jimmymcgoochie

Next up- Areobees: Aerobees to Ares (Mars)! I think that might even be easier than landing on the Moon, let the atmosphere do the work; but the accuracy on the interplanetary burn…

Good news- my broken GPU has been replaced under warranty and the new one is on its way. However I'm rather enjoying this playthrough and I think I'll continue it- just with the graphics turned up again and without the lag whenever I look at the ground!

@Klapaucius Yes you need to leave it to gather the data over time. Those solar panels will generate more power if they’re deployed by a higher level engineer, the exact numbers are in the part description.

And what difficulty were you playing on before? Check the settings for “funds rewards” and compare with an earlier save with lower rewards if you can.

Did you install the config files for Waterfall? Waterfall alone just provides the technical stuff to make the plumes, but you need configs to actually add those effects to engines. Effects for stock engines.

Depends what you’re looking for- there are stock-ish implementations of KCT to add build times for your rockets, a variety of life support systems from the simple Snacks to the pretty comprehensive Kerbalism, a few part failures mods (Kerbalism does this too) and some mods to add crew training/health/stress/R&R. You have a choice of different tech trees, some of which put probe parts at the beginning for a sounding rocket/plane based start as you’ll find in RP-1. There are also contract packs that replicate some real life missions in the stock Kerbol system which might interest you, different propellant types (e.g. cryogenic hydrogen and methane rockets) and so on, but the much smaller scale of the stock system makes it inherently easier to get around as even with the terrible fuel tank mass ratios, stock parts are overpowered for the stock system. I would suggest trying a combination of KCT, Kerbalism (with the full config for part failures, life support, radiation and science) and Probes before Crew and see how you get on.

Different difficulty settings? You can change the funds rewards to make the game easier (bigger rewards) or harder (smaller rewards),

What’s with the parachutes “when risky” all the time? They’re more likely to fail if you do that, just setting them up right is usually enough. I tend to use 0.5atm deploy, 750-1000m full open and only rarely have to bump the deploy pressure down if the craft is heading for a mountain.

That reading on the solar panel is almost certainly a bug- the central station reports 1 power being generated (by the solar panel) but 2 being used (by the station and the weather analyser). You need more power, either with a better engineer deploying the solar panel to get more power from it, or with MOAR-er, more panels.

That sample return capsule has no reaction wheels, no SAS and no MechJeb; it was never going to be flyable. I’ve made the same mistake before.

