AstroBovice

Today I put a station around Minmus for a contract. Likely going to send this same setup to Duna and Eve soon and start farming some science!

A few months ago, I went to Duna for the first time. Ares I and Ares II left about a month apart and arrived at the red planet about 10 days apart. Ares I, a ground sample retrieval and return mission with a small one person lander. Bold for the first interplanetary mission, but KSC decided if we were going, we were going to get our money's worth. Ares II was a much bigger lander, with the main objective of the mission being getting a science lab on the surface. The Ares II crew were going to be the loneliest Kerbals in the solar system until Ares IV came to rescue them 2 years later. They did get a rover in the mail a few months later to ease the boredom, though. Ares III went on the next transfer window and was a similar mission to Ares II with the only difference being this lander would return to orbit for rendezvous with the rescue ship. Album of Ares I & II: http://imgur.com/a/91j3l Which brings me to today! Got back in the game after a lull and decided to rescue my Kerbals and finish off this mission. I built a big transport ship with a smaller return ship that I named the Odin spacecraft. Two pieces assembled in orbit, a habitation and utility module (w/ 2 simple satellites in payload bays,) and a thrust module with 4 nukes and lots of fuel. Here is a photo with the payload bay open showing the satellite. Lander docked to the front. The mission of Ares IV : rendezvous with Ares III in orbit, retrieve Ares II crew with rescue lander, orbit Ike, come home! Also, put one satellite in orbit around Duna and Ike. Wish there was more excitement, but Ares IV was a complete success! The ship had plenty of extra fuel, got into a good orbit, and Ares III rendezvoused without a hitch. Sent the rescue lander down and landed it about 20 km away from the Ares II. A short rover trip later, and after 4+ long years away from Kerbin, the crew made contact with another Kerbal. Though their social skills were a little rusty... Both landers docked to the Odin spacecraft. Relieved crew included Quick Ike visit to drop the payload and then back home! Back home docked to Cascadia Station. Transport home soon! Thanks for reading Full album: http://imgur.com/a/MgTtl

A few months ago, I went to Duna for the first time. Ares I and Ares II left about a month apart and arrived at the red planet about 10 days apart. Ares I, a ground sample retrieval and return mission with a small one person lander. Bold for the first interplanetary mission, but KSC decided if we were going, we were going to get our money's worth. Ares II was a much bigger lander, with the main objective of the mission being getting a science lab on the surface. The Ares II crew were going to be the loneliest Kerbals in the solar system until Ares IV came to rescue them 2 years later. They did get a rover in the mail a few months later to ease the boredom, though. Ares III went on the next transfer window and was a similar mission to Ares II with the only difference being this lander would return to orbit for rendezvous with the rescue ship. Album of Ares I & II: http://imgur.com/a/91j3l Which brings me to today! Got back in the game after a lull and decided to rescue my Kerbals and finish off this mission. I built a big transport ship with a smaller return ship that I named the Odin spacecraft. Two pieces assembled in orbit, a habitation and utility module (w/ 2 simple satellites in payload bays,) and a thrust module with 4 nukes and lots of fuel. Here is a photo with the payload bay open showing the satellite. Lander docked to the front. The mission of Ares IV : rendezvous with Ares III in orbit, retrieve Ares II crew with rescue lander, orbit Ike, come home! Also, put one satellite in orbit around Duna and Ike. Wish there was more excitement, but Ares IV was a complete success! The ship had plenty of extra fuel, got into a good orbit, and Ares III rendezvoused without a hitch. Sent the rescue lander down and landed it about 20 km away from the Ares II. A short rover trip later, and after 4+ long years away from Kerbin, the crew made contact with another Kerbal. Though their social skills were a little rusty... Both landers docked to the Odin spacecraft. Relieved crew included Quick Ike visit to drop the payload and then back home! Back home docked to Cascadia Station. Transport home soon! Thanks for reading Full album: http://imgur.com/a/MgTtl

I would like to do the same, im modded up at the moment! How do I keep my game on this version? Thanks!

I went back to Duna for a rescue mission/ mass science grab. Will update soon. Sleep time.

My ode to Space X. The Raven Heavy w/ Recoverable Boosters. Heaviest payload to date is 53.7 tons

Ares II, the second mission to Duna was meant to be a stand alone science lab, so I intended on leaving it there. Unfortunately I grossly underestimated the amount of power it would take to transmit the data back. So now I have a lander with 500 science but not enough power/ power generation to sent it back to Kerbin. Of course couldn't leave my crew of scientists there, so (before I got KAS) I sent a modified Crater Crawler, landed it 50 km away (woo!) and picked up the crew to be taken home by another mission soon. Eventually I will retrieve the science, but it will be a for-fun mission in the future. As for now, Ares II Lander remains abandoned.

