Cavscout74

It's from @Angel-125's Deep Space Exploration Vessels. The hex node is 2.5m (just hex-shaped instead of round) and has options for with & without crew tubes. There is a 3.75m hex node as well, plus an assortment of hex trusses in both sizes with multiple lengths & options (empty, crew tube, fuel tanks) I didn't get a lot done today, just the first crew for Kerbinport and a fuel addon. A second addon with other supplies (mostly snacks & monoprop) is under construction but won't be ready for a few days. My favorite part of the Wild Blue mod docking ports - being weldable to reduce part count. Here, Greghat Kerman is preparing to weld the ports joining the fuel tank addon to the station

Sounds like my career a few days ago - lost a ~70,000 Minmus outpost that took almost a month to build due to a decoupler failure then had to abort a rescue mission due to a first stage engine failure. Today's report is much better however. First up - Kerbinport Station was launched into a 245 x 255 km orbit with near zero inclination and is now waiting on its first crew. Then my first two Duna/Ike probes arrived at Duna. First was the Ike Sojourner/Surveyor combination orbiter & lander, followed 2 days later by the Duna Sojourner. Ike Sojourner/Surveyor entering Ike's SoI. Sojourner orbiter released in a near-polar, highly elliptical orbit to also act as a comm relay. Surveyor lander with transfer stage is preparing to deorbit Surveyor safely landed with a view of Duna Finally, the Duna Sojourner in orbit

That sounds like half of my Tylo missions and at least one of my previous Moho missions. I definitely feel your pain!! The Moho one actually was slow enough for almost everything to survive EXCEPT the antennas - lost one on the first impact & the other on one of the bounces.

My 20% science career is still plodding along. I sent the vets back to Minmus to repair a rover wheel - Kelrik is my only 3-star engineer and I recently unlocked the passive seismograph so I figured I might as well have a 3-star scientist place it, and they deserve to be flown to their destination by the best. Once the rover wheel was fixed, it was time for Kelrik & Ambera to go looking for rocks to scan with the rover arm. Only took a few minutes for me to find one about 2 km from the outpost Heading back after completing the scan & an assortment of other experiments. The base is that collection of 3 darker spots in a row down on the flats I also have two Minmus tourist craft carrying 4 tourists each to & from Minmus orbit. The first is on its way back while the second is a few days out. My new 2.5m Kerbinport Station is almost ready for launch (3 days remaining) so it was also time to deorbit the old MOLE station: Passing over the space center for the last time Starting to get hot Now we're cooking....

@Klapaucius has of course already posted one hopper to Kerbalx: https://kerbalx.com/Klapaucius/Aristophanes-the-Frog I seem to remember another one as well, but I can't find it as easily

I got a few things done in my career, including the highest rescue in Kerbin orbit so far (~6200 km), first steps towards an SSTO, a Mun surface rescue and finally a load of Mun tourists to help pay the bills. MPV-2-ER coasting to rendezvous for the high orbit rescue CX-06 Eaglet SSTSO (Single-Stage To SubOrbit). It doesn't do much except fulfill speed & altitude contracts before building an actual spaceplane. Forerunner of my Falcon spaceplane. Eaglet reentering the atmosphere prior to landing at KSC. While not an SSTO, it did get Jeb really excited over what the future may hold Surface rescue lander entering Mun orbit during an eclipse Prepping the debris for destruction while the rescued pilot heads to the lander Mun tourist craft entering orbit This guy might be as fearless as Jeb... Descending to splashdown at sunset

Hope for the best, they don't always do that. I don't bother with those contracts any more because they do it too often - it they don't spawn on a cliff, they spawn several hundred meters in the air then crash and explode. You could always try to switch to the scrap, use the alt-F12 to set orbit into a stable orbit & just rendezvous and grab it from orbit.

I finally decided to go retrieve Jeb from the north pole. I redesigned my Comet airliner, replacing the 4 Juno's with a pair of Wheesley's in tail nacelles, and replace the 3 of the 4 passenger cabins with reconfigurable storage tanks, plus a surface experiment container. It flew nicely, so I had Val fly up with Kelrik & Ambera to set up a surface weather station, refuel/restock the Arctic Venture rover, then collect Jeb & fly everyone back to KSC.

