jimmymcgoochie

I've updated the rules and objectives a little bit- added the rule about "active missions" which I thought I'd included before but hadn't, and removed the objective to put a relay network around Gael as it doesn't really accomplish anything. I'm not seeing very many progress posts so far... But when you do do them, can you please include a summary at the end of which objectives you've completed and the UT time you completed them, it'll make it easier for me to track everything (I might need a spreadsheet...)

There are two ways of doing this- there's the "mine fuel on Tylo with a dedicated mining base, truck it around Tylo on dedicated fuel tankers to the lander(s) whenever they land and then battle with gravity losses by lifting off a high-gravity body with a full load of fuel" way, and then there's the "mine fuel somewhere else, bring it to Tylo and fuel the lander in space" way. Mining elsewhere is probably the better option in my opinion- Vall's the closest available mining spot and getting from Tylo to Vall and back is pretty trivial, but Bop and Pol have really low gravity and could be better options for hauling large quantities of fuel off their surfaces and all the way to Tylo orbit. Getting off of Tylo is difficult enough that you want to be lifting off with as little weight as possible- including fuel- and filling up with fuel in orbit means you'd be landing with the majority of your fuel already burnt, increasing your TWR and making things much easier for yourself.

I second RCS Build Aid, very simple and easy to use. There are a couple of other mods that can add/remove fuel across all parts to give a more dynamic idea of what's happening, which can be useful for planes so you don't make it unstable (or too stable i.e. in a nosedive) as you burn fuel, to try and do that by hand with larger craft or those with many fuel tanks/types would be prohibitively complicated.

There are a few different ways of doing it: Right click any command part (capsule or probe core) and then click rename vessel; As above, but click "configure vessel naming" instead- that's a relatively new addition in 1.10 or 1.11 I think, which can be useful for vessels with multiple parts that will break off and go their separate ways (e.g. a cluster probe mission to Jool) or where you're sending small craft to dock with a station and want the station to keep its name no matter what else is docking to it. In the tracking station, click the vessel on the list or on the map, click the little info icon then double-click the ship name and it should allow you to rename it from there;

This is all working as intended. You need either a probe core (that isn't a Stayputnik) or a Kerbal pilot on board to use SAS; engineers and scientists can't do it. There are different levels of SAS: level 0 is the basic SAS mode that tries to cancel rotation, level 1 adds pro/retrograde hold, level 2 adds radial and normal hold and level 3 gives you everything; this corresponds to the levels your pilots need to reach to be able to use these abilities, so a level 1 pilot can do pro/retrograde hold and a level 3 pilot can use any SAS mode they like. Reaching level 3 is relatively easy- just plant a flag on the Mun, plant a flag on Minmus and make a (very brief) trip outside Kerbin's SOI and that's enough XP for any Kerbal to reach level 3. Probe cores have fixed SAS abilities that depend on the part- the QBE and RoveMate have level 0 SAS, OKTO and HECS have level 1, OKTO2 has level 2 and HECS2 and RGUs have level 3, with the Stayputnik having no SAS at all; keep in mind that you also need reaction wheels (or RCS) to control your attitude and the RoveMate, QBE and Stayputnik have no built-in reaction wheels at all. If you're in sandbox mode you can change the difficulty settings to enable SAS more widely- turn on "All SAS modes on all probes" and every probe core will have all the SAS modes. You can also disable Kerbal experience in every game mode (I think), in which case every Kerbal will be level 5 by default and all pilots will give you full SAS control.

Playing through the career/story mode of Meeple Station and it turns out (spoilers) the titular Meeples aren't from the planet they're living on now, but instead come from another planet that was destroyed by a massive impact. Some of the residents of said planet escaped the cataclysm by turning themselves into space squids. The little squid are children, the bigger squid are adults and the really old squid end up huge. Giant. Space. Squids.

