Cavscout74

I spent half my game session today getting my Duna fleet out of Kerbin's SoI & setting up course correction maneuvers. The only new launches I did were finally sending the last component of my Minmus station (a greenhouse - figures I unlocked that tech 2 weeks after the Duna expedition departed), then a new crew for the station and finally a double LKO rescue mission. Minmus station getting its last major module: The Double Orbital Rescue Mk 1 launching from KSC. The entire stack was 1.25m thanks to tweakscale: Clearing the atmosphere. The front claw is used to catch the first rescue, then the crewmember gets transferred to the cabin, I set up a suborbital trajectory, stage away the first claw and climb back to orbit with the main craft & prepare the small second claw for the next rescue: My first rescue was of course on the night side, but here it is preparing for the second rescue: I made the mistake of turning SAS off after the drogue chute opened. The craft went into a violent spin & parts started to separate. I managed to jettison the expandable heatshield before it completely came apart & the spin slowed down, but a lot of the parts are connected only with kerbal prayers and invisible struts

I'd say between "nice to have" & "oh this is neat" for most of it. Besides the aerodynamic blisters, it adds single piece sky cranes with built in drone core & retracting engine nozzles in 1.25 & 2.5m sizes (which are great for landing rovers & small bases), a set of inline parachutes, a tiny electric prop engine, some Mk 2 parts, some single piece rover bodies (manned & unmanned). Like a lot of mods I have, I've deleted the stuff I don't use, so I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. I think all I still have are the 'chutes, skycranes, blisters & the electric prop.

Dr Jet's Chop Shop. There are 2 versions - a decoupling version (with built-in sepratron) & a structural version.

I've done something like this with my reusable landers for everywhere but Eve, Laythe & Tylo. I have a center 2.5m stack with crew cabin, batteries, science gear, etc on top of a center fuel tank, then 4 radially mounted 1.25m stacks with the engines & landing gear. Makes a nice, wide, stable design for just about anywhere - I can switch out engines to adjust for planned conditions (Duna vs Ike), while keeping the same basic design. I also use parachutes & airbrakes to assist on the Duna version. Since this is a reusable design, the radial tanks are permanently mounted. I've used this design - or some variation of it - on Moho, Duna, Ike, Dres, Val, Bop & Pol. I could probably get it to handle Laythe with different engines and it should be able to land at Tylo but it would need refueling to get back to orbit. I just haven't tried it. I also have a heavy tourist lander for Mun/Minmus that mounts the gear on stageable tanks that get dumped prior to getting back into orbit. I've been using it through multiple careers now, and the only landing accident I've had was due to me not paying attention while in physics warp at low altitude. Even then, the pilot & passengers survived, just not the engine. Reusable Duna lander: Tourist lander:

After getting all the Jool-bound probes headed on their long journey last night & today, it was time to get my career first manned mission to Duna going a few days later. Everything but the crew module was already in orbit - a science station, 2 small Duna bases & rovers, an Ike mining base, landers for both Duna & Ike, assorted science & comm satellites for both as well and finally the NERV-powered transfer vehicle to push Jeb & company to Duna. Fifteen craft in total. Ugh, what a pain getting all the transfer burns done. At least Duna will be well set up for future missions. Crew module docked with the Duna Express Leaving everything behind.... Both my Duna & Ike landers were designs I've been using for a while, and I didn't think about adding space for the new surface experiments. Rather than lose out on the science, I launched an extra mission to dock with each & leave a full set of experiments to deploy. It's ugly, but it works for now. I still need to go back into the designs & fix them too. As I'm typing this, I just realized I forgot one other thing too - I have nothing purpose built to be impactors for the seismic experiments. Also with much regret, I removed Scatterer for now. My game started running really slow the last few days, even though I haven't changed anything in that time frame. I'll probably load it back up when I want a really pretty screenshot, but the rest of the time I'll go without to reduce the load on my system. I've also gone through pruning more mod parts that have been gathering dust. The "never gonna use" parts are long gone, the "probably not gonna use" got pruned last time, now I'm getting rid of the "I might use it someday" and "I used it once, I may use it again" parts

1.7.1 was released with Breaking Ground and there were a few problems - command seats erasing kerbal's ability to carry the new experiments, surface experiment contracts not updating, & maybe a few other things. The 1.7.2 update was released within a few days. 1.7.0 was the pre-BG update and IIRC had no major issues, so you might want to try that version. I thought Kopernicus had a 1.7.0 version also.