Another day, another probe launched to get science around Kerbin. The team at KSC are amassing an impressive collection of loyalty points from various rocket suppliers and hardware stores by launching all these probes. In between probe missions, there was time to squeeze in an engine test along with a materials bay experiment. Purple fire? Nice. And then came the big incident... Gene: So we're going to launch a special crewed mission- Jeb: DIBS!!! Gene: Jeb, I haven't even told you what- Jeb, already climbing into the pod before it's even attached to the rocket: MINE! Gene: *sigh* fine, you can have this one. later... Jeb: Aaaand engine cutoff! So now that I'm in space and all, are you going to tell me what this mission is for? Gene: It's a long-duration mission to test the effects of long-term exposure- Jeb: yawn... Gene: -for thirty days. Jeb: What? Gene: Controls locked out, see you in thirty days. 'While Jeb orbited Kerbin again, and again, and again, Sunshot 1 arrived at Kerbin's new neighbour, the moon-thieving sub-planet called Dres. OK, seriously, what do you all have against Dres? It may not be that big, or pretty, or interesting in any way whatsoever, but... Hmm, actually you may have a point. - Gene Soon after arriving, it set a course for Minmus and first orbited, then landed on the little minty moon. With a large reserve of fuel left over, the probe hopped to several different biomes to maximise its science yield. Unfortunately for the probe, Bill was too fixated on the rated ignitions counter to notice that the rated burn time counter had ticked down to zero, resulting in an engine failure at the worst possible time- half way through another biome hop, with the probe flying through the air. The team were convinced that the probe would be destroyed on impact, however the service bay seemed to protect the probe inside from most of the impact forces and the probe survived, minus one of its two dishes, to transmit the remaining science data. Of course, it was only after this that they realised the probe hadn't sent back any data from space low around Dres, because it hadn't actually been to space low around Dres. Intercepting Minmus on the first orbit meant that it never lowered its periapsis far enough. Still, any excuse for a second probe... With all the data coming back from Sunshot 1, the team were able to get their hands on some new tech- the OKTO probe core, with built-in SAS and reaction wheel, and solar panels! No more relying on fuel cells with finite fuel to provide the power for these probes. They were also able to upgrade the launchpad from a scorched lump of concrete to a proper launchpad with a real pad crawler instead of an old tow truck to move the rockets out there, upping the maximum launch weight sevenfold to a hefty 140 tons. That's a looooot of boosters... The next launch only required two boosters, but due to the increased launch mass it could fire the boosters first and then activate the core liquid-fuelled stage once the boosters were burnt out. On the top, the first X-20 spaceplane configured to carry a crew of up to 4 and so complete all those space tourism contracts. Trying to launch a plane on top of a rocket wasn't particularly easy- one slip-up and the whole rocket flips- so for the first flight it was just Val on board to steer the slightly unwieldy shuttle into space; a task which she was more than capable of completing, making orbit with a healthy margin of fuel in the upper stage. Spaceplanes are uncharted territory, especially for EDL (entry, descent, landing) so perhaps unsurprisingly, Val totally overshot the KSC. She was still over 20km up as she flew over! By the time she slowed down and turned around she was too far out to fly back to KSC. She tried to make it to the Island Airfield, but a combination of tricky controls and accidentally leaving the airbrakes switched on meant she fell short of that too and had to ditch in the ocean instead. The KSC team watched with concern as she dropped into the ocean, but they needn't have worried- the ditching was textbook and no damage was done to Val or the shuttle. She even landed close to the KSC this time! With the test flight out of the way and the shuttle demonstrated to be flightworthy, the tourists were queueing up for flights. Flight number 2 took Val, two tourists (the same two who flew on the first aborted tourism flight) and Bill, who got his first flight at last (and made orbit before Bob, who wasn't best pleased) before returning on a much more accurate re-entry trajectory. They still overshot, but not by much and Val brought the shuttle in for a landing- on the runway of all places! Bill was so caught up in his first spaceflight (and Bob so caught up in his jealousy at not having had his own orbital flight) that they completely forgot about those new-fangled "sun panels" on Sunshot 2, sending it off to Dres with a new OKTO probe core and vastly improved data storage, but still powered by a fuel cell. Jeb: Hello? Anyone!? I'm getting bored up here! Val: What's wrong, little bro? I thought you wanted to set all the spaceflight records? Jeb: ...

You could have unlocked it, but you picked the wrong nodes Also the whole "F to grab on" thing is because F is the "interact" keybind, does grab, climb and randomly-smack-the-deployed-science-stuff actions. G is for Gear.

There is a difference- the small arm gets 33% of the available science, the medium one 66% and the large one 100%, and this doesn’t change if you repeat the experiment with the same arm- though you can revisit the same type of surface feature with a better arm in the future to get the rest of the science. As for probe cores, there are a few differences between them- the HECS gets pro/retrograde holding and possibly a slightly better reaction wheel, whereas the OKTO only does basic SAS; the Stayputnik has no SAS and no reaction wheels, the QBE gets basic SAS but no reaction wheels, the OKTO2 gets radial and normal hold too but no reaction wheels and the HECS2 gets all the SAS modes and pretty powerful reaction wheels. RGUs (drone cores) get all the SAS modes too but also have a unique ability where a pilot on a different ship in flight can remote pilot the craft if they have a comms connection, giving the probe full control even if it can’t communicate all the way back to Kerbin; I’m not sure which craft needs the RGU on it though, I think it’s the one being controlled rather than the one doing the controlling?

Is it just me, or is the colour contrast turned up a little bit too much? There’s a reason I always take the pods down with me when I do those rescue contracts, no need to check if I’ve already rescued them when the pod comes back too- plus free money!

