Geek.Verve

Mission Report: Space Truckin' ...or... If It's Crazy, but It Works, Maybe It Ain't Crazy I got a contract to build a space station in orbit of the Mun. I also already had one on deck to dock two vessels in Munar orbit. This gave me a crazy idea. If I were to position a station loaded with fuel in Munar orbit, it would expedite my Munar science collection efforts. I could dock a lander at the station and just make hops to and from various biomes on the surface. This may sound like a trivial task for most of you, but I'm still hardly what anyone might consider a qualified space program simulation administrator...or pilot...or engineer. I'm nothing if not perseverant, though, and I don't appear to have any qualms about throwing Kerbals into the danger zone. I'll leave the sorting of that one to my therapist. Almost giddy, I handed the project of designing a vessel that could get as much fuel as possible to the Mun to the Kerbal engineers. They seemed excited by the prospect. Then worried. Then scared. Then excited again. It's really kind of tough to gauge their moods at any given moment. Anyway, after hours at the drawing board, this is what those krazy little kritters came up with... It was clear they were working with house money, because at well over a quarter-million funds, this is by far the most expensive vessel we've ever designed. They assured me that it would be a success...or it wouldn't. I guess that's the sort of professional, educated projections I've come to expect from them. I'm sure there is a far more efficient method to go about this, but this level of precision is what I've come to expect for what I pay them. Out to the launch pad we go... Honestly, what were the chances this thing was going to make it to space in one piece, anyway? As it turns out, those chances were 1 in 4, because that's how many trips back to the VAB it took to get this monstrosity to avoid rattling itself apart by 1km altitude or just pitching over and making a beeline into the mountains/ocean/Space Center...well, you get the idea. Once I was able to get out of the atmosphere, things went pretty smoothly, though MechJeb doesn't seem to have ANY idea how to handle a vessel of this size, repeatedly missing burn windows. Nothing a minor correction burn or two wouldn't fix. Finally, here is my Munar fuel depot, quite surprisingly right where it's supposed to be. The mission was a success, and I now have a full 7,200 liquid fuel/oxidizer reserve, ready to supply some Mun hopping. My next trip up will include all the station science modules and gear and the Kerbals to run it. I feel like I actually accomplished something with this one.

If you want ideas, here is what my limited graphics design skills came up with for my game. There are a couple decent free fonts sites around, where you can get some great ideas as well. Shoot me a message if you want my go-to.

I think I fell prey to another noob trap contract today. I picked one up to expand the meager space station I had put into orbit around Kerbin a while back. I had never performed a docking maneuver before (at least not in space ), but I thought I could figure it out. Make sure it's got an antenna. Check. Make sure it can produce power. Check. Make sure it can accommodate 15 Kerbals - ok, that's a lot, but I've got the parts for it. Check. Make sure the station has 4,047 liquid fuel. Check...er, waitaminute...my biggest liquid fuel tank, the X200-32, only holds 1,440 (tons?). I'll need to pack three of those bad boys in addition to what I'll need to make the rendezvous - a task I have yet to become efficient in performing. After much designing, redesigning and general head-scratching, I finally got all the fuel tanks I needed packed onto an orbital stage. Time to add my launch and orbital insertion stages. I went with my typical booster package...and it wasn't even REMOTELY close to the TWR and deltaV I needed. It hadn't really occurred to me prior to that point just how much juice it was going to take to push that much dead fuel weight into the atmosphere. After much MORE designing, redesigning and head-scratching, I ended up with a Frankenbooster stage that would (should) get the job done. Got into orbit, circularized and matched the inclination of my station. I was actually pleased that I had brought along more fuel that I really needed, and I was able to make all my orbital adjustments without cutting too much into what I was hauling to the station. Finally I started plotting a maneuver for the rendezvous and ended up with a nice, close intercept point, where I wasn't going to have to burn off too much speed. I got to under 100m from the station and matched its speed. So far so good. Time to try my hand at the RCS system. Oh, right, it uses different keys than normal. Wait, what direction am I facing? Oh yeah, point the vessels on normal and anti-normal headings to make things easier. Crap. I'm in an unmanned vessel with a probe core. Nothing but prograde and retrograde markers at my disposal. Ugh. Criminy! This thing maneuvers like a freaking cruise ship with all this fuel onboard! Despite repeatedly losing track of my orientation and making the necessary adjustments only after first hitting the wrong thrusters and having to correct for it, the two docking ports snapped together, and I nearly jumped out of my chair in celebration. In the other room my wife, who really couldn't care less about my accomplishments in my nerdy little "space game", thought I had fallen out of my chair or something. You got me again, KSP.

