Poppa Wheelie

I finished my Duna and Ike mission, which included a polar circumnavigation (Elcano) of Duna. A lot more screenshots in the Mission Report, but here are a few favorites:

I've been working on this mission for over a month: a couple of weeks of design and build, 1 day to launch and get to Duna, another couple of weeks doing the Duna Elcano, and 1 more day to do Ike and Kerbin return. Plus another day to put all the screenshots in order. This was my third launch that involved landing kerbals. These are my "Giant Hop" missions. On this mission I obtained over 8000 science points, plus another 3035 points for the following 3 missions: Are There Fuel Stations In Space (35): Orbit Kerbin with a X200-64 methalox fuel tank and a docking port Duna Monument (2000): Visit the Duna monument Three Is Company (1000): Land 3 kerbals on Ike Here's the mission report. Enjoy! A full set of screenshots here: https://imgur.com/a/Wn2FzAj A subset of those screenshots are used in the highlights below. Launch, Transit to Duna, and Duna Landing More: Duna Elcano Circumnavigation Some of my favorite screenshots along the way: Documentation of the Elcano: I couldn't figure out a method to mark the Map View to show where I've been. Flags do not show up on Map View. So what I have for documentation is a set of 37 screenshots, 1 taken every 10 degrees of Latitude (with the landing location represented twice): https://imgur.com/a/PTpaWhz I noticed that items dropped from my lander, such as parachutes, did show up on the Map View. They also provide a waypoint marker in flight view when they are 50km away or less. I used my dropped parachutes to show my landing location every time I went to Map View, and to guide me home as I finished up the Elcano. Anyone have any ideas on how to bring 18 to 36 items to drop during the course of an Elcano? Let's just have flags show up, please. Overall, the scenery was great, but the Elcano just took too long and required too much personal attention while running it. If I start to talk about another Elcano any time soon, talk me out of it. And, yes, I experienced what I call the "finger flick" bug consistently and repeatedly throughout the whole journey. This is the bug where, with no input on my part, the kraken flicks a giant tentacle and knocks my rover to the right or left, sometimes spinning it out of control, sometimes messing up a tricky ascent or descent. This bug has already been reported by others through the bug reporting process. What a pain! Duna to Ike, and back to Duna More: Return to Kerbin More: Mission Complete!

Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix. Thought I was going to spend an hour here, but stayed all afternoon. Could have made a day of it. Highly recommend: https://mim.org/

Here are three methods you can try. I've used all of these. I currently use the last one (with the K2-D2 mod), but the first two methods work fine with no mods. With no mods: Put a control point that faces "up" when your current control point is facing "forward" and your engines are facing "backward" Control point can be a probe core, a docking port, a command pod, or a "Grumble" seat (oriented the right way) When you are ready to switch from "engines facing planet" to "wheels facing planet": Cut throttle Do "control from here" from your new control point, and orient SAS Retrograde You can set this switch of control points to happen with an Action Group Or this method, with no mods: When you are ready to switch from "engines facing planet" to "wheels facing planet": Cut throttle Switch SAS from Retrograde to Stability Assist Pitch nose forward to bring the wheels facing down Let the rover land from this position One more method, with the K2-D2 mod: Before you begin your regular descent, open K2-D2, select Attitude Pilot, and set the following: Set Elevation to zero degrees Set Heading to whichever direction your rover nose will be facing when it lands wheels down Do NOT press the K2-D2 Attitude Pilot Start button yet Do your regular landing, engines facing planet When you are ready to switch from "engines facing planet" to "wheels facing planet": Cut throttle Press the K2-D2 Attitude Pilot Start button

Today I visited the Duna North Pole. Six days ago I landed on the equator, and have been driving north ever since, for several real-life hours each day. Most of the driving has been pretty smooth, but some sections are tough. The entire North Pole region was very difficult driving (and staying West enough to get enough sunlight for power). Now I have to drive all the way back down to the equator. Then I'll have to decide if I'm going to do the entire southern hemisphere as well (and complete an Elcano circumnavigation), or whether I'll just return to orbit once I reach the equator. Here are a few highlight screenshots. I'll publish a full Mission Report once the mission is complete. Six days ago I landed this 3-kerbal rover on the Duna equator. And started driving North. Duna is really beautiful. Eventually I arrived at the mission objective (spoiler). I kept driving north. Until I arrived at the Duna North Pole today. When I was very close to the pole, the game suddenly told me that I could do South Pole science.

