Mister Dilsby

Thanks Blue--yeah, I noticed that a few pages back, will update all the old image files at some point.And hey, everyone please feel free to PM me if you spot an error in spelling, art or continuity--I do aim to create a quality prouct

You got it, Zentro. Here's three more pages. Getting close to planetfall!

Um, yeah... that too I guess

Great thread! Thanks mods for all the work you do, and for making yourselves available here. I was wondering if you've seen a change/uptick in moderation action after V1.0 came out. I'm sure everyone has noticed a lot more very basic questions in the Gameplay section since then... perhaps some of our new members faced as steep a learning curve in understanding the established Forum culture as they did in trying to get their hastily-constructed rockets to stop flipping over

You know, the ratio of F5 presses to F9 holds would be a very informative statistic Aerobraking/aerocapture is very interesting in 1.x for lots of reasons. There is of course the possibility of destroying your crew and vessel in stock, but also the more realistic drag/lift model means that different craft could have very different brake/capture altitudes. Fortunately we have AIRBRAKES, AoA, and some other 'control knobs' to adjust on the fly.

Very glad to see this challenge continuing, thanks for taking it on! One suggestion: should we reconsider the "no processing/no transmission" rule given the significant overhaul to the Mobile Processing Lab in 1.x? It seems even more so since the update that the MPL is intended to transmit data to Kerbin, and is NOT ever intended to land on the surface I'm guessing that the rule was written because of the difficulty of scoring transmitted science--it does not appear in a nice neat window at the end. So if are to count transmitted science, the burden of accounting for it and proving it came from the Jool-5 entry falls entirely on the entrant. I'd propose the following to encourage people to bring and use an MPL, while keeping in the spirit of the original challenge: --You can load an experiment into the MPL and get science for transmitting the processed data; in V1.x you can also get science points for the unprocessed observation. To get points for the unprocessed observation you must bring it to Kerbin surface in a pod or MPL. --Science points may be transmitted ONLY from an MPL, and ONLY for data that was processed in the MPL. --Include documentation of every experiment loaded to the MPL and every experiment from it. No proof, no points. Does it make sense? Is it too complicated? Anyway I will start working on my ship and landers for this once the crew comes back from Duna!

It is indeed truly awesome! When I posted before I guess I was confused, I thought you needed to go down not up--this is even more epic! You can do it! Be careful those RTGs don't melt through the ice...

Thank you! In today's installment, pretty colors--and math!

Oh, you have to at least try descending with the ship unmodified ship. And post pictures of it exploding Drive it off, nose up, go full throttle and descend tail-first, then level out and land on the wheels.

Outrageously good! Congrats on making TOTM with this, very well deserved.

No surprise KSP will not accept a flag with layers Does firealpaca have an export function? If so, then even if you can't export to .png directly you should be able to export as .jpg or .gif or something that you can pull into Paint and change to .png there. If you can't export, then I would take a screenshot of the flag in Firealpaca and edit the screenshot down to the proper size in Paint, then save as .png.

I have added airbrakes to mine, but yes I can re-enter from LKO without them. I try to come in nose-up at 40 degrees or so, very shallow: re-entry burn is over the desert mountains ~80 degrees west of KSC, and I only burn until periapsis on the other side of Kerbin reaches 0. Intakes are open to increase drag. I think I can get away with this because (1) I don't have a lot of wing area and (2) the front of the ship is very clean, so it's just Mk2 spaceplane parts taking the brunt of the heat. The ladder and the OX-STAT panels get pretty hot, but that's about it. ETA: And don't forget, you can use elevons a bit like airbrakes. I often tie their 'Deploy' action to the Brake group.

Ah, good to know! Will start shucking them lower, thanks.

The Hummlebee (see comic in sig) is a stock self-fueler. About 2600dV fully loaded on two aerospikes. Hopefully good enough for Duna, should also be able to handle the Joolian moons or Gilly.

Very impressive! I have been just punching up at 30-35 degrees and this has limited my tonnage per TRJ. I will have to try a profile like this...though given somewhat limited play time, I will probably not have the patience for a long, shallow climb

I do love mining Minmus. Great job with the vertical surface dock! All my Minmus craft are wheeled and dock horizontally (won't clutter your thread with my pictures, you can see them in the comic linked below if interested). That seemed the more repeatable way to do it for me, but now I'm going to have to try building a 'stack' somewhere just to see if I have the piloting skills

Have posted this before on other threads, but here is a 3xTRJ + 2xLVN SSTO that has worked very well for me. You could replace the LVNs with LV-909 and probably carry a lot more payload. I get to orbit with a fair amount left in the tank. Available in long range config (pictured), science payload, or six passenger variant. Taking this as a reference, I think it's reasonable to swap the two LV-Ns with a single aerospike or T-30, though then of course you have to carry oxidant. I would not add two; the limiting factor with a TRJ based SSTO is your thrust on jets, I think you only want enough rocket thrust to circularize after flameout and no more (0.55 to 0.70 TWR seems about right)

Yeah, I always wondered about the backstory for those contracts. I mean, what kind of two-bit space program can get a Mk3 cockpit into Minmus orbit, but can't figure out how to rescue the pilot? Here's a couple more to keep things moving: Very happy with how the 'panoramic' view of the cockpit worked out.

This is a stock refinery station orbiting Minmus. The rear ports are for the 'ore piggies' that shuttle to the minining rig on the surface. Right now a full one is docked, and and empty one just left to get more ore. Total capacity of the station is about 13,000 LF and about 10,000 OX. (in this window we're just seeing the Piggie's stats) Station has an LV-909 for maneuvering, and docking space for four visiting ships on the forward end. The design worked so well at Minmus I just put another in LKO, here it is boosting... ...and circularizing.

Well done! I hope your crews are enjoying their well-deserved libations. I'll have to come back here after I "spread some reputation around"

I learned a lot reading this, thanks for posting all the details. Playing stock with no life support and small planets is loads of fun, but it's definitely nowhere near this level of difficulty.

Oh my, yes. These days it means I did a good comic page, which makes me VERY happy.

Hear, hear. I very rarely used RAPIERS in v90, just because it seemed less elegant to me than turbojet designs. I haven't unlocked them yet in 1.0.2 and I am not missing them. Also don't forget, for craft slightly larger than on this thread an all-LF SSTO is quite do-able. (I think the minimum there is 1xLVN and 2xTRJ, but someone with Slashy's skills might find a way to do it with less

Do you mean for the Munhopper? (Had to think back to when fairings appeared in this comic!) Yeah, that SHOULD be the way to do it, but in-game I think all the mass stays with the base part. Since deploying them doesn't lower the ship's mass, I leave them on until I hit vacuum.