SSPX contains dedicated centrifuges, with core diameters from 1.25m to 5m and built-in deployment and spin animations. With certain life support mods they also provide artificial gravity bonuses (e.g. "Firm ground" in Kerbalism, which you usually only get when landed), plus they look great and have detailed interiors, plus SSPXr just got a major expansion to add 1.875m and 5m parts so there's even more centrifugal goodness to go around! (pun intended )

Biggest facepalm in space flight ever: Black Arrow. Be Britain, late 50s/early 60s. Work with other European countries on the Europa launch rocket. Get tired of France making dud second stages when your first stage (Blue Streak) works every time. Make your own second stage, also doubles as the first stage for a smaller rocket. Run turbo pumps on steam- no really: run HTP over a catalyst to produce oxygen (oxidiser) and lots of hot steam which turns the turbines, no need for any fancy stuff like most other rockets. Turn down offer from USA to launch payloads for free. Build working launch rocket (Black Arrow). Cancel project because it’s too expensive. ”But we have the final rocket at the launch site already, can we launch it, pleeeeeease?” Launch it successfully into orbit (Prospero- the Shakespearean wizard who gave up his powers). AFTER IT WAS CANCELLED. USA be like “Nope, we never said we’d launch your stuff for free.” Pay much money to USA to launch stuff instead. Be only nation IN HISTORY to develop an indigenous orbital launch rocket- that works- and then abandon that capability. Oh, and those pesky slow French? They went on and developed Europa into something called Ariane… Black Arrow was built to the same diameter as the Europa second stage it could have been stuck on top of a Blue Streak first stage to put much larger payloads into orbit as Black Knight. But no, they killed it off after one launch failure due to leaky plumbing and another great British idea died due to shoestring budgets. /rant

Yes. Originally I had intended the Iota and Ceti objectives to be done in parallel, but since I've moved those then go ahead. Still only two active missions (that will complete objectives) allowed at once, the objectives must be completed in order and you can't launch anything for phase 2 without completing everything in phase 1 (and so on). Here I was thinking I'd gone into too much detail with the rules, when it seems I wasn't detailed enough

