mystik

The Grand Tour in pictures: Eve Expedition (part 5 of 5)

New craft files up, upgraded the Bow + Archer to V3.1 to fix random explosions when landed, Bow no longer provided as a separate file since you can just remove the Archer from the model.

Hi, This happens if you are landed on a slope and the gravity is low. Due to the pure weight of the ship especially when loaded it the gravity ease in will cause it to fly around. This is a KSP bug, not a model bug. I didn't get these issues with high gravity planets, but only on low gravity moons, like Gilly, which is pretty bad at this. If you do not set your ship as flat as possible you get these jumps. I even get these on flat terrain, but the ship does not explode, it just jumps a bit. Workaround: Solution 1: Save before landing, then test time acceleration on the landed surface to see if it does the jump, reload if needed. Solution 2: Land the ship, even on the slope, let it settle, then deactivate SAS completely. Wait until the ship no longer wobbles at all. If you have KSP engineer installed, you will get confirmation that the wobble is gone when the vertical speed does not fluctuate anymore. Once you confirm the ship is stable, engage time acceleration. Solution 3: Press ALT+F12, check "prevent crash damage" and "indestructible joints". Wait for the ship to settle again, then deactivate the cheats. It is clunky, but the Bow rarely lands and takes off so it should not be that much of a problem. I admit that I did use this method once, on Gilly, which is very predominant to have this issue. These are known bugs that often occur with large ships. It gets worse when you do clipping and include parts in parts. I tried to keep clipping at a minimum, but I can try and reduce the clipping even move, although I doubt this is what is causing the issues you are experiencing. Do you have a screenshot of the position of the ship before if explodes? The Arrow does not experience this issue as it just jumps on the landing gear is bouncy.

Guys, I have good news, The Grand Tour is complete. Jeb, Val, Bob and Bill have visited all the planets and moons in the KSP. I will upload pictures and stuff when I have the time. For now I will leave you with the group photo and the Arrow parked in the honorary spot where it will remain from now on, being replaced by the new V3.0 model, which adds many fixes and improvements. The Grand Tour Crew, from left to right: Marvie (rescued Bow engineer), Bill (Arrow engineer), Val (Arrow pilot), Jeb (Arrow pilot), Bob (Arrow scientist) and Franline (rescued Bow pilot). Total Science: 218757 Jeb skill level is OVER 9000!!! That's it for now but I will add more pictures soon. Happy New Year!

My problem is that I am also delivering a rover. I can get to kerbin orbit, then refuel and get to Eve. It lands, it separates into two parts before landing. I even refuel. Then going back is a nighmare. But I just have to land somewhere with at least 3000m altitude. Then it works. My design is far from aerodynamic because of the constraints of carrying the rover, which leaves a big coupler at the top of my rocket. I cannot add pictures because imgur has failed today.

I have wasted days trying to make something for 4 kerbals to land and return from the surface of Eve. I give up. Anybody have any crafts that work?

Hi guys, just a quick update, please note that I have made minor updates for Bow and Bow+Archer, old model had 8800m/s, new model has 9000m/s, some optional parts were removed, so you may want to download again. Captain's Manual is now available.

The latest version is now released, please see the second post for the new craft file, I will add more pictures later to the post. That being said, I will take a break for the holidays, so have a Merry Christmas.

I will test the Bow 2.0 and upload the files as soon sa they are ready. The Arrow V3.0 is able to land on Tylo and since the weight barely changed I have no doubt that it is still able to reach Moho. I will not be testing the trip though as this is time consuming and is not needed.

What's next? Returning to Kerbin. I will post the updates as I have the time. Visiting Eve. The Arrow won't land, just orbit around. I tried to make it do that but it can't. I even added a missile in the front that uses the asparagus setup. It just cannot do it. I am working on a lander with a rover and return rocked. It is called the Dart. In essence it delivers a two part rover that also refuels it. It sheds all of it's parts and the final part that makes it to the orbit is a tiny 4 seat fuel tank with a small engine. It is tested, but I did not have the time to apply bug fixes. It is quite hard to land. Releasing the Arrow V3.0 for the Arrow the Bow V2.0. This is the top priority. I will try tomorrow to finish updating and upload it to Kerbalx. An updated manual will be released as well, with less but clearer details, instead of the way it is written now.