Finally made a little more progress in career after things calmed down some today. My Minmus outpost landed yesterday and the first crew arrived today to set up surface experiments and start their month long stay on Minmus. I still need to get a rover launched for them to explore and hopefully find a nice rock formation to scan. I also had a load of tourists make an orbit around the Mun & back for a pretty nice paycheck. During reentry, apparently the orbital stage was draggier than the crew module, because I had already staged it away a few seconds before this image & the two parts stayed like this for quite a while after. And I launched another Minmus lander, this time with a tourist on board in addition to a pilot & scientist. They are carrying an extra surface solar panel assembly for the Minmus outpost (since the engineer I sent was only 1 star) Finally, Val went on a solo trip to investigate the last Mun monolith. The science she brought back got me up to 160.6 science points, allowing me to purchase the Mk1-3 pod so I can start on larger missions now. I didn't have time to put a craft together tonight, but I already have a pair of LKO rescues lined up for the first mission with the larger pod.

I cut my fuel planning a little too close on a polar Mun lander today - I had 19 m/s remaining when I finally got my Kerbin Pe inside the atmosphere. I was starting to think I was going to have to get out & push for the first time in ages.

I didn't get much done other than a handful of course corrections for the probes going to Duna and the outpost going to Minmus arrived in orbit. The only other thing was a passenger airline contract from KSC to the desert field & back. I used my new Comet jetliner which performed perfectly. Climbing over KSC. Even with 4 Juno's, it's climb rate is pretty bad fully loaded - I actually had to go around the mountains west of KSC for the first time rather than over them. "If you look out the left windows, you'll see ruins of an ancient civilization hidden in the mountains" Returning to KSC at dusk

I know I've seen 1.25m angled parts before, I even thought I remembered where I've seen them, but the mods I thought had them don't as far as I can tell.

I noticed something in my newest career, even with a pilot on board I keep getting the cannot delete message all the time. But if I wait about a second after selecting the maneuver node, it deletes just fine.

I finished the longest drive I've taken on Kerbin - four hundred and sixty-some kilometers from the Woomerang launch site to an certain anomaly near the north pole. Jeb is currently one cold kerbal, waiting in the small passenger cabin, for another mission to set up a base camp near the anomaly. I recently unlocked the light scanning arm in this career, and Jeb spotted a baobab tree just a few km's into his trip. Edge of the ice Cruising on top of the world. I didn't actually take any shots around the anomaly, but the Arctic Venture rover is currently parked on a flat patch of ground a few dozen meters from it, with Jeb sleeping in the cabin between the two seats. He has a few weeks worth of snacks and with the roof solar panels, the generator fuel should far outlast the snack supply now that he's not driving any more. While taking breaks from that trek, I built a new jet airliner. Val took it up for the first flight, and it flew reasonably well. It needs some tweaking, but it was flyable as-is It eventually got to the upper 200's, maybe could have broken 300 m/s. The elevators need some more downward angle of incidence put in I very nearly lost control trying to get this screenshot, but recovered & made a great landing (ie one that the plane was still usable after) Finally, the second Minmus outpost launched successfully and is on it's way, no unplanned explosions this time

There was a mod that did this, but I can't recall the name and I don't know if it's up to date or not. It would be interesting, although with stock parts there isn't much space to move around in

I landed a crew at the third Mun arch last night, did a quick flag planting, picked up science & then flew through it on the way back to orbit - for some reason, I have never actually flown through a Mun arch before except with an EVA kerbal The sunflare is a bit too much, but this was my arch fly-through Then I tried to launch an outpost to Minmus. Kerbal Launch Failure struck and caused one of the radial decouplers attaching the landing engines to the outpost to fail. The landing engine fell back & struck the first stage fuel tank with explosive results. There goes 20 days of build time down the drain, along with almost 72000

I tried to use my existing CX-02 Arrow for the mach 3 contract, but it turned out that it wasn't quite capable of mach 3 in level flight. Mach 2.96 was the best I could get, so I refitted it with a pair of liquid fuel rockets for another try. I got it up to around mach 2.6 on the panther then kicked in the rockets and it blasted past mach 3 in a few seconds CX-02B Arrow returning to KSC after it's mach 3 flight Then I had another job for Jeb. Several satellites had picked up strange readings in the arctic. To shorten the flight, a CF-01B Vampire was fitted with four small vertical SRB's to enable it to launch from the Woomerang launch pad. The following report has been flagged as <Top Secret>

