Leganeski

In the GPP download, there should be a folder called "Optional Mods" in addition to the GameData folder. The rescale mod is the folder Optional Mods/GPP_Rescale/Rescale_2.5X/GameData/GPP_Rescale, which should be added to your main GameData folder. I haven't been able to find GPP_Rescale on CKAN. If it isn't there, you'll have to download it separately and add just the rescale mod folder to GameData.

Part 8: Epona After making an interstellar voyage starting from Iota with plenty of fuel to spare, I realized that the mission is getting somewhat boring and not challenging enough. I don't have to do any gravity assists or weird maneuvers that make KSP what it is; I can just brute-force my way to the next destination and refueling stop with TGGT's massive amount of Δv. To try to make the mission more interesting, I'm adding a new restriction to the mission goal: Each refueling stop must be on a different celestial body. This goal is secondary to the main goal of landing a Kerbal everywhere, and I won't stop the mission if it turns out I can't do it. Nevertheless, I have followed this rule so far and will try my best to continue following it in the future. Importantly, asteroids and comets are not celestial bodies, so I will not refuel at them at all. (This is also one of the main reasons why I didn't refuel at Ceti, Lili, or Geminus: I want to be able to use those places as refueling stops to get to Icarus and back.) I expect this rule to make the most of an impact at Belisama, where the original mission plan involved four different refueling stops in order to get to and from Toutatis and Nodens. In the outer system, though, it's not as much of a big deal because of the abundance of small moons everywhere. How can I make the mission more Kerbal? Well... (8.0) Visual mod update (8.1) Return from Taranis, continued (8.2) RAB-58E (8.3) Epona (finally) (8.4) Reorbiting the oxygen plane (8.5) Reorbiting the methane plane At this point, Jeb is still in the Taranis transfer vehicle orbiting Grannus near Epona, and TGGT is in low Epona orbit with still mostly full tanks. Both are headed towards the Sirona system.

Apparently, this is not the only problem. I started a new save with exactly the same mods and put a copy of the last stage of the Taranis transfer vehicle into Nodens orbit. The solar panels still produced excessively large amounts of electricity. I'll do some more testing, but unless I figure out a way to fix the problem, I will attempt to simulate the proper output of the solar panels by limiting all maneuvers to a single battery charge whenever I'm further than 491 Mm away from Grannus. Why 491 Mm? After detaching the second stage soon after leaving Taranis, the transfer vehicle has three OX-STAT solar panels. However, the panels are facing different directions and can't rotate independently, so at least one of them is always facing away from the star and not producing power. The maximum power output occurs either when one panel is facing directly towards the star and producing full power, or when it is facing directly away from the star, meaning that the other two panels are each pointed 60 degrees away from the star and producing half power. In either case, the power output is the same as the maximum output of just one panel. The listed maximum output of one solar panel is 0.35 EC/sec, at Kerbin's average insolation of 1360 W/m2. However, the craft has one ion engine, which requires 8.74 EC/sec to operate at full power. This means that the solar panels need to be producing at least (8.74 / 0.35) ≈ 24.971 times the listed value, which can happen when the stellar radiation flux is at least 1360 * 24.971 ≈ 33961 W/m2. Grannus produces this much flux at a distance of 491.3 Mm. (Taranis is well within that distance, so being able to use ion engines freely near its orbit is correct.) I shouldn't need to worry about any of this too much longer, though, because the mission of the Taranis transfer vehicle is currently nearing its end, and none of the other modules have any solar panels.

Wow, I never would have guessed that! "RAB-58E" looks so much like a normal asteroid name that I never really thought about whether it meant anything. I did notice that the last character is a letter, distinguishing it from KSP's random asteroid names. Is this distinction the reason the name isn't "RAB-585"?

As I explore the Epona system, I'm currently running into a problem. How do you pronounce "RAB-58E"? The full name is somewhat hard to say, so I've always called it "Rab" in my head, but I'm curious to see what other people think about this.

I thought I did (this would have been in the middle of section 7.3, right after the plane matching burn), but it didn't seem to do anything. Maybe it doesn't affect vessels that have already been launched?

I am really enjoying exploring this system! Even aside from the amazing graphics, GPP is so much more internally consistent than the stock system, especially with regards to the atmospheres. But even then, there is no shortage of diversity among the celestial bodies, and the system is full of features that are realistic but unexplored such as Catullus's unique atmosphere or Hadrian's nitrogen sea. Nearly every feature in the system has a reason behind it, and it's really fun to see the results of those factors all come together. However, I cannot figure out why Catullus's tidal locking to Gauss is stable. If I'm understanding tidal forces correctly, Gauss from a distance of 57 Mm exerts a tidal force of 6.82 · 10-10 m/s2 per meter (which, at the radius of Catullus, comes out to 0.000818 m/s2). Meanwhile, Tarsiss is much smaller than Gauss but also much closer to Catullus, and I'm finding that its tidal force from 6 Mm away is 1.581 · 10-9 m/s2 per meter (0.001897 m/s2 at the surface of Catullus), more than twice as much as that of Gauss. I don't know the exact process of how tidal locking works, but wouldn't this mean that Catullus should be tidally locked to Tarsiss or at least rotate at a speed somewhere in between, balanced by competing forces from Tarsiss and Gauss? Of course, I could easily be making an error somewhere or missing something important, and I wouldn't be surprised if there is some other reason for Catullus's rotational period.