The Grand Tour in pictures: Tylo - Vall - Laythe - Eeloo (part 4 of 5)

The Grand Tour in pictures: Ike - Dres - Jool - Pol - Bop (part 3 of 5)

I used to believe in rovers, but now I'm with the OP. With the exception of Eve, I see little use for rovers. Even on Tylo, with ISRU, while hard, you can still do better than with a rover. It took me a while to biome hop on Tylo, mostly because 3000m/s lasts you for about 5 minutes of flight. Still, I tried rovering and it was so painfully slow. Fire up those engines and get your job done quick. ISRU mandatory. Sometimes it is even more feasible to go to orbit, refuel and then land again where you need than move there. Eve is another story. With Eve I cannot even fly for long distances. The atmosphere makes it all worse. Still, I rather land somewhere, rover on short distances, get to my rocket and get out of there. Eve is too hard to be fun. It is actually quite boring. It looks cool from space, but on the ground it's pretty meh, you waste a lot of credits trying to get to it. I am planning an expedition, it includes a lander and a rover for refueling purposes, but I don't plan to travel too much, because after almost completing the Grand Tour and sciencing EVERY SINGLE BIOME from Moho, Gilly, Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, Dres (yes I visited that one), Pol, Bop, Tylo with my Arrow ship, I have grown tired and bored. I have Vall, Laythe and Eeloo left. I am pretty tired of it. Eve will be the only one that will not get fully scienced. I don't care for it that much. I have like 50.000 science and more to go (just finished Tylo and it was a b*tch to do). In the end, it is just better to do contracts instead, it is way more fun. All this mumbo-jumbo biome hopping is lame. You click here, you click there, you gather your science and then you're off to the next place. It's tedious and dull. Rovers suck. I rover with my Arrow ship at 50m/s and the fuel lasts for a long time. On Tylo I rovered between Minor Craters, lowlands, midlands, highlands, maras and the two craters that are near each other very fast, because I could do 90m/s without issues. Let's see a rover do that. And I can cross waters as well. My biggest issue with rovers is that they are too slow to be practical. They flip easily, the wheels come off like crazy, the electric motors are pretty bad at providing enough traction. I have a few rovers but I don't use them because I can just use the ship to get around.

Thank you. I know I update this post rarely, but I am currently doing full play days to complete the tour. Once the tour is ready I can finally confirm the completed version. So far I have managed to land everywhere, and the radiator fix is working, it has not made the Arrow more clunky. I landed on Tylo a few days ago, but it will take some time to science every place. I am doing slow rovering as the gravity is very punishing and I try to avoid having to waste fuel flying and then reloading for 60-75 days for having moved a small distance. After this, time to go to Vall, Laythe and Eeloo. Once this is done, I can conclude the tour complete, but I will still be going for Eve where a lander and rover will be waiting to land and explore the nearby area, before returning to orbit and the Arrow will finally return to Kerbin where it will forever be parked in the middle on the KSC, as a honorary museum piece. I will update the kerbalx version shortly, but I have to test getting to Moho again and also landing on Tylo with the new changes, to make sure the update has not broken anything. Moho is hard to get to and Tylo is hard to land on. I did it a few days ago with only a few hundred of m/s left in the tank, and as soon as I touched the ground, the engines cut out. The only way this may be easier is to use the Bow to dip as low as possible in the orbit, then release the Arrow, which will save some dv. In order to land on Tylo you need to fire the engines on full at 22500-25000m. It may take some tries. On the plus side, Tylo is great for rovering, because the gravity keeps the Arrow up straight at higher speeds. I will update the picture gallery soon as well, but the current pictures are visible here https://imgur.com/a/qDBiC and bonus pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/5FdBM Also, here are some unsuccessful designs before the Arrow was born, which have inspired the building of the Arrow, to show off the design history: Thoth III - https://imgur.com/a/CZbwj (available on kerbalx but not updated) A lot was learned from this one, mainly that it was built on barely enough lift to get to space. Landing it was a complete mess and definitely not doable. Too heavy, too bulky, too little dv to reach even Minmus without refueling. This has taught me that you need a interplanetary ship to carry the Arrow around (the need for nukes). And so, the Bow was born and tested, but the problem came from refueling it on Moho. The 12 nukes were not enough to land and takeoff. So a Rhino was added for extra power. The Rhino is rarely needed elsewhere since it can mostly land using only the nukes on the planets as per the table in the first post. The Thoth III was really the first alpha version of the Arrow. The idea of a 2 part ship fixed all the problems having the power to land and takeoff and interplanetary travel. One ship to explore the planets, one to handle the long distance travel. Arrow IV M61242 - https://imgur.com/a/gZyqR This was the first one to have insane dv. It had 6000 m/s but was clumsy and flimsy to land. It did tend to use more fuel than needed because of low power engines. Good design, but too large to be practical, not enough dv. Arrow X - https://imgur.com/a/cqvOD This was a spin off from the Arrow V1.0, which at this time was already built but not ready. I wanted to experiment with something light and self sustaining. I was still unsure if the idea of an interplanetary tug ship was that good. I was concerned about the needs to land on Moho to refuel. In the end, this ship was too long, too heavy (330 tons) and did not meet the needs to be practical. Another version of something similar existed, that had the front detach and become a rover. It wasn't very practical. It was the point where the idea of a rover was scrapped completely and instead focused on giving the ship the needed stability to make it be able to perform rover duties. This was not the last try to make a lighter version of the Arrow. Light Arrow - no pictures for this one Essentially, just a sized down version of the Arrow V1.0 built with MK2 parts instead. It proved to be lighter, compatible with the Bow, but just not that efficient. It was lower to the ground so any bump could damage or flip it around. It had room only for 2 kerbals, which was a no-no. I wanted something for all the main 4 kerbals. Too flimsy and too many parts for something that could be achieved better with the initial V1.0 design. Scrapped. I promise to sort things out in the next few weeks so that it is ready for Christmas so that other people can enjoy it for the holidays.