Just recently built the Shenron II Space Station! 7 launches to date, all the pieces named after Z-Fighters for example, the second to last flight was the Bulma Science Lab, shown with Inflatable habitat deflated. Pretty proud of this, although after putting the screenshots together i realized the...uh...Kerbals missed a docking port on one of the multi-port structures, how embarrassing! The plan now is to put abbreviated versions of these into orbit around the Moons of Kerbin,or at least Minmus and then to Ike and Eve. May put another level on the end with the multi-port, but for now the plan was just to have the main docking station away from the solar panels. Felt like putting this post up because I recently de-orbited my first station, Shenron I, and it was one of those moments that made me realize how far I've come with this game and how rewarding it can be. Thanks for reading! Shenron I: Shenron II:

Yea, done a bunch more research on this and pretty confident there is no un-modded way around this. This is what I ended up going with, thanks! For anyone interested, it saves a point in time when you stage and the "main mission" keeps going. When I get my main ship in orbit I time warp back to the separation and land the boosters, then I click "return to main mission" and I return to my ship in orbit and the boosters are in the water. Cool mod, and I had a ton of fun making recoverable boosters. Saves me about 60k a launch for the ship seen in video Thanks for the replies,all. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem!

Built a new space station, no name yet. 4 launches so far: habitation module w/ cupola, hab module w/ multi port, hab module w/ communications system, and both solar arrays went up on one rocket. Next up is science lab on the docking port facing down in the picture. Also, recovered almost 200k in boosters from these launches! *edit* added science lab with blow up habitat attached

Went from to Looks like ill either have to design it for them to drop off earlier or way later. They are dropping at about 16-17 km altitude with a apoapsis of ~35k on the rocket. I put a probe core on and still destroyed after a certain distance away. Unless I'm missing something, doesn't appear to be a way around it.

So its recognizes them as probes, but still are destroyed. Did a little more research and apparently anything that gets 20km away from your ship is destroyed, so looks I just need to do some redesign. Definitely changes a lot. but i've got the main concept of what I want to do and now know how to approach this next time. Again, really appreciate the responses! Cheers!

That sound awesome though! I just picture a hundred satellites lined up, moving in unison haha. Well as seen in the video, they stay pretty close to each other on the way down, maybe its just needing them to be on the screen. Its 100% automated so thought would be sweet to see all the boosters floating around after a series of launches. This sounds like a fun challenge to tackle though, i really appreciate the responses! will that make the game recognize it as non debris and not destroy it?

Thanks, I figured it was as simple as just needing be in command.. Yes, it is a mod as I stated in the post called Smart Parts I believe. They are set to deploy at 1000m above the ground, with the altitude decreasing. Guess it will just be a little more work, but it does save a lot of money. It is interesting tho because its twin boosters, and when i control one, the other works fine.

Hello all, I recently designed a ship with recoverable 1st stage liquid boosters, but im having trouble with one thing. During testing for these I would send an unmanned ship in Sandbox mode, and I would focus on one of the boosters after decoupling to make sure it was doing what I wanted. So I did this about 10 times, had 10 sets of boosters landed in the water and I felt like I was ready to take this into my career mode to start building my new space station. Now to the problem, when I dont focus on the boosters, they disappear. They decouple, I can see the AIRBRAKES deploy, and then i follow them on the map and they just disappear. And during a career mode test flight, I followed a booster to splashdown and everything worked perfectly. Im using the Smart Parts mod that allows me to put triggers for actions groups. AIRBRAKES are set to deploy at 500 m/s decreasing speed, and they usually pop right when they decouple, no problem with that. Parachutes are set to deploy on 1000m with altitude decreasing. Just seems like I have to have them on the screen for the action groups to work, which makes this whole thing pointless. Anything I can do about this or anything I am missing? Will attach a video of a successful recovery. Thanks!

Today, I designed my version of the Space X Falcon Heavy rocket. I had been wanting to try to replicate some Space X type stuff anyway so I decided to make this. Also thought it would be cool to try to make the 1st stage liquid boosters fully 'reusable' AKA recoverable . Really happy with how it turned out overall! I was in need of a uniform heavy launcher to start building a new space station and was really struggling with shuttles, so I decided to go with the Space X (wanna be) route. Also, wanted to experiment with video for the first time and show off what I did a little lol. Soon will start building a station 10x the size of my current one with my new Falcon Heavy Launch System! Thanks for reading, enjoy!

I figured it out. This stuff makes me feel like a fool, I just want to play in space! thanks for the quick response, btw.

Hey man, not sure if im doing something wrong with install, but i have the mod installed but the game doesnt look like the screenshots. I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to this sort of stuff but would love for my ksp to look like that! EDIT* as expected, it was my noob computer skills. Mod looks amazing, keep up the good work!