Last night (haven't yet fired it up today) I successfully completed my second muti rescue mission, knocking out two rescue contracts on one trip. I'm still working on getting the process down, and I ended up burning so much fuel on the approaches, that I barely had enough left just to break orbit and return to Kerbin.

FYI, KSP1 and both DLC packs are on sale on Steam right now for $20US.

People often hate on them for their lower value to cost prospects, but every Alienware laptop I've ever used was great. I think their reliability only got better, when they were bought by Dell several years ago. Razer makes awesome looking/feeling models, too, but they've had a spotty track record for reliability. If price is a significant factor, the HP gaming laptops are pretty good. They tend to do well on the quality of the components for the price. I've always felt the "gamer" brand laptops such as Asus, MSI, etc. were a bit of a roll of the dice, as many of them are just rebranded versions of OEM models. Look through the available options at XoticPC.com and you'll like spot a few Clevos that look just like those name brand models. Asus typically does a better job of dressing theirs up to look different with perhaps a few additional features, though. If I were in the market and had the budget, I'd go with Alienware. Good luck in your search.

Lol, hardly. I completed another rescue contract last night, and while it went more smoothly than my first, it was still fraught with difficulty on the final approach. At this point I'm happy if I can match speed with less than 1km of separation for a long EVA. Something still isn't clicking in my head, when it comes to narrowing that gap, when the slightest errant pulse of thrust can wreck my approach. It's progress, though, and worth it to get some free crew members.

$20.30US right now on Steam for KSP1 including both expansions. Naturally I just paid $70 for it a couple weeks ago. So worth it, though.

