Cavscout74

I have a similar design tourist pod and even in stock scale it either needs gridfins (Kerbal Re-useability Expansion) at the top or ballast at the bottom (or both) to remain stable without SAS. Even with gridfins & SAS, it tries to go sideways under physics warp, it just doesn't go too far, and survives. Airbrakes serve the same purpose - but as you noticed - have a nasty habit of exploding from overheating.

PEBKAC Launch Escape Systems:

My 1.8 career made several bold leaps, with Kerbals in low & high orbit and a probe fly-by of Mun Full details here

Weeks 6-10 - In space to stay A few days after the successful completion of Val's historic suborbital flight, Jeb boarded a Jabbit-2 for a trip to orbit. This was followed by another manned mission to high kerbin orbit, then a probe to Mun fly-by Manned Launches: DSC Jabbit 2-1: Jeb's historic flight occurred on day 46. The new Jabbit 2 launch vehicle performed perfectly, inserting Jeb into a 77 x 83km orbit, at about 6.5 inclination. Passing what he estimated was the ascending node, Jeb used some of his remaining fuel to bring his inclination done to just below 1 degree. After one more orbit, Jeb fired his Terrier engine for the third time and final time to set up reentry, aiming for the Island Airfield. Reentry went smoothly, and Jeb's pod splashed down just 35km from the Island DSC Jabbit 2-2: Not to be outdone, ten days later Val climbed into the second Jabbit 2, modified with a lighter Pug second stage, which enabled her to reach an 85 x 252km orbit, gaining valuable science from the regions high above Kerbin. She stayed up for 2 orbits before reentering, landing along the desert shoreline west of the KSC mountains. DSC Jabbit 2-MRCO1: The next obvious step after reaching high Kerbin orbit was a visit to Kerbin's closest companion. Marco-1 (Mun Reconaissance & Communications Orbiter-1) was launched a few days after the KSC grand opening. The flight nearly ended in disaster when commmunications were lost near the end of the first stage sustainer burn and weren't reestablished until after passing apoapsis. Hurriedly staging the empty first stage & fairing, the upper stage was able to establish orbit & deploy the three solar panels and begin sending back images of Kerbin from its orbital telescope. Another loss of comms nearly prevented the Munar insertion, but once again comms were reestablished just in time. After coasting for over a day, Marco-1 entered Mun's SoI and began sending back imagery & temp measurements of both high & low Mun space. Unfortunately, the low Mun images were all taken on the night side, so details were limited. After leaving Mun's SoI, Marco-1's secondary mission will be to establish a high orbit around Kerbin to attempt to provide improved communications and help prevent the two near-disastrous comm losses of its own primary mission. Aircraft: Several days after his orbital flight, Jeb rolled out the newest "X" plane at the island airfield - the CX-02. Moving away from older aircraft cockpits, the CX-02 was shaped more like a bullet, and stepped up from the CX-01's Valiant engine to a brand new Reliant with over twice the thrust. To supplement the rocket engine, a pair of Juno's near the nose provide enough thrust to get off the ground - although a burst of rocket thrust helps, especially with full LFO tanks. Once stable at 4000m, Jeb lit the Reliant and blasted past mach 2 for another record, then turned back toward the island and did it one more time before landing safely. CX-02 climbing on jet power around the Island airfield First Mach 2 record attempt Other: The Grand opening of the KSC was marked by Jeb performing several flyby's in a CF-01 Star before landing on the new runway. Due to the recent income from successful contracts, as well as requirements for a heavier launch vehicle, the KSC launch pad started upgrades immediately, rending it unusable for another 47 days.

I did a little tinkering in sandbox before continuing my 1.8 career. Threw together a little Mk2 shuttle - it used 4 SRB's (2 above & 2 below the wings) to get to orbit, then I flew it down to a safe water landing since it had no landing gear or chutes. For something that took less than 5 minutes to build, it flew & glided remarkably well. Then it was back to my 1.8 career. Great leaps of progress were made - jet engines, first satellite & first suborbital kerbal. Details can be found here. While waiting on the above jet to be researched, Jeb contented himself with flying high performance prop planes of questionable design: Ending the day with Val being launched on a suborbital hop, becoming the first kerbal in history (of this career) to leave the atmosphere.

