Cavscout74

In my hard career, landed a probe on Duna & caught a nice shot of Ike overhead:

I've found if you are playing for a while without exiting & restarting the game, I sometimes get phantom forces building up that act like that. I usually notice it when I jump to an existing interplanetary mission & it starts changing the orbit on me.

So far I've still been tinkering about once a day on 1.4.1 + DLC for a little bit before getting frustrated & switching to my 1.3.1 backup again.

Biggest thing I use spaceplanes for is Laythe crew transfers where both the wings & jet engines remain useful. For Kerbin SOI, rockets are simpler & quicker to me. I LIKE messing with spaceplanes, but for routine missions like crew transfers or training runs to Mun/Minmus, I usually stick to rockets.

In my 1.3.1 career, I executed 4 kerbals on landing from what had been a successful training flight. Stupid mountains & night time. The really painful part was the fact that the scientist (one of 3 I've rescued in this career, compared to 5-6 each pilots & engineers) wasn't even needed on the flight. I stuck him on board due to recently unlocking the seismic sensor & thought I'd get some bonus science. I then messed with 1.4 & the DLC parts some more, & came away more disappointed with the 1.875m parts.

I haven't messed with the mission builder or missions yet as I mostly play career. What I've seen of the new parts so far I mostly like, except for one thing: I started a science save to experiment with progressing through the new parts and the 1.875m engines unlock the same time as the Mainsail on the tech tree, which kinda limits their usefulness. Previously, I used Angel125's MOLE mod, and those Titan-like parts made up the bulk of my space program until I had expanded past Kerbin's SoI. But part of the appeal to those was the earlier availability on the tech tree. My first LFO rockets were 1.25's of course, then the MOLE parts started to unlock & I jumped to them for most of my needs until my launch pad was fully upgraded. With the progression in the DLC, you don't get that stepping stone.

Since I was able to get the update & DLC this morning, I will be continuing on a normal science mode save to gradually run through all the new parts to get a feel for them before starting a 1.4.1 career. I thought that would be a better learning experience than sandbox where I get them all dumped on me at once

This looks great, can't wait to try it tonight

Dropped a Probes-Plus lander near Mun's north pole & caught a nice shot of Kerbin & the sun rising over the mountains:

In a new hard career in 1.3.1 (waiting on mod updates), my intrepid engineer Kelrik Kerman just earned his keep. A 4-seat Mun crew training lander was launched with a significant oversight – total lack of parachutes for the return leg. I considered just rendezvousing some form of crew reentry vehicle but decided instead of modify my Titan OTV-4 (Orbital Tourist Vehicle) into a 2-seater with KIS storage for chutes & tools. Other than launching at just about the worst time for a rendezvous, Kelrik was able to EVA over & successfully attach all the chutes, then return to his own ship for reentry, followed by a landing next to the KSC runway. The Mun lander followed on the next orbit and while nowhere near as precise, splashed down safely ~170km east of KSC. Apparently the mission didn’t go unnoticed as I was offered my first orbital rescue contract upon returning to KSC.

Messed with 1.4 a very little - the new command pod looks pretty nice, and I had fun splatting Jeb against the side of the VAB trying out the parachutes. The new decouplers are nice compared to what we had, but the black & white texture on the 2.5m parts doesn't look right at all. Then I went back to my 1.3.1 backup & launched a fleet of probes to Jool then got my Eve explorers started back home finally.

On an orbital mission to Eve, my engineer Kelrik Kerman got bored & needed to stretch his legs while on a quick side trip to Gilly & jumped to the surface to plant a flag. First flag outside of Kerbin SoI in this career. Jeb chewed him out after they rendezvoused back in orbit. Pics didn't turn out very good - and I totally forgot to snap one with the flag. Now they just have another year on the transfer window. I did get their ship partially refueled with a tanker probe I sent a few days after the original launches when I realized the crewed ship had plenty of dV to get to Eve but was gonna be substantially short to get home. But even that was marginal - the probe barely had enough fuel to transfer by the time it got into orbit. The fumes left in the tank were only enough to get Pe down to ~150km, had to use the RCS (and ~90% of the RCS fuel) to drop the empty tanker probe low enough to burn up in Eve's atmosphere.

Went back to my old career & launched my intrepid Laythe explorers back to Kerbin. Totally forgot I hadn't had them fly by or orbit ANY other moons, so no extra xp for this crew. Then jumped back to my newest career & launched my new version of a combined remote lander & relay. The original dropped a small relay sat in orbit, then took the entire transfer stage & lander out of orbit, dumping the transfer stage on the way down. Recently I had the idea - why waste the transfer stage, just use it as the orbital relay, so I came up with this: The vacuum variant dumps the aerodynamic nose & chutes for another fuel tank.

