Scarecrow71

If it wasn't for docking, I don't think I'd even be playing any longer. So much has opened up in this game from this one simple tactic, and it would have killed the game for me if I couldn't do it. With that said, I always let the computer do it for me. I use MechJeb for a lot because I'm simply not steady enough to do it myself. Heck, I even wrote a tutorial on how to use MJ to dock. I'm not sure if the images in there are valid or not. But the description should be.

The problem is that I wanted to test landing the Tylo lander, but MJ doesn't like the cheat menu.

Sounds like a drone with no antenna, and thus no connection to KerbNet. I'm assuming your tourist there isn't a pilot, right?

Nothing to fear if you are sleeping when stuff happens. Val told Jeb she loves him. And feelings are scary.

I hate EVA flying, so I wait to do rescue contracts until I have the Advanced Grabbing Unit. That way I can "dock" with the target piece of floating space junk and transfer crew.

While I voted for @Rutabaga22's answer, one other thing to check is the controls you are using for flight. Sometimes, for an unknown reason, mapping can get messed up. I know that I have altered my own keyboard mapping so that rover controls are far different from the actual flight controls because I found that sometimes things just didn't work. However, Rutabaga there is probably 150% on the money with antenna and commnet connections. If you don't have a pilot onboard, you'll need antenna with LOS to Kerbin.

Part I of my unmanned Jool-5.

Jool-5, Part I And it’s time to get started on the unmanned Jool-5. The biggest challenge here will be to collect all the science, which includes high in space, near, and on the surface of every moon. I could very well attempt to send up all the gadgets, but the number of Science Junior’s and Mystery Goo cannisters alone (34 in total) make doing so restrictive, even with an LKO assembly. And it’s not necessary to actually get all of the science in one run; people generally do it simply so they don’t have to go back for stuff they missed. I'm going to use spoilers here because this post is going to be long. Landers Interlude Return Module Science Module Power & Communications Progress So Far I am, at this point, about 80% complete with assembly. I have to get a bunch of fuel and some engines up there to propel this thing to the Jool system, which is going to take some serious planning just in and of itself. And I have no way of knowing, yet, if this will even succeed. Thankfully I have 3020286, which means I can scrap and start over if this mission goes completely sideways. I'll have more updates on this mission next week!

Just checking in to let y'all know I'm still working on this. I'm in the middle of assembling a ship in LKO to do an unmanned Jool-5. So far I have the following components assembled in LKO: Lander Module (all landers are attached to a central module to hold them for flight to Jool) 5 landers (one for each body - Pol, Bop, Vall, Laythe, and Tylo) Return Module (to bring all that sweet science home) Science module (it's easier to have a separate module to get high/low materials and goo than to try putting these all on the individual landers) That's 8 total launches so far, and I still have the following components to get into LKO and assembled: Communications and power hub (all the individual pieces so far have batteries and antenna and such, but a ship this big is going to need more power and communications for the journey there and back) Fuel and engines (cuz, you know, need propulsion) I'm not sure if I'll split communications and power or not. And I'm pretty sure I'll need a couple separate launches to get all the fuel I'll need for this trip. I'll need enough fuel not just for the transfer, but to get encounters with and to orbit all 6 bodies (all 5 moons and, of course, Jool). Because I have multiple landers, I'll be pulling leftover fuel from them back into the mothership, so I shouldn't run out. But I'm afraid I will, which means I'll over-engineer the heck out of this thing. Anyhow, as mentioned, I'm still working on this. It will be next week at least before I launch to Jool. I'll give more updates as I try to pull this off, with a full album of images when I'm done!

Detroit

Can opener

Rings of power is just one long pause waiting for Gallerie to say "I told you so".

@Superfluous J Returning is considered to be part of a contraccobevause very few contracts, if any, actually specify you have to come.home to satisfy them. The only ones that require you to come home are rescue contracts, and even tourist contracts don't state you have to. So let's go option 3 here and state that you are allowed to return home. Unless you want to leave stuff stranded. Or you want the challenge of not returning.

Small post as I get started working towards something big!

I started this weekend with a pair of Minmus contracts in Mission Control: Rescue Roing from orbit of Minmus Plant a Flag on Minmus If I’m going to be rescuing someone from orbit of Minmus, I may as well drop down to the surface and pick up some science, right? So I’ll run up there with a modified version of my original Linbal rescuer, but I’ll add some parachutes to it so I can return in that ship. After that run, I was able to unlock Automation, which gives me a drone core and a couple new antenna to play with! And now that I have these new toys to play with, I’m going to start replacing some satellites I’ve got in orbit. You know, upgrade to the latest tech and all. I’ll start by placing a new one in a tundra orbit around Kerbin (contract!) and removing the oldest satellite I’ve got in Kerbin’s orbit. I’m putting this puppy up there: It wasn't a very productive weekend all told, but I did get a bit of science AND I started to update the out-dated satellites I've got up in orbit. The real work starts this week as I look to do an unmanned Jool-5. I've only ever attempted to go to Jool once before, and that was during the Kerpollo challenge that I am still trying to figure out (Eve is a pain in the behind, and Jool just takes too much to do it one launch). I figure I can do multiple launches here to get the requisite parts into LKO, then assemble them like some big Voltron/Constuctocon mash-up and send them off. That's going to take some planning, but stay tuned as I will give updates!

