Cavscout74

My first manned Jool mission from my long lost "Out of the Sands" career arrived, 2 (or has it been 3?) real world years later than intended. Jeb & company did fly-bys of Tylo & Val before entering Laythe orbit & docking with the previously launched Laythe station My Tylo folding lander also arrived. It turned out to be a very effective design except the final stage TWR was a bit too high - full thrust would quickly send me flying back up, and with Tylo's gravity it was tricky to find a partial thrust setting that allowed a safe landing quickly enough. But it is a tough little bird & landing without explosions

My long abandoned "Out of the Sands" career is plugging along again. All the old info is lost, but the save is still intact. Well into year 11 now, with the first manned Jool mission approaching their destination. For today, a survey satellite arrived in a polar Laythe orbit Also had a few crew transfers & an LKO rescue, so I've been making use of my Lightning spaceplanes regularly I don't usually bring them into DSC, but this rescue mission used up a good bit of my dV to pull off, and it was just worked out cheaper on dV to set her down in the desert than try to reach KSC.

I haven't been on much in a while, but this was always one of the best online communities I've been on. Friendly & helpful mmbers, moderators who (IMO) did a great job without "over-moderating." Would be a great loss if these forums were shut down.

I've done pretty good with the small sleek ones but the bricks - both flying & building - have not been my strong suit. Looks like you are getting the hang of it

I've only come back from Eve twice over the years, and the first was using a rocket I downloaded from KerbalX

I actually fired up KSP for the first time in a few years. I fired up an old career save, checked out a few ongoing mission then slapped together a vertical launch 2-stage spaceplane and test flew it successfully

Cheesecake is correct, it is the Restock version of the stock Sentinel.

A little late to the party, but I wanted to say congrats to India on their successful landing - and now rover deployment. I hope it continues to perform well

It does, but only noticeable if part pressure limits are on. It was never really fully implemented though - as far as I can remember, all stock parts crush at the same depth, giving the ~300m depth limit on Kerbin. Same reason Jool probes fail at a certain altitude if pressure limits are on. There are a few mods that add parts meant and/or modify existing parts to survive higher pressures.

Just to be clear, I wasn't specifically referring to KSP. But it seems pretty common among smaller games to be told "Just ask on Discord, the dev never comes on here" when you go on Steam forums to report a bug or ask a technical question. And then it's much more difficult to find out if "bug x" is a known problem or something new or whatever. The only Discords I've really used much have been for guilds in an MMO or two I used to play, and it works fine for casual chatting with guild members, playing activities, or whatever. The one Discord I did try to report a bug on, I apparently hurt the dev's feelings, which also doesn't encourage me to want to bother dealing with a Discord for large groups.

I hate the fact that a lot of small game developers use Discord as their primary means of contact. Especially ones that sell on Steam, with it's built in forum that the dev often ignores in favor of discord.

Another possibility - if you are in one of the newer versions of KSP - you could have an engineer from a rescue ship remove the offending RCS module using construction mode.

I know, makes launches much more interesting when you never know for certain you'll make it to orbit, even on a tried & true design. The "best" failure I had was a spaceplane with 6 kerbals, the whole back half blew up. I had to bail them out & splash down via their personal chutes while never letting anyone get outside physics range from the others.

Fired up my fledgling 1.10 JNSQ career and put the first kerbonauts on Mun for that save. Another pair are headed for Minmus as well In addition to the manned missions, I also lofted a relay satellite into a very high (21Mm x 17Mm) polar orbit for a contract.

The short version is moving parts (like the fuel & oxidizer pumps) have to build up speed to provide all the fuel & oxidizer needed to produce full thrust. I know there are some people on here that can give a much more detailed account if you want. I would guess it also gives a chance to abort if something starts to go wrong with an engine rather than realize 2 seconds after the launch clamps are released that an engine is failing.

Well, let's just put it this way: every time I get the bright idea to build a shuttle, I build in some form of ejection system for the crew compartment. Otherwise, it gets expensive hiring new pilots.

