BechMeister

unfortunately yes x) bit of an oversight for me... especially considering the fuel lines bug out, so they are not visually pleasing any way.

I really like the interiors and your clever use cargo bays - even if its not necessary i like that you made it an openable space - RP wise i can now see how you could do maintenance x) This actually looks really good! Im curious as to why you made the docking port from the tank the way you did? - It seems to me you could have gotten the same result with less parts? haha yeah.. I think K.G.01 is something similar. But it looks good - keep building

It disappeared again, and I cant get it back xD My space station is in the shade: You can see the game knows its in the shade. because its not lit.. even though i can see the sun. here from the none sun side. - Well quick save, quickload did not make it come back this time.

Touché - how ever juggling my other hobbies, family and school, im not sure the time is right to introduce new balls to juggle x)

I am not sure actually... I think its ~2° It used to be at a 90.5km 90.6km "flat" orbit - but now its 80-125ish km - So I need to get it back to its 95km 95km orbit I i could boost it to a 0° inclination. That being said.. I am not sure how to find the point were i will intersect the 0° point. You can make the planet your target? I think I've only seen Focus. Well I some times wish I could double click the navball to make the SAS point me in that direction. I feel that could help control it.. But thx Oh Damn, you may even know more about the field than me haha! - I never got to the point were i had to build it myself. (unless plugging a normal copper wire to the radio counts) I can share a little anecdote though - I was on an military exercise once were we were spending a week observing a piece of terrain and logging traffic. Pretty boring stuff. Anyway, we had to report once 24h with a "SMS" send via HF - Now, one evening we just could not get the radio to get a good enough signal. I kept fiddling with the radio, fiddle with the antenna, check the ground conditions under the antenna etc. and i just could not get a good enough signal. So we missed our report window.. I was kind of bummed out, thought it was my fault. It turned out that there had been a solar storm that evening. So there were not enough stratosphere to bounce signals off or something like that x). Cosmos is wild. Edit: wait, its the Ionsphere not the stratosphere you bounce singals of, right?

Thanks @fulgur It made it a lot more helpful. I had not noticed that Minimus orbit was at an different inclination (tbh, i never looked a lot at Minimus because i was busy building infrastructure to make my life easier later) And don't worry, your drawings were fine enough that I understand. Also you have a neat handwriting - I much appreciate the effort! Unfortunately i can not give you more than one like But it makes sense. I can tell you that neither of my stations are at a 0° inclination to the body they orbit. Also I don't think i've ever managed to get anything into orbit that was at a 0° inclination. I always fight the drag in KSP2. It makes it hard to fly straight, always have to balance the gravity turn, SAS wobble and drag to avoid the rocket doing flips or flying sideways like Starship. So I always have to correct inclination. It feels to me though, that doing inclination changes around The Mun, is far cheaper than doing it around Kerbin? I mean I some times fix my inclination with RCS thrusters if I'm running low on Δv. I guess that also explains when you say that option 1 uses more Δv than 2 - but I gather you can do option 1 any time, and option 2 you need to time the window with which the body intersects the path. - Thank you for the thorough explanation with illustrations (having multiple colors were especial nice)

Is the ascending/descending nodes the 1A and 1B marks? Also does Minimus have a none-circular orbit? - I am not sure I fully understand the advantages of being in a more inclined orbit. Would it be possible for you to show screenshots of what you mean?

D. Second stage closing up, preparing for de-orbit and crashing into the mun. Last thing to do was to de-orbit the second stage. - Ops success. We'll see when I have time to send up the second half. Stay Tuned for more! //////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\ - A conversation about Inclination and going to Minimus -

//////////////////////Mission Update\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Prototype Second stage en-route to K.G02 with the Methalox Storage Assembly. Mission Task: A. Bring prototype stage to K.G.02 B. Install unpack the docking port adaptors and store them at K.G.02 until methalox docking assembly has been installed. C. Use small tug drone and large tug drone to install docking port adaptors D. De-orbit the second stage and crash it into The Mun. Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: A. Second stage at K.G.02 I managed to design a 2nd stage that could bring half the assembly into orbit - It is quite heavy though, so just as the monopropellant tanks, it has to use all 1st stage Δv to get to a Mun orbit. So again, destructive use of the reusable 1st stage. Here is the 2nd stage open - Full and Empty, I assembled 2x2 short and long adaptors and connected them to a center docking port. Around that I could store the 4 connectors to the main Methalox Assembly. 2nd stage seen here open: Full and Empty. Second Stage Full. - and second stage empty. B. 4 docking port adaptors being stored while the assembly is being *badum-tsh* assembled. C. Here are the 4 adaptors installed in the propper orientation - the red markers helped with alignment. I suspected the instillation of the 4 rods would be the hard part. They had to be propper aligned for the future assembly to be possible and 2/4 of the connector rods demanded careful navigation of the small tug drone - More on that in the picture walk through of the assembly. How ever, I would soon find out that this part of the operation would be pretty smooth and that it would be the installation of the docking adaptors that was hard. There was only just room for the big Tug drone between superstructure and the Methalox assembly. It took an entire evening to do - but i did find a way to improve the procedure - So hopefully the second half of the assembly will go smoother. The 2nd stage prototype was well developed and been adapted. No further improvements needed. I have decided to mark the walkthrough of the entire assembly as spoiler as its quite extensive:

