Pleb

6. First Satellite Whilst the CSA has been progressing along with their successful manned missions, the other space agencies on Gael have managed to improve the computer systems needed to remotely control a spacecraft, allowing for unmanned missions to begin. The CSA has agreed with the other agencies to share their capsule technology in exchange for the probe core technology, in order to progress their own space program and help the other programs as well. Another technology recently developed is Radar technology, potentially allowing for maps to be accurately created by scanning the planet from above. The organisation that helped develop the technology in collaboration with the CSA and other agencies has set a goal that the first agency to scan up to 75% of the surface of Gael will received a cash reward. However in order to do this a craft would need to be in polar orbit, something not yet attempted on Gael, and also it would require multiple orbits around the planet in order to complete which could be a problem for a manned mission, as the pilot would likely run out of Snacks before the mission was complete! Also power is an issue, as the amount of power required would be huge unless there was a way of generating more power whilst in orbit. This is why this task has yet to be completed by any of the other agencies. The CSA has just recently helped develop a way of generating this required power by harnessing the solar energy from Ciro (the sun) by absorbing it with solar panels and converting this into electricity. With the new probe core technology it has acquired and the solar technology it has helped develop, the CSA feels it can now take up this challenge: Using the Mamba IV launcher a small satellite, SurvSAT I, has been constructed, with solar panels attached to absorb the solar energy and a rechargeable battery on board to store the captured energy. A small communications device has been fitted so that the data can be relayed back to the GSC and the Radar technology itself, in order to scan and survey the surface of Gael. The satellite is launched successfully from the GSC: It adjusts its heading accordingly to put it on a polar orbit: After screeching through the atmosphere it makes it into space and disengages its engines, drifting up to around 250,000 metres above sea-level: When finally reaching the optimum altitude, the craft fires up it's engines and the boosters separate shortly after, having used most of their fuel in order to reach orbit: Once establishing a stable polar orbit, the satellite ejects from the launcher and deploys the scanner. Its mission to survey Gael can begin: The survey mission will no doubt take several days to complete, so the scientists at the CSA will be spending that time analysing the data that is being transmitted back to the GSC. However we've just been made another offer of a reward for another first-of-its-kind mission. One that might lead to a way of making some much needed money to further our space program...

@SBKerman Yeah I was a bit ambitious with how small and cheap I could make a rocket get into orbit. Still you live you learn...quite literally in this case!

5. Science Farming The CSA Research and Development department are close to developing some new technologies for the space program, but in order to complete their designs they need a little bit more data. Fortunately, the GSC is the perfect place to perform some science experiments, so we won't have to travel far! First up is the runway. We haven't built any spaceplanes yet so we've taken the capsule and the science experiments from the Mamba IV craft and are going to roll it out onto the runway so we can perform some experiments: There was a lot to learn out on the runway but we also need to get data from the other areas around the GSC: So, by using some left over bits and pieces lying around the VAB, we've managed to construct a rocket-powered ground vehicle loaded with scientific experiments: Whilst our resident pilot, David Welch, was itching to take the 'rocket car' out for a spin, as this was a purely scientific mission it made sense for our resident scientist Cironaut, Rita Coleman, to be the one doing this mission: And so off Rita goes, slowly at first but picking up speed quite quickly: Once momentum has been gained the rocket doesn't need to be firing, as the vehicle can propel itself along the ground: However Rita is not a pilot, so it was no surprise when she managed to crash the vehicle not long after starting out: But once the craft was restored Rita was keen to get back out there, and soon she had visited all corners of the GSC and ran as many experiments as she possibly could to ensure the R&D department had all the data it needed: So after almost no time at all and only a small cost, we've managed to develop plenty of new technologies for the CSA:

4. Orbiting Gael (Again!) Whilst the latest mission with the Mamba III was a success and resulted in the first time anything or anyone has orbited Gael, because the fuel nearly ran out the CSA wants a better craft to be able to get into orbit. Fortunately the science data gathered on the mission has enabled the development of additional technologies to assist with this goal: The Mamba IV is to be the first liquid fuel only craft, replacing the four solid fuel boosters on the Mamba III with two liquid fuel tanks and Relliant Engines. The main liquid fuel tank has also been extended. Other than that the craft is very similar to the Mamba III: Although this craft is a bit more expensive to construct it's hoped this will be a more efficient vehicle and not run the risk of running out of fuel whilst performing orbiting maneuvers. The Mamba IV is brought out onto the launchpad and take off into the sky above: The craft gains a much better altitude, and the pilot David Welch brings the periapsis to around 100,000 metres above sea-level to establish a stable orbit with plenty of fuel to return to the surface: After spending some time in orbit enjoying the view, David performs the de-orbit burn to bring the craft home: The capsule successfully detaches from the rocket: It then passes through the atmosphere, and deploys its parachute: And safely splashes down into the water, with David intact: So this seems to be the best way to currently get into orbit and safely return, and the CSA is happy that it now has a blueprint on which to build future launchers. However there is still room for improvement so the Mamba Program will continue for now. However the CSA needs more funds and scientific data in order to develop new technology, so new ways to generate this must be found closer to home...

3. Orbiting Gael With the recent success of the Mamba II reaching space, the data gathered from the experiments that were ran during its mission have fled to the development of more technology for the CSA: The Mamba III has been designed to be the first craft to orbit Gael! It will also be the first craft to use the new liquid fuel tanks and engine, which should allow grater control of the vessel via the ability to control the throttle. The craft has a small Crew Capsule (with capacity for 1 Gaelan), a liquid fuel Swivel Engine, four solid fuel Hammer Engines (used as boosters), a Parachute, a Heat Shield and several science experiments: It's hoped that although using liquid fuel is a lot more expensive than solid fuel that this will pay off and finally allow the pilot, David Welch, to perform maneuvers whilst flying, and also conserve fuel rather than being forced to burn it all in one go. The craft is rolled out onto the launchpad and blast off into the air: Soon the craft is blasting off high above the GSC, aided by the four solid fuel boosters: It's not long before the Mamba III is flying high in the atmosphere. But David is worried that his fuel has gotten rather low: There's enough fuel to bring the craft's periapsis just above the 70,000 metre mark to officially consider this a successful orbit: And just barely enough to perform a de-orbit burn: After the capsule is ejected from the rest of the rocket, it takes a long while to come back into the atmosphere, due to the angle it is travelling at: However the capsule eventually makes it closer to the surface and manages to deploy its parachute: And the capsule splashes down into the water just off the coast line, with David safe and sound to fly another day: So the Mamba Program has managed to produce a craft that took a Gaelan into space, orbited Gael, and returned to the surface safely and brought back the pilot alive. However because of the serious shortage of fuel on board it was a close call and David nearly didn't make it back at all because of it. As such another craft will need to be designed and built so that there is a lot more fuel on board to allow for any unforeseen circumstances that could have prevented this mission from being a success.

2. Reaching into Space After successfully managing to launch a craft into the air, safely return to the surface and recover the crew, the CSA now wants to do this again but this time getting the craft to reach at least the upper atmosphere and possibly even into space itself! Using the science data obtained from the experiments run on the Mamba I craft, new technologies have been developed by the CSA to further its space program: Using these new technologies, the CSA have designed the Mamba II craft, which has a small Crew Capsule (with capacity for 1 Gaelan), a solid fuel Hammer Engine, two solid fuel Flea Engines (used as boosters), a Parachute, a Heat Shield (in case the craft reaches space and needs this for re-entry) and several science experiments: Once again some of the science experiments are run on the launch pad by the pilot, David Welch: Then the Mamba II is launched into the air: Once the Flea Engines have run out of fuel they are ejected from the craft, so that the extra weight they carry is removed from the craft as they are no longer needed: The capsule is then ejected from the rest of the craft and Mamba II manages to get past the upper atmosphere no problem, reaching 73,084 metres above sea-level before leveling out and beginning its decent towards the surface: The capsule then deploys its parachute around 1,000 above sea-level: Once again, the craft lands safely on the surface, this time splashing down into the ocean, and the pilot is alive and well:

Cironaut Space Agency (A.K.A - Yet Another GPP Playthrough!) So, after reading many of these mission logs/career playthroughs, I've decided to do one of my own. I know there’s been a few done for the Galileo Planet Pack (GPP), but as I find it’s the best planet pack I’ve come across so far, this is the one I’m using! I’m also not changing the size of the system, as I’m also using the GEP and OPM mods, so combined this makes an already gigantic solar system that I don’t personally feel needs to be any bigger. Also, I’m probably not experienced enough to attempt it yet! This is a list of mods and contract packs I’m currently using: Some of these are custom mods that I’ve tweaked, such as: Kerbal Renamer – I’ve modified this so that all the Kerbals/Gaelans have westernised names and surnames and I’ve removed the GPP developers - sorry guys! I’ve also enabled this to be called from other scripts/mods, specifically so that anything that may have used the default/stock KSP naming scheme can instead use this one instead. Contract Configurator – I’ve modified this so that it uses my custom Kerbal Renamer scheme to name randomly generated Kerbals/Gaelans instead of the default/stock KSP naming scheme. Also ‘fixed’ a bug that displayed Gael in lowercase. TRP Hire – I’ve modified this so that it uses my custom Kerbal Renamer scheme to name randomly generated Kerbals/Gaelans instead of the default/stock KSP naming scheme. Far Future Technologies – I’ve recompiled this for version 1.4.3 but I believe this still has issues with heating, which isn’t a problem with this mod but a problem with KSP itself. However, I like the idea of having anti-matter engines on my rockets so hopefully this will work out! New Suits – This is just some of the Replacement mods from GPP tweaked a bit for my own playthrough. The Kerbals/Gaelans have some recoloured suits I’ve made and matching sprites, and I’ve tweaked the male heads a bit so that they use the heads that were for the Admin staff instead. I also tweaked some colours in the descriptions, but this is almost the same as it is normally in GPP. This is all done through Sigma Replacements in the same way the GPP versions were before. Tourism Plus – I’ve removed the contracts that wanted you to take Tourists to specific biomes, as the biomes were specifically for Kerbin. Also given the first tourist a random name rather than ‘Tito Kerman’, as this was not in line with the new naming scheme. Bases and Stations – I’ve tweaked the Life Support-related contracts to support Snacks. I also submitted this as a PR on GitHub which has now been incorporated into the contract pack by its current maintainer (three guesses who that is!). I’m hoping that in this current career playthrough I’ll be able to visit all the celestial bodies in the Ciro system (incorporating the GPP, OPM and GEP mods) either manned or unmanned. I’m also hoping to unlock all the nodes on the tech tree, which considering I’m using the Community Tech Tree mod should probably take quite a while! However, I’m also using the Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes mod so that empty nodes are removed, and to hide the tree nodes that haven’t yet been researched (except the ones that immediately proceed from already researched nodes), which I personally feel is a better approach to the tech tree. And these are the difficulty settings I will be using: EDIT: As requested by @HansonKerman, here are some screenshots of the solar system for this playthrough, taken in the Tracking Station: So, let’s get the Cironaut Space Agency started! 1. First Launch Whilst most organisations on the planet Gael that are trying to reach space are attempting to use computers to send unmanned craft instead, due to the obvious dangers of sending a Gaelan up into space, none of them have currently perfected this technology and are struggling to even get off the ground. However, the Cironaut Space Agency (CSA) have decided to throw caution to the wind and are planning on using actual Gaelans to fly their craft first! This should allow the CSA to gain a significant lead on the space race. The first batch of Gaelans to join the CSA are David Welch (pilot), Rita Coleman (scientist) and Dale Watson (engineer): The Mamba Program ultimately aims to build a craft that can send a Gaelan into space, orbit Gael, and return safely to the surface - without killing the pilot inside in the process! The first craft is named Mamba I and has a small Crew Capsule (with capacity for 1 Gaelan), a solid fuel Flea Engine, a Parachute and some science experiments on board: First, the science experiments that are onboard Mamba I are run on the launchpad by David Welch, the pilot: Then the rocket is launched from the Gael Space Centre (GSC) into the sky: It eventually reaches a height of 8,436 metres above sea-level before starting to plummet back towards the surface: When the craft reaches about 1,000 metres above sea-level the parachute is deployed, which slows the craft down and stops it from crashing into the surface: The craft then safely lands back on the ground. The pilot has survived, and the mission is a complete success:

I'm not sure, whilst this contract pack is just the sort of thing I'd love to have in my career I pretty much only use GPP and this isn't compatible unfortunately. I would suggest testing it to make sure but I can't see why it wouldn't be.

As @pap1723 still seems to be active on the forums (as of end of May anyway) you'd need to ask them about the status of this mod. Also I think @linuxgurugamer might have enough to look after as it is!

@Standecco This may be from you deleting the SquadExpansion folder. I don't know of this is accurate but with Steam I found that in order to not have the expansion I had to uninstall and reinstall KSP but not install Making History. However this was different as I was trying to install 1.3.1 which obviously can't have the expansion (as at that time all the mods still ran on 1.3.1). Now I've got 1.4.3 I have the expansion back and it all runs fine.