I've had an eclectic day in my career - a few tourist flights, tested a new light 1.875m launcher with a contract satellite, finished a double LKO rescue, the first crew arrived at the Mun outpost and Val took out an experimental jet (now that I finally unlocked the Panther) and collected both a altitude (20km) and speed (mach 2) record contract for aircraft. First launch in this career of the Steamglider launcher with a contract Mun satellite. Coasting to TMI burn Ambera setting up a Goo experiment now that the sun is up - the crew landed at night. Of course. Kelrik went exploring for Mun stones and found more than he expected.... Greghat Kerman preparing for reentry after the double LKO rescues Since Val was stuck at KSC with a bunch of rookies while the other vets were having fun on Mun, she scheduled herself some time in a brand new experimental jet, the CX-02 Arrow. The contract said it had to have wings, so it does. Barely. Considering how long it took me to build it, it flies incredibly well. Zooming up to complete the 20km altitude contract. Val topped out around 25km Returning to KSC after completing both contracts. Although it flies remarkably well, ground handling is not the best, so a parachute gets deployed just after landing to bring it to a rapid stop before it breaks anything. It doubles as an emergency chute, but I actually haven't had to use it for that before. I think I'll be able to grab the mach 3 speed contract with this as well - I was only at 3000m when I did the mach 2 contract & it was still accelerating rapidly when I throttled down for the return to base. EDIT: In fact, it can't quite make mach 3 in level flight - it topped out at mach 2.96.

Do you have advanced tweakables turned on in settings?

This has been going on for a while, they've put in a few fixes and some of them even help a little. One of the changes was making the spring/damper force editable on deployed craft. Usually, turning spring force down pretty low (which will depend on what body you are on and the size of the craft) and turning the damper up some helps a lot but isn't a 100% fix.

I had an unexpected boost to science in my career today. While launching the Duna Sojouner probe to LKO, its first stage Bobcat engine failed & exploded due to Kerbal Launch Failure. I already had an Ap over 70km and had less than 200 m/s dV remaining, so it wasn't mission destroying failure - I just staged & continued up to a parking orbit until the Duna transfer. The transfer stage has over 3000 m/s, so the loss of the booster's last few seconds of thrust wasn't a significant problem. What surprised me was having nearly 300 science points when I returned to KSC. Kerbal Launch failure has a setting to earn science from part failures and apparently I left it on & it was set way higher than I would have liked. Combined with the science returned from the first Minmus landing a few days later, that netted me two more 160-point nodes, which gave me everything I need for thorough science coverage of Duna & Ike and enough time to get the necessary probes built - in addition to Sojourner (which was a new design to use what parts I did have), there are 4 additional probes, 3 of which have landers. First is my standard Pioneer design, then a Vorona probe & lander that is a copy of the Soviet Venera designs. Then there is another Sojourner sharing a transfer stage with a Surveyor lander bound for Ike, and finally a thrown together Duna Science Lander. All five have successfully performed their transfer burns and are on their way to Duna. Duna Sojourner Duna Pioneer, solar powered version (RTG version is not yet available) Duna Science Lander Duna Vorona with Formalhauf lander Ike Sojourner with Surveyor lander In between Duna launches, I also squeezed in 3 rescue missions - two in LKO, the third around Mun. Kelrik is rapidly becoming an expert at orbital rescues, and one of the earlier rescuees, Greghat Kerman, is starting to learn the ropes as well. With improvements in technology, I've upgraded the Dawngrazer MPV (Multi-Purpose Vehicle) to the -2 version, both standard & extended range. The primary changes are actually to the launcher (switching from twin Swivels to the Bobcat). I've found the Cheetah engine a bit overpowered for what these pods are doing, so they both use Terriers. I've considered using 2 Terriers for the extended range version, but it's probably not worth the extra mass. First LKO rescue mission of the day in a new Dawnbrazer MPV-2, Kelrik is preparing for a course correction to bring closest approach under 100m. Reentry after the second LKO rescue, passing over KSC. The service bay doors are open to increase drag (about a 50% increase), and hopefully land a little closer to KSC Mun rescue in progress, using the extended range version of the Dawngrazer MPV-2. In addition to extra fuel & snacks, this one was launched with a few new pieces of scientific gear to gather more data around the Mun Reentry after Mun rescue Finally, one of my discarded Dawngrazer launchers had a little bit too high of a Pe to be deleted on rails, so I switched to it after getting the payload into orbit & rode it down. By some miracle, it slammed into the ground top first, breaking the decoupler & upper tank, bounced & destroyed the lower tank and was slow enough at that point for the Bobcat engine to survive. Lithobraking at its finest!!! I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've had that happen with a debris stage - I've had a few satellites I've deorbited that were controlled enough to achieve a semi-survivable crash landing, but never a spent rocket stage.

