Alpha 360

28th Installment: House-keeping Unfortunately, Geschosskopf, the Klaw is locked behind 300 science points. Not going to happen in a long time. Is there a mod which can prevent certain pods without ladders from spawning? Could certainly use that! DAL59, what does FRMs mean? Friends Ruining Memes or something along those lines? Here is the lift-off of the Kerbal Rescue Shuttle Mk1! Or also known by its original name, The 1 Kerbal Rocket Pod. Abbreviated as 1KRP. Funnily enough, I must have designed this back when Neptune failed and when I was trying to come up with a replacement. Accelerating at more than 2 gees, this buddy needs to catch up badly with the pod stranded in orbit. Luckily this is only worth 13 thousand funds, so I can afford to be slightly wasteful. Not very efficient, but necessary. The pod is speeding in behind me. I hope the rendezvous would be smooth, and not end up with me ahead of the pod. That would be irritating. Now running the monopropellant engines, inside the heat shield. I am proud of this little creation. It is cute, and very delta-v compact. There were 5 kilometers per second at launch. Whew. The rendezvous has been completed. This should work. Coming up to the pod. Wait, what?! Your kidding me. The kerbal in the pod CANNOT get out because there is no hatch! Well, time for the f12 menu once more. Shoot. *fourth wall receives pounding, and collapses once more* Alright, the kerbal is back down on Kerbin. Now what to do with the rescue pod? Why not some awesome explosions? Getting closer. Can't wait to see this go up in flames. *Boom* Look at that go! Beautiful! Spectacular! Awesome! Its nice that these explosions don't matter. Unlike some occasions. Wait. The goo feels cold? How does that happen!? Now we are coming down on the other side of the mountains. There are no parachutes so expect more explosions. Pretty. Hi Minmus! That's it? Just a pooff. Really. I'm disappointed with you, deceased kerbal rescuer. Anyway. To more housekeeping! Remember that Minmus Station which saved the lives of Roni and Assey at least twice? Well, its still in orbit. I want to bring it down to low orbit and see if it is possible to dock to the main station down there. This was the inclination burn. Beautiful, if a little unclear. Here is the deorbit burn into Kerbin's atmosphere. Areo-braking seems to be the best option, but the Station doesn't seem suited for it. Well, let's try it out. Preparing for areobraking. Coming in slow. Oh. Now that looks dangerous. Now that's coming in hot. Lets hope it doesn't explode. The overheat bar on the engine starts to rise steadily. This is really dangerous. But it is saving me fuel. If it survives, then the ends justify the means. right? No the spacecraft has flipped, exposing its entire side. Maybe I have just lost the station. BUT! The station has passed the perigee, which means the heating is slowing down. The station is intact! Now to scurry back fully into orbit. Hey. I have only used about 220 m/s for the entire endeavor from getting from high orbit to low orbit. Call it a Win - Win scenario. Here is the rendezvous with the station. It is not entirely correct, the perigee being below the Kerman Line. Coasting up for the burn which will put this baby in orbit. I am so glad it all worked out. When the engineers were designing their parts, they knew what they were doing. Or Not. Did they know that their parts could withstand reentry, and yet give us heat shields? I smell another plot from the engineers....... Anyway, here is the station in orbit. It will take 15 days until a rendezvous will occur, but before then is the Moho window. I'll be sure to send at least a half-a-dozen probes over there to put up relays there. Wait a second. There are no long range antenna which could even cover a fraction of the distance. Looks like we will be missing this window to Moho. Anyway, I did more housekeeping. I terminated a couple of dormant spacecraft, then renamed all the stations, and debris, and the new "life pod" which used to be the economical lander. I am keeping that around just in case a pair of kerbonauts gets stranded in space, but can get to the lander, board, then detach the final stage to land safely on Kerbin. And that is all. Next Installment should be about Roni's stay on the KMOSOS in first person. Taking a short 1 day break from KSP, so there will be limited pictures. Happy Explosions Until Then!