"I'm booooooooored!" For all that Jeb's a great pilot, he can be a bit petulant and sulky at times. Fortunately for everyone else at KSC, there's a solution that puts his piloting to good use and can get some science at the same time. After a bit of initial confusion as to why the "Blue Steel" wasn't actually blue or steel, Jeb took the plane out for a spin- it flew well enough with a low minimum speed, but seemed to have asymmetric lift and was very prone to rolling when physics warp was on Jeb started daydreaming. With atmospheric pressure readings gathered above the shores, highlands and mountains, Jeb spotted something up the coast from KSC and decided to take a look. So naturally, that's when the engine failed. A parachute landing and a lot of rolling later, it turned out to be an abandoned launchsite, slowly being reclaimed by the sea: With the engine repaired and Jeb busy exploring this new launchsite, it was up to Val to take the plane for its next mission in the desert. "Hey, Control? What's that metal doodah?" "Uh, let me get back to you on that. TERRY! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT LEAVING YOUR "ARTWORKS" LYING AROUND ON THE BASE!?" "Your mic is still on, Control... OK, I'm taking off now, oof this thing's suspension is awful- ouch! ooyah! *scraaaaaaaaaape* ow, my shin!" The ground team worked wonders, replacing the broken parts and upgrading the engine to a more powerful model to give the plane a bit more speed. Unfortunately they didn't manage to fix the wheels... Val: "Wow, this thing handles terribly! It's like half a wing is missing." Control: "Uh, Val? You're missing a wingtip and they're the only ailerons on the plane." Val: "Well, that figures. Ooh, what's that down there?" Val: "Can I go and see it, pleeease?" Gene: "No can do, Val, you don't have the fuel." Val: "Bah, you're no fun." With that mission over with and some more science gathered, someone had the bright idea of stapling some big solid boosters to that plane and launching it from Woomerang launchsite towards the polar ice caps. There was only one Kerbal up for the job of piloting it... Jeb: "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Bob: "Hey Jeb? You're on a science mission, not a-" Jeb: "Yeah, yeah, science stuff switched on, it'll do its thing when I get there." Bob: "The hard drive is full." Jeb: "So?" Bob: "So, you need to get out and take the data so it can keep running." Jeb: "...get out? I'm almost at the north pole, ice all around me, and you want me to GET OUT!?" Bob: "What, you're scared of a little cold? Just remember to leave the engine running-" Jeb: "To keep me warm?" Bob: "No, to power the science stuff." Jeb: ... Bob: "And to keep you warm too I suppose..." The jet fuel ran out in the end, halting the science gathering. Jeb wasn't too impressed about having to stand around outside in the freezing cold until the recovery team arrived, but the science data was worth it. While Jeb defrosted with copious application of "antifreeze" (read: more of Linus' homebrew), the science team put their heads together and modified the Munshot probe design to include a return capsule. Munshot 6 wouldn't land but instead orbit, gather the mystery goo readings from low altitude around the Mun and then send that sample back in the capsule while the rest of the probe stayed in Kerbin orbit doing more science. The mission was hampered a bit by the high electricity use of the new MITE and SITE experiments, however careful energy management was enough to ensure that it completed its primary objective. Munshot 6's orbiter also included a relay dish so it could provide some signal relaying capacity; the existing DSN stations worked well enough for equatorial orbits, but the Mun's orbit had been shifted to 60 degrees inclination by The Anomaly and launching into that orbital plane meant a probe could go around for an entire orbit without getting any signal at all. The next launch, Highshot 3, also carried a relay dish and was launched into a polar orbit. A modification of the earlier Munshot probes, Highshot 3 traded most of the extraneous parts for maximum fuel cell fuel and was designed to gather as much MITE and SITE data as possible with over 6 days worth of continuous power generation with everything running. Not nearly as good as having solar panels, but they're still some way away yet. Seeing an opportunity, Bill proposed another idea- using bigger fuel tanks and a more efficient Terrier engine, it should be easy enough to launch a probe into interplanetary space and most likely to Dres, which continues to hover just outside Kerbin's gravity well. The Sunshot 1 probe was pared back, carrying only the science experiments that could be transmitted back and which consumed the least power to stretch out the fuel cell fuel for as long as possible, but carried two relay dishes to improve its communication range. At last, Kerbin's inhabitants have begun the exploration of their reshuffled solar system. There's still a long way to go, but Sunshot 1 is the first step on that path and with any luck will find out how Kerbin's second satellite ended up around that good-for-nothing-not-really-a-planet- Jeb, stop tampering with the official reports! - Gene

