EnderiumSmith

Part4: To Moho on Solar Wings Putting images inside spoiler tags is annoying so ill post them directly instead A Venture Star with smaller solid boosters will launch the Moho mission. The crew consists of Aiko and Piko Kerman, which also crewed the mission to Gilly Arriving at Moho Slowing down. A bare bones lander carries a rover containing all the science gear Using a radial science junior as the main body, this 2 seat rover can quickly cover a lot of distance, but its not very stable to actually drive for some reason On the way back from the southern lowland they meet with a robotic rover send a lot earlier, which contains mystery goo from places that are currently in darkness. Meeting up with the rover was quite difficult since its at the top of a very jagged mount in the highlands. I had to use Bon voyage to get within a few meters then quickly get in the way once physics loaded so its doesnt roll down the cliff Leaving for home. Correcting for inclination is quite expensive so it used most of the fuel to get back Preparing for reentry. Moho didnt produce much in terms of science but was a short mission at least. With the inner system being mostly explored all thats left is to wait for the scouting probe to arrive at Sarnus. Dres will only get a sample return while Eve is still some time away and will likely use a less important kerbonaut for crew in case of failure. As for Moho is doesnt hold anything valuable that would warrant returning besides maybe a quicker way to gain XP

Part3: A Jool in the Sky A manned mission to Sarnus was supposed to depart before Olympus arrived home as enough science has been gathered from other places to unlock the nuclear lightbulb. However the first probe to Sarnus would only arrive a few months before Olympus so the mission had to be delayed to first scout the system. Meanwhile a nuclear probe has been set on a high energy transfer to Plock. Since i dont want to skip engine tiers the Sarnus mission will still use the lightbulb as tier 1 fusion is too weak

Part2: Press Space to Slow Down

its likely just unfinished. Bop looks better than it ever did. weird that they focus on that space potato instead of Laythe. but Vall is just an ice ball. i dont expect much there.

Question: I have a career save with this and OPM and im at a point where i can start sending probes with FFT. Should i wait until the release of the new version before sending stuff there? Also OPM is incompatible with the newest version of Scatterer. Will this be a problem where the newer Cercani will be incompatible with old Scatterer so also incompatible with OPM by proxy?

Am i supposed to put the entire series in a single post? wont it not show after a while because its old even if i keep posting in it?

I would name the fuel Liquid Hydrocarbons. That solves the methane jet engines problem, gives more options for engine plumes and allows the fuel to be gathered from both Eve's oceans and Tekto's atmosphere without requiring a processing intermediate. It also allows more freedom with choosing ISPs. With methane the old engines would have to get boosted ISPs to be more in range. Also i think Hydrolox should be an engine option. Instead of orbital and deep space classes make the really long nozzle be the hydrolox orbital engine. Experienced players will find a way to make a lander with them anyway. Maybe have hydrolox only have sustainer and orbital engines so you need SRBs or liquid boosters to lift things efficiently. It also gives the player a taste of low density fuels before going all in with nuclear. Also places like the Mun wouldnt have carbon deposits so hydrolox would be better for ISRU. Will nuclear engines be able to "burn" water in addition to hydrogen. The ISP is an acceptable 320s and would allow a ship to refuel as fast it can drill. The stock system only has Vall and Eeloo as icy bodies but if DebDeb's gas giant has multiple icy moons it could be very useful there. Since Nertea is on the dev team will the restock poodle make a return? that model is really nice. Also what about early engines like the swivel/reliant? In ksp1 they are quite bad. Will they get upgrades in ISP/TWR to be more in line with bigger engines as you unlock the tech tree?