Mortimer: More rich idiots tourists want to fly into space, get that shuttle thing ready to launch. Bobak: We can't- there's nobody here to fly it. Mortimer: Eh? Bobak: Jeb's still AWOL, Sanlan's not a pilot and Ribdo freaks out at the mere sight of one of those X-20s. Mortimer: Then hire another pilot. Bobak: Can't- no room in the Astronaut Complex. Gus: And we couldn't handle the extra paperwork either. *rocket noises* Everyone: Whaaa? Jeb: Please keep all parts of your anatomy inside the craft at all times, and if you throw up back there you're cleaning it yourself. Gene: JEB!? Jeb: Oh, hey! Wassup? Gene: What's- what's up? WHERE THE *quindar* HAVE YOU BEEN!?!? Jeb: ...sleepwalking I guess? I woke up under the launchpad, there was a rocket there so I just did what you'd expect me to do. Jeb: Alright, tourists- look to your left and you'll see Minmus, Dres, Jool and Duna out of the same window. Tourists: Ooh! Jeb: And now if you look out the window you'll see the superheated plasma of atmospheric re-entry rippling off the sides of the shuttle. Tourists: AAAAAAAAAAAH! Jeb: Ah, quit your screaming, it's not even that bad. Gah, now you've distracted me and we're overshooting. Tourists: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Jeb: Brace for some sweet, sweet Gs. *eight gee split-S* Tourists: ... Mortimer: Jeb, those tourists won't pay for their flights if you knock them out! Jeb: You guys are no fun at all... And besides, they're all fine; maybe a bit greener than usual. Gus: OK Jeb, call the ball. Jeb: Huh? *shuttle wobbles off course* Gus: Never mind! Jeb: OK, chumps, pay up and let's get the runway clear before that nuclear-engined SSTO runs us over. Tourists: eek! *plane noises* Mortimer: Hold on- how much!? Wernher: Ah. Yes. Well, by our estimates it's going to take at least 10km/s to have a hope of making orbit of Moho, and the only way to get that sort of delta-V is with a nuclear engine; trouble is the NERV isn't really capable of running for that long normally, so we had to make all the components even more resilient than usual- which for a nuclear rocket costs a lot of funds. Mortimer: I... I think I need to lie down... Bobak: What's with all the little burns? Wernher: Fifteen minute transfer burn. If we tried to do it all in one go we'd crash into Kerbin, so we do these periapsis kicks to reduce the final burn duration and get a bit more Oberth effect too. Bobak: Makes sense. *more plane noises* Bobak: What was that? Mortimer: Hang on, where did those rich idiots tourists go? Sanlan: They're in SPAAACE! With me and Ribdo too! We're going to the MUUUUN! Gene: Uh oh... Sanlan: OK, stupid freeloaders, your ride's done. Beat it. Tourists: AAAAAAAAA-! Ribdo: Why did we have to put the tourist pod between our pod and the probe thingy so we have to undock everything, push the tourists out the way and then grab the probe again? Sanlan: How else could we have done it? Even if we managed to make it all fit, it'd fall apart on the ride up here. Ribdo: Fair point. At least this isn't one of those *shudder* horrible little shuttlethingieswiththetinycramped-! Sanlan: *smack* Dude! Stop hogging the oxygen! Ribdo: sorry Gene: Could someone please explain what exactly you two are doing up there? Sanlan: Contracts and stuff. Also neither of us has been to the Mun yet and we wanted to go, so we decided to go together. Gene: *off mic to Wernher* Better start putting together a rescue mission... Ribdo: Probe away! Too bad we forgot to put thrusters on it so now it can't do the resource survey, but whatever. Sanlan: Just need to wait until the target landing site moves under our orbit, time the deorbit burn just right, nail the suicide burn and *fzzt* uh oh... *THUD* Gene: What was that? *CRUNCH SCRAAAAAAAAAAPE* Gene: WHAT WAS THAT!? Wernher: Rescue mission will be ready to launch in an hour- Ribdo: Whoops! That wasn't meant to happen... Sanlan: Stupid shoddy engine cut out on us just above the surface and the whole thing fell over. Wernher: That's odd, where are the rest of the deployed solar panels? Sanlan: They bounced up the hill when we "landed", I'll go and get them. Wernher: They bounced, uphill? Sanlan: I know, weird, right? Sanlan: These aren't even set up right, you need to press this one and then that one and you'll get twice the power. Amateurs. Bill: *aboard Dres Express* Oh yeah? Well your stuff out here isn't any better! Ribdo: Ooh, a rock! Sanlan: Big deal, we've got rocks back home too. Ribdo: But it's a MUN rock! Sanlan: Yeah, they already have some. Wernher: That's true, Bill and Bob got some Mun rocks during their mission. Ribdo: ...I'm keeping it anyway. Linus: My rover should be arriving any second now. Be gentle with her, she's already driven across the Mun several times. Ribdo: Yeah, yeah, I know what I'm doing. *welding noises* Ribdo: Ta-da! Now it's even super-er! Linus: *happy noises* Ribdo: Ooh, ooh, test it out on that crater over there! Linus: She's beautiful! *happy crying* Sanlan: Woah, it has lasers now! I want one! Sanlan: So, uh... How do we get back? Ribdo: We get in our rocket, point it up and fly back. Easy. Sanlan: Yeah, but we're on a hill. Ribdo: So we point uphill and use that to our advantage. Right, Jeb? Ribdo: Jeb? Bobak: I'm sure he was just here? Gene: Lock down the KSC. We're going to search every inch of this place until we find him, and when we find him, he's well and truly *quindar* Jeb: *through Gus' walkie-talkie* Hide and seek? I love this game! You'll never find me! Gene: Mun Station, this is Mission Control. Get Commander Valentina on the line. Jeb: Hey, no fair!

Nuclear Moho probe. Yes, the NERV is heavy and expensive (even more so with the ‘high quality’ version to extend its rated burn time) and yes, thirty tons of stuff of which 0.75 tons is spacecraft is pretty extreme, but who can argue with 13km/s of vacuum delta-V? I looked at other options but none came close to packing as much delta-V into the same footprint. With a TWR of 0.2 and some stupidly long burns to get down to Moho (which in the Snarkiverse orbits much closer to the sun than usual) this could take a while.

I doubt we'll see a story-driven game mode. KSP has been very successful because there isn't a specific story to follow- you're free to do whatever you like, whether that's trying to replicate real-life missions, building obscene contraptions that create computer-killing collision cascades, making boats/planes/cars/tanks/whatever other non-space related vehicles or doing something stupid like trying to fly to the Mun and back with just monopropellant engines or to Eeloo and back with just solid rockets (both of which have been done, to my knowledge!). Yes, giving a story to follow might help some players know what to do next, but I reckon for many more players it would stifle their creativity to "have" to do certain things at certain times when really all they want to do is fire an Orion pulse engine at the VAB or melt Duna's ice caps with a metallic hydrogen torch drive.

