Cavscout74

Ha! Reminds me of a game I purchased (pre-Steam) that was supposed to have realistic combat - broken bones, bleeding, etc - with permanent consequences (crippling injuries, amputations, etc). And no tutorial or anything else to "hold your hand." Interesting idea, but in practice you start off in a village with minimal stuff, minimal money, and no idea what to do. Let's try talking to people = nobody but merchants want to talk, and their goods all cost 10x what money I have. Lets try breaking into a building & stealing more stuff = random person notices me, calls the guards, a dozen of them charge in and beat me to a bloody pulp. Once unconscious, bleeding, with multiple broken bones the guards wander off while I rapidly bleed to death. New game.. Lets try going out of the village this time. Barren desert as far as the eye can see, no trees, nothing to interact with. Hmm, what's this - a nest with a small animal wandering around. It's small, nothing bigger is in sight, I can probably kill it for food and maybe sell its skin or something. <Punch> what the.... where did the fifteen adult animals come from!?!?!?!?! Unconscious, bleeding & multiple broken bones again. From herbivores. New game.... A few more rounds of that, and I decided it wasn't worth the space on my computer. Interestingly, it's on Steam now, with overwhelmingly positive reviews so either it's gotten better, or there are a bunch of masochists out there. But yes, hopefully KSP2 won't take that approach

Skipped ahead two months and my first two Duna craft arrived - first a fuel tanker that flew past Duna and entered Ike orbit, then the core of the Duna station arrived and sent back the first data from Duna orbit. These are my first-ever craft to reach Duna/Ike in JNSQ. These were followed by a pair of course corrections on probes going to Hamek & Eve. Tomorrow should see the next round of Duna arrivals trickling into orbit. Fuel Tanker "C" approaching Duna And approaching Ike orbit Duna crew station entering orbit Next up were a pair of course correction for my Hamek probe and Evera-1

Anyone else getting the order screen just spinning and doing nothing?

I agree, it never should have gone anywhere except maybe a recommendation by the judge that the lawyer that took the original case be disbarred. What we're getting is a population with (on average) no common sense or accountability. There was recently in the news a woman who used glue to style her hair, then went online begging for money to fix it and was publicly discussing suing the glue manufacturer. It fell under the radar after a few days, so I don't know where it went. But she made well over $100,000 in donations within a few days. I work in an industry (aviation maintenance) where every action I take, I have to document & take personal responsibility for. Personally, I don't have an issue with that but my mindset is increasingly at odds with the rest of society. Quite a few years ago, when I was a new mechanic working at a flight school, one of our "airport bums" - retired or semi-retired guys with planes in the nearby hangars that hung around our office for the free coffee - decided to write a book "The FARs* in plain English" To write his book, he consulted with multiple lawyers which resulted in multiple interpretations of the same regulations. Even two different lawyers employed by the Federal Aviation Administration gave different interpretations. He managed to write the book & get it published, but had to repeatedly acknowledge that every lawyer consulted read things differently. * FAR = Federal Aviation Regulations

Sent my Jool fleet on its way finally. My Laythe Explorer jet was the hardest, with 0.19g acceleration in the NERV transfer stage. Ended up splitting into 3 burns just to keep from reentering the atmosphere. Jooldiver required a 2-part burn for the same reason and the Jool Advanced Probe barely made it in a single burn without dipping into the atmosphere. With multiple 9-10 minute burns, I ended up with no time for anything actually fun. Next scheduled events are the Duna fleet beginning to arrive (60+ days out), so maybe the next day or two I'll have time to clean up a few spent stages out of orbit. At this point, I've basically accomplished what I set out to do (test & adjust the tech tree more to my liking) so other than wanting to see how a few things play out, I'm almost ready to dump this science save and start a proper career. Random departure images: Jool Relay staging & lighting its NERV transfer stage Something else staging Laythe Explorer during its first maneuver And during a later one Jooldiver heading to its second maneuver Last to leave Kerbin was Jooldiver, with a parting image of home:

Thanks, she was released late friday and then slept most of saturday because they were waking her up every hour or so for more blood the whole time she was in the hospital. Nice plane!

After a few days away from KSP due to my wife being in the hospital, I was able to get some launches in today. It turned out that Kerbal Alarm Clock lied about the transfer window to Eve - it's not in 52 days, it's in 8 days (or 1 year & something for a better window). I put up 3 craft - a copy of the Soviet Venera probes with the detachable lander, a modified version of my combination relay & lander and finally a Manned Eve Flyby (MEF-1). MEF-1 uses a pair of new kerbonauts. Specially recruited just for this mission (So the important ones don't die) and launched in a custom-built ship (Cobbled together at the last minute) to perform the first manned fly-by of Eve (probably) then return to Kerbin (maybe). LRP-AN-Eve was slightly modified from the baseline LRP-AN design with the addition of a second heat shield to the lander for added protection, but was otherwise unchanged from the Laythe & Tylo launches (that ironically are waiting in orbit another 20 days for their transfer window) Evera-1 also is a combination orbital relay & lander. I also got a load of life support supplies into orbit, destined for Laythe for a future manned mission. This set another mass record, at 1687 tons on the pad. Just to deliver three 2.5m life support supply tanks & a little liquid fuel.