I resurrected a craft I had built back around 1.4 - basically a cruise missile with landing gear for scouting base locations on Laythe prior to landing kerbonauts. I had to update a few things & build a new launcher for it, but it is now safely on its way to Laythe. I thought about modifying it to use folding wings, but decided to keep it simple Test flight at KSC: I did fix the one major issue with the original - I had totally forgotten the ore scanner, so it's primary purpose couldn't be accomplished. I also improved the antenna, batteries, power production & drone core. Pictured here in LKO, waiting on the Jool transfer:

I start with hard settings, turn on part pressure & g-force limits, turn on Kerbal g-force limits, plasma blackout, and drop funds/science/rep rewards to between 20% & 40%. I do keep the extra groundstations, and usually bump resource abundance up a little. Since I started using Community Tech Tree, I've been keeping the science rewards a little higher due to needing a LOT more than the stock tree.

I can usually get by with 3.75m parts, but since 5m parts were available, I built a Saturn-V analogue launcher to put my Duna station into orbit to wait on the transfer window. Since it's stock Kerbin, the first stage was enough to clear the atmosphere I also managed to find my first Mun small crater near the new fuel station I landed a few days ago - I've found several large craters now, but the small ones have been remaining elusive till now. Of course, I passed a second one on my way back to the fuel station after finding this one.

The parachutes are stock with the Restock mod installed, the separation is one of the tweakables on stock 'chutes - spread angle or something like that. It defaults to 7, but for something like this I bump it up to around 9

Today was a rather eclectic day in my career. First, I had a pair of high-G tourist contracts so rather than launch 2 of my G-chaser rockets, I made a new 4-seater for the fun of it, and it worked so well they were unconscious well before the central SRB burned out: Then I had a science probe/relay & a lander arrive one after the other around some place, i forget its name.... This was actually the predecessor to my Moho folding lander - only the landing legs fold on this one. After I launched it, I thought - "hey, I could just make the whole thing fold up to fit in a smaller fairing..." Then I got a pair of asteroid capture vehicles launched into retrograde orbits for an upcoming asteroid encounter. My first (of this career) sunrise in the west: Second one leaving the pad. It ended up with quite a bit more dV remaining since the first one spent extra fuel finding a matching orbits with the incoming asteroid. This one was able to launch straight into a matching orbit (with the first vehicle) and saved a few hundred dV. Finally, I started working on my career first manned Duna mission with the launch of the Duna Express tug - designed to dock with a crew vehicle & push it to Duna & back. This is the first time ever I've built a launcher with drop tanks on the first stage - the Mammoth provided plenty of TWR, but was lacking in total dV and for reasons I'm unsure of, I slapped 4 long 1.25m drop tanks around the sides of the first stage rather than adding an extra tank to the core. Circularizing in LKO. The tug has ~6300 m/s dV before the crew vehicle docks. In addition to fuel, it carries enough snacks for a 4-kerbal crew for ~3 years.

The mod should be installed in your gamedata folder. If installed properly, you should have 3 folders from Planetary Bases Inc (CommunityCategoryKit, CommunityResourcePack & PlanetaryBaseInc), plus the Squad folder & if you have the DLC's the SquadExpansion folder, along with the KSPModFileLocalizer.dll file. There is an option to group parts into a separate category - if it's selected, all the base parts will be in a new category after utility parts.

My career continued to march onwards today. Mostly. I sent a tourist/ore scouting mission to the Mun, found what I thought was a good concentration, left a flag to mark the area & then brought the crew & tourists home. Sent a rover to scout out an exact LZ for a fueling base, except the rover was missing just one thing - an ore scanner. But it did find a large crater (my first) <800m from where it landed. Then I sent the base over and upon landing, I realized it was only a fair ore concentration - the 11% I thought was ore was actually alumina. Got a nice view of the base in orbit before it went to the Mun: The really big news, however, was another Moho satellite arrived in orbit along with 2 remote landers. The first lander to arrive was a little too tight on its dV budget - I ran out of fuel about 30m above the surface. Smashed the engines, landing struts, a battery, the primary solar panels and BOTH antennas. So much for that one..... The second one benefited from unlocking NERV engines and had a much more forgiving dV budget. It was also the one I built to fold up for launch, so I was happy it survived. Deorbit burn: Slowing down for landing. TWR was a little on the low side, but it worked: Set it down right on the day/night terminator:

I got my career first Eve lander to the surface - although it's a floater rather than a lander. Oh well - I equipped it with inflatable floats for just this reason. First dawn on Eve: My remote rover did a little better, coming down where the wheels were useful. I was happily surprised nothing exploded on atmospheric entry: Entering the purple haze: Once landed, sepratrons pull the parachute tower away, leaving room for the solar panel & antenna to open up: Finally, nothing special but Kelrik finished refilling the ore & fuel used to complete a "Return ore from Minmus to Kerbin" contract and was looking quite proud of himself. I really love the Mk 2 lander can now, Squad did a wonderful job on it.