I updated my Arrow design to V3.0 to account for the radiator changes. But that will be updated on kerbalx later on. In the meantime, I created a mini attachable nose cone that includes extra radiators. It attaches to the front and seems to work quite well. It is a patch to the Arrow V1.0, which has reached the Jool system, so no chance of recalling it now, when it only has the Jool system and Eeloo to visit. It has been in space for 36 years now and it will complete this tour as it is. For those that do not know what the Arrow is, here is the dedicated thread:

Due to the less efficient radiators or less efficient ISRU 125, the Arrow cannot refuel on it's own for the time being. I have updated the design to V3.0, which fixes this issue, but it requires a few more tests before it will be uploaded. If there is anybody that is using the Arrow V1.0 and would like to continue the grand tour, please let me know and I will upload a "in flight fix" for the Arrow. In essence it is an extended nose cone that includes extra radiators and can deliver itself to the Arrow. It works in atmospheric conditions as well. In case you are wondering what happened with the Arrow 2.0, it was essentially an alternative model that adds an extra drill and some minor updates, but the benefits are questionable, since it loses some dv and gains some weight that make it harder to land or takeoff on planets. It also features extra landing gears on the wing tips to make for easier rover activities. The effects of these on drag is not tested, but the stability has greatly increased over bumpy terrain so it may be added to the V3.0. The Arrow V3.0 still has about 3000m/s so that should keep the long range. The exterior is mostly identical, the major changes are related to the placement of extra radiators, to combat the recent radiator efficiency loss. The Bow (second ship you see in the pictures) V2.0 is ready, essentially it has extra claws at the bottom to be able to refuel from asteroids. This will grant more flexibility and potentially make it suitable to reach the red dwarf in Galileo Planet Pack which has no planets nearby. Testing was not done, but expect a release next year once I complete the stock system grand tour and begin the Galileo Planet Pack grand tour.

I just came here for the Ed Bruce references. Veni vidi like. Planes are more fun than rockets because they're more eco friendly in a pixel world that does not care if you litter the orbits to create The Kessler syndrome. All my rockets drain my credits And credits are the things I really love to keep All my rockets drain my credits And that's why I only use planes you see

30000 at least and still ongoing as the mission is not complete. Part of a grand tour. Still counts as one mission.

Yes, cheats kinda ruin the experience, making the game feel empty. However, I think OP should try to do the steps I advised to get around this bug. Consider it a "fix" rather than cheating.

Congrats on your demonic 666 post. Anyways, it may be just a temporary issue. I would recommend pressing Alt+F12 and disabling the damage on ships. Load the base, let it jump around, let it settle a bit, check the springs, then deactivate the cheat. If that still happens, install hyperedit mod, then slightly change the position of the base so that it sits on flatter ground. I know it is not "orthodox", but then again neither is having these annoying bugs.

It isn't. If you look at the data regarding the 125 you may think that, but the truth is, if you stick enough radiators, you can prevent it from overheating. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Thermal_Control_System_(small) It will still overheat, no matter what, but your efficiency will stop at 97.4%, and not reach 100% with time. No matter how many radiators I would stick on to it, it would never go past this efficiency (it would be for a brief moment at 100%, but then it would just keep heating up until the efficiency drops to the above value. You were told the truth and a lie at the same time. Essentially it can operate indefinitely but not at 100%. Continuous operation. I know, that's how I would refuel my SSTO. It would take up to 60 days of refueling and to me, that is a long time, so this claim makes no sense.

I am not that good with modding this game. I might actually mess things up. I can mess with the numbers, but I am not willing to put that much effort to fix something the developers messed up. I already payed cash for the game, not willing to pay extra time too. It's fine if I go back to 1.2.2 as there are lots of mods that still work with that version.