“Just a little flight in the plane to finish off the episode.” *ten minutes left in episode* Something’s going to happen here… And it did!

"Test save"? The whole point of the "no reverts" thing is so that you don't know if it'll work until you try it- testing everything in another save is reverting by proxy (as are any simulation mods like KRASH) so quit pretending to do the missions and just do them! Also, Historian works automatically every time you press F1. The default config includes plenty of information- craft name, altitude, biome and which SOI it's in.

Yep, that happens sometimes when you switch the home planet. Also yes, the KER tape deck is fine as all it does is hold data.

@OHara are you still working on this? I’d be interested to see the results of this as I’ve been doing a story-career in the Snarkiverse (this thread brought it to my attention and then my GPU died and Snarkiverse was about the only planet pack I could still run until it got replaced) and adding a bit of n-body weirdness could be interesting, both for gameplay and for the story part too.

Pilot needs to be a higher level to get that ability, I think level 5? It’s behaving exactly as intended- you have pro/retrograde, radial and normal hold options.

“Ready to begin the transfer to Minmus.” ”Shall we use the disposable transfer stage on the lander so we can dump it and shed the dead weight and also use the lander once we arrive?” ”Nah, main engine on the CSM and pump the fuel out of the transfer stage as we go.” And then all that faffing about trying to align your plane with a rover on the ground. Your original orbit was fine, bring the apoapsis down and you’d fly right over it in a couple of orbits, easy landing and return within one orbit.

Dres doesn’t technically orbit Kerbin- it’s outside of Kerbin’s SOI, but has a very similar orbit. Quasi-satellites in this type of orbit are apparently unstable in most cases, however there is a quasi-satellite in a stable orbit of Earth broadly similar to Dres’ orbit of Kerbin (Kamoʻoalewa), though this is just 41 metres across! While it’s very unlikely for a dwarf planet to end up as a quasi-satellite of a planet like Dres/Kerbin here, it’s technically possible. Most of the time, though, you’ll end up with a Trojan that orbits 60 degrees in front/behind the larger body at the L4/5 Lagrange points between said large body and the sun. It would be interesting to see what adding Principia would do to the Snarkiverse, I believe I saw a thread about that somewhere which was a big factor in my discovery of the Snarkiverse right when my GPU died and I started this series.

@minerbatno, you can only do science missions after doing the objective- so no science probes to Ceti until you’ve done the flyby Ceti objective. The tiny basic fin comes from Probes Before Crew, that’s fine to use.

OK, I think I have the end goal for this report- boots on the ground everywhere except Jool and Kerbol. This is a bit of an undertaking- I've done Kerbalism Grand Tours before but the stock-parts-only version missed Moho and both of Kerbin's moons, and the successful one used many mods to exploit stupidly overpowered mass ratios on Kerbalism's gas canisters (the biggest canister holding xenon is about 56:1 wet:dry, compared to the 4 or so with stock xenon tanks)- but I see no reason to do it all in one mission. Moho is going to be the hardest target due to its stupidly low orbit, Eve will be a bit tricky just because it's Eve and Jool's moons will be a pain with all the deadly radiations, but other than that it should be pretty easy, right? Also I have my RP-1 series to go back to, and I want to poke around with new stuff like System Heat/FFT/Space Dust/etc. in JNSQ as inspiration for some of the more "endgame" parts of Audacity, and I'm also running a Space Race in GPP (entries still open ), and other games, and that whole "life" thing too... Long story short, I want to bring this to an end reasonably quickly but with a conclusion that makes sense both from an in-game perspective and from a story one. In the meantime, here's a teaser for the next update:

The objectives have been updated to add a bit of clarity- you must now complete a probe landing on Iota before sending any probes to Ceti. @jinnantonix apologies as this contradicts what I said earlier, it was easier to keep all the objectives for each moon together.

Looks like a scatterer issue to me. Try reinstalling scatterer, or if that doesn’t work reinstall all your graphics mods.

Sounds like your Steam copy of KSP is pretty mangled- disable steam cloud sync, verify the local files, and if that doesn’t help uninstall and reinstall KSP completely. Check the game works OK with no mods, then create a new copy of KSP from that Steam copy and put your mods in that.

Yes. I’ll edit those objectives to make it a bit clearer.