Week 3 - Crossing the line Both the sounding rocket program out of Woomerang and the unmanned rocket program out of the Desert Space Center were racing to be the first to cross the Karmen line. Meanwhile, the aircraft program slowed down pending the arrival of jet engines. Aircraft: Jeb took up the CX-01 for another flight, attempting to push the limits of its speed, but that turned out to be only about mach 1.2, far short of the mach 2 goal. Research into longer range prop aircraft led to testing of the unusual CFP-02 Twin Panther by both Val & Jeb, reaching a new altitude record of 10km. Not as satisfying as mach 2, but the dawn of the jet age is just around the corner. Twin Panther climbing to 10km over the desert Sounding rockets: This week wrapped up the sounding rocket program with the first flight into space, first recovery from suborbital flight and the first liquid fueled sounding rocket. WSC - SSR-6-1 was launched to complete the final sounding rocket contract, reaching an apoapsis of 95km before splashing down & successfully recovered. Completed the sounding rocket to space & a suborbital flight & recovery (unmanned) contracts. WSC - Only one more sounding rocket was launched, a new liquid fueled design - the SRL-1 (Sounding Rocket, LFO). It easily reached space and became the basis for the A5A light satellite launcher and effectively marking the end of the sounding rocket program Unmanned rockets: The DSC continued with variants of the leftover A-4 rockets and finally rolled out a new design DSC - A-4C-2 launched, but only reached a max altitude of just over 36 km, far short of the goal of reaching the Karmen line. This failure ensured the a sounding rocket from Woomerang would be the first to space. I completely overestimated what the Capella was capable of, although part of the problem is squeezing two sounding rocket batteries and an antenna between the nose cone & rocket body - but since it has no recovery capability, it needs to at least be able to transmit it's science back home, which it can't without the batteries & antenna DSC - A-4S-1 - replaced the Capella second stage with a SSR-1 upper stage & payload. Climbed all the way to 118km, easily crossing the Karmen line and completing the contract to Explore Space (suborbital flight) DSC - Following the success of the A-4S, a new liquid fueled rocket was tested - the A5A. Based on the SRL-1 sounding rocket and retaining the same payload section, the A5A had the potential to place the first satellite into orbit. The first launch, A5A-1, cleared the atmosphere but failed to attain orbit - reaching an apoapsis of 72km but running out of fuel before raising Pe out of the atmosphere. It did manage to take & transmit magnetometer readings before plunging back to the surface. A5A-1 gathering magnetometer readings during its brief suborbital flight DSC - A5A-2 was redesigned with a stretched first stage fuel tank and removal of the magnetometer. Successfully launched into a 72x80km orbit with over 300m/s dV remaining to complete the First Satellite contract. Due to the lack of power generation capability, the satellite was deorbited after a single orbit before the batteries went dead. A5A-2 climbing into the dry desert air A5A-2 burning to enter Kerbin orbit Week 4 - Dawn of the jet age Scientific advancements made possible by the previous week's launches allowed the R&D center to finish development of the Juno engine, ushering in the jet age. Not much new science was gained, but valuable testing of new designs was completed. Due to longer build times, only a single rocket launch was completed this week. Aircraft: Once the CF-01X was refitted with the Juno engines, Jeb took it up for a test flight. Reaching speeds of over 250 m/s - faster than any kerbal has gone in level flight without a rocket. The initial flight was marred by a failure of one of the engines. Jeb handled it with ease, bringing the prototype back to a safe landing on the remaining engine. Another new prop design was tested, the CFP-03 Tigercat. It flew nicer than the Twin Panther, and should have similar range, but lacks the second crew seat. Loko Ma, no props!! Jeb posing with the new jet after landing Tigercat in flight Unmanned rockets: DSC - Jabbit 1D-1 was a test launch of the Jabbit 1 launch vehicle. It was the second object to enter Kerbin orbit and the first successfully recovered from orbit, paving the way for the manned launches. It also tested the altitude controller - triggering the payload bay doors (for drag) and the parachute despite loss of signal to the probe core. Jabbit 1D-1 drifting down by parachute Week 5 - Kerbals in space With 2 manned launches and no aircraft tests or unmanned launches, this is the shortest update so far but also the most significant. Manned rockets: DSC - On day 37, a Hopper 2 test vehicle (Thumper SRB with a Mk1 pod) took Jeb well into the upper atmosphere, reaching an altitude of 64km, and landing safely 54km downrange. Hopper 2 leaving the pad DSC - Less than six days later, the first manned launch of a Jabbit 1 launch vehicle roared off the pad and sent Valentina into the history books as the first kerbal in space. Although just a suborbital flight, Val reached an altitude of 80km, performed a short maneuver to test the ability of the Terrier engine to relight in space, then jettisoned the upper stage & reentered safely. Jabbit 1-1 lift-off! Preparing for reentry Jabbit 1-1 returning home A new launch vehicle is currently being built, the Jabbit 2, which replaces the single Swivel first stage engine with a Valiant sustainer engine & a pair of jettisonable Thud booster engines. The increased thrust & dV of this design should easily place a Mk 1 pod into a stable orbit. Note: I am really enjoying this so far, but being the stock system, it's pretty easy even at 20% science - taking away KSC (and the loads of science there) has been the hardest part. When Kopernicus & JNSQ update for 1.8, I think I'm going to start this whole thing from scratch in the larger JNSQ system.