While my GPU is off for repair, I’ve been doing another little career report thingy- this time with less reporting and more storytelling. Check it out here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/203971-into-the-snarkiverse-or-what-im-doing-while-my-graphics-card-is-kaput/

KSP popped up on my Steam discovery list a few years ago. It looked interesting, but I had just moved house (so had no money) and had a terrible laptop as my only PC. Later on I found it again when it was on sale and I had a proper PC to run it, so I bought it and haven’t looked back. Got the DLCs too when they were on sale, both worth the money IMO.

Bill: So, what do you think? Val: ... Bill: Yeah, it's a bit unconventional but it's the best we could do with the current part limits? Val: Huh? Bill: Er, I mean, health and safety regulations orsomethinglikethatIdunno... Val: ... Bill: It's going to fly past the Mun. Jeb: Did someone say- Val: DIBS! Jeb: And so Munshot 1 lifted off. It has one SRB, OK? It's the best we could do. During this mission Val reported seeing a series of small, faint rings around Kerbin; later the same rings were spotted on the ground. Where did they come from? How did they get there? Are they made of sherbet or icing sugar? All these and more questions will need to be answered, but that's not what we're here for now. Trying to launch into a 60 degree orbit by hand with a rocket with lopsided thrust is a rather, um, interesting experience, but a quick plane change in orbit fixed that. Val did the transfer burn so her orbit overlapped the Mun's, then just had to sit and wait for a few days until they both reached the same place at the same time. The Mun at periapsis is inside Kerbin's outer radiation belt now so spending several days getting lightly irradiated wasn't the best idea ever... It was worth it though: A safe flyby of the Mun, huge milestone bonuses due to the Mun Probes Strategia strategy and a load of science too. The only problem was that after leaving the Mun's gravity Val found herself on a very suborbital trajectory; burning her remaining fuel helped a bit, but re-entry was brutal and she pulled over 16G as her pod slammed into the lower atmosphere. When she came around again after blacking out from the excessive G-forces, she found herself floating down under parachutes to land in the middle of nowhere. AGAIN. Look, Val, if you want to spend some time alone all you have to do is ask, OK? This whole "landing in the middle of nowhere" thing is getting out of hand, it costs money to send those recovery crews out to get you. Fresh from the success of Munshot 1, Munshot 2 was launched to orbit and then land on the Mun. Unlike Munshot 1, all later models are probes and use a more conventional booster to get into space. Munshot 2 struggled to reach orbit at all due to some aerodynamic instability and while it made orbit of the Mun with fuel to spare, there wasn't enough left to try and land- at least not in one piece! Part of the problem was that the tracking station couldn't predict when and where the intercept with the Mun was going to be, but with all the milestone bonuses rolling in the first facility upgrade could be done: Now powered by two Kommodore 64s instead of one and boasting three dinky little dishes, the new and improved Tracking Station had everything it needed to calculate patched conics and so accurately predict trajectories moving from one body's gravity to another. Using this new capability, Munshot 3 got a good intercept of the Mun and flew straight down to the surface without even bothering to get to orbit first. The probe landed safely in the Mun's Highlands, completed its science experiments and sent the data home along with the first image of Kerbin from the surface of the Mun: There was a little fuel left over and a promising crater nearby that might yield more science. Rolling the probe with its reaction wheel had limited success as it kept trying to stand on its end and went off-course. A short hop with the remaining fuel was attempted, but the engine failed during the descent and was destroyed on impact leaving the now immobile probe languishing on the surface with no new science after all. The KSC team were only slightly disappointed by the failure of the hop- just landing on the Mun at all was a major success. Munshot 4 rolled out two days later- nobody was in any fit state to work the morning after Munshot 3's landing, including Val who made it back just in time to join in the festivities- and replicated its sibling probe's feat, landing in a prominent crater with another great view of Kerbin. There was extra fuel in this one too so another hop was attempted; the engine worked fine, but the probe landed in the same biome as before and had insufficient fuel to try again. Another successful Mun landing and more science sent home, so another raucous party in the local pub and another spate of sick days taken the next day. It seems someone partied a little too hard that night, because when Munshot 5 lifted off, this happened: The probe was still low enough and slow enough that most of it landed within a few kilometres of the launchpad, but unfortunately not in one piece: A slight redesign and hammering most of the dents out and the same probe was ready to launch again by lunchtime: Everyone was slightly confused by the change in rocket plumes. Maybe it was Linus' homebrew that he'd brought to the Munshot 4 party, which definitely had a whiff of formaldehyde about it... Unlike previous missions, Munshot 5 aimed to intercept the Mun close to its apoapsis, meaning it managed to land with more fuel left over than previous attempts. The landing site was chosen carefully- a canyon-like feature at the edge of a large crater- and a short biome hop was successfully executed to gather science from both. The only complication was that the probe lost its connection to Kerbin during the second descent and it took over a day to reconnect, much to the relief of the KSC crew- some more than others, as there had been a little sweepstake going about whether or not the probe had survived. Two days later after yet another party, a slightly dishevelled Gene found a line of wealthy Kerbals all offering to pay handsomely for the privilege of flying into space. The team came up with a design that might do the job, carrying two tourists and a pilot in one go, but the KV-series pods added too much drag and the first launch was aborted; the two tourists on board didn't mind too much, becoming the first Kerbals (along with Jeb) to experience an in-flight launch abort, but the other tourists waiting for their turn looked a little less keen after that. More industry reps showed up offering money for doing some strange things to their parts. Thumper SRB, Erebus hydrolox engine, Compsognathus methalox engine, parachute, landing gear, heatshield- all were tested, launched to specific altitudes and speeds or otherwise (mis)used as requested. Bob was impressed by the little Compsognathus- just 62.5cm across yet packing more than triple the thrust of the Pug and performing almost as well at sea level as in vacuum, it would make a great engine for a side booster or for a small probe. It also looked great at full power: With the Mun Probes strategy complete following three successful landings, a strategy meeting was called to decide on their next steps. Science is still needed so more Mun probes are an option, however their yields are relatively low and there may be more science to be gained by looking further afield. Wait, isn't that Dres lurking just beyond Kerbin's SOI? And what's that little moon beside it- Minmus!?

