darwinpatrick

Are you headed to Sucellus next or tackling Toutatis?

@GEPEG_Unconscious Have you tracked asteroids yet? I never got to play around with their distribution after Toutatis and Caireen were added. If so, what are their orbits like?

@GEPEG_Unconscious Hey this is fantastic! I can't wait for more. Let me know how Taranis goes... Are the science defenitions working okay?

@Norcalplanner IMO add it in now. No reason to re-do hours of work just to add in a system that exists so very late-game. Also, in regards to lag, in my experience planetary systems only hurt loading times a little when the game is starting up. In-game it's totally on rails and never rendered all at once so the load is very light.

Awesome! Fly safe, everyone!

I'd be happy to go ahead and make the second set but I'm not sure how to set up a different file that works with the different dependencies, if you wanted to take a crack at getting the file structure set up then I could do the work of the second set's actual definitions. As for the broken defs, a couple of the ones for Grannus and Nodens only. I specifically remember EVA report in space high over Grannus was misbehaving despite being set up identically.

Wow, that's a huge honor if you're willing to do that! Just bear in mind a couple of things: - These really make sense for GEP_Primary only, especially the ones for Nodens that reference having launched a vessel from Nodens (if you've just travelled for decades to get there it's kind of odd to see that) so I might try and work on a second set for non-GEP_Primary. - Every possible definition is included, and they all behave normally except for a few at random on Nodens and Grannus that revert to stock definitions. Maybe you can find something I don't.

I mentioned in my last mission report that I had a surprise coming Wednesday. It's not a final mission report, but it is something I have been working on these last few weeks- ever since I started exploring GEP_Primary. I figured out the config files by looking at how OPM did theirs and was able to put together two config files that actually do something. I added to them after every mission, and now that I'm finished I think I'm going to share them. What are these files, you ask? I wrote 1800 custom science defenitions for this mod. When written out like that it sounds insane but I rather like writing science defenitions and doing it slowly over weeks it wasn't too bad. This was initially a challenge for myself- someone with zero coding background- to see if I even could make this happen and once I started, well, here we are. So these defenitions (probably) work for GEP but I wrote them from my perspective as a GEP_Primary player so many of the ones for Nodens wouldn't make sense if one isn't using it as the homeworld. If anyone wants to take a look or even plug them into your own save (they should work fine even in preexisting savegames) you can put both these files in GameData/GEP_Primary. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2vk6nzkw157up6r/AAC3r0siU1rt48BYDJ-llyR_a?dl=0 I learned a lot from this little project- mostly how the game sets up its files and some basic notepad++ regex. Also, a lesson in patience... This did not happen overnight but I'm glad I saw it through!

@OhioBob I made a new install and cheated a survey scanner into different planets' orbits- everything works as intended.

I'll check later today.

Sucellus and Caireen have been conquered... I have sent Kerbals to, and returned them home from, every single landable world in the Grannus system. Before I get into that and what it means, let's chat about the latest dicovery by- and subsequent enterprise of- the Nodens Space Program. Sucellus and Caireen have eluded detection until now... I thought about making it a huge mission with lots of moving parts to it but in the end I decided to just go with the simple version. This is the mission in Nodens orbit. A standard ejection and capture got us to the surface of Sucellus without too much trouble. You can see the science tucked away above the decoupler that released the rover. It had a tendency to flip over but I never had any real plans for it anyway. Sucellus is rather boring but I'm glad I made the trip. Caireen was slightly more fun. The same bug that happened with Toutatis showed up again out here, showing me ore deposits before I ever made it out there. I decided to mine on Caireen before heading home. Ignore the floating flag... After a bunch of gray rocks this was a nice change of pace. Don't worry, they made it down just fine and got some extra science from a new biome, the Temperate Lowlands. So where does this leave the save? Well, I'm not entirely sure. I tossed in extra planets towards the end there so I can't really call this an authenic playthrough (but the Taranis mission and the days I put into it will always hold a special place in my cold, bitter heart) but I also really don't feel like starting a whole new Nodens Space Program just to run it all again with the new planets and see how it feels. Darwinpatrick's Nodens Space Program is wrapping up. (unless I decide to add GEP_Secondary but I just don't see myself being up for that to be honest) Luckily, I've been planning for this day for a couple weeks now and I have a surprise for y'all coming this Wednesday. Until then, fly safe!

