djr5899

Funny, because after seeing Triop's little shuttle plane yesterday, I too quickly decided to build something similar. It's a simple but awesome design. Only question I have is, if you takeoff with no load in the cargo hold, do you have enough rear weight to keep the front landing gear on the ground? I did not, so it had to drag the rear engines in "pop a wheelie" style takeoff until the thrust could get high enough to straighten it out for takeoff.

Well, I got all 5 of my ships to Duna....except, my refueling ship there as a hopeful extra ship and not really needed.....didn't even have enough fuel to stay in a Duna orbit. Underpowered engine the cause there. Both scanners (Ike and Duna), the ore refinery, and the airplane/rover are all in orbit around Duna. Now to see if the ore refinery and rover have enough fuel to land on the surface, and the scanners have enough fuel to get into a polar orbit.

Finally got my Duna transfer window, so 5 ships are on their way to the Duna system: First to leave is my Duna Ore Scanner (the Ike Scanner is identical, and 2nd in line to leave): 3rd in line after the Duna and Ike Scanners is my Duna Orbital Refueler. Hopefully this vessel is totally not needed, but if mining does not work our properly, or any ship needs some extra juice before reaching final destination, the Orbital Refueler is there for backup. Next up is my Duna Ore Miner and Converter. The v1.0 craft is a little tall for my liking, so v1.1 or 2.0 will look to shrink down the height...when I get around to building it. Finally, the 5th ship on the journey is my completely untested space plane/refueling rover. I built this thing to where it's docking port (currently covered by the heat shield) should line up with the docking port of the Ore Extractor. I also never really tested landing the thing, so, this should be an exciting last craft to the Duna system. 5 craft leaving Kerbin SOI and on their way to Duna. Only 2 of the 5 need course corrections at the moment.

Finally built my first ever mining craft, and sent it to the Mun for a test run. It did fairly well for a v1.0. Much bigger than anticipated, but got the job done that I expected it to do. Only problem with my test run is that my heavy ore concentration landing site was in a crater, and didn't have any direct sunlight. Burnt through 16,000 units of electric pretty dang fast. Next items on the list is to test out my fuel rover for transfering fuel to nearby ships, building a craft to carry the rover, slapping some extra engines on the fuel rig so it can reach Duna, and add all of these to the line of ships I have waiting for transfer window to Duna to open. Should be six ships in total: Ore scanner satellite for Ike, Ore scanner satellite for Duna, unmanned fuel ship to orbit Duna, Ore drill/processing ship, rover carrying ship, and manned lander ship. May reduce it to 5 if I find a way to add the rover to one of the other craft without too much redesign.

So, doing some testing in Sandbox, got polar orbit survey probes up around Mun and Minmus. I have a 3rd probe waiting in LKO (along with a fuel tanker) for a maneuver window to head to Duna. Now comes the hard part.....trying to build a decent lander that is capable of mining/conversion to refuel itself once it gets to the surface. Tried a few options so far that I just haven't liked. I know I've seen a few examples here of some good ones, but haven't been able to find them again in the 1700 plus pages of the thread. Worst case, I'll make two separate craft......one that does the mining and contains a rover to haul converted fuel over to a 2nd lander ship.

Cry? More likely trembling at the thought of melting into a pile of gelatinous goo from the amount of heat generated by the CPU/GPU trying to launch that thing. At least, that's how my computer reacted to those photos.

Curious and I likely lack the knowledge (not trying to offend), but why Seattle? What is the tie in to Seattle and the shuttle program (Boeing?)? You are correct about the politics. After I returned, I was reading up on the four shuttle locations and the bidding that went into it, and how it was overly political. To me, Kennedy was a no brainer to get one. California makes sense since a large portion of the shuttle build program was based in Palmdale, CA. That leaves two left, and, I agree that Houston should have gotten one, with their presence of NASA and Mission Control. That also would have satisfied the central area location. I would have given the Enterprise to either NY or DC, based on visitor traffic, and, according to what I heard last week, Smithsonian Air and Space museum is the number one museum in the country in visitors per year (they cheat because the count both the DC and Virginia locations as one). Kennedy, Houston, California, and DC should be the locations......but, it's done and my voice means nothing on the matter. Just glad I have seen two of them, and of the two I haven't seen, one is only 3 hours away from me.