No, it does not. What I'm talking about are those contracts that say "Collect science on the surface of..." or "...in space around...". Survey contracts are specific in what you are to collect.

Yeah, my plan is to return to Kerbin with the science. I might have to assemble a ship in orbit of Kerbin first as I'll need multiple landers and a boatload of fuel. But science!

I so wish there was a category for unmanned missions. I'm playing through @18Watt's Safety First challenge, and I'm runningnoutnof science in Kerbin's SOI. I am therefore about to go off to Jool, and I will do a Jool-5...but it will be unmanned.

The real bummer is that invisibility allows light to pass through you. In order to see, light needs to reflect off the back of your eyes. So,yeah, blinded every time you go invisible. The ability to eat anything and draw nourishment from it.

Rescue shenanigans!

To start today, I got a contract to put a sentinel telescope in orbit to map asteroids. I’ve already got one up there from a previous contract, and I don’t even have to adjust its orbit. So I’m taking that contract and setting the orbit. It isn’t worth a whole lot of science, but it’s passive, and I don’t have to worry about it. So I check Mission Control, and I’ve got a contract to get science from the surface of Minmus…and I’ve got one to rescue someone from LKO. The rules state that you can in fact rescue Kerbals in LKO and use them to go get science and stuff, so long as you don’t ever launch them once you satisfy the contract. So I’m gonna go pick up Linbal, head to Minmus, grab some science, and bring her home. The bonus part of this is that the Kerbal is a Scientist. Here comes all that science in space I couldn’t get before! So, I tried to get back to Kerbin…and there’s no parachutes on this thing. Like, what the frak? And Linbal also doesn’t have a freaking parachute. So now I get to rescue the rescue mission. And I know why this doesn’t have parachutes. Because I started designing a craft, scrapped it, and kept going like nothing was wrong. Sigh. Damn. Well, stuff happens, right? Right! I ended up with enough science out of this run to unlock: Heavy Aerodynamics High Altitude Flight Nuclear Propulsion That completes Tier VII.

Been a few days since I posted here. But here's my next entry!

Things have really ground to a halt with science. I'm going to have to go mine Minmus, and then go off to other planets. Got a contract to put a satellite into a specific orbit around Ike. The satellite needs to include a resource survey scanner, so I get to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. With this: And I’m gonna get a free Ike encounter without having to actually orbit Duna? Sold! Once this is done, I got a contract to put a space station in orbit around Kerbin. I know that we aren't using Kerbals in this challenge, but it's 25 science for completion. \ All of that is easy. At first it seems like the 4,000 units of liquid fuel might be an issue, but it’s not when you consider that I’ll have to fly up there to attach all the stuff, and I’ll have leftover fuel on pretty much every damn drone I send up. And we don’t have to have any actual Kerbals on it, so we should be fine. 12 of them is nothing. We start with the actual base of the station itself: That central column is actually a fuel tank, but I’ve left it empty for now to decrease weight upon launch. I can then fill that with whatever leftover fuel I have in the drones I send up. And I added 9 docking ports to it so I can send up a full array of solar panels, communications hub, and multiple habitat and science modules. This should then also leave me with enough room to bring up a battery of fuel tanks to get to the 4000 units I’ll need. I buried the drone on the underside of the cupola because I still don’t have the nice big round flat one yet. And now the base in space, after transferring remaining fuel and decoupling the launch tanks: The next thing I want to do is to send up a couple of habitation modules. The Hitchhiker Storage Container holds 4 Kerbals, so I’ll need a pair of these, one on either side of the station: So it’s now got 2 habitat modules, for a total of 9 supported Kerbals. Need 3 more, and the science module only has enough space for 2 each. So I’ll have to send 2 each of those up there. I left the tanks on the research modules for the time being because I have fuel left over but nowhere else to put it. Now, I need to get to 4000 units of fuel – I currently have 1994, so almost half – and I need to have decent storage tanks on the craft to hold it. To go along with this, I don’t NEED more solar panels, but I’m going to put some on because more equals clean. So I send this up to attach to the bottom of the space station: That was the single-most complex thing I've built in this game. 6 individual launches with 5 different rendezvous and docking maneuvers. Not bad! Still doesn't get me a whole lot of science, but I'll take the experience!

Today's entry.

Today's nonsense! Picked up contracts for the following: Position satellite in a specific orbit of the Sun Position satellite in an equatorial orbit of the Mun Position satellite in a synchronous orbit of Minmus I’m picking these up for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is the science. I launched the Sun probe first, but before I set it in its orbit, I launched the Mun probe and got that into its orbit. Why? Because after I satisfied the contract, I moved it to a polar orbit and did a survey scan. Then, with the Sun probe still making its way to its Ap, I launched the Minmus probe. Now, let’s go see where our Sun probe is. Oh, there it is, on an escape trajectory out of the sun. Well, let’s go put that puppy into its orbit. 2 years to get to Ap, and then another 3 and change to get to Pe, and voila! We are set! And while we were fast-forwarding to our encounters to set up the Sun probe orbit, our Sentinel telescope finished doing its job! All told, I had enough science points to unlock Large Volume Containment. Only 4 more nodes on this tier! Got another contract to collect science data from the surface of the Mun. I’m going to end up probably mining every biome there to complete this challenge as I’m hoping to not have to implement an Admin strategy. Anyhow, I landed this at the East Farside Crater: That netted me enough science to unlock Heavy Landing. Man this is really starting to slow down.