Made some progress in my new 1.8 career: See the rest in mission reports- "Out of the Sands"

Week 1 - Sounding rockets & props Multiple advances were made this week, but not without mishaps. Happily, no personnel were lost in the process. Rather than a hard timeline, highlights will be broken down by mission type: Aircraft: Multiple flights with CFP-01 Bison aircraft gathered low altitude science around desert & island facilities. While waiting for the promised Juno jet engines, a CF-01X airframe was built, powered by a 45kn Marlin prop engine and performed a successful test flight with Jeb at the controls. The airframe performed well – stalls break slightly left but easily recovered, handling is superb. Top speed is just a few m/s higher than the venerable Bison, and the higher cost means the airframe was parked after testing, pending availability of the intended twin Juno's Sounding Rockets: Cheaper & faster to build than anything else, our sounding rocket program has brought in a steady but small stream of funds & science DSC – SSR-1-1, launched well past 2000m for contract SSR-1-1 payload returning safely WSC – SSR-1-2 launched above 5000m for contract WSC – SSR-2-1, attempted to launch above 10km for contract but only reached ~8200m WSC – SSR-2-2, improved design, launched above 10km for contract Unmanned rockets: DSC – A-4-2 launched with a payload section from a SSR-1 sounding rocket, reached an apoapsis of ~35km, completing “First launch to upper atmosphere (uncrewed) Manned rockets: Just a single test of the Mk1 pod with launch escape system. Due to the limitations with current automated systems, it was decided to perform the test with a pilot on board. DSC – Hopper 1, crewed in-flight test of the Mk1 Pod atop a Flea SRB, Val got the honors for the first test flight. Unfortunately, no images were taken of this launch. Other: In an effort to improve communications and control of launches from the Desert Space Center, Kelrik & Ambera drove a pair of utility rovers up to the highest mountain visible from DSC. One rover - equipped with a pair of relay antennas, an early solar panel and controlled by a sounding rocket avionics package - was left behind, then they both piled in the second rover & headed home. Week 2: Rocket planes and more sounding rockets Aircraft: After several days work, the CX-01 rocket plane was finished & rolled out at the DSC. First flight was kept short, with speed limited to ~250 m/s. Jeb handled this flight, checking out the handling qualities of the hastily assembled aircraft. After refurbishing the rocket engine & refueling, Val took it up for the record breaking Mach 1 flight. Sounding Rockets: With the desert space center focusing on the A-4 launches, Woomerang took over most of the sounding rocket program WSC – SSR-4-1 launched above 20km after the failure of SSR-3 to exceed 14km WSC – SSR-5b-1 flew above 40km for contract after the failure of SSR-5-1 and the discovery that the SSR-5 design had serious stability issues. SSR-5 & -6 upgraded to a 0.625m payload section, allowing more experiments to be carried, as well as having room for a small antenna to help ensure control at higher altitudes. Unmanned Rockets: Only a single unmanned rocket was launched, the new A-4C the mounts a Capella sounding rocket on top of the old A-4 rocket. DSC - The new A-4C-1 was launched with a barometric pressure experiment. The A-4C reached an apoapsis of ~35km again, but upon separation, the Capella failed to ignite. It was tracked & maintained control though its entire flight, crashing down into the desert.