27th Installment: Space Construction Begins Well, I clicked the button. Everything reverted back the way it was. Roni and Obbertty were on the ground, waiting for the rocket to launch. I quickly recover the rocket, and changed a few things up. I changed the first stage back to an unmanned command pod and trashed the nesting thrusters. Then we were go to launch once more. This time nothing goes wrong. I will show a reel of it and not describe each picture separately. Because I am lazy. Here the second stage gets the spacecraft into orbit. Then I switch back to the booster plummeting through the atmosphere. YES! I have successfully landed once more. Finally after three hours, I am happy with KSP. Then the rocket starts to tip. I cross my fingers, hoping against hope that the first stage would not destroy itself by falling sideways into the water. It did. I have been using the angry emoj too much now adays. Anyway, in orbit again. I have completed the rendezvous burn. The final interception range is at 1.5 kilometers. Yes, the space around Kerbin is covered with junk space ships. I'll deal with them later. I have slowed myself down sufficiently, so I am detaching the second stage which will drift in Kerbin's orbit for, forever. Look at that sunrise. Isn't that pretty. Sharp eyes will have picked up the station high up in the picture, just barely visible. Hopefully none of the discarded debris will hit the station. That would be awkward. Fixing my approach to target. I got the station on a good angle of attack, luckily. Now from the station's perspective. The approach looks good. Down to 150 meters. Travelling at 1.5 m/s. Now within 50 meters. Man, orbital mechanics and docking can be so great in this game. That is just stunning. This is why I play KSP. Everything is green to go. Within 30 meters. I have crossed my fingers once more, praying that this will work out. And we are docked! The KMOSOS has gained another part. A pair of fuel tanks with extra monopropellant storage and a capsule with Roni Kerman on-board. Whew. One final beauty shot. There. Now to rescue another kerbal stuck in LKO........ Happy Explosions Until Then!

Well, honestly I found that farings usually break up on impact. I haven't discovered that bug yet. Unfortunately. I can think of all the things I could do with that......

Because I am a fool sometimes. I can be a brainless idiot, as my brothers call me sometimes.

I meant, there wasn't one on the pod I was supposed to rescue. My poor kerbonaut I had to rescue couldn't get out of the capsule. How I fixed it is that I pulled up f12, completed the contract and then zoomed over to the tracking station. There I destroyed the capsule where Obbertty was in, killing him. Then I re-spawned him in the KSC. That was really annoying, but it had to be done. Sorry for cheating, but I think I can be excused.

I destroyed a rocket today. I had put two seperatrons on the bottom of the solid rocket boosters, sending them smashing into the first stage. "I'm not happy Bob. Not. Happy."

26th Installment: The Kerbal Manned Orbital Space Observatory and Station (KMOSOS) Yes. That's a big name for a big space station. We plan to expand our presence in space with all the kerbals continually in space, taking furlongs from space instead of furlongs to space. We have very ambitious plans, including one to build a space station with 4,000 units of liquid fuel. The contract wasn't very specific on what the measurement of unit actually is. We're just going with the flow here, following our gut, doing it by ear, and other metaphors with the same meaning. Here is the KMOSO on the launch pad. It doesn't look that big, but this is simply the core of the station. We plan to make a lot of additions to this station. And as an added bonus, we have made the booster recoverable, which will hopefully work THIS time. Of course, you know the result. The engines ignite, sending the space station into the lower atmosphere. The space station carries new lifesupport systems which should lead the way to the 100% closed system. Eventually. The solid rocket boosters detach at 5,000 meters. You can just barely see them from here. The first stage has 62 m/s left. This is where things get a little tricky for the landing. I detach the first stage and then fire up the second stage, burning as fast as possible to Low Orbit. Luckily I stuffed 4,000 m/s onto this rocket, so that means I can waste a bit of fuel. As my apogee rises, I keep an eye on the first stage as it lowly reaches its own apogee. As I watch the first stage start to descend, my second stage runs out of fuel. I quickly detached that tank and fired up the poodle, sending the apogee to 230 kilometers. The orbit would be figured out later. Now, I needed to catch a descending rocket falling at 700 m/s! I switch over to the first stage. I quickly move as much fuel as possible into the bottom tank, straightening the rocket with the fins downward. I really could modify the fin system but that is for another day. I watch as it descends, slowing down as it hits the lower atmosphere. As I reach 10 kilometers, I am traveling at 400 m/s. Still a bit fast for my liking. When I reach 5 kilometers and traveling at 300 m/s my nerve breaks. I recklessly spend my remaining delta-v to slow down and pull the chutes. Luckily I deployed the chutes at 2 kilometers so my currently abandoned crew on a sub-orbital trajectory shouldn't burn up in the atmosphere. After an agonizing minute, we are about to land just on parachutes. The lack of the fuel in the fuel tanks means that it is falling at 6.5 m/s. I cross my fingers worriedly as it slips into the water. WE LANDED! This was my first try, I can't believe it! YES! *starts dancing around the computer excitedly* I return to the KSC, after recovering the stage. It then showed up that I recovered 40,000 funds from it. YES! *resumes dancing around the computer excitedly* Finally I return to my crew on sub-orbital trajectory. They have passed Apogee and are now falling to Kerbin at 75 kilometers. I turn the poodle on max and hope that I have enough thrust to weight ratio to get into orbit. Poodles are just magical engines. They have loads of thrust-to-weight, the best efficiency of any chemical rocket, and are quite useful indeed. Anyway. The poodle boosted the KMOSO into orbit at a stable 75 kilometer by 74 kilometer orbit. I heave a sigh of relief, and start looking for the kerbal in LKO that I had a contract to save. After a few more maneuvers with the poodle, the encounter is set at 2 kilometers. It looks good. Also, now since the Minmus Crew has returned, I have three useless shuttles in Orbit. I started to look at their delta-v margins. All of them still have at least 1,000 m/s left. I then start plotting maneuver nodes for these shuttles to dock to the station. Or to enter onto a similar orbit as the space station. I got to use everything I sent up there. Are you wondering why we call it KMOSOS? The words Kerbal Manned Orbital Space Observatory means that the Mission Control observe the kerbals manning the station. We still don't know if space madness is legit. Or if kerbonauts fake it just so that they don't return to space again on one of our rockets. I have no idea why they would not want to go to space on our rockets. They're mostly successful? Right? The rest of the name, Station, describes its other roll as a platform into leaping into the deep blackness of space. A couple of hours later the KMOSOS arrives at the debris. After switching over to it, I tried to EVA the kerbal inside. There was no hatch. Brilliant. *Fourth Wall get broken down* Alright, Obberny Kerman. You are apart of our space agency! I totally didn't cheat to get you down to Kerbin. Totally........ Anyway, lets launch the second part of KMOSOS! Since Obberny is a pilot, I decided to slap a command pod on the first stage to recover it. I am tired of losing my rockets just because the connection from air to ground was broken. Roni Kerman is also up there, controlling the actual space station part. If we lose this rocket. I will rage quit. Permanently. At 5,000 meters, I detach the solid rocket boosters. I put on some fancy separation rockets on the solid rocket boosters, two on the bottom and one on the top. Oh, wait. Oh, those are just the solid rocket boosters, hopefully. Please. Just don't die. WHY?! WHY DID I PUT THOSE ******* NESTING ROCKETS!?!?!?! Just why. Why Why Why Why Why Why Why!?!?! After some messing around, I can revert the flight. Now, everybody. Will these poor kerbals die because of SUCH a STUPID mistake and make the series come to an abrupt end, or will you allow me to revert the flight and flip around those nesting rockets. It all depends on you, the reader. Please, don't allow these more kerbals to DIE. Unhappy Explosions, Why Me?!