The forum gives me strenght to continue my struggles too - people responding to what im doing motivates me to go forward.. So - be motivated - Make it to the next milestone

that makes a lot of sense.. So you are forced to wait with the gravity turn until you are in space. It must also just make calculating how much Δv you need xD

You dont plan/cant do a gravity turn?

Yeah... I decided you were right. Now im crashing them into the Mun north-pole or south-pole I mean.. you can do orbital maneuvers around the Mun with only RCS thrusters - My first moon lander that left the Mun only had Δv to get 30km above the surface.. and i Circulized the orbit with RCS only xD - Took a while.. but it could be done. Made it easier to pick it up later x) - But i gather Minimus has a lot less gravity. Yeah - but... Once its done, I can just make a big Hermes-style(the martian), ISV-style(avatar) or The Endurance-style(interstellar) ship that can visit the bodies of Kerbol.. and should have for a few missions too x) - But yeah... clocking 290h and I've never left Kerbins sphere of influence xD //////////////////////Mission Update\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ K.G.02 superstructure complete - With the 3 Monopropellant tanks installed, and a big Tug Drone ready for assisting assembly of the Methalox Assembly. Mission Tasks: A. Get 2 Monopropellant tanks to K.G.02 B. Test the new tug drone size small handling of heavy cargo - and install the tanks on the respective arms C. Get a Monopropellant tank to LKO and Rendezvous with K.G.01 D. Do hand-over take-over from second stage to Heavy Tug drone E. Move drone and cargo to K.G.02 - Install tank, and wait to further assist in the construction of K.G.02 Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: A. I found out that the 10 ton weight of my Monopropellant tank designs from K.G.01 is the absolute maximum that the 1st stage and 2nd stage can push into orbit, and reliable get to The Mun. - which is good. I was contemplating sending the tanks up empty.. and then fill them. But monopropellant is a poodle to get to space, So I am very happy it work out. How ever it demands that the 1st stage uses all its Δv - meaning its destructive. First Monopropellant tank arriving at K.G.02 B. I was a bit worried that the smaller tug drones would have issues with the cargo - its a smaller reaction wheel and less thrusters etc. The Monopropellant tanks are the heaviest they are going to move about - 10 + tons, where the Methalox tanks are only 8t. I have found though, that I may need to make a costume action group to reduce the thrusters - maybe all the way down to 25% when they move without a load. It can be very difficult to aim them as they over boost a lot. Small Tug drone performing Hand-over Take-over of the cargo. - Finally aligned to the medium port. Once attached to the cargo - they are really easy to move around. This may also be to the fact that the thrusters on the tank is well placed in accordance to the center of mass for both crafts (I am not sure though, as i have never checked center of mass and thrusters placement in the VAB) The rest of the images has been moved to a spoiler section as its quite extensive: C. If stage seperation happens so 1st stage has the Δv margin necessary to return to KSC - there is only just enough Umpff to get 10t cargo into LKO - Rendezvous with K.G.01 and get into a suborbital path. D. 2nd stage enroute to K.G01 with cargo. This part of the mission was a more interesting part as it gave a possibility to soft test the Tug Drone and moving fuel from K.G.01 to K.G.02. Since I would need a drone with medium port capabilities at K.G.02 for making future assembly easier. I decided to send the last monopropellant tank into LKO and have the Tug Drone move it to K.G.02 - This way a 1st stage didn't have to be sacrificed either. The hand-over take-over would be done as follows: 1. 2nd stage would rendezvous with K.G.01 2. Medium Tug drone would perform hand-over take-over with 2nd stage Small docking port to small docking port. 3. 2nd stage would decouple the cargo and go into a suborbital path. 4. Medium tug drone would do hand-over take-over with Large Tug Drone - Medium port to Medium port. I had two issues: 1 visit from the Krakken were while doing 3x speed on the coasting phase of the large Tug drone and cargo, they clipped into each other and resulted in an explosion and a much more sinister bug where the large tug drone would not turn on its engine. I found a solution and it can be found here: Since the picture slide show for this part is quite extensive, I have decided to put it into a spoiler section: Once the engine problem had been resolved, and the medium tug drone safely docked with K.G.01 again, it was time to see the Δv score for the Tug Drone with 10+ T cargo. 1.700Δv - Not bad. I suspect that the Tug Drone will be ferrying 2 fuel canisters of either Methalox or Hydrogen to and from K.G.01 to K.G.02. Both fuel tanks are holding 16t fuel together So there should be plenty of Δv to get to The Mun at least - hopefully there will be enough for a "tour-retour" as it will make it less of a inconvenience when refuel K.G.02 E. This part went fairly smooth - No issues. Except one - my save file had grown to 500mb because of the duplication error, causing my game to crash every time i docked the small drone to the fuel tank of the large drone at K.G.02. I went into my save file with WordPad and deleted all the text from, before the line, "ObjectEvents" and down again. Bumping it down to 15mb. No crafts were lost. Its 2nd time I've had to do this. Now my loading times are a lot smoother again. I have decided to move the images of this procedure into spoiler again, as its quite extensive: Moving Forward: Next step is to move the Methalox docking assembly (2 launches) and docking ports for service vehicles and refueling. (1-2 launches) The 2nd stage necessary for this has already been developed and are ready now that the necessary Tug drones and fuel is present for installing the bits. Stay Tuned for More.