Ok well if you look in the Optional Mods folder in the zip file when you downloaded GPP there's a folder called GPP_Secondary. The contents of that will allow you to have a Kerbol-Ciro system. However as stated before I don't think you can have multiple launch sites on different celestial bodies. The closest you can probably come to on this is by using Extraplanetary Launchpads but you'd have to fly from Kerbin to Gael, and then build the launchpad there. I've never played extensively with this mod so you'd need to look into this further to see how this is done.

@HFer Kerman @linuxgurugamer I have a patch that makes this compatible with Snacks. I've posted this on Github as a Pull request: https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/KerbinSpaceStation/pull/1

Cool I will try this later, thanks @OhioBob!

Whoa didn't see I'd already posted! Ignore this post...

I'm currently using Kerbal Planetary Base Systems, Ground Construction and Snacks for a simpler game. I may try the USI Constellation again in the future but I found it was slowing down my game and I wasn't using much of the parts, as I hadn't ever built any bases at that point and was mainly using it was USI-LS. However I think I prefer this simpler game I'm playing for now! Also I'm using SSPX by Nertea for my space stations!

I don't have much of an FPS drop but it is a bit more than stock, which is to be expected. I do have OPM and GEP installed as well so my system is massive! I haven't measured the FPS though so I'll have a look next time I play and see. I found that once I removed the USI mods my game ran faster, although now I'm actually building a base part of me wishes I'd kept it! I've had to put the Ground Construction mod in as it's near impossible to get the parts for my base into orbit. Perhaps I'm just trying to do too much at once but it would seem ferrying the pieces in boxes from the GC mod over and then constructing them on Iota is much easier!

So this may actually be a Kopernicus issue then rather than a GPP/GEP_Primary specific issue?

This is interesting as i have a similar issue but it's sporadic and I find I just have to keep hitting the recover button. Also affects going into the space centre and quicksaving whilst in flight. I assumed this was to do with me using a combination of mods that are for versions 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 and I'm running version 1.4.3.

This is a very good tip, I used to do this quite often myself. In fact I still use MechJeb for docking sometimes, as I have tendency to crash into things!

Just stick with 1.4.3 for now (or whatever version your on) and do all the basic Kerbin/Mun/Minmus stuff. You don't need a high-tech powerful ship to get to Duna, if your craft can fly to the Mun you can fly to Duna. If you're planning on landing on the surface make sure you have parachutes and if you're flying a manned mission make sure you have an Engineer so you can re-pack the parachutes (saves having to have extras on board). Also you will need a bit more fuel than when flying to the Mun but you don't need tons of it. Once you can do this I would upgrade to GPP. In stock I've actually only been to Duna once and then I went straight over to GPP. It's a bit trickier, as the planets/moons aren't as simply lined up as in stock (much better orbits in GPP) so you have to adjust your trajectories accordingly, but it's not difficult!

Have you tried using Kerbal Alarm Clock and Transfer Window Planner? I use these in order to roughly plan out my window of opportunity to other planets. They also work with planet packs as well, not just Stock, so you can use it with GPP too. It's then just a case of getting your trajectory right and blasting off. Give it a few go's and you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. There's also a ton of videos on YouTube as well that will help with this!

I'm happy to stay on 1.4.3, I would have stayed on 1.3.1 but once this and the Near Future/SSPX mods were updated to 1.4.x I figured it was time to update. I hope it slows down eventually and people feel happy to continue creating and developing mods for KSP again. On a side note will post some pics of my new base on Iota later. I always build space stations but never planetary bases so this is a new thing for me!

I understand, what with the constant patches from Squad I can see why this would be a difficult process. I will still continue to play GPP though unless something else of equal/better quality comes along, but considering how high the bar has been set I'm not expecting anything in the short term! You guys have created a superb mod here and you should all be proud of what you've created!

Not unsurprising but still sad! Still this is pretty much finished now, I can't thinking anything it doesn't already have that it would need. Definitely the definitive planet pack for KSP, I've tried to replay the stock system and couldn't as it doesn't feel right anymore after using this for so long!

This is in fact a great place to start building. I've never really built a base before but after surveying the area it is indeed flat and there is a high presence of ore there for me to convert into Snacks and fuel. Will post screenshots later!