You’ll probably need FMRS to attempt this- it’s possible in stock KSP, but you need to launch the payload high and fast enough that it doesn’t fall back into the atmosphere while you land the booster again, then switch to the payload and continue. FMRS can effectively rewind time so you can fly the payload up and then fix the booster afterwards; at least that’s what it said on the mod page, I haven’t ever used it myself. You could also try Stage Recovery which can simulate powered landings instead of actually flying them and also catches stages with parachutes. Just throw the booster back in the general vicinity of KSC and it’ll catch it once it reaches the ~25km zone where the game deletes stuff and do the recovery bit while you keep going with the payload.

Not much- Snarkiverse, obviously; Bon Voyage, MechJeb, Stage Recovery, Simple Logistics; Kerbalism plus the Kerbalism Companion Calculator to do antenna range calculations; I’ve also just added Cryo Engines, Waterfall (PC can just about handle it), BetterSRBs, SSR MicroSat, OctoSat, Blur Steel and X-20 Moroz, though most of those parts are much later in the tech tree than I’ve got to so far, and Kerbin’s Smol Rings is the sole graphics-related addition. I considered Luciole, but the engines are too OP for my liking. Also Strategia, because stock strategies are a bit boring, though some of the Strategia stuff doesn't work that well with Kerbalism so I might drop that.

Exploring the Snarkiverse- I’ve made it to probe landings on the Mun, something that is pretty challenging when the Mun orbits at 60 degrees inclination and in a very eccentric orbit to boot. I’ve also discovered that Waterfall works on just the integrated graphics (good!) and that using the KV-series pods with no fairing is a good way to not go to space (bad).