Be the change you wish to see in the world

@OhioBob Perplexingly, restarting my game fixed the issue.

Here's the relevant pieces of information. The probe is landed at 7 degrees north by 39 degrees east if that is in any way helpful. I also was curious to see if this had been explored much and came up with this thread and a few papers that it links to (although the relevant one is down) https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/4850/how-would-winds-behave-on-a-tidally-locked-planet At the terminator, winds in the upper atmosphere would flow toward the night side, cool and sink, and then flow at lower elevations back toward the daylight side to get heated and rise again. I know these winds aren't modelable in-game but you wonder what kind of terminator canyons this process would carve over billions of years...

Let's talk Toutatis! So I'm back with my latest mission report from a solar system that I had just finished exploring... get back in the rocket, Jeb! One slight issue with having just finished a large Taranis mission is the amount of crap left over that's still in varyingly elliptical orbits between Taranis and Nodens. Except there's a planet there now... I would definitely have used Toutatis to help with Taranis, so let's just say we have some really crappy astronomers, okay? We just discovered a new planet! This is what we're using to get there. There's enough delta-v for a few trips to Toutatis but this is what happens when all your boosters are rated for Sirona. Anyway, getting there was a breeze. We brought a little probe to go run an ore scan- but for some reason it was already scanned? Probably a bug on my end but I'll look into the configs anyway when I get the chance. You can see in the pictures how it works. The lander separates from the tug and heads down before decoupling both the chutes and the science module which stays as a science surface probe and relay. Pretty standard Apollo style. This system worked surprisingly well but I overestimated the atmosphere by a lot. 0.01 atm? That's an IRL Martian atmosphere on a planet proportionally like 50% bigger than Mars. Let's just say it was a hairy landing. (It was exactly like having no atmosphere, except the cloud of exhaust that the engine makes in an atmosphere obscured everything as I was trying to gently bring it down) So as a first interplanetary desination? I'm impressed. I was drawn by the ease of access but completely blindsided by the sheer difficulty involved in actually getting to the surface safely. Doing this at a lower tech level would be a fun time for sure. Also, the tidal lock is surprisingly cool. In terms of solar power, the sunlit side would be really nice for mining operations or science bases that require 24/7 electricity. The upside of the thin atmosphere? Getting back to orbit is no hassle. We made it back to the tug, transferred the crew, science, and snacks and returned home with thousands of m/s to spare. I like Toutatis. It's a nice blend of Venus's accessibility and Mars's drawbacks, with some other unique twists thrown in. Definitely don't treat this place like Duna when it comes to mission planning!

It's not too difficult though is it? What's delta-v to orbit, for example?

I've been interested in rescale systems for a while. Does JNSQ appropriately scale engine ISP, fuel fractions, etc., or is it meant to be a great challenge?

Thank YOU for the challenge! This was easily the most difficult single goal I've ever tackled in my almost three years of playing Kerbal. Next up: Taranis SSTO

Oh this is awesome. I can't wait to poke around! Love the delta-v map and the new flags! As it so happens, I completed my manned landing and return from Taranis today. So flags and footprints on every solid celestial body in the Grannus system(!!) stands until I update. I'm exhausted. It was about 50,000 m/s of delta v round trip but that was broken up into a few vessels, four or five launches, and probably eight solar dockings. The mission would not have worked without the asteroids in their odd orbits between Nodens and Taranis- I tracked enough of them down with similar enough arguments of periapsis that one big asteroid miner was able to have a periapsis at Taranis and an apoapsis at Nodens with plenty of delta-v to spare. That was the crux of the mission, Solar Station Alpha. The tanker on the right was required to launch to refuel once, when no asteroids were immediately available. On the main ship, the top module is Bill's Mancave for overseeing drilling. On the bottom is four large ion tanks. As for the actual lander, here it is. The TWR barely allowed a Taranis landing, and it was not easy, but it beats bringing chemical rockets all the way down there. Although I did have to refuel at a couple pre-placed "gas stations" that were basically just the sentinels I used to find the crucial asteroids in the first place. I decided not to risk landing at the beach. It took some work on both ends, but I was able to pull off a velocity-cancelling maneuver that Matt Damon would be proud of to get the Taranis Lander to Sun Station Alpha. Problem: zero point zero kilometers is too close. Luckily we were on our way to the return craft by that point and would not be mining any more asteroids. Especially cause Jeb somehow managed to break the other radiator. In this picture you can see the Taranis Lander docked to the station's ion module(really hard without electric charge, cause the lander's solar panels broke in the crash too) and the returner docked to the Front Door docking port. If you look closely, like I didn't do in the VAB, you will observe that whoever dumbass built the returner spacecraft forgot parachutes. Thank Sirona for the personal parachutes. The science data was grabbed by Solar Station Alpha captain Siddred Kerman shortly before letting go. As you can see, everyone survived along with the klaw. A ceremonial flag was planted on the southern ice cap to mark the moment when I never had to even so much as think about Taranis again. Sorry if it seems like I'm trying to steal the thunder of the hard work put into 1.1. It looks so awesome and I can't wait to lock Jeb in a can and throw him at these new worlds!