Finally, we can build 5 meter rockets! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! This will mean a bigger stock tech tree, a considerable increase in payloads to orbit, and just an increase in awesomeness for the game! YES!

You know, you can change the settings from the escape menu to make it revertable. And then you turn off the escape menu and return to the f3 menu. Turn that off and on until the option to revert flight pops up.

I haven't unlocked good communications tech yet, or even good probe cores so pilots are of the upmost importance. I'm glad that I have all of my kerbals on level two after a Minmus landing so my pilot is decent. I find though, that the tech barrier is really a problem with larger communications locked behind 350 science or similar values. They really need to put better comms earlier on in the tech tree. Why does this matter? Well, the biggest craft I have lofted up to the skies carried three with room for four. I plan to launch a space station and then put a Dres Interplanetary Space Craft into orbit as well to hit the window coming up in 69 days. When I still haven't the tech for it. This Interplanetary craft will be able to hold 7 kerbals with plenty of room for them not to go insane. The reason there is seven kerbals is so they can all receive experience. Because that is just how the early interplanetary spacecraft game works. You send kerbals to other planets to level them up to level three and level four because that is useful. In science mode and sandbox mode, large motherships are just there for fun. Because it is very fun to put one together. Or to at least attempt to.

I got two questions 1. how many reaction wheels did you stuff in that thing 2. how long did it take to build And with those two questions, I can say that that is one of the coolest vehicles I've seen. Ever.

But, but I watched the Dark Tower on disc. Look it up. Trust me.

I could use a new flag for a new project I'm working on. As I don't want the 'others' from knowing about it, could we open a private chat between me and you for the flag? It will reflect the mission quite strongly.

I'm just reading that series. Did you watch the movie or read the book. Or both?

25th Installment: All the science! This below is the quick reel for the rendezvous and return of the Minmus Crew. Well. We rescued our kerbals. It was so overly complicated and stupid, but after 100,000 credits for rockets we didn't need, and at least 2 more hours, we got them home. Whew. But, we got the science home. Now we have discovered recyclers for the journey to other planets, and MOAR BOOSTERS. Look at that those science points. Remember this is at 60% science rewards. This is just a quick update. Maybe tomorrow there will be a quick flash of a orbital station entering orbit and the rescuing of a Kerbal there. There will not be an update on Sunday, and on Tuesday I will release a longer Installment at last. I am sorry for the quick clips of KSP, but when I'm traveling, there isn't much time for KSPing. Happy Explosions Until Then!

Wow. Where can I buy this game?!