The Jool mission continued to expand with the launch of a trio of small relays for Laythe and an advanced science probe (which went the opposite direction for mass - at 323 tons, it was the lightest launch of the Jool mission so far) Laythe relay trio: And the advanced science probe - the only 2.5m launch so far for Jool

Yeah I agree with you there. 1.3.1 is probably my favorite old version, but some of the changes are really nice. I do still have some 1.3.1 installs, but haven't used them in quite a while. Pre-1.8 IIRC, the game ran noticeably smoother on 1.3.1 vs newer versions.

Probably the time I made a Voyager lookalike probe, sent it to Jool in a career save with the intent of doing a fly-by of all the moons (it had a NERV transfer stage in addition to the RCS & a small SRB on the probe). Caught a beautiful Tylo fly-by that was going to shoot me straight into a Vall fly-by, and Laythe looked to be in just about a perfect spot for a direct intercept after Vall. Just needed a small correction as I passed Tylo. Then my daughter's cat, who enjoys watching computer games, reached out & smacked the space bar with his paw, dumping the NERV stage & leaving me with just the SRB & RCS. I managed to get an orbit around one of the moons - IIRC Tylo on a second intercept - but missed all the other moons and all the glorious science.

+1 to the turn off SAS tip others said. Another helpful tip is if you are using autostruts, make sure they are set to grandparent, not root or heaviest. When you dock craft with autostruts to root or heaviest part, the root or heaviest part can change and the autostruts reset to attach to the new root/heaviest part, creating forces that can make a mess of your craft.

Tested & launched just one craft: a drone jet to explore Laythe ahead of a future manned mission. And at 1408 tons, it once again surpasses my previous largest launch in this save (which was yesterday at 1075 tons) Drone testing: And launch: The second stage has slightly under 500m/s remaining to start the transfer, then the quad NERV third stage will take over with a breathtaking 0.2g acceleration. It will be jettisoned & destroyed before arrival at Laythe to prevent radioactive contamination of the watery moon and a Wolfhound-powered fourth stage will handle Laythe orbital insertion & entry. An inflatable heatshield mounted on an extendable piston should shield most of the drone through atmospheric entry before it is jettisoned & the drone's Wheesley turbofan takes over. At least that's the intent. Note to self - send at least one more relay to Laythe so I don't have a repeat of what happened in an old save.

With the Jool window approaching, it was time to get some probes launched. I rebuilt the basic Jooldiver I was tinkering with yesterday, expanding the descent probe to 1.25m & the entry shell to 2.5m with inflatable heat shields on both ends. It turned out to be the largest craft built to date - 1075 tons on the pad, with 6 radial boosters to get it into orbit and on to Jool. Building the probe: I also sent up a Relay & vacuum Lander combo craft for Vall, then built a modified version with an atmospheric entry lander based on the Huygens (aka Draco from Probes Plus mod) for both Laythe & Tylo Finally, I sent up another large relay to go to Jool with the other probes

From your description, the really cool robotic transfer arm DID work. It also unfortunately attracted one of the many minor krakens known to inhabit the Kerbol system

My biggest event today was inserting the first satellite into Moho orbit in JNSQ, followed by the Duna fleet's course corrections, placing a new larger polar relay into Kerbin orbit and launching a combo relay & lander to Edna under nuclear power. Then I noticed a Jool window fast approaching & decided enough is enough. I started work on some probes for Jool & its moons - mostly tinkered with a Jool Diver design, and flew a test mission to see if the basic design works. First deceleration burn approaching Moho: The new relay features a 1.2T relay antenna Edna relay/lander pre-dawn launch - the sun poked over the horizon as it gained altitude Jooldiver test: The drop capsule consists of two 1.875m structural tubes with heat shields on both ends. Once they are no longer needed, the upper tube is blown off and the descent probe deploys a drogue chute, then blows off the bottom tube & heatshield. A monoprop fuel cell and 3000 ec battery should provide enough power to transmit all science collected on the way to crush depth The suborbital shot worked as intended, nothing collided with anything important during staging, so this basic design is a go. I cheated the descent probe to a landing on shore to get a good view of it - probe core, NF long battery, as much science as I could fit, several antennas, MP fuel cell & a drogue chute. Ugly but it works. Edit: Looking at this pic again, I think I could neaten it up using Universal Storage's 4-slot core - it could hold most of the science experiments & a monoprop tank, leaving the rest of the core looking neater.

