bootsam

Well, live anyways. The learning bit is a tad more tenuous. Ive now got 4 of my 6 modules which make my station docked and complete. 2 more to go before I move the squatters in. Tonight should see Hotel Kerbilonia complete and occupied. I still havent quite figured orientations out. So I know left right etc on rcs. Its one thing I struggle with, except at launch. Everywhere else its trial and error. Mostly the latter to be fair.

I didnt. I know now thanks. .... ...move along, nothing to see here. Ahem.

Thanks Van, I'd kinda figured that out eventually. Success!!! Ive got my two main stages which form the spine of my SS docked and ready for the ancillary parts. Yay!! It all went smoothly. I guess because of the practice ive had during all my mistakes. Ive always said you learn more from mistakes than success. Although, by that reckoning I should be giving Einstein a run for his money so maybe its not quite true. I figured if the boosters came down in one piece theyd be easily recoverable on completion of whatever mission. So I fitted them with chutes and put the chutes on the same stage as the decoupler and small booster rockets. However I am wondering whether I should put a controller on them too, so I can ensure the chutes are staged better individually. I assumed they were auto recoverable. Im beginning to have some doubts. I may have made erronious assumptions. But the main body of my lifter, i put chutes and controllers on and this is fully recovered as I once I seperate the payload and dock, I then switch to the lifter and de-orbit it and drop it into the sea next to ksp via chutes and recover it from the menu. Im wondering whether I should be doing this for the booster stage too. I like to try to be sustainable. Im waste averse, even in a game. Plus its a challenge. I appreciate that space is mind boggingly big as Doug Adams would say, but Im also aware that if there is even a remotely tiny miniscule chance of encountering my own debris whilst on a critical mission, I'll encounter it in an unfortunate and terminal way. Stuff happens, and when it does its usually to me. Fate and I are on close terms since I've constantly defied her and continued to live and breath despite her best efforts to the contrary. I've been a motorcyclist for over 30yrs. Ive even had a van drive over my head. Seriously. In the words of Yellowbeard - "You'll ave to kill me before I die" Hopefully the next 4 stages should complete the station before I move onto permanent bases on Mun and Minmus and some mining. Once I get myself all settled in, I can think about the expansions and exploring the other planets.

Discovered the hard way that the large docking ports are uni directional. Starting again, ...again. Still, Ive had lotsa rendevouz practice now so that Im pretty good at it. I used to struggle but seem to have found the knack. So, tonight I should hopefully be able to relaunch my station parts 1 & 2 and couple them together. Running out of cash so I shall have to do some tourist missions to support my continual failures. Im assuming my failure to dock a small port to a large one was due to me having the large one the wrong way round. On my booster stage I recover my LF boosters via chutes, but the chutes seem to get destroyed on one booster. So I loose one booster. I cannot seem to remedy this. Any ideas? Ive varied both the altitude and atmos to see if I can fix it and added small booster rockets to eject them from my main body of the lifter. My main lifter section works well on returning to Kerbal. That recovers well now ive added 6 drogues as well as 6 main chutes. But loosing that one booster is annoying me. I want a fully recoverable system with no debris.

Starting again. Had to de-orbit the station though as my f9 was later. Also did my first parachute recovery of a kerbal. Which was nice. I hadnt meant for a kerbal to be in orbit, but jeb snuck in when I forgot to check. I had no recovery vessel, plus I found a few things missing (3 of my 4 mono rcs thrusters on mini tug, no remote controller on section 1, no comms aerial on mini tug, etc etc etc. Plus discovered I can't dock a small port to a large port. Oh and the banana wobbles need looking at so, ...deorbit. Which took ages as i could only use low throttle on atom engine as station would oscillate wildly. Jebs 3 stars and I don't wanna lose him.

Would someone who is adept mistakenly disconnect the wrong docking port and thus render their 'space station' module undockable? Would someone adept be allowed to take charge of a space mission when they are easily distracted by a packet of mint viscounts? "Houston, we got a problem. Armstrongs eaten all the tunnocks caramel wafers."