After sending probes to the 4 nearby planets to scout ahead and developing a nuclear propulsion system, the agency is ready for the first interplanetary mission. The ship contains a compact lander and fuel reserves for 4 landings. A hitchhiker module and an inflatable habitat provide accommodations for 3 crew. The engine module can detach and operate independently. The initial plan was to dunk the ship in the atmosphere and save the engine but i packed way to much fuel and managed to return to low orbit with the engine module still mostly full. The crew for this mission will be Jeb, Bob and Melming. Launching Escape burn Once the engine finishes burning the crew moves into the habitation module. Looking from the windows of the cupolas they watch as Kerbin recedes into the distance and contemplate their place in the universe. They are the first kerbals to leave Kerbins sphere of influence. All of history seems small and insignificant from up here. Entire civilizations rose and fell yet their legacy remained unknown to the eternal abyss. After about a year Duna begins to appear into the field of view arriving at Duna 3 landing are preformed in different locations around Duna. Jeb gets to pilot the last one. Fuel has to be saved for a final landing on Ike Arriving at Ike during an eclipse If you look closely youll see a landing leg missing. This mission was being piloted by the Melming the engineer who miscalculated the burn and smashed the lander into the surface of Ike, tearing off a whole fuel pod. He was able to meet with the mothership with just 12m/s of deltav remaining. The agency decided to deorbit the lander as future missions will likely need more capable ones anyway. Melming gained the nickname "honeydew" due to this mistake. Time to return The news of their accomplishment have been so significant that 4 wealthy kerbals payed a very significant sum for the chance to meet the crew as they arrive, on the Ares ship itself A shuttle has been developed to return the crew The Ares seems small with the shuttle docked to it. The 4 kerbals will get to spend a week with the crew before they will all return using the shuttle. The life support systems are only designed for 3 kerbals but there are enough supplies buffered to last The shuttle arrives home. I overshot the ksc and had to burn the rest of the fuel just to reach With the Ares having arrived intact it has been decided to send it to Gilly next. The Crew for this mission consists of Aiko, a daring pilot of the likes of Jeb and Val, Piko the scientist and Bill. While Gilly isnt exactly the most interesting target, Aiko wants a chance to prove her skills and a mission to Eve is a long way off as not much funding has been allocated there due to the manned missions Another fuel module. The cargo part has a new science module since the old one was on the lander To deal with the inclination a complex transfer was required Aiko Kerman with the Ares. Due to the radiator on the back the ship cant lay down without obstructing the exits Time to return. The space camera had its calibration updated so it can properly see the plume of the nuclear engines Due to the extreme inclination there is not enough fuel to enter a low orbit and the Ares will be sent into the atmosphere. The development of centrifuge rings has rendered its design obsolete anyway Surprisingly the life support module has survived impact with the ground and rolling down a hill. Other surviving pieces include an RCS thruster, a docking port and one of the cupolas By this time a mission to Jool has already departed. A high energy transfer will mean it will arrive slightly before the probe meant to scan the system for landing spots. The agency will now focus again on probes to the inner system, with Moho being the next target for a manned mission. The science team will focus on more advanced fission systems for going even further out but fusion and even antimatter propulsion is just around the corner. Fusion is required to kickstart and allow colonization of increasingly further out places but initial designs have low thrust so a foray into antimatter might be a better choice for initial exploration of the outer ice giants.

Part1: Moonshots and Satellites This is my attempt at documenting my modded career game. Starting with probes and boots-on-the-ground missions, my goals are to visit most bodies in the Kerbol system, colonize several of them including Laythe and eventually reach Kerbol's 3.2Ly neighbor, Cercani. Since Restock allows SRBs to vector their thrust, all SRB rockets have been quite popular early game. Jeb was the first to orbit Kerbin. Initially designed as a tourist ship, the Orbiter Mk2 has mostly been used to rescue kerbals stranded by other agencies. A sizable roster has been aquired. Mun Landing. The first Kerbal on the Mun was of course Jeb. Since ive sent a scanning satellite previously i have been able to visit multiple biomes. Said satellite showed significant concentrations of ³He in the twin craters so the Mun might prove useful in the future Minmus Landing. A scientist has been brought along to reset the experiments. While the low gravity makes landing easier, the remote location and lack of ³He means Minmus wont be as useful as the Mun Duna probe approaching. A relay, atmospheric probe and Ike lander has been brought using a Falcon 5 rocket. Next up Eve: Containing a relay and 3 probes, the ship captures into a highly excentric orbit Once the probes have landed, the transfer stage is sent into the atmosphere and the relay enters a circular orbit and begins to scan the planet. Eve wont be accessible for a while but some kerbals at mission control come up with several ideas for flying vehicles Departing towards Dres. Larger solar panels and an upgrade to the Deep space facility will allow the probe to venture further than Duna Scans seem to indicate Dres does in fact exist. It does not seem very interesting however Arriving at Moho. I forgot to screenshot the surface. Several Ion powered ships will visit Moho after this and one will even locate a mysterious monolith. Possible plans of a Moho rover are in the works Jool mission. At this point a manned Duna mission has already arrived, but thats for part 2. A tylo gravity break is used to enter orbit First the relay is placed into orbit since its quite heavy to carry around Relay in white. An orbit above all the moons allows communication to reach everywhere at some point. Disadvantages are barely reaching Laythe and shot windows on the back sides on outer planets. but there isnt much space between the moons anyway Flying by Vall the exact moment Jool eclipses Kerbol Welcome to Laythe A bit wet Pol Flyby Scraping Bop. Excess deltaV allows brute forcing the inclination Spent stage is sent into Jool along with a probe. Ran out of power shortly before hitting the bottom A final Tylo Flyby since i dont get low space science the first pass. The probe will station itself in Laythe orbit after so it can measure its gravitational and magnetic fields. An advanced nuclear electric probe will be sent next to scout the moons for the best landing spots In the next part will be covered the voyage to the neighboring planets, probes reaching even further places and the construction of the Jool5 ship. Orbital construction is being investigated for the latter and as a trial for a future Mun base

This mod breaks both air breathing engines like the rapier and the pulsed plasma/vasimir engines from near future. they no longer even show in the electrical window and consume less EC at higher power level instead of more. even worse the EC required changes depending on what power setting it was when launched. so if you launch it with more than 0 power setting it becomes unusable. As for the rapier it does let its thrust go above static thrust making it unusable.