There is quite a bit of science available at the space centers (original KSC, desert space center, Woomerang, Island Airfield, desert airfield). Early on the "easiest" way to gather that science is a pair of Mk1 pods turned sideways and used to roll through each area using the reaction wheels, with the Mk1 pods being the wheels. So you can collect data on the runway, at the spaceplane hangar, at the admin building, etc. It adds up but is a pain in the tail section. Also, every biome (grasslands, highlands, shores, water, etc) has science you can gather both on the surface & at low altitude if you didn't realize that yet. High altitude & in space tend to be once per planet/moon with a few exceptions. Launch in different directions to cover other biomes and make sure to grab reports in flight & after landing. Hope this helps. EDIT: Here is an example space center science gatherer:

@swjr-swisI was cruising MUCH lower than you, just 5000m for the trip. Also only made mach 2.1 at that altitude. Like I said, I was playing it safe today. And they were tiny drop tanks (single size 0 tank with filled nose cones). It's entirely possible they could have cost range from drag more than they increased range with the small amount of fuel. Well, if an F-15 in the real world can land with 1 wing, we shouldn't be surprised if Jeb can one up it with one wing & one engine missing in KSP!

The barnstorming contracts I found pretty difficult. Probably the hardest ones offered. The Island airfield hangars aren't too horrible if you have a small plane - the hill behind the hangars is what creates the most difficulty, at least it does for me. The research center one is HARD. I can't remember if I've ever completed that one successfully. If I did, it was in something very small & very slow. One other thing to watch out for - if you accept a speed or altitude contract and do something else (like launch a normal rocket) there is a good chance it will count staging of your rocket as a failure of the aircraft contract, even though you aren't attempting the aircraft contract. So only take them when you plan on completing them immediately.

Glad to hear it. Another type of contract it can give you are water rescues - IIRC, if you complete the build & fly a seaplane and/or (can't remember if it's either or both) the land a helicopter on the VAB contracts, you can start getting "Coast Guard" missions to rescue stranded kerbals on the water.

That is the lowest anyone could go and still be an airplane. Nicely done! I took it a little safer, jumping back to my 1.8 career and finally got around to flying @swjr-swis's Blackwood on a speed run from DSC to KSC. I did make a few little tweaks to personalize it, but the basic airframe remained the same. Even with four external tanks, I had to cut burners halfway through the trip to make sure I would make it. Very fun plane to fly, both responsive when needed yet still stable to fly. I was also just in time for my Laythe station to arrive as well, now I just need the crew to arrive. Between starting a few different careers and breaks from KSP, I haven't landed on Laythe in years, so I'm looking forward to it.

Val took the CF-01A Falcon up to 65km and circularized at that altitude (I didn't want to get ahead of my aircraft contracts) before returning to land safely at the Desert space center runway I actually overshot DSC and had to fly back about 150km, landing with a very small fuel reserve Then KSP struck again, and at this point I'm done with 1.12. If I play any more KSP at all, I'll go back to my old 1.8 save. Repeatedly had rover wheels crash into terrain when switching back to this rover or quickloading to go back to before I switched away. After half a dozen times, my patience is gone.

There is a contract pack that offers assorted aircraft contracts - "Giving Aircraft a Purpose" Adds assorted one-time aviation challenges (altitude & speed, barnstorming, landing on VAB helipad) plus regularly offering "airline" contracts where you have to build a plane that holds __ passengers and fly from one of the runways to another. It of course requires Contract Configurator as well, like all contract packs. Found here: I know the header says version 1.6.1 but I'm using it in 1.12.5 with no problems, and I've used it in just about every previous version of KSP as well.

Had a wide range of missions going on in my career the last few days. Jeb was stuck test flying a new patrol plane While Val got to test fly a prototype spaceplane. Currently she only had it up to mach 3 for a contract. Mach 4 & 35km altitude are next. It's performance is marginal with the panther engine but should improve whenever I get the whiplash unlocked. While the pilots were off flight testing, Kelrik & Ambera were up at Woomerang testing a newly developed scanning arm, along with a new rover design My Eve probes also started arriving. The first was the Eve Pancake Lander, which ended poorly - it lost orientation, turned sideways during atmospheric entry & mostly broke up. The tough lander can survived entry but the parachutes did not. Surprisingly, the can absorbed most of the landing impact, allowing the contents to survive, including the probe core and several science experiments. But with no antennas and no power source, it is just an expensive piece of debris on the surface. Oh, yeah, the floats for ocean landings survived as well. The Verona-Formalhaut probe/lander combo faired better, with the Formalhaut making it through a hot but survivable entry and safely landing I did have to wait for dawn to start sending back science to preserve battery life.

As a long-time ProbesPlus user, I just found another use for the Verona parts - they are a perfect fit for the Sentinel IR telescope