I spent a little time in sandbox & a test career setting up a prop plane for my new 1.8 career (Out of the Sands - see mission reports) Any landing you walk away from, right Jeb? Getting better, but that tail is ugly This is more like it. It is VERY maneuverable due to the CoM & CoL being too close together, but I didn't have the parts unlocked to really fine tune it. The wings have fuel, so moving them moves both CoL & CoM. Burning fuel (or just reducing fuel) in the fuselage fuel tank helps. On the other hand, it goes pretty slow when it ends up in a flat spin and Jeb has survived every one so far without bailing out.

In the dawning hours of a new year, thunder echoed across the sands of western Kerbin as a budding technology was turned from war to pushing the limits of Kerbalkind. With just an empty nose cone where once a deadly payload was carried, a leftover A-4 rocket, repainted a peaceful white, leapt into the sky, accelerating quickly beyond the reach of the control center nestled in this once quiet desert. Just months before, all Kerbin rejoiced after the end of the bloody Kerbal Konflict, now they gazed skyward, hoping for a glimpse of a bright future among the stars. Career Rules - So I decided to start a new hard career for 1.8, with most of the same rules as my last 1.7 career but upping reentry heating to 110% and changing probes to require signal for any control. Mod List Extra Starting Parts - It’s always seemed like the game timeline was starting around late 40’s Earth tech – instead of sounding rockets & leftover V-2’s, KSP had a crazy kerbal in a pod atop a short SRB but the feeling was the same. I’ve always felt like a lot of the aviation tech that has to be researched should already be available. I’ve left the Juno where it normally is, since I have the Airplane Plus props to use at the start. Craft Build Time: Idea borrowed from KVASS mod, but modified & calculated outside of game Starting Personnel Second Kerbonaut Class: Third Kerbonaut Class: Fourth Kerbonaut Class Fifth Kerbonaut Class Sixth Kerbonaut Class Casualties Standard Launch Vehicles Day 1 Due to my absence from KSP, several updates and (most of all) losing the memory stick that I had all the career info saved on, this series is officially closed. I would still like to try again, maybe in a JNSQ system if that is still being updated. Thanks for all the comments & support I received for this.

Do smartparts function after losing control of a probe - specifically for lost comms when "require signal for control" is checked? Like if I activated a time or altimeter, then lost control due to loss of comm, would the smartpart still activate?

List of what I've seen missing textures so far (I have pruned some of AP+ so I might not be seeing everything) I didn't confirm (or even try to) every one of them, but most of the engines show up in the log with the error: "DDS DXT3(512x512, MipMap=True) - DXT3 format is NOT supported. Use DXT5" Edit: The size one tailcones are a different problem - the cfg points to the wrong location, like @Manul suggested. It is missing the Assets folder in the location Squad/Parts/Aero/Cones/Cones Need to add "Assets/" between the cones/cones