Thanks, but I erred anyways by disconnecting the wrong docking port and had to start again. Doh! Instead of the small docking port on the tug, I disconnected from the large one on my station so that the large port came away with the tug. I may have swore a bit and declared unwholesome consequences to my pc and KSP. It was all a bit Basil Fawlty. So I am back to just having my 1st stage at 300km and I can retry to rendevouz without further biscuitgate controversies impeding me further. This game brings out the determined and unyielding bit of me. I shall not be beaten by a stupid silly game. Again.

I messed up my rendevouz and trail my main section by about 20°. Nuts. Esp as I dont have a tug on this section and only have enough fuel to put my lifter back into de-orbit for recovery. So I have to use my tug from 1st stage to bring my second stage close enough for a rendevouz. All because I got distracted by a rather lovely packet of biscuits and didnt pay close enough attention. So I missed my gravity turn to 45k and kept on to 300k. Doh! (I didnt F5 the launch)

Been away a while. Landed on Duna, got home. Just. Had to orbit kerbin a few times to lose velocity as i used all my fuel just to get back into an elongated orbit and bring my peri down to 40k. But we got home. Yay! I seem to have completed my science as ive unlocked all. My rep is in the 80's too. No kerbal has been lost (if you ignore F9) Im building a space station atm. In 6 parts with tugs and refuelling facilities for the other planets. My 1st stage flew like a banana and wobbled its way to 300km orbit. Its the core section which everything buttons onto and is longest, so fingers crossed for others and then sticking them all together. Then a mining station on each of Mun and Minmus and a fuelling station there too. Ive ignored planes and ssto so far. I just like rockets.

You should'nt have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.

Kerbals woke up this morning to news that bootspace6 has successfully achieved orbit of Duna. Thanks for the above advice. Ive left it in orbit for now until i get time to crack off the lander and land. Then i gotta get home.

Duna is a tougher nut to crack than Mun and Minmus. Im having to re-assess my basic launch vehicle and module. Which in turn means i need to assess some of the parts ive unlocked and ignored since my basic vessel did the job ok. Ive aborted umpteen attempts as I would not be able to return and Im finding hitting the right trajectory difficult. Plus adjusting nodes is a pain as a tiny movement sees it fly off madly. Lots of swearing and shaking of fists and declarations of unspeakable acts to dumb computer equipment ensued. However, I watched a vid for clues and think I know now what to do. But I need a new vessel. Bootspace5 is no longer viable. Ive conceded that. Time to break out the big engines and tanks. Sleeves have been rolled and knuckles have been cracked. What could possibly go wrong?

Ah. Thanks. Missed that.

Thanks, I keep failing so far.... (Plus my 'like' button seems to have gone from this forum)

Ive recently rescued quite a few; these rescued Kerbs shall soon be spending some quality time orbiting the Sun. Once I return from Duna. My Astro complex is fully upgraded. The only thing I have left to upgrade is the management place thing, which I still havent a scoobie what it does. Since I added module manager, MechJeb became operational. However once I noticed what it did, I removed it. I dont want autopilot or none of those things. I'm quite happy crashing and making errors. Maybe later I shall find it handy, but for now I like bumbling around. Timing my own burns and generally screwing up. So I put on KER instead as I like the info at top of screen for stuff. Mainly my Apoastis at launch and TWR so I can save fuel(ish). Im old school, I dont even use Sat Nav as I generally know my way around after riding 2 wheels since I was 16. Onwards to Duna... ...boom

Today. We had Grandaughter for the weekend. She is 5. I need a vacation now.

I agree with above. Ive only just started with mods. I followed this. It needs some tweaking by the user to get it looking ok and not laggy etc or weird. I concentrated on the basics until I started looking at mods. Its sound advice from above. Good luck.

Hi, Im new(wish) too. Learn how to coordinate the F5 & F9 saves. It can help you out of many a pickle. Ive learnt to F5 prior to launch now. So that I can only lose what blew up on that mission. I stopped reverting to saves as I went along a mission, now I F5 at the launch only. Whether that's from the launch pad or from a moon. Good luck. This game is silly. Just the right kind of silly for me. NOTE: DONT MIX UP F5 AND F9 OR YOU END UP SAVING THE MISTAKE INSTEAD OF REVERTING. Ive done this too many times...