Day 2 of the Space Program and there were more than a few headaches around. Jeb turned up in the middle of the party and was a bit miffed that they were partying without him (and that Val had beaten him to space), and since he was the least hungover (and Val still wasn't back yet) he got to fly Rocket 6. With the data from the previous launch to work with, the ascent trajectory was better this time and Jeb made it into orbit- with fuel to come back too! The smugness was unbearable... After letting all the experiments run through, Jeb turned retrograde and fired the engine to come back. There was some concern about how the little "Pug" engine would handle the heat of re-entry, but it managed fine and Jeb landed without any issues. Val returned while Jeb was still being located and took to the sky again in Rocket 7, modified from the previous versions with a brand new probe core on the nose. A spherical probe core, which wasn't particularly aerodynamic and meant that for the second time in as many launches and as many days, Val ended up just short of orbit. She was out of radio contact with KSC by the time she landed, so didn't have to listen to little brother Jeb's incessant smugness. Unlike everyone else at the KSC and the local area. Sensing an opportunity, Bill and Bob teamed up with Wernher to create a crewless craft using that new-fangled probe doodah, sticking it inside a service bay to avoid the (completely un)aerodynamic issues of Rocket 7. With no reaction wheels for attitude control and no SAS on the probe, this launch was a bit tricky to control. The upper stage used a Swivel rather than the gimbal-less Pug so it could actually point in the right direction. Probe 1 made it all the way into orbit, but by that point Jeb's mission had collected most of the science from low orbit so there wasn't much left for the probe to mop up. The fuel cells worked as intended and the probe came back intact, both good results. What followed was a veritable smorgasbord of probe-related tomfoolery, some of which were more successful than others. When it got dark at KSC they sent the probes over to the Dessert Launchsite and then to Woomerang Launchsite to keep the science rolling in. This particular rocket didn't go according to plan... This one was supposed to be another orbital satellite, but a catastrophic launch failure and a lack of parachutes meant only quick reactions and a well-timed suicide burn averted the complete loss of the probe: All the probes aimed at the polar ice caps failed for one reason or another, the last one because it was just going too fast to slow down in time for the parachutes to open; Bill fired them anyway but they ripped off due to excess speed. And then the biggest success- Highshot 1, intended simply to go as high as possible. It crossed through the radiation belts, past Kerbin's rings (another product of The Anomaly) and up to over 3000km altitude, gathering science and sending it back until its experiments were run and its batteries were dead. Despite having no power, no control and re-entering at nearly 3km/s parachute first (and with 120% re-entry heating too!), it survived the descent and landed safely. The team at the KSC are in a bit of a quandary- to make probes useful they need reaction wheels, but to get reaction wheels they need science and to get science they need to launch more probes, which they can't control properly. This might mean someone has to fly the first mission to the Mun in person, in a pod, before the probes can be sent out to land there. A new campaign was started, intending to land probes on the Mun in different places, with a few aerospace companies taking an interest and starting to stump up bigger financial rewards for Mun-related activities. Jeb was all for the "free ice cream" campaign instead, but was outvoted.