Had a day of frustration - my mining module arrived at the asteroid station, allowing the second capture vehicle to undock & head to a parking orbit for the next asteroid. My plan to reduce part count by using weldable docking ports failed on every front. Mining module leaving Kerbin's atmosphere, staging the fairing. The backwards docking port will get removed by an engineer and attached (with KAS) directly to the asteroid. Then (the plan anyway) was to dock normally and have the engineer weld the docking ports, eliminating them from the part count & making a solid joint. Unfortunately, that didn't work - apparently, when attached directly to an asteroid, the ports won't weld. Then my engineer spent very nearly too much time rearranging other parts on the surface of the asteroid before realizing I was low on EVA fuel and hadn't grabbed a KIS fuel tank to bring with me. This is probably the closest I've ever come to running out of fuel on EVA, just 0.04 units remaining. And I was at least 100m from the hatch when I made my last maneuver, so I'm lucky my aim was good. In the end, it didn't matter - I timewarped for most of the 3 days till the next maneuver (for a returning Minmus lander) and upon exiting timewarp, first the mining module exploded into pieces then the entire asteroid and everything attached came apart a few moments latter. My last save was before the mining module docked. Ugh. This is actually a no quickload/no revert career but I make exceptions for things like kraken attacks.

That makes sense. I haven't even had a chance to look at my log for this issue yet. I don't even have a definitive list of what textures are missing. I was actually looking at the short tail cone for another reason & noticed the placeholder thing.

I tried with a fresh download, and still getting the same missing textures. One issue I found, the size 1 short tail connectors have a blank file labeled "placeholder" assigned as the texture. As far as other missing textures, it appears to be primarily the early engines with no textures. I only had a few minutes to look this morning, so I may be missing some other.

Had some time to do a little tinkering with 1.8 and tested out a new mod to go with it - "Completely Non-Aggressive Rocketry" @DylanSemrau did a beautiful job on his V-2 & WAC Corporal. Now I'm going to have to start a new career where it will be useful, especially since almost all the mods I use are updated for 1.8 now. I should probably get Jeb & company back from Duna at least before I abandon 1.7.3

Nicely done!! Just got around to testing this in a new 1.8 career and it flew beautifully! One thing I noticed though, the probe core has all SAS modes enabled - considering the tech level, that should probably get downgraded to SAS-only (SAS level 0 I think?)

I'm getting the same thing on windows. I've deleted the install & re-downloaded the mod, will see if something got corrupted or wrong version or whatnot tomorrow.

Also, Restock+ requires the regular Restock mod to be installed for it to work as it borrows some of the Restock files for models/textures

Work continued on my asteroid station, with a crew module arriving and docking (via claw - although I have an idea to improve this next time) along with a second parts craft so Greghat (my engineer on this project) stayed busy for another day on extended EVA's. I've also found it works better to use a single long truss and mount two gigantor solar panels or radiators opening to the sides rather than a short truss with a single panel or radiator opening out. It will also reduce parts count of the final station, except it will need at least one more parts craft to bring up the long trusses to replace the short ones. I may just leave it as a "lesson learned" for the next time. My next launch for this will be the permanent ISRU module, and my idea is to use weldable docking ports - take one & attach it to the asteroid via KAS, then dock the module normally and weld the ports rather than have everything hanging onto the asteroid with a big ugly claw. In between EVA's my Moho infrastructure (station, fuel base & a load of fuel) departed Kerbin. Pictured here is the fuel base with nuclear transfer stage & landing crane. The small tank hanging off the side is just lead ballast to keep the center of mass in the centerline, and is fitted with a self-destruct charge to dump it after landing. Finally, I tested a new low-tech jet design, powered by twin Juno's. The first attempt as a bit too heavy, but it handled the ditching well: After shedding some weight, the second try was much better - acceleration is still pretty slow, but that's pretty realistic. Handling was ok, although aggressive maneuvers are limited by the slow acceleration. Stalls, both clean and landing configuration, were gentle and easily recovered. I haven't tested top speed yet, but it's somewhere over 220 m/s. It will need a few tweaks (mostly to the elevator angle of incidence) and I forgot a ladder for the crew, but otherwise I'm fairly happy with it.