I built and tested a multi-part extendable fuel arm for my ground fuel stations. This time, I am leaving my Minmus base alone - the simple, short arm is plenty for there, even if it isn't as cool. I can reposition a ship closer for teeny bit of dV if I land too far off. I did send an ore ferry with a pilot & VIP tourist to bring 500 units of ore back to Kerbin for contract. Good thing I had spare KAS joints at the base - I completely forgot to stick one on the ferry. Other than that and a bouncy but eventually successful landing, the operation went well. Returning home with the load of ore: While the ore ferry was heading back to Kerbin, the first of my Eve probes for this career arrived, a Pioneer-ish satellite in polar orbit. That netted me a few hundred science, enough to unlock very heavy rocketry, which will make future mining base launches less painful I also had my Eve remote lander arrive and make an pass through the very upper parts of the atmosphere while establishing orbit. Tomorrow, I'll get it landed (hopefully) or splashed down (it probably floats) and get another load of science sent back. I also have my Moho folding lander & another Moho satellite that should be arriving at their destination soon. I had something similar happen on Kerbin while (destructively) testing rover. I am happy to announce the victi..er..test pilot's broken neck healed completely with no after-effects once he made it back to KSC. It was really something watching him walk to the remains of the rover while his head was flopped back looking at the sky.

I experimented with a modified mining base with a fuel arm. I thought about making a more complicated one with multiple hinges & pistons, but even this simple one gets me around 10m extra standoff between the base & a craft needing fuel. I also redesigned the area between the crew areas - they now all exit onto a walkway, with a single ladder to the surface and another ladder up to the control room. Even with the robot arm, part count dropped by 10 or so due to other design changes. Now I have to decide if I want to keep the base as-is on Minmus or waste the funds, demolish the old one & launch a new one to replace it (at ~350k funds). Ehh, who am I kidding. I already know what I'm going to do - I can always get more funds. Kelrik bravely stood out in the open to act as a target to pinpoint the landing, and happily, I managed not to fry him with the landing engines.

I conducted my largest launch so far in this career, a mining base heading for Minmus to replace the outpost that has been there. Val (the bigwigs still aren't letting Jeb land on Minmus as punishment), Kelrik & Ambera also headed out to bring the new station into operation. In the meantime, crew #5 at the old Minmus Flats outpost have been busy picking up the surface experiments & transferring spare gear to their lander. The new base is just a short hop to the east, so they will be able to make a few trips without burning a bunch of fuel. Once another launch site was available, a new rover was launched as well - the small utility rover in use at the old base is not up to long surface trips on Minmus - mostly because I don't have the patience for it. I had already pinpointed a nice 10% ore concentration near the equator & left the ore hopper drone in place to mark the location Launching the base from the Dessert launch site: Setting up operations:

Yesterday, I built, & tested a working robot arm. I fitted it with a mini grabber (scaled down claw from Wildblue MOLE or DSEV mod) along with a decoupler & self-destruct charge and sent it to remove my obsolete Mun outpost. Using the arm was completely pointless other than an operational test of the system. Chief engineer Kelrik also enjoyed himself immensely while operating it. He also took the time to clean up the surface experiments around the base since they were also past the limits of their usefulness. Robot arm testing at KSC: And in Mun orbit: Landed at the Mun outpost (at night of course - I had to brighten the image quite a bit to see anything) This morning, I realized I had enough science to unlock gravioli detectors. Which was great but slightly annoying - I have multiple probes in orbit waiting for the upcoming Jool transfer window that. So Kelrik got another mission - go into LKO with a wrench and half a dozen grav detectors, rendezvous with every Jool probe, along with a Moho lander that I accidentally forgot about in LKO, and bolt the detectors on. As a secondary mission, he had to gather gravioli readings throughout LKO as well. Due to the multiple rendezvous's at multiple different inclinations (due a mix of Dessert & KSC launches), I opted for a small NERV, although I ended up wasting most of the fuel. Jool Voyager complete: In work on the Laythe floating lander - capable of either ground or water landings Val lander & relay combination got a pair of detectors - one for the relay that will stay in orbit, the other for the small lander Nice work, looking forward to seeing that get released!

@fulgur Are there any heat shields between the two fuel tanks? They don't allow transfers if you have "Fuel transfer obeys crossfeed rules" turned on in settings.

Everything I've tried has worked in 1.7.1 & 1.7.2, but I have trimmed a fair number of parts I don't use out of it (like wing parts since I use B9 procedural wings). Primarily, I've kept cockpits, engines & cargo bays.

I gotta say, my engineers get excited about doing repairs, but I've never had one get that excited!!