Story mode activated! INTO THE SNARKIVERSE Everyone on Kerbin remembers where they were when The Anomaly occurred. The ground shook all over the world. The Mun did a handbrake turn, transforming its circular equatorial orbit into a highly inclined and eccentric one that played havoc with the tides. Minmus disappeared into the distance; a strange lump of rock appeared close to Kerbin, though it was hard to tell if it orbited Kerbin itself or was just in a strange overlapping orbit of Kerbol- some called it Dres, others argued there was no such thing. As for the other planets, that was a mystery yet to be solved. It took several decades, a great deal of effort and the rediscovery of magnets, but at last the Kerbals were ready to venture out from their homeworld to find out just what kind of solar system they now lived in. This is their story. The Kerbal Space Centre: grand words for a collection of rundown huts, converted shipping containers and corrugated iron shacks. The team was small- twenty in all- and technology was primitive, little more than old barrels filled with volatile chemicals and parachutes sewn together by the residents of a local care home. Still, it was a start. Their first launch was the aptly named Rocket 1, piloted by plucky young daredevil Jebediah. Already (in)famous for crashing a home-made microlight into his school when the engine fell off, Jeb had at least passable piloting skills and a total lack of fear that made him the perfect candidate for being strapped into the untested and possibly deadly contraption known as Rocket 1. The Mun hung large in the sky during this launch, looming like "that planet-busting space station thingy from that film with the laser swords and stuff," as Jeb put it; though he was pulling five gees at the time and most people knew what he meant. While the flight itself went fine and the rocket landed safely, the impact with the water caused the flimsy fins on the bottom to disintegrate. A useful haul of scientific data was gathered, much of it from Jeb's observations (though how "I can see my house from here!" is scientifically valuable remains to be seen...) but the limited data storage capacity in the pod was an issue. Future launches will use upgraded hard drives with a mind-blowing two megabytes of storage to try and cope with the greater data volumes produced by running more instruments. The Mun sped over the horizon as Jeb's pod got fished out of the ocean; meanwhile a second rocket was being prepared, using lessons learnt from the first. It also included a thermometer, previously used to show if the coffee pot had gone cold. They were going to use a larger solid motor than the first, but then a representative of Jeb's Junkyard turned up and offered a significant payment if they could test their new Swivel liquid-fuelled rocket engine in the sea. The rep seemed as confused as everyone else about doing it in the sea, but a contract's a contract and funds are funds. Rocket 2 flew off the pad, gaining speed and altitude and gathering data while pilot Valentina added her own observations ("Wheeeeee! This is fun!"). Val was widely regarded as more level-headed than her younger brother Jeb, so it came as a surprise to everyone when she managed to blow up the engine: Once again the fragile fins snapped off on splashdown, but while waiting for the recovery boat to come and collect her Val popped open the hatch- and promptly fell into the sea. Fortunately her "spacesuit" was buoyant enough to keep her afloat, so she spent a few minutes swimming around and "doing science" ("Bleugh, this water tastes like rocket fuel!") before discovering that the pod's hard drive was full and deciding to keep her reports saved to her suit's internal memory instead. An investigation quickly revealed that multiple engine restarts had caused a catastrophic fuel leak that destroyed the engine. The Jeb's Junkyard rep handed over a second Swivel, along with strict instructions to avoid restarting it too many times. After replacing the engine and removing one of the five small fuel tanks above it, the same rocket was launched again, now wearing the moniker of Rocket 3 and with second year chemical physics student Robert at the controls. While less adventurous and more timid than Val and Jeb, Bob's technical knowledge was put to good use as he monitored the data from several science experiments and landed the craft with its engine intact to run the required tests. Sadly the official photographer had gone for lunch at that point so no photos were taken of the mission. Mere minutes after the Jeb's Junkyard rep left after handing over the final contract payment, a second rep from OMB Demolition turned up wanting them to test out their new "decouplers". While the idea of attaching even small quantities of explosives to an already highly explosion-prone rocket made some (Bob) nervous, chief designer Wernher could see the utility of separating bits of rocket from each other and agreed to test the radial separator on the launch pad. And then promptly ignored that request when creating Rocket 4, which used three solid motors to lift it off the pad, then ignited the main engine when the boosters burnt out and discarded the spent boosters with those new-fangled separators. It was loaded with all the science experiments- a barometer and radiation sensor were added to join the thermometer and those "mystery goo" things- and had enough fuel to make it all the way to space, if only briefly. It should have been engineering student William's turn in the pod, but Jeb heard "going into space" and immediately pushed to the front of the queue. His enthusiasm was misplaced- the ascent profile went too far downrange and ended up reaching an apoapsis of 68 kilometres, still inside the atmosphere. Jeb wasn't happy... And neither were the science team- once again the pod's hard drive got filled up with data even with an antenna to try and transmit some of it. There wasn't anything they could do about it though, 2MB was the most they could squeeze in. The OMB rep was also unhappy at them using the separators without doing the tests, so to placate him they decided to run that test on the next launch. The accounts team (Mortimer and his pot plant so far) were happy though- those three SRBs had been fitted with parachutes and came back down to the launchpad in almost pristine condition, if a little charred around the edges. And then yet another rep arrived, this time wanting them to take a Thumper solid booster and launch it to well over forty kilometres of altitude. Wernher saw an opportunity and swapped the three little Flea boosters for a single Thumper. Rocket 5 was the big one- the first attempt at getting into orbit. Jeb would have leapt at the chance to fly that one, but Jeb was still waiting for the recovery boat to come and pick him up so big sister Val got the flight instead. She made sure to fire that separator on the pad to make the OMB rep happy, then fired up the Thumper and headed for space. But alas, some combination of trajectory, design and piloting meant that she was just short of reaching orbit. A disappointing result, yes, but Val still made it into space and reached over 120km altitude, plus the trajectory meant there was plenty of time to gather scientific data from outside the atmosphere. Once again the memory ran out, something that really needs addressed soon; the antenna on top of the pod was of limited use since much of the flight was over the ocean without a signal to the ground. Val landed on the far side of Kerbin, a very long way from the Space Centre and somewhere near some mountains; it was dark so she couldn't tell where exactly she was. Search teams have been deployed to try and find her and bring her, the rocket and that valuable data back, but the sun was setting at KSC so everyone packed up and headed to the local pub for a celebration. Fuelled by contract money and a lot of bonuses from the Kerbin World-Firsts organisation for breaking speed and altitude records, they partied long into the night- except Jeb who was horribly seasick, and Val who was dozing in her pod, out of radio contact, waiting for the recovery teams to find her.