Last night I managed to get my new jet tweaked into being flyable - just needed to nudge the CoM forward a bit and Jeb stopped having to swim back to KSC every flight. Was very easy since the engine mount had oxidizer in it that I hadn't even realized, so dumping that did most of the CoM move I needed. I may make a few more tweaks, but pretty happy with it right now. I did keep a drag chute just for good measure:

Managed to get my experimental Moho NERV probe into orbit of Moho for a bundle of low & high orbit science today. I also - due to one lonely tourist who just wanted to go to orbit - launched & recovered my sounding rocket STTO (Single Tourist To Orbit), consisting of a sounding rocket I used for several early launches, a 1.25m bay, tweak-scaled inflatable heat shield & single external seat in the bay, plus probe core. I even remembered the parachutes. Moho Probe in orbit: Actually had >700 m/s dV remaining. STTO in LKO: Yes it was horribly ungainly & generally a bad idea. It was also very cheap & most importantly amusing STTO after staging the sounding rocket & deploying heat shield:

Eventually you get them around the sun & other planets & moons once you've been to them as well. The few I've taken around the sun have all been in orbits lower then Moho, so dV requirements are substantial - I'm sure higher orbits are possible, but I've not gotten any & I quit taking the contracts since it doesn't show the orbit before you accept.

It's sinking so the game considers it still moving & therefore can't be recovered

I did something that I haven't done in a while - tried to build an jet fighter. And by some miracle of collision forces, I managed NOT to kill Jeb 4 times in a row in my speeding arrow of destruction. It does go pretty fast - I cut the afterburners on the twin Panthers when they started to overheat at 940 m/s at ~1000m altitude. It's also fairly stable going straight. Try anything but go straight and it snaps into a flat spin, flames out one (never both) engines so spin rate gets worse, then pancakes into the ocean. I'm sure I can get it adjusted to fly a lot better, I just didn't have the time this morning & I felt Jeb's luck was running short after 4 unintended splashdowns. Perhaps a probe core might be in order until I get the controls & CoM/CoL worked out better - or at least a cockpit decoupler & chute. That is a really nice looking plane you've got going there, are you planning on posting it on Kerbalx?

On a fairly new career, I discovered that the Pancake engine from SXT mod does indeed live up to its in-game description of being very rugged. I had a new 4-seat tourist/training lander capable of Mun & Minmus landings without refueling. I was taking it out for a test run & misjudged my burn time for the Mun landing. I slammed down pretty hard & from past experience if it had been a Poodle, I would've needed a rescue mission. I'm still not sure how I didn't break a landing leg. Instead I got 4 fresh recruits safely back to KSC with a little fuel to spare so hurray for the Pancake! I also got a conveniently timed contract to test a NERV in Minmus orbit just a week before the first Duna transfer window. That Duna fly-by & return contract now has a more comfortable 5900 dV with the experimental NERV rather than the 3k or so I would've had with chemical rocket. AND with the Moho window a few weeks later, I have a Moho orbit capable probe instead of the impactor I was planning. Guess I should do the actual contract now, also.

My most recent facepalm-worthy moment was this morning while attempting to test SXT airbags on the Mun Ascent module on Kerbin. I used multiple sepratrons to fling it up and away from the descent module, after which it was supposed to deploy airbags & drogue chutes. First the whole thing went sideways, then there was a series of explosions when I attempted to stage the bags & drogues. Next attempted to stage the main chutes but was WAY too low since the launch was sideways. The ascent module blew up, leaving behind a pile of parachute mounts. RIP Edsted Kerman, my first casualty on this career. He was also my only pilot so far other than Val & Jeb who I'm trying hard not to kill. His brother Tedsted is pretty mad at me too. Worst facepalm remains the accidental self-destruct of a full 8-seat tourist rocket on the pad due to a mis-staged self destruct charge.

My first sandbox spaceplane I'm pretty sure bounced when it went sideways on the runway before coming apart, so 1-2m maybe

Successfully returned my roverless explorers to Laythe station after they decided not to conduct a 32km foot march to the boat from the floating base. At least they can do "Science!" at the station while awaiting their amphibious SSTO. Since the Star Ranger lacks a docking port, they rendezvoused with the Jool Transfer Vehicle, spacewalked over to it, then took it on to dock with the station & the Jool cycler (also docked) I also accidentally completed the lithobrake challenge - after it closed - when I was messing with a satellite I was deorbiting around Kerbin. I stayed on it too long & got stuck once it reentered the atmosphere. The engine exploded around 15km so it had well over a 1km free fall but both the probe core, battery & a structure piece or 2 survived. Didn't think to get any pics of that though.

Finally got Kerbals back on Laythe in my newest career. Set the modified Star Ranger (by XLJedi) down right next my 3-man outpost/fuel station (< 1 km after I managed to stop) Then dropped my Laythe floating base with attached 6-seat pontoon boat into the nearest sheltered bay. It did manage to straighten out before splashdown THEN I realized what I forgot this time: A rover to run from the fuel station & landing site the 30km to shore to get picked up by the pontoon boat. Oh well. I guess this batch of explorers will just have to hop back up to the space station & wait until the seaplane arrives in a year and half. I don't even have another Jool window for another half a year to send them a rover.

I had one that didn't want to complete and it was something like this. Was quite a while ago, but IIRC I transferred the ore from my existing Minmus mining facility to an ore tanker that I built for the contract. Ended up building a fresh ship with its own drills & sent it to complete the contract without going near my old mining rig.

I don't know how I missed this mod till now, but I'm glad I finally got it. Just installed & only been able to experiment for a few minutes, but my first impression is WOW!!! Great job!