Nothing.....yet. Just returned from vacation after a week and a half away, so haven't been on KSP much the past two weeks. However, I started (One day I will start AND KEEP a career save....hopefully this time) a new accelerated career save yesterday. I figure, I've got docking down fairly well now, setup many a satellite network in Kerbin, multiple manned and unmanned trips to Mun and Minmus, and made a few trips to Duna in my last career. Now that I seem to have a good start on getting to other planets, I will be working on mapping planet resources, and building some manned landers/ore refinery ships to land on the planets, and force them to mine and convert ore to have enough fuel to get back to Kerbin. So, as soon as I get home from work, I will be: Launching a few more missions to unlock more of the tech tree (using 200% science and 200% funds return in this career save). Getting up new satellite system Getting some scanning satellites researched and built to map other planets. Taking my first stabs at ore refinement.

Would love to get to Wright Patterson as well. Did Smithsonian Air and Space in DC, Udvar-Hazy in Virginia, and went to USS Intrepid in NY a few years ago. Oddly enough, Kennedy Space Center is only 2-3 hours up the road from me and I have yet to be go there. Likely on the to do list over the next year or so, to add seeing the 3rd Space Shuttle. Saw Discovery at Udvar-Hazy, Enterprise on USS Intrepid. Atlantis is in Kennedy. Not sure I'd make it out to LA anytime soon to see Endeavour.

Not sure why. I thought maybe it could be an account type issue, but I was able to right click, open Incognito, and it still worked for me. Yes, visiting both the DC museum and the Udvar-Hazy, the latter was definitely better. DC Museum is more about the displays and exhibiting a collection, where Udvar-Hazy seems to be more "get as many planes in here as possible." Still nice plaques with information on all the planes/pieces, but much easier to take in and see everything in Udvar-Hazy.

Just got back from a vacation to Washington, DC. Have some pictures from both Air and Space museums, including Discovery Shuttle, Saturn V F1 mainstage engine, Gemini capsules, Lunar Lander, etc. Check em out in the Imgur album below if you are interested. https://imgur.com/a/SBtjLOc

Today, I FINALLY made my first trips to Duna, with some success, some failure, and a lot learned. I sent 3 craft all around the same time. First craft was an unmanned probe/science craft. I wanted to get some science from Ike/Duna, and test out the abilities of the craft, in terms of could it make it to Duna.....could it orbit Duna....could it escape Duna gravity.....and could it return to Kerbin. For my final stage, I went with 4 Ant engines instead of a Terrier. That was at least partly a mistake. The craft made it to a Duna encounter, and was able to get about a 90 degree turn around Duna, but didn't have enough fuel and engine power to circularize orbit. This craft has drifted out of Duna SOI, and will be drifting in space aimlessly, unless it gets grabbed up by another planet's SOI. Second craft was an unmanned fuel supply craft. Plan was to get this ship to Duna, leave it in Duna orbit, so I could send a manned mission to Duna, and use this craft to resupply the fuel for landing and return to Kerbin. This craft fared a bit better than the probe. It made it to Duna, and was able to put itself into orbit.....but it's nowhere close to circular. I also had to scavenge more than 2/3 of the fuel that was mean for refueling other ships just to get to Duna and in orbit. I could use a little bit to try and circularize, but for now, I'll just let it stay where it is. Third craft is manned lander craft, carrying Jeb and an Engineer. This craft is currently sitting in a Kerbol orbit slightly inside the orbit of Kerbin around Kerbol. I believe I have enough fuel and dV to get to Duna. I am not sure if I will have enough fuel/dV to circularize to meet up with the fuel tanker and its limited fuel. My plan is to build a 4th unmanned craft sort of a tug/booster. Have it dock with the lander with a bigger engine and fuel reserves, and let it do most of the delivery of the lander to Duna SOI. From there, what I have on the lander will definitely be enough to get into orbit and land, and hopefully enough to grab some fuel from the tanker. After having the console game for about 2 years, and the PC version since November 2017, it's nice to FINALLY be doing some missions outside of Kerbin SOI. Just a lot harder to learn from your mistakes and refine your build processes with the long amount of waiting that needs to be done to test the success or failures of crafts outside Kerbin SOI. Now working to refine my ships for Duna, then next challenges are to start drilling and refining ore....something else I have never done. Unmanned probe making it's closest approach to Duna Unmanned probe about to leave Duna SOI, and drift about the Kerbalverse..... Fuel tanker standing by to deliver what little fuel remains

While I mentioned using probe cores, I never actually did....so it would seem to delete in the same way with or without them. Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Learn something new every week with this game.