Had the final departures of my Duna fleet, followed a trio of other departures - a deep space relay, and the Moho & Lindor Pathfinder probes. Then it was time to start adding course corrections to everything - between 104 & 118 days out for the Duna fleet, 328 for the Lindor probe. The Moho probe had an immediate course correction of over 300 m/s upon leaving Kerbin and will reach Moho in just 79 days. My pair of Eve-Kerbin IR observer probes also made their final orbital corrections to keep them between the two planets and the Jool probe made a quick course correction on it's way to the green giant. There was also a Nara window coming up, but I have doubts any of my currently researched antennas will reliably maintain communications to a probe that far out, so I'm skipping this one The highlight was the Red Scout and the veteran kerbonauts becoming the first to leave Kerbin's SoI. SIRO-B jettisoning the spent transfer stage We also recruited a new pilot & scientist to make a third 3-kerbal crew (already had an "extra" engineer at KSC) and sent them up to Kerbin Station for two weeks of zero-g training

Today Yesterday was all about getting my Duna fleet on its way - this will be my first manned interplanetary mission in JNSQ (with TacLS to make it more interesting). I also just discovered I never clicked the submit reply button last night The highlight, of course, was "Red Scout" departing with the veteran crew aboard Due to the blistering 0.18g acceleration at full load, the burn was split into two maneuvers Kelrik also performed the first EVA in the new suit to mount some science gear that was stowed for the launch Before and after, a series of departures:

Got in a few more launches, including the crew for the manned Duna mission. I did make one mistake - the crew launch vehicle was hastily thrown together and I remembered every detail except one: a probe core to more it after the crew departed. The crew will depart LKO in about 4 days, giving them time to fully check out the Red Scout 1 exploration ship. I also managed to get the first of the Duna fleet headed towards the red planet - one of the tankers. Yet another tanker, with a mix of LFO & LF as a backup I also squeezed in a Minmus impactor to get the passive seismic science Impact was <7km from the sensor at over 3000 m/s, more than enough to gather all data from Minmus Final new launch was the Crew Transfer Vehicle, capable of taking up to 5 crew to orbit. Flew very nicely except for that whole "no probe core" thing, so now it is stuck pointing nose normal with the solar panels barely catching any sun and the lights left on. Rendezvous & docking were smooth Tanker "A" departed on time, to be followed in a day by the station tug

And that makes total sense, especially the not sourced from petrochemicals part. I feel like it was 2015-16 time frame is when I saw that article.

I'm kinda late to this conversation, but it's scary how few people realize any of that. The last thing I saw on bioplastics was a random article a few years ago saying the biggest drawback was everything they'd managed to make so far was dangerously flammable, in addition to being more costly to make. But that was a few years ago and I haven't heard any info since. Any idea if that is still (or ever was) true?

More launches for my crewed JNSQ mission to Duna, with a Lynx rover, life support supply ship & a small surface base plus probes to Moho and another to Lindor and a deep space relay to position itself between Jool & Lindor The Duna-Lynx heading for orbit. It will keeps its payload fairing to protect the rover during aerobraking at Duna so there isn't much to see Duna Outpost - has living quarters for up to 4 crew & life support for well over a year on the surface. Has a hitchhiker for quarters, with some 1.25m parts on top for a command center & four radial 1.25m fuel tanks feeding a quartet of Terrier engines for landing, assisted by 4 drogue chutes. The four radial fuel tanks also give a nice wide footprint for stability on the ground. Life support tanker - Not really much to say, carries food, oxygen & water, plus a little extra LF & LFO for the manned mission to restock with. Used the same launcher as the previously launched fuel tankers Pathfinder-Moho: A 3.75m launch vehicle to put a 0.625m probe into Moho orbit. The two transfer stages have over 8000 m/s dV combined, plus over 1700 m/s on the probe itself. First launch using just-unlocked 3.75m engines instead of the cluster of Mainsails I've been using on my 3.75m launches previously. Pathfinder-Lindor - ditched the gold foil wrapping & swapped out the solar panels for a pair of small RTG's for power, but otherwise very similar to the previous launch. The dV available is actually in excess of what should be needed for Lindor, something I've not experienced much in JNSQ Deep Space Relay - Based on the Voyager bus, & retaining its power supply (RTG), it mounts the largest currently available antenna and will depart Kerbin orbit about the same time as Pathfinder-Lindor so it hits its Ap between Jool & Lindor near the time when Pathfinder-Lindor will be reaching it's destination and (hopefully) ensure good signal for the Lindor mission. Used the same launcher as the two previous probes, except it omitted the 2.5m upper stage, using the 3.75m third stage as the transfer stage which should be more than enough to put it into the desired orbit around Kerbol. Spent 2nd stage falling back to Kerbin, nearly 1/2 full of fuel still - due to the hasty change to omit the 4th stage, I didn't provide any method of disposing of the 2nd stage so I had to jettison it when Pe was below 40km, leaving the 3rd stage to finish orbital insertion and a bunch of wasted fuel to burn up in the atmosphere