I have yet to go to Duna.. Yet to leave Kerbin sphere of influence actually xD - I've been busy and entertained enough by setting up a Mun - LKO connection. That will facilitate future missions - probably to Duna. But its good to know that a quick safe/Quick load fixes it x) haha xD

PC details: IOS: Windows 11 Home Version: 22H2 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz Ram: 16,0 GB Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 TI Bug: First a little explanation: I have a station in LKO - I had a few "tug drones" connected to that, that I use to push things from one station around Kerbin to the Mun. When they are docked, their engines are offline, except one which I use for orbital corrections. I had to use the Tug drone to push some cargo to the Mun Station, undocked it with the engine still offline, RCS thrusted to the do a hand over take over of the cargo before sending the rocket that flew the cargo into LKO back to "burn up" in the atmosphere: I have a strong theory that the bug occures because the engine was undocked offline, and then turned online after undocked. Step by Step Pictures for Context- marked as spoiler, as its not inherently important for the bug I think: Now detail explination of the bug: Engine still offline after taking over the cargo. Engine turned online. As you can see I have 1729 Δv. Full Throttle engine is off. I press space - because some times its like it didn't register the stage is activated. After pressing Enter the Δv drops to 0 - even thought the fuel tank is full Solution: I tried to check if a classic quick load/quick save would fix it - it didnt. But by making an extra stage, and placing the engine in that like this: Then pressing enter to activate the stage, makes it work: Note: Some times the Δv will show as 0 - but a quicksave/quickload will fix that.

Hah - yeah, call me a hippie. I cant litter the moon.. I dont know where my future colony is going to be.. not to mention the possible plumes that would throw material into the air x) I know space agencies has crashed stages into the moon to create seismic activity to get an idea of composition.. but yeah. Felt wrong - much better to just liter the vacuum of space xD - station around Minimus? I have yet to find out how to get to that. But i guess a future mission there would make sense. I know pretty easy how to get to the Mun now. I think i have theorized how to get the assembly for the methalox tanks to the station. It will be in two launches. And then maybe 1-2 launches for the docking ports for other crafts. Then its just the fuel tanks and solar panels. - my biggest problem is i lack a medium docking port - but I've decided to install the monoproppellant tanks as next step. Which mean a big tug drone will be at K.G02 - and that has a medium docking port I build the quote on quote "super structure" for Hydrogen tanks in 2 pieces - my rocket could carry 4 ton comfortable, 6t if i did sacrefice the first stage.. but the structure was 8t. So i split it in two and put my little drones on the stacks. But besides that the main tower is 3 bits - methalox-module - living module and the docking module. I did not want to do the 45° offset by the two sets of dockingport in space, so I flew them up assembled xD But yeah. 2 launches to get the monoproppelant tanks up, 2 launches to get the methalox assembly up, ~2 launches to get the docking assembly up. And then it will be 8 LKO launches to get the methalox tanks to K.G01 - and then 4 tugs from Kerbin to the Mun. Then its 8 empty tanks for Hydrogen - and then ill test the proceedures for a refueling. Yeah there will be a few hours entertainment here... and then Minimus.. and i guess then its time to see the rest of the solar system