I enthusiastically agree that the issues you listed are much higher priority. I can continue to manually optimize from the starting point provided by Flight Plan.

I really enjoy the ability to edit nodes while the game is paused, but perhaps editing while pausing is what caused my initial suspicion that Flight Plan needed to move Burn Start times up before the selected creation point. However, I looked back over my screenshots, and I see that once time is taken off of Pause, the Burn Start time has indeed been moved up. So all is well on that front. I did notice, though, that with a little more manual tweaking of the Burn Start time, I still got a better predicted result (ie, closer to circular, lower Eccentricity). 1 minute 13 seconds to Ap Immediately after the node to Circularize at the Next Ap was created (with time paused), I noticed that the Start Burn time and the Time to Ap were matching. This led to my belief that the Start Burn time was locked on to the selected point (Ap in this case) After unpausing time, and then pausing again, the Start Burn time has been adjusted Flight Plan created node has projected Ecc of 0.004 With a little more tweaking of the Burn Start time, I got an Ecc of 0.002

Yes, this is what I have been doing. This MNC ability to edit a node with the game paused is fantastic! I may not be able to get to it for a few days, but I'll see if I can set up a good scenario, with screenshots, etc., and I'll report back here.

Thanks for this mod! I use it all the time. I have one possible bug, and two requests: Bug? When I ask K2-D2 to burn the next node, it begins the burn later than the burn start time. Here's what I'm expecting, versus what's happening Each second What I expect What K2-D2 Does Beep, light 1 Beep, light 2 Beep, light 3 Loud voice, light 4 Begin burn one second later Begin burn Request 1: Could we also have a Roll setting on the Attitude Pilot? And could each of the 3 (elevation, heading, roll) also be optionally selectable? I will sometimes only want 1 or 2 of the 3. Request 2: Could the K2-D2 window be hidden with the selection of F2 (Hide UI)?

Thank you for this mod! And for the combination of Flight Plan, Maneuver Node Controller, and K2-D2. I use these all the time. I've noticed one issue with Flight Plan and/or Maneuver Node Controller: If I create a node, then load a save previous to this node creation, Flight Plan and Maneuver Node Controller still have a node. Also for Flight Plan: When Flight Plan creates a node to do something at a particular point (eg, Circularize at the next Ap), the node is created right on the Ap, which will not result in the most circular orbit (possibly with the Pe still in atmosphere). When I look at the expected future results in a case like this, I do not see a circular orbit. In these cases, I manually adjust the created node, by walking backwards in time to find the "best" circularization. Could this feature of placing nodes directly on specified points be updated? I think that in every case, we don't really want the resulting node to begin its burn directly on the selected point.

Thank you for this mod! And for the combination of Flight Plan, Maneuver Node Controller, and K2-D2. I use these all the time. I've noticed one issue with Flight Plan and/or Maneuver Node Controller: If I create a node, then load a save previous to this node creation, Flight Plan and Maneuver Node Controller still have a node.

I'm loving this game! Thank you dev team! I have four feature requests for the dev team. These obviously are not really bugs, but they bug me. Can these go on the dev list, please? 1. On entering the R&D building, take me directly to the first non-complete tier For example, if I’ve already completed tier 1, and am partway thru tier 2, take me directly to tier 2 2. When a vehicle has brakes set, keep the brakes set until I unset them Right now, when I put a kerbal back into a vehicle which had brakes on, the brakes are turned off as soon as the kerbal boards. Expected behavior is that when a vehicle has brakes set, they remain set, independent of whether any kerbals are present, and independent of whether any kerbals are boarding or just finished boarding. 3. List Research Inventory "science cards" in reverse order, with most recent on top When we press the button and get new science, a window pops up showing a scrollable list of what I call "science cards" at the top, and then a summary of data and samples at the bottom. Right now, the scrollable list of science cards at the top of this window has the most recently collected science listed at the bottom of the list, meaning I need to scroll down to see what science I just got. I want this list to be in reverse order, with the most recent stuff on top. 4. The sound of walking on celestial body surfaces should sound like what the kerbal would hear inside the helmet. I’m expecting to hear something that matches what I’m seeing, that the kerbal is walking on grass, dirt, concrete, rock, regolith, powder, etc. And if there is no atmosphere, the sound needs to match, and only be coming through the suit into the helmet. Right now all walking sounds (to me) sound like the kerbal is walking on a metal floor in a small room with lots of echo.