Part 7: Epona Taranis TGGT continues its journey to Epona. But before it can get there... (7.0) Visual mod update (7.1) Preparing encounters (7.2) Reaching Taranis (7.3) Landing on Taranis Jebediah is now in a low Grannus orbit close to Taranis, while TGGT is on a trajectory towards the Epona system, where they will rendezvous.

Part 6: Gratian TGGT goes to Gratian and tests out the methane plane for the first time. (6.1) Transfer to Gratian (6.2) Landing (6.3) Leaving Gratian TGGT has now made it to Grannus. Its next destination, visible as the target during the Grannus capture maneuvers, is the Epona system.

Part 5: Gael The oxygen plane lands on Gael while TGGT refuels on Iota. (5.0) Quick mod update (5.1) Transfer to Gael (5.2) Iota (5.3) Gael TGGT's fuel tanks are still mostly full at this point. The next destination will probably be Gratian, but I'm not entirely sure where I can refuel near it: the mountainous terrain on Geminus is difficult to land on and I don't want to refuel there with a still unbalanced ship.

Part 4: Tellumo TGGT heads to the Ciro system and begins exploration. (4.1) Going interstellar (4.2) Julia (4.3) Tellumo (4.4) Returning to orbit At this point, there are a few different directions to go. Gael, Lili, and Gratian are all close by and would be nice to get out of the way, while the Taranis ferry is the last single-use module and can be released from a range of orbital positions (although definitely not here). This post catches up with the current state of the mission, so I don't yet know for certain where TGGT will go next.

Part 3: Nara TGGT heads to Nara and drops off another single-use plane. (3.1) Transfer to Nara (3.2) Prax (3.3) Landing on Nara (3.4) Returning to orbit

Part 2: Eve TGGT leaves LKO and explores the Eve system. (2.1) Leaving Kerbin (2.2) Eve Gilly (2.3) Eve, for real this time

Part 1: Assembling Team Galileo Grand Tour The modules are launched into orbit separately and dock together. (1.1) TGGT (1.2) Oxygen plane (1.3) Methane plane (1.4) Tellumo plane (1.5) Nara plane (1.6) Taranis ferry / lander (1.7) Eve lander Team Galileo Grand Tour, fully assembled and crewed, ready to begin the grand tour on day 14.

Part 0: Mission goal and craft This mission will attempt to land a Kerbal on every body with a surface in all three Team Galileo planet packs: Galileo's Planet Pack, Grannus Expansion Pack, and JNSQ. This mission does not qualify for the linked challenge, due to JNSQ's changes to the stock solar system. Nevertheless, I will try my best to follow its other rules (although I may need to use the debug menu for the purpose of circumventing a bug; I'll note each time this occurs). Update: the rules of the challenge have been changed, and now allow planet packs! I did end up using the debug menu to circumvent two bugs, but I doubt that breaks the spirit of the "no debug menu" rule. The mission includes ISRU, but as an additional challenge, each refueling stop must be on a different celestial body. In order to make the systems fit together properly, JNSQ is included at 1x scale (using JNSQ Rescale 1x), and GPP is included in its secondary configuration (using GPP Secondary). Unlike my previous mission, I am using some other mods as well, selected to ensure a mix of realism and balance with stock parts. Notably included is Explodium Breathing Engines, which is so important to the mission that I can justify its use only because its engines, following the path of realism, are strictly worse than their stock counterparts (except for the range of bodies on which they can operate). Full modlist: There are a lot of places I need to visit, so I've compiled a list of all the celestial bodies with their most important properties. (0.0) List of celestial bodies In total, there are 77 celestial bodies, of which three are stars and six are gas giants, leaving 68 for me to land on. The mission craft is composed of seven modules, which are launched separately and assembled together in LKO. (0.1) Mothership (Team Galileo Grand Tour) (0.2) Oxygen-breathing plane (0.3) Methane-breathing plane (0.4) Eve lander (0.5) Nara lander (0.6) Tellumo lander (0.7) Taranis ferry

Thank you for fixing the SOI issue at Belisama! It was the one thing that always bugged me about an otherwise perfectly made system. I noticed that GEP_Rescale still doesn't include patches to scale up Nodens' SOI like it does for Grannus (the other body with a manually overridden SOI value). Is this intentional?

