's astronomical app throws up a reminder for the anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1. 4 extended antennae, blur your eyes a bit and it looks the part :-)

Blew some funds in my main save re-enacting John Glenn's flight aboard Friendship 7. My version of the Atlas LV-3B rocket seemed to have a slight excess of dV compared with the original, but I followed the "1.5 stage" design. Through forgetful omission of the final decoupler, I replicated John's re-entry with retro package attached, complete minor explosions and debris flying past the command module window. A hero and inspiration to many. Rest In Peace John

You wonder where your neighbour got a hold of a set of Mk II Illuminators for their patio. You then wonder if you can pick up rocket engines at Bunnings these days...

I decided not to kill the W key by making Bill hike 24km on Duna. I fought a titanic battle against a lack of symmetry and fuel to hop a rescue ship closer to Bill and his crewmates. Kept the throttle low and even, landing with about 30 units of liquid fuel left within 1km of Jebediah Station. Took a few goes as I had to keep manually pumping fuel around to even up the weight. Otherwise even a moderate amount of thrust easily overwhelmed the reaction wheels ability to stay on course. LPC station released both its re-entry capsules into LKO and migrated slowly to the Mun with a lander attached. Bob said the lab would start to run low on data so something had to be done about it!

Resumed 1.2 career game. Successfully transferred a ship to Duna orbit, detached Ike lander and deployed rescue ship to the surface of Duna. LZ was a bit off and Bill Kerman now needs to walk about 12 hours. Might need a lead weight, some alarms set and a bit of cash set aside for a new keyboard. Trouble is, 4 Kerbals need picking up! Bill's plan though is to use his engineering skillz to operate the ISRU, refuel and hop closer to the others. Back on Kerbin, Valentina snuck 3 extra passengers onto what was meant to be a test flight of a my first 1.2 spaceplane. She took off with Bob and two others aboard! Ascent was straightforward. Bob wanted to be dropped off at LPC Station in LKO, but there wasn't enough fuel - just enough rocket fuel to de-orbit. Descent was lined up well and range looked pretty good during the glide. Things got a bit hot though and the tail blew up. Descent remained stable though. Approaching KSC, the glide was a bit too good and the drag no enough even with brakes etc deployed. It was decided to pull up and present more surface area to slow the descent... bad plan! Lift was lost and the craft went into a bad corkscrew which slowed lateral motion and became a deadly flat spin. With the missing tail, arresting the spin was nearly impossible. Eventually the flight stabilised into a straight nosedive. Valentina tried in vain to pull up, but the gyros weren't enough. So she kicked then engines on to full throttle! The ground was looming large at this point... only a few thousand metres altitude and they were up in the foothills of the mountains west of KSC. With the additional speed, the elevons were able to do their job and haul the craft onto a horizontal trajectory just in the nick of time - the craft's shadow loomed large as the prograde marker moved up to the horizon line and 30 seconds later they landed in the grasslands without a scratch (well, apart from the missing tail).

Erm... did anyone else get the urge to interrupt their main game and mark the 59th anniversary of Sputnik 1 by launching their own "Stayputnik" based satellite with 4 antennas on it? I even launched mine to about 65 degrees inclination and same kms Ap & Pe (as given by the Sputnik Wikipedia entry)! Today I did a stack of gentle aerobraking orbits to bring an ore barge down to a good height for a low fuel usage rendezvous with a large interplanetary rescue expedition (including replacement ascent vehicle for the folks with the horizontally landed rocket on Duna). I've been cutting it fine with making orbit recently and having to do more refuelling in LKO. Keeps the cost down, but gets fiddly!

Nice post, bloke. It is a beautiful game and I personally find it is making me want to learn and just keep on learning.... both inside KSP and outside - although we all know the former is most important :-P I wish there was someone in RL who would share my enthusiasm for this. For now I shall continue to sound like a raving lunatic evangelising about this wonderful creation of Squad's until maybe one day someone out there says "Me too!"

Jebediah Kerman is sitting in the forward cockpit module of a unintentionally oriented rocket on the surface of Duna which he has demanded be renamed to Jebediah Station. It is not crewed by the best scientists, but it has gathered a stupendous amount of data and is considered a key research facility. Jeb and Bill had been working on methods to get the pointy end facing into space but they only managed to start breaking stuff. KSC Command had some choice words to say on the matter of breaking the antenna, ending with the phrase "...prison ship on Kerbol escape trajectory." Since then, Jebediah has turned his attention to learning to meditate whilst Bill has been assisting KSC Command with plans for a Duna ascent vehicle to be landed nearby. Jebediah is skeptical about any other pilot's ability to land a rocket upright on Duna and has advised KSC Command he plans to learn to move rockets WITH HIS MIND! He also said something about flying on a magic carpet to meet with the king of the potato people.

Jebediah Kerman flew a recently rescued scientist over to the Inland Space Centre in a rather slow research plane called Timothy II. They will be leaving the plane there to act as a beacon for future landings. Their own landing ended up being a bit too "on target" - nearly clipped the VAB! Given the nearly two hour flight time, it has been decided all future transfers from KSC are to be supersonic!

Too many great posts up above... My compliments to you all! I had 3 Kerbals left on Kerbin, the rest deployed throughout the solar system... So I decided to send them all up together in my new liquid fueled SSTO plane! It sure struggled to break orbit, but made it in the end and docked at the station in LKO.

Nice rig Haruspex! Today I launched another X7 containing a payload for delivery to Eve. Both Duna and Eve-bound X7s are in dire need of refuelling (the latter having had to use monopropellant to lift periapsis from 22km to space!). I rechecked fuel and ore available at the Mun and Minmus. I decided with the transfer windows for both planets rapidly approaching, that it would be best to just hoist some fuel and ore straight up from KSC. It wasn't cheap, but it fit with the space station expansion plans, so it seemed the best option. The launch went smoothly and an intercept course has been laid in. Expect docking will take place tomorrow bringing together the two X7 shuttles, existing space station together with the refinery and ore tanks I just launched. Also, this morning I also discovered dislodged payloads will happily float through cargo bay doors. Previous payload testing on the X7 bound for Duna (inventively named X7 Duna, by the way) had resulted in half the cargo being detached, but firmly wedged in. It seems while I was doing other stuff, it dislodged, and drifted 4.7km away from the ship. Fortunately, the package is a small probe with plenty of monopropellant, and a sturdy klaw, so it was able to re-attach itself to the rear of the cargo bay without too much trouble. Delivery of both packages to Duna will restore comms, control and power to two space stations... mistakes were made and things previously kind of exploded a bit during aerobraking. Oh one more thing: Claucie Kerman and her idiot companion on Duna landed their rocket with a highly unconventional orientation. It is intact, but its shape and unstable "pointing down the slope" look make me feel like singing "Jamaica, we have a bobsled team!" Needless to say, Claucie and Co. are standing uphill from the giant bobsled/bomb thing. Rescue will involve designing a superior rocket which may not make the next transfer window, so some hab units from and old space station were thrown down to a location a bit under 5km from their present position. There were chutes involved, but the final stage of the landing procedure could only be described as litho-braking! Most things didn't explode and they now have a hab module each... which will probably be necessary until they stop arguing about whose fault it was that they landed on a steep slope.