I had two major projects going today - first was launching what amounted to a pile of parts to start making my asteroid into a space station. It kept my engineer busy attaching parts with KAS, but I got most of what I wanted done with this craft. I did lose a radiator panel and a truss section to space unfortunately. There will be more launches to finish the station - at least one more parts craft, plus at least two major components (a crew section and an ISRU section). The crew section is nearly ready to launch, followed by another parts craft in a few days. I haven't even designed the ISRU module yet, and I really need to redesign the parts craft so I can keep part of it attached for fuel storage. Parts craft getting ready to perform transfer maneuver First step was to attach everything close to the parts craft, then one by one move them out to better locations. Due to the actual surface being below the visible surface almost everywhere, the trusses are needed to keep parts visible when attached to the asteroid Everything mostly in place. The radiators could be clustered together but I had to spread out the solar panels to ensure coverage Once I was done with station building, I took up my CF-07 and flew it from KSC to the desert airstrip the long way. It flew nicely and only burned about 2/3 of its fuel (including drop tank). This marked the longest atmospheric flight I've ever made in KSP - done plenty of trips from KSC to the desert strip the short way, and plenty to the north pole, but never this way before Sunset over the ocean Making landfall again Over the desert - getting close now On the ground

Dawn patrol:

My career saw my recently captured class E asteroid arrive in it's final orbit and I got my load of tourists in the new 16 passenger Titan lander through Minmus & Mun landings, then back to Kerbin. Once the capture vehicles fill up their tanks, at least one - possibly both - will be detached to be used on some other asteroid in the future. Currently, I'm waiting on a craft to finish building that will bring up equipment to start turning this into an asteroid station Titan lander landing on Minmus near my mining base And leaving the Mun (and its landing gear) behind Due to some issues with the launcher, a bit more dV was used than planned to reach orbit. I still ended up with just barely enough – I hit Kerbin’s atmosphere with 33 m/s remaining out of ~2800 in the lander. I didn’t even count what I made from the trip, but it was a nice chunk of funds. I went back again to revisit a few aircraft designs to improve on them. First up was my maritime reconnaissance plane, renamed as the CR-03 Trident. The magnetometer in the tail was replaced with a different version. It doesn’t do anything in flight, just for looks. I also made a few minor tweaks, then buzzed around the islands for a bit. I think I need to add a searchlight or two but otherwise I’m pretty happy with it. Next up was my CB-02 Bear. Nothing major, just added RATO and tweaked the cluster bomb position in the bomb bay and added one more ring of 4 round fuel tanks to the cluster bomb. The little dark puff of smoke is where the bursting charge separated all the round tanks to fall freely, which are barely visible just before the tracking station Last up before calling it a day was a quick hop around KSC in my CF-07 Talon fighter. I really like the handling and looks of this jet, so I've been ending just about every KSP session lately with a quick hop in it.

Having grown up around aircraft & pilots, I follow the old pilot saying "The only time you can have too much fuel is if you're on fire"

My current career started after the 1.7.3 release and is just getting into year 5. Mun & Minmus have space stations & large (for me) surface mining operations. The career first manned Duna expedition is getting ready to come home soon, & I have unmanned probes & landers at Moho, Eve/Gilly, Duna/Ike, and Dres, with more enroute to Jool & Eeloo. I also have some of the infrastructure for a manned Jool/Laythe mission en route (station, mining outpost, amphibious rover) and a Moho station & surface outpost a few weeks from departing LKO. A lot of my time is spent waiting for craft to build - I'm using a formula to calculate craft construction times based on cost (the idea borrowed from the KVASS mod, with a few changes & doing it on a spreadsheet instead of in-game). With current upgrades, I can build a 500k fund craft in about a month,. To offset that, I'm starting to build spaceplanes that just require fueling before a mission after the initial build time. I keep a post-it next to my computer with a list of what spaceplanes I've built, by type & serial number (year-day built - for example my most recent one is "CS-04 04-366") My longest career was probably in 1.3.1, and was up around year 50 before I made the jump to 1.4 and a new career.