For polar orbits, you would want all the relays to have identical LAN (Longitude of Ascending Node). It's either MNA or Argument of Periapsis you want to change for polar relays, but I can't remember which off the top of my head

It's been a while since I got a contract with the "finally set a crash course for..." ending. IIRC, it completed when I had the vessel on a trajectory that would crash - ie a Pe below the surface. Did you get into orbit first then land? That's my best guess for why it didn't complete. IIRC, once I had the ship on a trajectory that would impact the target body and stopped maneuvering, it would update the contract after a few seconds, then you could use it for other things. If you've done everything you were supposed to and it still won't complete, I would just use alt-F12 window to complete it.

The career grind continued. My Minmus-orbit tourist trip ended successfully, bringing in a pile of funds, then the first crewed landing on Minmus went off without any problems. Val set down <100m from the Minmus monolith, completing 3 contracts in one shot: Explore the Minmus magnetic anomaly, First crewed landing on Minmus, plant flag on Minmus. I had to make a hop to the southwest to complete the fourth contract (Bring back a Minmus Greenstone) as apparently they don't spawn in the highlands. My over-engineering paid off there. The crew & EVA reports were transmitted, which provided enough to grab the first 160 point node which was of course advance electrics. Through all that, I only managed to take a single screenshot though - and that was in orbit. The crew is still a few days out, but their stored science will be enough to grab another 160 point node. The only screenshot from the Minmus landing - in orbit, with Kerbal over the horizon. I also launched a 5-man Mun outpost using a prototype Girroc 2.5m launcher. It is currently unmanned, waiting on a crew & a rover to explore around the base. Due to the rapidly approaching Duna window, it will probably have to wait a few weeks before a crew is sent. Poodle-powered upper stage circularizing orbit Descending to land. A pair of compact-mount Terriers with 0.625m tanks provided for a soft landing. Landing in one piece, waiting on a crew. Once on the surface, the landing engines were throttled up slightly & the radial decouplers were activated, allowing them to launch and crash in the distance Finally, I have my first Duna probe being built. I should be ready for launch in a few days, and the Duna window is still a month away, so there is time to build several more. With one 160-point node unlocked and another soon to follow, I should have everything I need to get a good selection of science from Duna & Ike once they arrive. I'm having to adjust a little with a few parts not available that I'm used to, but that is what is making this interesting.

1.3.0/1.3.1 was my longest running version. I started on 1.2.2, but it updated to 1.3 a few weeks after I started playing, then when 1.4.0 finally came out, it had sooooooo many issues, I kept up 1.3.1 and just tinkered with the succession of 1.4.0, 1.4.1, 1.4.2, etc until I guess 1.4.5 was finally ok with me to make my main game. Since then, I usually update fairly soon after an update. The only bug since 1.4.5 that really bothered me was the duplicating KSC/island/dessert waypoint every time you changed craft I still have a few copies of 1.3.1 saved - one modded, one almost unmodded (I never actually saved a pristine copy) and more recently, I tried to set up a 1.3.1 RSS/RO/RP1 but it crashes on load (access violation in mono.dll) & I haven't had time to troubleshoot it. Or more accurately, playing a working version of KSP is more fun than troubleshooting a non-working version of KSP, so I've spent my time on the former rather than the latter.