Thank you both very much

Hello, I have been playing this game on a cheap comp with terrible graphics for a long time and recently upgraded to a nice gaming setup. Looking for some mods to make the planets realistic looking/ just as nice as possible! Thanks!

Go into the album and click the dropdown arrow on the image, get sharelinks, and use the BBCode one. I believe it is the bottom left option. Worked for me ( i think, I can see them in post)

Sometimes I really want to play this game, but struggle to find something to do, so today I decided to perfect some of my regular ships! Went through and fixed all issues I could find and made some minor improvements. Any and all feedback is appreciated! All of these ships have batteries, monopropellant, and a mechjeb module in the service bay. I hoped to post some blueprints but cant seem to find a blueprint mod that is up to date. The first is the Interplanetary Kerbal Explorer or IKE. This is my main transport that I have taken to the moons of Kerbin and to Duna so far. 4 Nukes for transfer burns and a Poodle if you want a little more delta v, but i usually shut it off as soon as I get into orbit. Has a small return stage for return from long distance, but it's perfect to mess around in the Kerbin System if you don't feel comfortable with interplanetary travel yet. (pictured with Tyson Lander) Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7so8wmCYYQTYnJveFFpMUVqNk0 The second is the Tyson Lander System. Pretty self explanatory, it's just my version of a one person science lander! Has multiple chutes which makes it super easy to land on Duna, just a minimal burn right before touchdown needed. I feel confident that this is a great lander for your first time going to Duna, as it is small, has plenty of delta v and has most science experiments on board. (Complete with rocket, no assembly required!) Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7so8wmCYYQTUDkxUnoxVmZxOWM The third is my Crew Delivery Craft which is just a simple transport ship to take up to 3 Kerbals into LKO. This is my main transport to Cascadia Space Station. Download link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7so8wmCYYQTWC1HTzBvVUFXS1U More pictures: http://imgur.com/a/cFrbz Thanks for reading! If there is any interest in more, please let me know! I have more ships to share (for moon missions, space station parts, etc) , but I will not make these regular posts in this thread. This is just what I happened to do today I also understand my ships are not the most impressive compared to what some of you create but I hope to help out people who are maybe stuck in design or are newer to the game. That being said, I do use a pretty good range of the tech tree here.

Man...idk if something changed but I thought you couldn't transfer Kerbals through docking ports, but I just tried and it worked. Rescue is on the way, haha. Thanks for the input, I really thought you couldn't do that for some reason! I guess my biggest failure is killing Jeb, lol.

This happened with my first attempt at a space/refuel station in LKO. To preface, Jeb was stranded on the Mun after Apollo II (my first landing on the Mun, but with no fuel) so I sent a rescue. Before I could get there and after many saves along the way( as I was still learning at the time), I went to check on Jeb's location to find out that the ship has blown to pieces and Jeb is dead. No idea what happened, but the ship was upright when I left it! So I decided to take it as a lesson and not load my save to bring him back. Up steps Valentina. Valentina became my main pilot for the Apollo Program to the Mun (11 missions total-program ended) and the Artemis Program to Minmus.(8 missions-still active.) Now came time for me to build a space station. To get to the story lol, I sent an orange tank to my first, small space station with what I thought was an unmanned lander can. The can has a solar panel covering the hatch....and turns out Valentina hitched a ride and is now stuck inside a lander can attached to empty orange tank forever. I planned to deorbit the station, as I have a much bigger and better one now, but I just cant bring myself to kill Valentina!

The Ares Program is officially underway! Shortly after sending Ares I (which is my Interplanetary Kerbal Explorer, or IKE, model, and Tyson Lander) to Duna, I started designing a new, bigger lander with a science lab for Ares II and future missions. I then checked to see when the next transfer window would be open and it turned out if I launched then I could get to Duna about 10 days after Ares I. So I sent up the newly designed Bulma Science Lander and attached it to the Nye Cruiser (basically an IKE with no return stage) that I had parked in orbit, refueled and off we went. The idea was for Ares I to be a sample return mission, and Ares II will stay on the red planet for likely a couple years farming some science and awaiting transport home. Both missions were successful, but hit some pretty major design flaws i.e. not having enough battery power/ not enough panels to transmit the 500 science back from my lander and some RCS problems. Now I am working on designing a rover to take to tweak that ship and retrieve all that sweet, sweet science. Weeks in the making, and a lot of mistakes, but this is easily the most extensive thing I've done in this game. Also, I plan to make some blueprints and craft files so I can have them on a flash drive or something for future computers. If there is any interest in any of my "fleet" please let me know, would be happy to share! Keep up the good work, everyone. You guys do some amazing stuff with this game. *edit* looks like the album link is broken, For those interested in pictures: http://imgur.com/a/91j3l