Im not brave enough to risk a Kerbal Hans. Despite rescuing 5 of them yesterday. However, the PV fix went smoothly thanks. I then found another satellite around Kerbal where Id forgotten to do it again after I was asked to realign it. Nuts. So I fixed that too. Now to Duna...

Thanks all. Whilst i appreciate the option Bewing, a lesson learnt the hard way has always been my way. Plus it'll be a fun mission. I have a mobile station parked on minmus. I can get a mechanic there in a jiffy. I also have a mission to rescue Job from minmus orbit. So i can easily remedy my stupidity. If only this applied equally to real life eh?

Yep, forgot. Now its orbiting Minmus like some derilict husk. Useless. Can an engineer manually extend the panels if I flew a mission to fix it, or should I just use the claw and dock another craft? Ta.

I installed SVE and EVE and module manager last eve. Looks quite nice. I thought id installed mechjeb some time ago, but nothing ever appeared on my screen and I swiftly forgot about it. It seems module manager has fixed that.

Hi, Ive been playing KSP for a few months now. Purely vanilla and career mode. Ive watched the odd vid to learn how to do stuff and note much better visuals than my base game. I have a reasonably powerful watercooled PC which can run everything at ultra usually. Thus I am asking you learned lot what you would recommend to spruce up visually my game. many thanks for your suggestions. Ive noted EVE and SVE and scatterer and planetshine. Would these suffice? Ta very much old beans.

R&R upgraded and now have moved into final tiers of science. Running lots of reposition sat jobs to fill up my coffers as I need to recruit a lot of crash test dummies keen explorers and scientists. I built a shuttle and am umming and ahhing on what engines to provide it with as its only to build a Kerbal space station. So prob terriers will suffice. Its the re-entry and landing that is going to be tricky for me as I have no idea how just yet, so next few days will be spent sending proverbial guinea pig Kerbils for my trial and error typ of approach, (which is basically my style of anything), prior to building the station. Once I get the hang of it, then Bootstation 1 shall commence. Ive unlocked more science and parts than I know what to do with just yet. I guess I can end this noob thread as Im not really noobish anymore. Ive not ventured further than minus so far, I prefer to keep it all local for learning purposes. Thanks to everyone for their help and assistance.

Ive never been a role play type. Im far too affixed and grounded to reality that I'm unable to suspend that. No matter how much I try, so I've given up on that. Its just the way my brains wired. A game is a game to me. (I have no issues with people roleplaying btw) Of course I'd have reservations using a NERV in real life, as the Russians have recently demonstrated with the unfortunate loss of lives. But it makes a great tool for rendevouz and rescue missions as the fuel seems to last forever. Long manouveurs are the issue, I have to break the manouveurs up into smaller chunks and they take a long time for a Minmus trip. But it has been a great help to me as a post noob. I can keep mass down without the worry of running out of fuel. This game isnt as grindy as Elite. Ive played that since its release in 14(ish), Ive amassed billions, achieved elite status and every ship and engineered most of them, but Ive lost my impetus to grind anymore. I like this game. Its simple, yet complicated at the same time. Plus you learn. Ive found it incredibly interesting to see how we move from one gravity well to another and the way a body scoops you up. Of course I know the sums and equations as a Mech Eng but nothing beats a visualisation of Keplar and Newton in action. Ive made my 1.7M for R&R upgrade, now I just need to grind out some margin for my funds. Another 500k should suffice as a float. So I am off to grab a thing from minmus and return it to Kerbin for a cool £250K. TBH, I quite like Gruffalo. Julia Robinsons stuff is quite amusing and GD loves it. Plus daughter is a primary teacher and uses her stuff for her classess. I cant wait till GD is in her class. Chaos will ensue and I shall have my revenge on my daughter. for all the hassle she provided growing up. Muahahah.