So, some questions: I don't have any mods specific to booster recovery installed. KER, Docking Port Indicator, [x] Science, Surface Lights, and RCSBuildAid are the only mods I have installed. Are you saying I need a mod to successfully recover the parts, or a mod is causing the issue? Is this new, where the game eliminates unattended objects? I'm on 1.4.4. I've been playing on PC for a little less than a year, with one or two point releases before Making History (1.4.1 maybe first build for me) and I don't ever recall seeing the issue before. I never really consciously made efforts like this to save boosters, but I can recall numerous past missions where after returning to the Space Center, I would find boosters and other parts on Kerbin that survived re-entry and landing, and were available for recovery.

Well, I am now officially stumped on why I am my rockets are not available for recovery. I have launched 3 geosynchronous satellites using the same craft for 3 separate launches (although, I had to add some chutes and airbrakes after the 1st launch). I actually reverted back to saves 2-3 times after positioning the satellite, returning to space center, and finding none of the boosters or main stage returned to Kerbin safely. All of the 5-6 launch attempts resulted in ZERO percent recovery of rocket parts. Nothing there, nothing showing in the Tracking Center somewhere else on the map, or even still floating in the air. The rocket stages simply aren't there for recovery. I took my satellite delivery rocket from my career save, and imported it into sandbox. I launched the rocket in sandbox just as I would for my career game, and did the launch 6 times.....3 times watching how the 4 side boosters react when detached from the main stage, and 3 times watching the main booster that gets me 98% to orbit. Here is my rocket shortly after liftoff. You can see the large amount of chutes on the 4 outside boosters, as well as the inner single main stage. You can see the aerobrakes as well: Here is a shot of my 3 of the 4 boosters (in sandbox mode) returning to Kerbin at a pleasant 3.6m/s....well in line for a nice gentle landing: Here is a shot of the main stage, close to touchdown back on Kerbin in sandbox mode, at a smooth 6.1m/s: So, I'm officially stumped. 6 out of 6 launches in sandbox mode gave me 75-100% return of the 5 rocket pieces. I am often seeing an issue where the 4 boosters collide as I have to engage the aerobrakes on them right before decoupling them from the main stage. Most times they collide and one of them is damaged enough to not return, but the other 3 always remain in tact. The main booster returned 3 out of 3 times, although one time I forgot to engage aerobrakes before decoupling, so the engine blew up due to overheating on re-entry, but the remaining attached fuel tank with chutes and brakes still returned. I haven't altered any atmosphere, g-force, re-entry, etc settings between career and sandbox. So, I am highly perplexed as why the same craft works and can safely return parts in sandbox, but not career.

Finished up some Mun and Minmus landing missions to get my crew experience raised and gain some more science. Have all but 1 level 160 science unlocked in tech tree, and 5 level 300's left, all the 1000 level, and all but 2 500 level tech tree elements left. Roughly about 10K science needed to unlock the rest by my estimation. Now I am working on getting my satellite networks up and running since I have the most powerful relays and solar panels unlocked. I am also trying to work on rocket recovery......trying to stop letting lower stages just fly off and crash into Kerbin. Not very successful so far. Since I'm just letting them free fall, I figured, I'd just add a bunch of parachutes and empty tanks would just slow themselves down, parachutes open, tanks land nice and safe. Doesn't seem to be the case. Just unlocked the aero-brake, and even adding those didn't do the trick. I think I probably need to add drogue chutes to better handle the velocity the spent rocket parts are coming in. Was disappointed that my 4 liftoff boosters, that only made it to about 10,000m in height and top speed of 300m/s, with 8 chutes and 4 aero-brakes per booster, still didn't manage to touch down safely. Worst case, I'll attach an extra unmanned control to one of the boosters and see if I can switch to it during descent to see exactly what is happening. Here's Urgdan Kerman on his last mission to Minmus, with Kerbin and The Mun in the background:

Yes, I have done a few multiple rescues as well. My first attempt at multiple rescues led me to discover that I had forgotten extra batteries and solar panels to recharge batteries, which led to version 2 of my rescue craft.

You mean, going with a bigger, slower orbit on the outside? Nothing is stopping me....it's just.....the key word there is slower. LOL I guess it is just personal preference, and I find it quicker to do the intercept with an orbit inside the target craft orbit. I definitely have had to do some bigger orbits to do a few of the rescues.