It turns out my luck couldn't last forever - while doing a routine crew change at my Minmus Flats outpost, I did almost as much damage as running out of snacks would have. My actual landing was great: <5m from the rover, just had to reposition it a little to transfer the fresh snack cans over from the lander. This is a view from the previous lander, looking at my near-perfect landing. After that, everything started going down hill. First off, on approach to landing, I attempted to dump my transfer stage so it landed near the base to get the seismic sensor science. That failed in two ways - first, the sun hadn't quite risen yet, so the sensor was unpowered when it impacted. AND the transfer stage apparently smacked my Minmus speeder bike when it hit. I thought it would still be salvageable - only the probe core was gone, but the seats, engines, vernier thrusters & reaction wheels all looked intact. But for some reason, even after flipping it on its side & jumping in a seat, I couldn't get it to respond to the reaction wheels. They are set to normal, torque on, control set to the seat. Engines work, verniers work. But I can't roll it back over with the reaction wheels. I could get it to do kind of a back flip by disabling one of the verniers & using the other & an engine, but I still couldn't control it with the reaction wheels and it just flopped back onto its back again. So I stripped it of most of the useful equipment, set a KIS C-4 charge & sent it sliding across the flats until it blew up. Second, while moving the fresh snacks over to the base, my engineer managed to go crashing through one of the solar panels. First time I've done that in a long time. And this is one of the few missions I didn't include a spare panel or two in KIS storage somewhere. The auxiliary monoprop power units will pick up any shortfall until I can sent a replacement parts. Oh well, this base is nearing the end of its useful life - all currently available science has been extracted except some seismic impact data, there is no research lab, and there is no ISRU - and even when I do unlock ISRU, the ore concentration here is only ~3%. Unrelated to all this, but I thought it looked nice: I swear that looks like a thunderstorm approaching the dessert launch site.

On a related note, it would be nice if you deleted/recovered control stations from the tracking station, the whole setup would get deleted/recovered. I set up a control station, solar panels, & goo experiment several km's from KSC (next to a Baobab tree actually) a while back. Once it stopped sending science back, I went to the tracking station & recovered the control station. But you could still see the target box for the other components from KSC. Eventually, I sent a rover to pick them all up. I have another setup on Mun that I didn't have the antenna unit unlocked when I set it up, so it couldn't send data back. I deleted it in the tracking station (this was before I discovered it only deleted the controller, not everything), but now I can see the other ground units as I'm departing my Mun base, about 90km northeast. Now with only 1 or 2 experiment sites, its not bad. But if you get a bunch of abandoned ground experiments all over the Kerbol system that the game is having to track, I'm sure they will add to slowing the game down.

Had some extra time on my hands yesterday & today due to a minor injury, so I got a wide assortment of stuff done in my career. First up, I had some of my Duna probes arrive finally. A Pioneer arrived to perform both science & relay duties in a highly elliptic polar orbit, along with a repurposed Probes Plus version of the Venera probe with lander. For the first time in 2 or 3 game versions, the Formalhauf lander didn't explode upon contact with Duna's surface. Then I set down another lander of my own design near the edge of the southern ice caps. All in all, gathered a ton of science. Now I just need the funds to upgrade R&D to actually use it. Parachutes slow it to ~12 m/s, then the landing bags absorb the final impact I also continued work on my Minmus station - now renamed Ridbas Kerman Memorial Station, due to another unfortunate event. Note to self, always test fly downloaded kerbalx craft in sandbox unless you know the source. Or if you are going to test fly it in your no quickload/no revert career, make sure you check it out thoroughly in the SPH. Minimal roll control combined with mismatched wing angles of incidence led to an almost uncontrollable aircraft. I briefly thought Ridbas was going to make a mostly successful landing near the KSC runway, but I lost it again close to the ground & couldn't recover. After docking the next fuel segment, I realized it was slightly misaligned, so Jeb had to undock the MPV & reposition it before I let my engineer weld the ports. My best achievement was designing a folding Moho lander - it fits in a 1.875m fairing but unfolds into a nice wide, stable "+" shape. Shown here still packed, coasting to it's circularization burn.

My newest career is continuing to advance. I started construction of Minmus station today. The core, science wing & a fuel/power wing arrived, along with the first crew. One new feature is a robotic spotlight under the viewing cupola to highlight parts of the station and/or docking during night operations. Further construction is being delayed by the fast approaching Eve transfer window, although I do have a load of tourists bound for the station along with some useful equipment (KAS parts mostly) that was missed on the rush to get the station launched. Launching the first station crew on a redesigned Girroc MPV-1-ER (Girroc = 2.5m expendable launcher, MPV-1-ER = Multipurpose Vehicle, model 1, extended range) Docked with the station, and Kelrik the engineer is out to remove unneeded RCS units & weld the docking ports for the science wing After arrival of the first fuel/power segment: Val got the honor of bringing the load of tourists on the new Girroc STV-5 (Station Transfer Vehicle, 5-seat) Climbing out of the upper atmosphere, after first stage separation. I kept the tower attached because I discovered it has a built-in science experiment, but I had to wait till I could extend the antenna to send the data In a few more days, Val will be docking at the station. Roughly the same time, the next Eve-bound probe should be ready to launch - a Probes Plus version of the Venera 9 probe