I think it would be very useful to use positive and negative to indicate if your distance to target (at the indicated relative velocity) is increasing or decreasing.

Getting from higher time warp down to 1x immediately (takes some extra steps, but it works): Keep your mouse pointer over the Pause Time button Pause time at the moment you want to go immediately to 1x Select 1x speed with your mouse, while time is still paused Un-pause time - you are now at 1x

You may find this helpful.

You still use the 9.81. This is required because of the way Isp is defined. I don't know the details, I can't show you the math. But you must still include the 9.81.

Some options: Attach all radial tanks with radial decouplers instead of directly tank on tank Manually calculate your dV using the rocket formula

I went to the Mun and back, using only the tech from "Starting Rocketry", the first node in the tech tree.

OK , I'm back from vacation. And, I successfully completed the mission I attempted earlier, Mun landing and return, using only parts from the initial tech node. Launch weight: 137.32t But, I'm not the first to report a successful landing on another celestial body and return to Kerbin using only the initial tech node. I'm sure there are more, but I've found these 3: @Nnamleips reported a Mun and return mission in these forums on 31 December. Here's that report. The Kerbin reentry method was a large retrograde burn right before reentry. Gregrox reported a Mun and return mission on reddit on 6 January. Here's that report. I asked how the reentry was done, and here is the reply: "Kept the tanks and fins attached. Started with a retrograde gliding reentry but ended up just wobbling back and forth a bunch until I slowed down enough to land normally. It took three tries." And Matt Lowne did an Eeloo landing and return on YouTube. Here's a link to that one. Matt's reentry method was some intentional wobbling, plus some empty "ablative fuel tanks" (he let some empty tanks absorb the heat and blow up). No retroburn. My reentry method was a 1500ms retro burn right at atmospheric entry. Full album here (45 images, I think): https://imgur.com/a/2mQ7E0h Highlights: I had to do lots of fuel transfers, sometimes during burn, to make this whole thing work. Here I'm transferring from the orange to the black tanks right after achieving orbit. I had some troubles with lost orbit lines, and plenty of troubles with decaying orbit around the Mun. I found my decaying orbit issues were happening when below 9000m ASL, so I established orbit above that line I was kind of busy with the landing itself, and didn't take any screenshots during that phase. Then I landed in the dark. Time warped forward until sunrise. Val did EVA, planted a flag, and returned to the capsule. I did one more fuel transfer from the tanks below the green line to those above the line. I also don't have any screenshots of the ascent. I did a direct ascent (did not establish Munar orbit but burned continuously from Munar liftoff until I had established an exit from the Munar SOI and a good Kerbin orbit with Pe in the very upper atmosphere. Right as I was entering the Kerbin atmosphere, I burned all remaining fuel (about 1500m/s of dV). Here's a shot right after that burn completed. All 4 of the lateral tanks overheated, and 2 of them blew up. After the heat effects subsided, I separated the capsule, and the rest of the landing was "nominal". Mission Complete!

I support all of your asks. In addition: I want to be able to drag and drop the portraits into any order I want.

In your first 3 screenshots it looks like you have some form of Map View displayed on the CRT. What is that, and how did you achieve it?

I updated CKAN today (I had to force the update, it didn't do so on startup as it should have according to the settings), to 1.34.4, "Niven". The reason I didn't see these updated versions may have had something to do with needing this update, because with this updated CKAN I can now see MicroEngineer 1.6.1, as well as SpaceWarp 1.7.0 and UITK 2.4.1. I updated everything to these latest, and looks like I'm good to go now.

From CKAN, SpaceWarp: 1.6.0, UITK: 2.4.0

I don't seem to have any Micro Engineer functionality with 1.6.1 or 1.6.0 installed. When I go down to 1.5.1 I have to turn Micro Engineer OFF for it to work properly. KSP Log: Ksp2 20240103.log Player Log: Player 20240103.log With Micro Engineer 1.6.1 installed, I don't see the Micro Engineer window, or the Apps button. I went down to 1.6.0, same result. I went down to 1.5.1 and got this: Next, I thought I turned Micro Engineer OFF, but then it appeared to be working properly (still on 1.5.1)

This!