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ The replacement module enroute to The Mun. Mission Tasks: A. Get new Methalox-Module into Mun orbit and Rendezvous with K.G02 - Success B. Separate living quarters from the bad Methalox-Module on K.G.02 and dock it with new Methalox-module. - Success C. Separate the bad Methalox-Module from K.G02's Hydrogen-superstructure and catch it with the 2nd stage. - Success D. Burn second stage and bad Methalox-module to a parking orbit around Kerbol - Success E. Dock Hydrogen superstructure with the Methalox superstructure and crew compartment. - Success. Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: B. Left to right: 1. Hydrogen Superstructure connected with bad Methalox-module. 2. Living quarters. 3. Secund Stage with New Methalox-Module. New Methalox-Module docked to living quarters and 2nd stage preparing to next stage of operation = Catching the bad Methalox-Module. C. Because the bad Methalox-Module did not have a drone computer for maneuvering and or RCS thrusters, It meant that the second stage had to "catch" it once releazed. Luckily the undock was smoth, and the module traveled in a straight line (no tumbling) at 0.7m/s - I have experienced crafts start tumbling after undocking. Luckily this didnt happen... otherwise it would have become a difficult operation. Bad Methalox-module undocked from the Hydrogen superstructure and drifting past the 2nd stage, ready to turn 180° and connect with the medium docking port. And here - re-aligned and on docking course with the "dead in the water" module. D. In the beginning I would de-orbit the 2nd stage back to Kerbin and let it crash into the planet. But it only required ~68Δv to park them in a Kerbol orbit, outside Kerbins sphere of influence.. and if that is good enough for NASA in the 60'ies and 70'ies its good enough for me right now. Here you can see the path going out of Kerbins sphere of influence, and into a kerbol orbit. a long with 2 other stages already outside - One will probably come back to Kerbin at one point, since its path intersect with minimus. E. Because the otherwise "dead" (No drone to control it) superstructure was docked with two small tug drones, and it was pretty much in the correct orientation. It was really just a question of getting the local prograde on target and wait. Pretty smooth operation. Hydrogen Super structure aimed to the medium docking port of the Methalox-Module - Notice the two tug drones at each end of the pole. They ment for really easy control of a otherwise long heavy stick. As i recall 8-9t Far heavier than one should think. Considering its about the same the Living quarter + Methalox-module weight on K.G.02 And here we see K.G.02 Superstructure assembled with functioning parts. Moving Forward: Now its all about creating a launch vehicle for all the small adaptors, poles and connecters that will become the docking assembly for crafts, and methalox tanks. I have an idea of putting a cargo bay section on 2nd stage, and fill it with what is needed. As well as extra monopropellant to refill the small tug drones - to be sure they dont run out as K.G.02 does not hold a lot of Monopropellant as the Monopropellant tanks have not been installed. Or I will install the 3 monopropellant tanks on top the super structure first, making sure the tug drones have the fuel necessary. - In any case, I will spend some time in the VAB making the new 2nd stage for bringing up the odd bits. Stay Tuned for More! P.S. If you think my posts are getting too picture saturated leave a comment. - If not i'll just continue the style as it is now.

+1

Congrats! Nice use of the Crew module for the for the circle.

Maybe this is your issue. I make sure to put RCS thrusters at the end of the parts I am moving as well, on the section opposite to where the tug drone connects . So the tug boat will be the set of RCS thruster at one end of the station, and the part will have the RCS thrusters at the other end. I usually also pack the modules with its own monoproppelant fuel - So my tug boats only hold the fuel they need to move from the station to the part they move and a bit more (for unforeseen things - like me forgetting which puf is up/down/left/right xD ). It means the tugs are very light - and then I just have to make sure to refuel them every time I need to use them.