For some reason in the newer versions (0.7) the rapier is completely broken. the air mode is misplaced and the closed mode is completely missing. 0.5.2 works fine. the plume is still misplaced but i can patch it myself. 0.7 doesnt even see the patch. @PART[RAPIER]:NEEDS[Waterfall]:AFTER[WaterfallRestock] { @MODULE[ModuleWaterfallFX],* { @TEMPLATE,* { @position = 0,0,-0.06 } } } this is the patch btw. the after part is probably wrong but it still works

For some reason the game shows a black screen and spams null reference in the log with this installed. i narrowed it down to Kuprus as the game loads with the rest of the system. im on 1.12.2 on Linux. Also there is some general buggyness like on Mir the terrain goes bellow sea level which causes the ship to explode like on a gas giant. And on Solyth landing gear constantly jumps around. if i turn the spring to 0 it still vibrates rapidly if i try to drive.

for some reason when i click deploy the game just freezes and i have to force close it. even for something like a single fuel tank. i just have MKS installed on a test install in 1.12.2

Anyone know an addon that gives better plumes to the kerbal atomics engines? Something like what the candle from recycled parts has. the vibrant magenta is much better that the muted pink. The candle uses 2 waterfall modules so im not sure how i would apply it myself.

Im not sure how the boiloff module is intended to work. for once the EC use is gone as the little amount the radiators use for the pumps is insignificant. And normal tanks get the module too so the special cryogenic tanks arent different at all. maybe it should instead put out heat at 20K and you use the heat exchanger to raise it to 300K, in which case the EC cost of the exchanger would need to be overhauled too. that way it would make sense for all tanks to have it and normal tanks would get higher boiloff rates. currently hydrogen has like a half year half life. maybe 5x or even 10x for the non-insulated tanks would work. why is it a half life anyway? the surface area of the tank is the same even if half full. also ive found some bugs. in the cryo tank tab the heat is listed in watts but its actually kilowatts as the system heat tab reports. also if you disable the radiator, the internal heat of the tank climbs to infinity and doesnt reset on reload, making the tank impossible to restart cooling after time warping a long period.

Are the Clouds on Vessa only available as EVE clouds and not scaled space clouds? EVE is a bit too demanding for my integrated graphics and mods like whirligig world do well with scaled space clouds. You can only see then from the outside in but thats a minor limitation.

yes i mean the Neptune. The 500MW is the kinetic power of the actual nerv. Thermal would be higher. and Neptune is slightly bigger. I had to reduce the consumption by 17.5 times to get the same lifetime at the same thermal power and uranium load as the kerbopower. The Neptune is 20% efficient vs 28% for the kerbopower so you get 20kWe at 100Wt vs 60kWe at 210kWt. Garnet is 33% and the FLAT is 50%.

The nuclear engines consume uranium at a much faster rate than the reactors. a nerv generates 500MW of power vs 400kW for the garnet. The trimodal mode of the triton only makes 20kW. thats a loooot less than 2% of 500MW. The radiators are for the generator. The nerv and stubber dont have them. From what ive seen the engine would be kept warm in trimodal mode for the entire mission as that also reduces thermal cycling. there are no transient loads that happen close to burns so theres noting to power it it doesnt run the entire time.

An issue with the trimodal engines is that the electricity generation mode consumes fuel just as fast as running the engine at minimum throttle. This rate is much higher than normal reactors making them useless for actually providing power as leaving the engine on will quickly deplete the fuel. Also the engines have radiators in the part model so they should not make waste heat. After a bit of testing i did manage to make a patch cfg that seems to do what ive wanted. Theres also a few smaller issues ive found: the vacuum isp for hydrogen of the Triton and Poseidon appear to be inverted, the bigger engine should have the bigger value. Restock gives the small nerv the wrong manufacturer and also its alternators are being removed for apparently no reason. Possibly because without systemHeat the advanced engines use alternators to simulate the trimodal mode. Oh and if you empty the nerv of uranium it costs almost nothing. Also the patch gives the nerv the ability to run as a steam rocket so its still relevant after unlocking the trimodal engines. USI MKS provides the tanks and drills for water. While water gets less isp than even LF/O it requires no converter, only the drill so it can be useful around icy moons.

For some reason the pavonis and tharsis render their light cone when in the VAB. It works fine in flight, its only bugged in the VAB. This is a fresh install.

It seems the casaba does indeed perform much better but it still has the problem of using uranium as reaction mass, which us much more expensive than hydrogen. It can win on costs over the electric engines since argon is also expensive for some reason but the ablator means it has limited total impulse and is a lot harder to refuel or recover. As for the dirac it costs as much as a full length fresnel and requires you to collect antimatter in addition to helium 3. It also only wins for very low ship masses and target deltaV while using he3 as reaction mass. Those high isps are really only needed to go interstellar in which case the fresnel wins in both twr and isp. The asimov has higher twr, requires no exotics and uses hydrogen reaction mass while still having very decent isp.

I compiled the stats of the near/far future engines to compare them. Also included some ideas/suggestions. Also it seems the electric engines should be lower on the tech tree than the fusion ones