A Jumping Flea leapt off the pad, But the mission quickly went bad, For I forgot to put On a parachute And no EVAs could be had. I’d continue the tale of this flight, But my attention’s drawn to to the light, Where a spider, bright red, Builds its web to my bed It’s too tiny to give me a fright. I left windows open all day, so it probably came in that way, But the limericks should be About KSP: Time to get back on-topic I’d say!

Yesterday my graphics card broke. Probably. I can't be sure that it actually is broken, but it just stopped outputting video with no warning and many attempts to resolve it (including reinstalling Windows, which caused some issues like CKAN forgetting all my KSP instances; fortunately they're all stored on an external disk so they're all safe) didn't fix anything. It's still under warranty so I've sent it back for repair or replacing, but in the meantime I'm stuck with no GPU and so very limited gaming. Fortunately, I know I can run KSP on just integrated graphics after doing so on my old PC back home, with the caveat that looking down at terrain causes the frame rates to tank horribly, so I threw together a mod pack that has zero graphics mods at all and not that much of anything else but which should be pretty fun to play. Planet pack- Snarkiverse. Rearranges stock bodies, doesn't add any new ones to my knowledge so should be fine performance-wise. (I tried Grannus and it just couldn't handle it, the game was stuttering badly on the main menu screen...) Other key mods- Kerbalism with all the trimmings, Stage Recovery to catch those discarded boosters and a few minor QoL things like Simple Logistics, MechJeb and Deployable Batteries. This will be a hard mode career, with some settings (e.g. science returns) made even harder than hard mode but reverts/reloads on. And so we enter the Snarkiverse! Launch 1: boring old Jumping Flea-esque thing to get science. Death Star not yet confirmed... Launch 2: slap some fuel tanks and a Swivel on it instead of the Flea SRB and try to land it in the water for a contract (test Swivel splashed) as well as getting more science. I forgot about the whole "limited ignitions" thing and the engine blew up. No contract, but Val went swimming to get a bit more science. One soggy spacesuit sent over to R&D to be hung up behind their latest engine prototype to dry off. Lots of science experiments, but many have no value because the pod has limited data storage and quickly ran out in the face of multiple science experiments. Launch 3: nearly identical to the last one, removed a fuel tank and successfully splashed down with engine intact to complete the contract. More science gathered but again lack of data capacity was an issue. Launch 4: Bigger and better than before, went a good distance but missed reaching space by about 2km. Despite doubling the pod's data capacity to the maximum possible (a heady 2MB) it still ran out of data capacity. Launch 5: contract to throw a Thumper high into the atmosphere means I can use the Thumper to shoot for orbit. But once again, it fell slightly short. And once again, data storage ran out so limited science gained; an antenna was included but the flight path didn't have any ground stations under it for most of the time so only a little data was transmitted. I've made some adjustments to the mods- Restock is gone, Minimum Ambient Lighting is added to make night screenshots properly visible and a couple of utilities were added or removed. Full album with contracts and stuff: https://imgur.com/a/a8dteJb I might come back tomorrow and edit this report to turn it into a story of some sort to make it more interesting, both for anyone reading it and for me doing it.