//////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\ - Building K.G.02 Superstructure - First Module for the K.G.02 station en route to LKO. It has begun - I started sending up the superstructure of K.G.02. and first time in 200h of playtime i return to the Mun. Muns low gravity aswel as the low orbit speed makes me do quite a lot of maneuver node errors. How ever, it is nice that all errors can be corrected with a few burst of RCS thrusters. I Thought I had finished putting up the super structure, but alas.. I found out on the last inspection that the Kraken haunting the VAB had decided to strike me... More on that at the end of the update. Mission Goals: A. Get the 5 parts of the superstructure into orbit around the Mun - Success B. Assemble the station. - Success C. Inspect for unsuspected construction bugs - Failure. Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified: A. I had a "fun" realization. I was setting up the rendezvous orbits the way I would around Kerbin. The fact a orbit took the time it took for the parts to run though orbits to line up made me send up multiple stages at the same time - I could handle 2 stages in rendezvous orbits and K.G.02 needing to be rendezvous with as seen here: Multiple stages in Rendezvous with first stage of K.G.02 - The blue square. In one of the rendezvous, when i finaly lined up and checked my speeds I realized there was only 10 m/s difference between stage and target speed... So i quickly found out I could save some time by just using main engine to burn. - A lot less effective, but requiring a lot less patient. The mun is very forgiving with speed margines... Guess I should have known. B. This will pretty much just be a slide show of the setup of the station: First part leaving LKO towards the Mun - you may notice the error that has caused a minor setback on the image. One of the medium docking ports is assembled at an angle. Stage released - The 2nd stage would then proceed to be parked in a Kerbol Orbit - similar to the 3rd stages of the apollo missions. Second module going into LKO - the main living module for passengers and crew passing through the station. Waving the First stage good bye on its way back to KSC Rendezvous with K.G.02 first module. Next was the more cumbersome structure for the Hydrogen fuel assembly and solar panels. - I do like the colour scheme though. Enroute to the Mun. This would be send up in 2 pieces - and it was the second time these modules had to be send up... as the engineers had decided to cut a medium docking port off when putting it on the rocket, ready for launch. I feel i have quite a bit of VAB errors with docking ports twisting and or going missing. Here is the module being assembled. Notice the little new tug drone I designed for the K.G.02 - The little fellah's seemed a bit troublesome to move to and from K.G.01 to K.G.02 - so I decided to make a smaller one that would be easier for the, now big, Tug drone to carry with it back and forth to install fuel tanks for transportation. Here is a close up of the little fellah. I think I've found the 4 directional RCS thruster to work better with 3 as symmetry rather than 4. Second arm being installed. Although not perfect aligned, its close enough. The white stribe really helped align the two bits propper. - I may still re-alignt the left one once i get the new middle section up... this time with out building bugs. C. A close up of the bugged docking port. I thought I had just completed getting the main structure up, when i realized a docking port had shifted on the very first module. checking the parts for alignment. It is what it is.. its part of the "charm" playing KSP2 early access. But with 8 docking ports its quite easy to miss a single one off. - One last launch with the current second stage. Luckily with the two small tug drones and their medium docking ports + the second stage medium docking port I will have all the vehicles necessary to remove the broken stage, and replace it with a new one... sending yet another failed stage to a parking orbit around Kerbol. It should have been 5 launches... It will be 8 because of VAB errors. Moving Foward: Next post will be once I've figured out a 2nd stage that will be able to efficient move the odd bits to the Mun - The station has 17 small odd small cylenders and 9 adaptors from medium to small docking ports that will connect to them, before the empty fuel tanks can be moved to K.G.02. And I have yet to design the vehicle that will bring the 17 bits... as I will break my neck if I get the bits up 1 by 1. Luckily the small tug drones are there, and they will be able to get into a large cargo bay and grab objects - so I have plans. Any way - Stay Tuned for more!

Have you considered just using the big monopropellant engines for all 6 axis you can move? I find more thrusters tend to eat your fuel a lot, and not necesairly for better performance? But.. does the big methalox engines work like an RCS thruster where its directional? or will you have to make costume action groups to change what direction the engines go from?

2361 parts - How have your PC not melted xD - I admire the attempt, and i agree, good looking

Kerbals sneaking onto missions they are not supposed to is something I have experienced too. My first moon mission became an instant rescue mission because Jeb snug onboard... and the return vehicle only had room for 3. But two rescue missions later and all 5 kerbanouts were back - I had to send a rescue mission to the rescue mission when the lander didn't have enough propellant to get back to the orbiter and the orbiter was not automated. Any way it all ended well x) I actually really like the designs of this - I may use it in the future.. when I have a lot of small odd parts Im not quite sure how to get to space.. this could be a solution x) Oh damn, that's a really nice interior! I have found myself, making my tug drones, that I dont like the 4 directional thruster that much - It often thrust when I dont want to. Unless its a very small craft And there is not room to put individual thrusters I use the single point thrusters. I make sure that they are spaced the same distance from the center of mass.. and then i manually make sure they cover the 6 directions I need to thrust to move: left/right/up/down/forward/Backwards - by spacing them equal around the axis of the mass, you keep the ability to roll, yaw and pitch too. - But they do get quite cumbersome if they start weigh a lot of tons. But it makes sense... I guess. the RCS thrusters can only thrust so much after all. - I am actually experimenting with a smaller size tug drone now - I hope I can share on my blog in a few days. I think its nice that you just dump the pictures - No need to censor them x) Looking forward to see more

How many parts is this thing`?