Part 0: Introduction, concept, and design When I first looked the JNSQ delta-v map, I was intrigued by the "ruby slippers" icon on Nara. Some research revealed that it meant "returning from the surface is impossible." This seemed like a rather bold claim, until I found that Nara's atmosphere had a surface pressure of 40 atmospheres: at that pressure, rocket engines do not produce any thrust. Despite this, returning to orbit from Nara's surface to orbit has been done before, using Explodium Breathing Engines. This is absolutely the correct way to properly take advantage of the hydrogen in Nara's atmosphere. It doesn't disprove the claim on the delta-v map, though: JNSQ is designed for balance with stock parts, so the numbers on the map should reflect the requirements without part mods. However, Explodium Breathing Engines aren't the only way to produce thrust on the surface of Nara: propellers work very well at the high atmospheric densities found there. This led to an idea: Why not use propellers to simply lift a rocket to an altitude with a more reasonable pressure? This would avoid part mods entirely. It's not a new idea, and has been successfully performed on stock Eve, a planet with a comparable atmosphere. There have even been discussions about adapting the design for Nara, but as far as I can tell, nobody has actually done it yet. I built a craft to test the concept, and it got off the ground just fine. Then it immediately flipped over and crashed. After a lot of testing and a lot of spinning out of control, I finally realized that the problem is exactly what control surfaces are for. After adding adjustable fins, the very next test was successful. I wasn't sure what to call my new craft: it's not a helicopter because it uses control surfaces to steer, but it's not a plane because it doesn't have wings. Eventually, I gave up and called it the Nara Ascent Vehicle. The Nara Ascent Vehicle prior to ascent. It uses four EM-32 rotors, each with eight R-12 ducted fan blades (used instead of normal propeller blades so that they won't hit anything). The two diagonal pairs of rotors rotate in opposite directions, cancelling out the overall torque. They are mounted at the bottom so that they can be removed with a standard small decoupler without needing any heavy structural parts. The landing gear and fins are attached with separate decouplers, mainly so that the fins can stabilize the rocket as it jettisons the propellers before being jettisoned themselves. Nara is so far away from the Sun that solar panels produce virtually no power. Instead, 16 RTGs are stored in two service bays below the central rocket stack. They are jettisoned along with the propellers. I don't remember the exact total mass of the rocket helicopter plane vehicle after it landed on Nara, but it was less than 30 tons including the descent equipment (which was detached before the point shown in the picture). Now, I needed to get the vehicle to the surface of Nara. Part 1: Getting to Nara The initial rocket on the launchpad. The mission begins on the launchpad. Inside the fairing is the Nara Ascent Vehicle and a nuclear stage for interplanetary travel. The mission begins 36 seconds after the start of the save file, which in JNSQ is at 06:00:00 on day 1. I used KSP 1.12.3, with Making History and Breaking Ground. The only mods I used were JNSQ itself, and BetterTimeWarpContinued to get to Nara in a reasonable amount of time. The mission was performed in Sandbox mode with Normal difficulty settings, including CommNet. However, it only used pilots for control and didn't transmit any data, so no communication was required. The Nara Ascent Vehicle is now in low Nara orbit, and prepares to descend to the surface. Part 2: Reaching the surface The Nara Ascent Vehicle deorbits wrapped in a fairing and two heat shields for thermal protection. Part 3: Getting back to orbit The Nara Ascent Vehicle performs its task. The trip from Nara's surface to orbit is not impossible after all, even with stock parts! The amount of delta-v used is hard to calculate, because the hard part of the ascent relied on propellers, which are not reaction engines and don't satisfy the rocket equation. However, the rocket stages used about 7000 m/s (at the initial ambient pressure of each stage; the vacuum value is somewhat higher). This is certainly a lot, but not an impossible amount. Part 4: Return to Kerbin The Nara Ascent Vehicle has 1043 m/s of delta-v left. A direct burn to a Kerbin encounter would take about 2500 m/s at minimum, which I don't have. However, gravity assists can significantly reduce this. The easiest celestial body to get an encounter with from low Nara orbit is Amos, Nara's first moon. From my orbit at an altitude of 267 km, I need a burn of only ... 2108 m/s. Well, I guess that isn't going to work. Part 4: Rendezvous with the Nara Ascent Vehicle Thankfully, I have another pilot. Valentina gets in the Nara Return Vehicle. This one actually is a rocket, but I wanted its name to be consistent with the Nara Ascent Vehicle. Part 5: Return to Kerbin Jeb has now joined the Nara Return Vehicle, which prepares to go back to Kerbin. The end result of the mission: an EVA report from Nara's surface, returned safely to the surface of Kerbin, without any part mods. This mission was not optimized much at all: there were significant margins between every section. During the mission of the Nara Ascent Vehicle, I could have saved ~2300-2400 m/s by taking a Kerbin-Eve-Kerbin-Kerbin-Jool-Lindor-Nara route, 1150 m/s by aerobraking from a Nara periapsis of 140 km (as I had done successfully in my tests), and 1928 m/s in fuel that I jettisoned or had left over when Jeb transferred between the crafts. The Nara Return Vehicle also simply jettisoned its last 3695 m/s of fuel. And all of that was with my noticeably imperfect piloting skills (which can be seen in the video of the ascent). This goes to show that a round-trip Nara mission is not only possible, but comfortably within the range of feasibility even without any part mods. Craft files: Nara Ascent Vehicle Nara Return Vehicle