Awesome! Can't wait! Really looking forward to what's been cooked up. I'm setting up solar infrastructure that should allow for a Taranis manned landing and return sometime today. In so doing I had a thought about scattering some sunspots on Grannus if that interests you. Purely visual but I think it would look cool.

Today was a good day. After a week of this "Epona+" mission all three Kerbals are home safe, with an imprtant milestone reached. The mission involved sending a modified Brovo lander to Rosmerta orbit followed by a miner. I also took a contract to dig up 3000 ore from Rosmerta and land it on Epona, so I factored that into my construction. The following picture is how the miner fuels both itself and the lander- It's not crazy if it works, right? I fueled like this four times between arrival, departure, and the landings on RAB-58E and Epona. The Brovo lander's top bit was given a probe core that allowed it to be removed so the miner could dock with it when it was needed. But, like at Brovo, it came in handy keeping the lander straight during descent. I also swapped the Poodle for a Vector. So it's the Epona lander now, but it made indepenent landings on four worlds that mission. Yes, four. Basically, after it was done with Epona and fully fueled I sent it to the dwarf planet Cernunnos to hang out for a while. I didn't have a return plan as it was so this worked out nicely, because I was able to send a craft that got to Cernunnos by mining a nice class E rock called SFS-013 near Sirona. This also gave the Epona lander more than enough fuel to get the surface of Cernunnos and back. From there, I transferred the crew to the returner. Tiny problem: the heatshield in there was completely ablated away from the heat of mining, despite my radiators. So that removes the fun and safe 7km/s fireball return option. I would have to slow down normally, but this would take a lot of fuel. Luckily, there's still a thousand tons of it locked up in asteroid SFS-013 near Sirona... I hopped back down and filled up again there. After that was over I had a comfortable amount of delta-v to get down into Nodens orbit and back home safe. So that's the milestone- flags and footprints on every world in the Grannus system! It's an incredibe achievement and it feels so good to have conquered every... Right. Crap. Uh, let's see how this goes. Buckle up everyone!

Today after a short hiatus I returned to colonizing the Grannus system. Put a few probes around the Epona system in preparation for Rosmerta mining and Kerballed activities. But the mission to Airmed and Brovo was a little more excting. It was the first flags and footsteps on both worlds. I went to Airmed first with the validated reasoning being that getting to Brovo via aerobraking in its atmosphere would be easier and safer that way. That worked exactly as planned! In case you were curious, the thing off to the side is an extra fuel tank with airbrakes and drogue chutes that I set to drain first to lower the center of mass and keep the craft stable during descent. The little things below the tanks are in case I came down too fast- they sit below the engine and would prevent it from being destroyed. Luckily that was not a problem. We're currently sitting in low Brovo orbit with 1900 m/s left. I would like to bring the vessel home intact but that might not be possible. We'll probably just send a rescue. Then on to Epona!

Landed a scientific base on Damona (my first manned landing outside of Nodens's SOI) and managed to capture this out the window

@OhioBob I'm intrigued by the idea of there being no ore on Cernunnos, but there should be ore somewhere nearby- I'm coming back to my Charilko-like ring idea: perhaps asteroids can spawn in the thin gap between the two bands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Chariklo This would frankly just be really neat to have IMO. Seems like a fair trade off for the work required to get there and the lack of ore on the surface.

@OhioBob Am I correct in my assumption that there is no ore on Cernunnos at all?