Still plugging away at rescuing stranded Kerbals in my career save. I have 1 left in Kerbin orbit, 1 in Mun orbit, and 2 in Minmus orbit. Biggest thing I have learned is.....rescues in LKO suck. At least 4 of the rescues were between 72-90Km. Much easier to rescue/dock when the distance from Kerbin is further out. I always put my orbit inside target orbit to go faster, and then normalize the orbits as I get closer. Really hard to gain speed when you only have a few thousand feet between your orbital line and the edge of Kerbin atmosphere. Have to do a lot of jumping back and forth to the Tracking Station to accelerate time. In between the rescues, another trip or two to Mun/Minmus will give me enough science to unlock biggest satellite relays, so I can put up my satellite network and start planning some trips to Duna and Ike, which will be my first trips there EVER.

Finally got Valentina and Bob out to a Mun landing today in my accelerated career save. Had to make a few adjustments to my vessel, as I kept coming up about 10-15 seconds too short on fuel the first few attempts. I've also been trying to add some mods to my game, just to try and get some more information and guidance on a few areas. Not looking to do major modifications like adding parts, planets, etc (although, maybe I will in the future), but here is what I now consider my standard mod config: KER Docking Port Indicator Surface Lights RCS Build Aid (and dependencies) [x] Science Last one I am looking to possibly add, but have never used, is SCANSAT. I haven't done a lot of scanning in previous saves (but have done a few), so I'm not sure exactly what this is going to add for me. If anyone can add a good reply sentence or two on what advantages SCANSAT gives over stock game (without taking this thread too off topic), that would be awesome.

Rescued 4 Kerbals in Kerbin orbit in my accelerated 1.4.4 career save. Still have another 4 to rescue in Kerbin orbit, 2 in Mun orbit, and 1 or 2 in Minmus orbit. FREE KERBALNAUTS!!!!! First manned missions to Mun and Minmus in accelerated career save. First successful docking of two craft in Xbox Enhanced Edition Sandbox save. Going to stop with this one for awhile.....RCS is a pain on console. This weekend, hoping to: Finish rescuing more stranded Kerbals. Get a large crew of Kerbals to head out of Kerbin SOI to gain experience. Send remaining crews to Mun and Minmus landing and return, so I can have a good half dozen or more Kerbals at level 3. Get a Science Lab in orbit around Kerbin. Start on satellite network delivery around Kerbin, with Mun and Minmus satellites to follow.

Just completed my landing and return from Minmus mission on KSP:EE for Xbox. Tomorrow and through the weekend, I hope to get some satellites up in this new save, get a small refueling station up around Kerbin, and hopefully this weekend, make my first ever Duna trip and return in any KSP version. I do believe the current rocket and lander that I used to go to Mun & Minmus likely has enough fuel to get me to Duna and back as well, but, just to be on the safe side, I will likely refuel my main stage Mammoth engine before heading to Duna.

Because I seem to have ADHD (not really) and can't stay with one save game, I started a new KSP:EE sandbox game on Xbox One last night, with the intention of trying to knock off all of the Xbox achievements.....even though I've never landed on anything outside Kerbin SOI. Did a Mun landing and return last night. Will be doing a Minmus mission tonight.....then onto the harder areas......anything outside Kerbin SOI. I will say that, when people talk about things that aren't in the stock game but are available in mods, they are often forgetting about the smaller console community that doesn't have access to any of that. No docking port alignment aids, no KER or MechJeb, etc. Playing on console, you really need to be able to fly by the Navball well. Only mods I really use on PC are KER and Docking Port Alignment (although, I have learned to use the Navball and mainly use DPA as a guide), and I really missed KER on the console. Typically landing on the Mun, everything is 2000-3500m in height, so it would be nice to have a true altitude readout on Console version. I crashed my first landing attempt simply because I couldn't slow down quick enough with the engines I had. I have learned that when possible, I try to decouple a staging booster/fuel stage into the Mun as I'm landing to learn what the altitude is by seeing the distance away the ejected stage is when it crashes, and subtracting it from my current altitude as shown in top altitude meter (not true distance to surface) to get a rough idea of what the surface height is. On my accelerated $ and science PC career, I am working on about 5 Kerbal rescues ATM, and getting ready to build some manned Mun and Minmus missions.

Can anyone explain what a lagrange point is, because all I keep picturing is Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top floating out in space.

I've never been great at airplanes, but willing to give it a shot at this point.