Don't get me wrong, I can stick a few more radiators too, but I already have a ship out there that has visited Moho, Gilly, Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, Dres. Now it is just dead weight near Jool because it cannot refuel anymore. This is why I have to revert. All my Minmus and Asteroid miners are useless. I need to replace them all, but I don't want to. It's just easier to stick to an older version of the game. I don't need the new languanges nor do I need the "fixes" they applied in 1.3 and 1.3.1.

Release date for 1.4 released: Dear Kerbals, we are proud to announce that our development team has finished the last bottle of tequila and will start compiling the executable. It will be ready for the holiday season in exactly 10100 years. Changelog: Made engines less efficient. Now they fully reproduce the efficiency of the EM Drive, and have perfect 0 thrust, so you can waste countless hours just to get a rocket into orbit, when using other realistic mods would actually be closer to reality that out exceptional design. Radiators have been upgraded to the point where now they actually generate heat. We were never really happy with the fact that every version we reduced their efficiency more and more, requiring to carry more weight in radiators than the weight of the equipment that they were supposed to cool. With the new radiators you will get to enjoy those red bars on your screen all the time. The more you add, the more chances to blow up, fun fun fun. Eve atmosphere has been increased to reach Kerbol. Gravity has been set to 999 via console command sv_cheats 1 set gravity. This option will not be editable by the user. Ike color has been changed from 99% dark to 101% dark, so that you can't distinguish anything even in daylight. Eeloo has become brighter than Kerbol, despite the fact that it is so far away you should barely be able to see it. This logic was approved by the entire team. MK2 parts have been fixed. Issues with drag have been corrected and now, no matter what you do, your space plane won't even move anymore as it will feel like pushing a 2m x 2m board against a jet engine running with afterburner. You can now place your spaceplane face down and it will automatically be shot into space by the frontal drag, no fuel needed, easy. Parachutes will only be able to open at 0.9m above ground and will be as efficient as waving your hands like a bird trying to fly. Rover wheels now fall off even when not moving. All bases will shake and rattle and explode every time when you load and switch to them. Guaranteed. All your bases are belong to us. Staging has been fixed. Now all parts explode the moment you stage anything. We liked the explosions and we enhanced this feature. We are also keeping to our lifelong commitment of never adding any useful mods, like Kerbal Engineer, Transfer Window Planner, Alarm Clock, Empty/Full Center of Mass or anything that might actually make your life easier to play. We don't care to make it easier. Grow up. It's not rocket science. We used to launch rockets with out bare hands. NASA never used any kind of telemetry or advanced computers. We have reduced the level of graphic detail even more so that people with 286 MSDOS 3 can run our game on max settings. People that have 8 cores and 32GB RAM and 2x 1060GTX can go and die in a bush, we are not interested in making the game visuals selectable to the potential of the market. We like out potatoes and we think potato graphics are the best graphics. Also, we will ban everyone that ever mentions Stock Visual Enhancement mod ever again. We shall have none of that capitalist propaganda around here. Less is more. With great sadness we also announce that one more programmer has left the team. We are putting Skippy, the dog mascot as Lead Programmer since we like how cute he is when he barks. I'm sure his expertise in programming will continue the trend we started with 1.2 when all our good devs decided to leave. We've been making the game better and better ever since. The ratio of bugs per release has never been higher. New language will be added: Klingon. Because that's what you guys want. Language, not actual gameplay, or fixes. We are looking into the possibility of adding some other alien languages or even LOLSPEAK. Also, in the future we plan a new DLC, to be sold at 999 USD. It will consist of a fancy new loading screen. That's it.

Nobody experienced this? Nobody uses ISRU on their SSTO? I tested extensively and definitely the cooling rules have changed, where one small radiator was required, not a medim one is the minimum if you don't want to get screwed over for mining for a day and your efficiency dropping to 0 faster than the temperature at the north pole. I know some game developers mess us occasionally during updates, but at least they provide feedback. I have logged a bug in version 1.2 ONE YEAR AGO and have not even received one notification that someone looked at it. I'll just revert back to 1.2.2 to finish my grand tour and refrain from updating anytime soon. I won't be using 1.3 because you managed to make the sun stutter in the sky, as well as break the drills action groups, well done, *slow clap*. I am having serious doubts of ever purchasing the DLC you're working on if I am forced to upgrade the version to a new release with improved game breaking "fixes", I rather pass. The thing is I have no faith in your ability to fix things. Simply because I log into your bug database and there are only a handful of things that are fixed, the rest of the bugs go unnoticed. You don't deserve the committed community, not with such dismissing treatment of your player base. You have free game testers and you don't care. Whatevs, devs.