Well I have. But I haven't played it personally. I watched Scott Manly do an episode about it and it looked pretty good. But as far as I could tell, there couldn't be many mods for it. And it didn't look very kerbal.......

Honestly, I always use a slightly modded version of the stock tech tree. I haven't tried out mods like Umanned Before Manned but I have used the engineering tech tree before. I do like the stock tech tree in comparison to some other modded ones, but I find I can finish the stock tech tree without leaving the Kerbin system, albeit with a lot of grinding and science labs. I personally look down on people who use the cheats to get farther ahead in the game. I occasionally cheat to help a krew make its way home, but science is sacred. I have never and will never mess with science points using cheats. Unless it involves helping a krew WITH science. I am nice to my kerbals to cheat to let them survive. Only to go on more life threatening adventures. I'm a nice guy.

I would say that the rockets look modular, and most modular rockets(like Saturn V) can be built to equal likeness in KSP. I find though, that stock KSP needs inter-stages which really make it look more realistic. Wait, the decoupler farings are pretty similar to interstages? RIght?

I believe that Kerbals get lonely. Like Jeb and Val. They can easily get lonely because all they do is sit at the controls of their spacecraft. Bob usually is in a science lab so he's occupied. Bill, well, Bill isn't all there and so he can't measure the passage of time. Or feel comradery. Or any other sort of emotion. He's Bill.

Well they will need all the luck they can get. No game can compete with KSP.

When you spend more time writing KSP stories in the Mission Reports section than writing that essay that needs to be finished....... "PLEASE DON"T GIVE ME A ZERO. I"LL BE KILLED BY MY PARENTS! PLEASE!" "Your essay is a blank sheet of paper, of course I'm giving you a ZERO!"

An excellent quote from Home Alone. Prefect. Explosives........Rockets mayhaps?

OOHH! Is this series going to be the story after what happens in the Revelations of the Kraken!? Of the Kraken repenting of his destroying kerbalkind in the previous world? Or is he deceiving them after all? Questions which do not have answers, but these questions should have answers.

24th Installment: Why do we Keep Having to Rescue our Kerbals!? After the incidents around Minmus, Mortimer Kerman has fired the entire board of engineers and has replaced the lot. The new bunch plan to do more Kerbin-centric missions like space stations and satellites as well as a science lab. First things first, we have to rescue our kerbals on the Economical Lander. We have created the High Orbit Kerbal Saver, or the HOKS(pronounced HOOKS, for hooking things). This rocket is stuffed to the brim of Delta-V, containing at least 7,500 m/s. It has the most delta-v than any other manned spacecraft ever. And Lift-off! I'm afraid that we won't be able to recover those solid rocket boosters, even if we had put parachutes on them. And I quickly accelerate into orbit. The booster stage lacked parachutes and I was too slow on the throttle so the booster was lost yet again. This maneuver node will get the HOKS up to an intercept with the EL. I just realized I put a little too much delta-V on this rocket. Well, better to ever-engineer than under-engineer. I feel like that will be our new motto, our old one being, "Be as strict with delta-v as possible and we can get more stuff up there." That's the swivel firing up. That really does pack a punch. And an alternator. Guess what, I forgot the solar panels on this so I better get everything right the first time. Man, I got a lot of things in orbit of Kerbin. A lot of it is junk metal with no fuel circling the planet. The rest is spacecraft in the progress of returning home. Now zooming towards our rendezvous, I hope we will arrive in time. After burning around a bit with the engine to fine-tune our approach, the outer fuel tanks run dry and we detach them. Like the flair? Sliding into view of the EL. Can you see it right up next to Kerbin? Probably. One by one the crew disembark to fly over to the HOKS. Luckily we have exited the Kraken's Domain and remain unscathed. Roni is the last to disembark. She turns around to look at her fourth spacecraft as she leaves. Then she turns back around and EVAs over to the HOKS and boards. After setting up a maneuver node, they wait to fire up that swivel engine. Its the first time Roni has felt the kick of a swivel, and she's impressed. "WHOOWHO!" Now we descending towards Kerbin. But wait. WE HAVE NO KLARPING PARACHUTES! **** Luckily I discovered this as we were just entering the atmosphere, so I burned most of the fuel in the swivel stage to get a 60 kilometer perigee. Close. And the engineers strike again, but they missed. Whew. More engineers are going to be fired because of this! This is the circularization burn. The orbit ends up at 250 kilometers by 100 kilometers at 5.6 degrees from the equator. And guess what. We have to build another spacecraft to rescue them! I can't believe it! WHY DO WE HAVE TO KEEP RESCUING OUR KERBALS. Mortimer is going to be soo mad..... Sorry but will be traveling a lot this weekend. Might not post until Monday. If I do post during the weekend, consider yourselves lucky. Happy Explosions Until Then!