Got three launches in today - a Duna lander, another fuel tanker and a small station tug then fast-forwarded a month to get my Dres probe on its way. Red Lander 1 Tanker B - just like the last one, but I squeezed a little more dV into the booster, so I might get away without needing any aerobraking at Duna. Also, this one carries LFO instead of just liquid fuel Station Tender - fully probe controlled, with high power monoprop engine, front claw & inline docking port My Dres probe departed orbit finally, but I realized there was a serious miscalculation - the departure maneuver was nearly 3900 m/s, with a significant normal component. The transfer stage only holds a little over 3700 m/s, and the low power KANDL nuke engine on the probe only has 950 more. And once it was done, it didn't even come close to Dres - I need ANOTHER 500 m/s course correction in 100 days. I think this probe just went from an orbiter to an impactor as I'll have <200 m/s remaining once I reach Dres. Not the ending I'd intended for my first nuclear-propelled craft in this save

Looks like the Vertex D1 VTOL by Lorgs: (Image from Lorgs workshop page) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2173345461 And it is a blast to fly. It was built before the personal equipment update, so it doesn't have "stuff" but still performs very well. On an unrelated note (other than using another Lorgs creation), I had a contract to tow a car from Donkk island to Sawyer Island. I hadn't played a while & I was thinking the road bridge ran parallel to the rail bridge the whole way. It does not. Ended up needing four different vehicles to deliver the car - with "minor" scratches & saltwater damage. Vehicle 1: My ATRV-T, hit a rock on the way to pick up the car. Jumped out to fix the damaged track with a torch, forgot to set the brakes. Upon fixing the track, it shot out into the ocean & sank. Vehicle 2: Lorgs' R9D rover. Drove to the car, hooked up with the crane & drove along the road bridge till it ended in a parking lot. Heck with it, this thing is amphibious. All went well till I got into a small storm & the waves broke the car loose & it sank. Vehicle 3: It's only 30m down, so I fired up the Galen Shearwater HSR by Mongrade, pulled it up to the surface & partially onto the back deck, allowing a 60 knot trip the rest of the way to Sawyer Island. Except the drop off point was too far inland to get get credit at the dock. So I looped out to sea a little, turned back to shore & hit full power. Maybe I can skip off the beach & land far enough inland to get credit. As it turned out, no. I landed in the middle of a forest, still too far to update the contract. Vehicle 4: Finally, ran to the train depot and spawned a NJ Arctic Snow Cat (by MrNJersey), which happens to fit in the train spawn. I drove it down, grabbed the car with the winch & pulled it through the forest until finally getting close enough to finish the contract

I managed twice as many launches today - a small station core and a fuel tank for Duna. Each launch was record-breaking - over 700t on the pad for the station core and over 900t for the fuel tanker. And both are just barely capable of entering Duna orbit - some aerobraking will be required for the tanker. The station core features a command module, airlock module, 4-kerbal crew quarters and a greenhouse, plus life support supplies for nearly 2 years (not counting the greenhouse or recyclers) and has two standard size docking ports and two large docking ports for adding station expansions or docking the fuel tanker. The fuel tanker is nothing fancy - pure brute force to carry an orange tank of liquid fuel to Duna in JNSQ, plus the minimum equipment to assist with that - solar panels, antenna, reaction wheel, battery, RCS

Only a single launch today - Red Scout 1, intended to be the first manned mission to another planet in this save. Powered by a pair of LV-N nuclear rockets burning lower efficiency liquid fuel due to limited volume for fuel - initial LH2 designs didn't provide sufficient dV to reach Duna and enter orbit. Despite the much lower Isp, the higher density provides 4100 m/s vs 1600 m/s. R&D is looking into lighter & larger tanks for LH2 powered interplanetary designs, but for now it is better to stick with liquid fuel. Intended for a crew of 4, it has enough dV to reach Duna and enter orbit with several hundred m/s reserve, life support for well over 3 years before running recyclers and a full suite of scientific equipment. It "only" took 4 Pollux SRB's & a 2.5m LFO booster to get this thing out of the atmosphere But once clear, it spread its wings to wait for the mission crew - departure is just 89 days away The quarters can hold 6, but running only 4 gives the crew extra room for the long mission. I forgot external lights, so the crew will need to pack some for the engineer to install when they go up. This is only the first step for a Duna mission - an orbital station, lander, refueling & resupply ships will also be needed.