I've just recently gotten to the point where I can somewhat reliably achieve an orbit reasonably close to my target altitude. I've been taking all the contracts for ferrying tourists into space that I can get, to build up the coffers for some much needed upgrades. Then I see one requiring me to rescue a fellow Kerbonaut from orbit. Sounds tricky, so off to YouTube I go. A couple hours later, I feel like I have a rough handle on it, so I set to building a rocket purpose built for it (thanks quill18 and Mike Aben, you guys rock!). Mk1 Command Pod Dual radial mounted Mk2-R chutes Mk1 Crew Cabin for the rescued pilot Heat shield Terrier engine for the orbital stage FL-T800 Fuel Tank with a LV-T45 Swivel engine for my sub orbital stage Enough solid boosters to get me off the launch pad and up to about 15km or so I launch, get to space, burn the last of my sub orbital stage fuel and dump that stage. I fire off my orbital stage to establish my orbit, and...nothing. It then occurs to me how much the Mk1 Crew Cabin looks like a fuel tank. /foreheadsmack #1 I correct my...ahem..."design oversight" and head out again. I establish my orbit only to realize that I had forgotten to time my launch for when my target was in the right position in its orbit. That leads me to make many laps around Kerbin, to bring them back around, warp too fast, grossly overshoot and have to repeat the process (it did occur to me after that I could have just pushed my apoapsis out and minimized the number of orbits required). I have a lot of trouble lining up my intercept point and have to settle for a little over 6km. What the heck, I figure, I'll give it a shot. Upon reaching said intercept point, I leave map view and start my maneuvers in a little game I've come to call "nav ball rodeo". Seriously, that thing seems to have a mind of its own. Couple that with the fact that I keep fumbling with the controls, hitting the wrong keys over and over, trying to line up the target marker on the prograde/retrograde markers, as I fly past my target multiple times. Finally I settle down, taking a much more deliberate approach, creeping along ever so slowly and closing the gap. "Hey, I'm starting to get the hang of this," I thought, just prior to realizing that one tap of the SHIFT key sometimes requires TWO taps of CRTL to reverse it. I'm going to have to start treating it like I do time warping and hammer the stop key like I'm playing that old arcade game, Track and Field. I go to spin about for another approach, and...the ship doesn't respond. Tap, tap, tap...nothing. I had run out of charge. /foreheadsmack #2 Back to the VAB. Again. This time I take some tips from one of the videos I watched and add a service bay behind the crew cabin with a couple rechargeable batteries in it and tack on a few solar panels. I also recall that the last time I was actually able to return to Kerbin in this vessel (the memory was beginning to fade by this point), the trip wasn't exactly smooth with some instability due to my center of mass being a bit too centered. Rather than address the concern in any sane manner, I decide to just slap on another heat shield, upside down on the nose of the command pod. It ain't pretty, but it works, when you don't know which end is going to end up pointing forward. Seems like the Kerbal way, as they say. So BACK to the launch pad. BACK into orbit (remembering to time my launch this time), and upon throwing down a maneuver node, nudging the retrograde handle showed an intercept point of 2km. Nice. After some adjustments, I am able to get it down to a little over 200m! That's with around an 8-degree descending node value (still getting the kinks out of my launch and ascent sequences). I think I could try this another 100 times and not get it this close. Boom, quick save, and away I go. Upon reaching the intercept point, I see the target about 170m away. I've learned by now that the key is slow and steady with minimal control errors - not my forte. Still, I manage the approach fairly well. After a mild fender bender with the derelict pod, I switch to the pod and EVA the pilot, Mirbald. My excitement is building. However, my kerbal isn't moving. This is my first space walk, so I don't realize that jet packs have to be activated. I hit ESC, do a quick web search and I'm back in business...sort of. My jet pack is shoving me around like it's possessed, but I get the hang of it before too long and am able to latch onto the ladder on my command pod. Score! I'm already planning ways to minimize risk on reentry with the additional weight and general ship imbalance. I hit ...and I'm told I can't enter the command pod because it's full. W...T...F...?! I try again...and again...as if the game at some point is going to say, "Oh, wait, nevermind. I had that wrong. Go on in, now!" I crawl around on the crew cabin. No means of ingress. A quick ALT-TAB and another web search showed me that there appear to be two doors on the crew cabin, but they are ON THE ENDS. Not helpful. The crew cabin is great for space tourism, not so much for a Kerbonaut on the outside wanting in. I'm starting to sweat, now. It's 12:30 am and I have to be up at 6:00 for work. Poor Mirbald is stuck on the outside of a rocket hurling through space. A thought occurs to me. Maybe I can access the rear crew cabin door through the service bay. I open the bay doors and get as close as I can, try different angles, but no joy. The batteries are in the way, I guess. In a last ditch effort, I jam Mirbald's face into the bay and close the doors. Maybe she can ride home in the service bay. As the doors swing shut, her helmet clips through the door, and her body shifts around like she's going to pop back out. To my surprise the boarding prompt pops up and I smash the key. She's in!!! I think Kerbal God must have felt I had been through enough, as the reentry was uneventful. What's more, Mirbald was so grateful, that she decided to leave Research & Development Department and join my crew. The benefits aren't as good, the pay is lousy and the risk is exponentially greater, if I'm being honest. However, I promised that, unlike her former boss, I won't leave her stranded in orbit...probably...maybe...well, I promised her that's not the plan, anyway. While I had tried all manner of clicking on Jeb's portrait, trying to get him to move to the crew cabin, I later learned that I could have just right-clicked on the command pod and transferred him that way, allowing Mirbald to board the command pod (thanks /u/mildlyfrostbitten for that heads-up). /finalforeheadsmack

For anyone else having this problem in the training sessions, I experienced it as well after playing around a bit during one session, doing a few things that were outside the instruction parameters. Even after reverting things to what they should be, the Next button wouldn't light up. I had to restart the session and adhere to the instructions to make it work.