Bekiekutmoar

Well, lets start with a KSP-related sentence: English: I reach the Moon with a giant rocket. German: Ich erreiche die Mond mit ein riesige Rakete. Dutch: Ik bereik de maan met een reusachtige raket.

The three crewmembers of the Equilibrium Lander meet a gruesome fate; the landing didn't went as planned and now they're stuck on a cold, dusty planet. You can clearly see the terrified face of Tomsey Kerman ...

This mod is great ... ! Just had some nervous moments when descending through a massive sandstorm on Duna, not knowing what kind of landscape would wait beneath (big plus for me ... !). Btw, it looked like the whole planet was covered in volumetric clouds / sandstorms.

Flying at around 6 km height:

Great new release ... ! Those volumetric clouds appears to have no influence on performance of the game, despite my computer not being the fastest; Pentium i3 3,4Ghz (Duocore), 8 GB RAM, GTX650 videocard, Windows 7 64-bit. Gotta say I got pwned last night by those volumetric clouds; was flying in the clouds and couldn't see much, when suddenly a large mountain became visible just dozens of meters ahead of me. Too late to turn away and the plane plunged into the mountain at 150 m/s or so ... !

I've had the same problem but I've discovered this workaround: tab ALT + N and go to advanced settings. Select 'restore to default' and the clouds pop back into existance.

Gotta say I really dig the newest version of Visual Enhancements; sometimes the sun is almost completely blocked by clouds, adds to the 'planetary immersion' ... !

Flying an experimental plane (just installed FAR) while the sky is grey ...

'Tested' version 6.8.1 and it looks pretty neat ... ! Less transparent cloud-cover permits more or less overcast skies at times. Only con is the mysterious hole-in-the-cloud when passing through. On a side note: is it possible Astronomer's HD-pack isn't adapted to the new config yet ... ? Doesn't seem to function even when running agressive ATM.

Well, I'm not comfortable about the situation either. After the Cold War, Russia became a weak and desintegrating country in the 90's and seemed finished pretty soon, but now it seems they're on the rise again with a steadily growing economy and military ambitions. Gotta say I can see the logic in the Russian 'annexation' of the Crimea, as the majority of the population over there is Russian and/or favours Russian rule, and the Crimea itself was appearantly a gift to Ukraine some 60 years ago. But where will the Russian ambition stop ... ? Eastern Ukraine? The whole of Ukraine? Perhaps the Baltic States, Poland and other former Soviet satelliete states ... ? As of now, the Russian influence in Europe reaches surprisingly far to the west because of Russian-controlled gas-pipes. Even Germany and Austria have those pipes within their borders.

Multi-Star systems a thousand times ... ! I'll probably ignore Multiplayer if implemented in the game.

Well, that's quick ... ! The pic on post #69 already looks a lot better. Altough the new planetary systems already are visually impressive as a whole in the current state ... !

Does the sky appear black when on the lit surface of Lynx? Would be neat to see a totally overcast sky when looking up, like on Eve ... !

Very interesting planetary addon-pack. Resembling the outer Solar System but with a nice KSP-twist, especially Lynx looks fascinating with its appearance and parameters (excellent environment for anything with wings) ... ! Edit: see if I can cram all addon-packs into my KSP-folder without memory issues : p

OK, time for the final update: two flights were scheduled to retrieve the four Kerbonauts from the Crispy Rock. Bill Kerman flew the first rocket and reached the target vessel within 45 minutes, and landed on the surface again with Dohat and Kircas one hour after launch. The newbie Desden Kerman piloted the second rocket, retrieved Jebediah and Bob, and also landed within one hour. Even the space-hungry Jebediah was pleased to see the mostly green hills and blue sky of Kerbin again after flying 355 days through the vastness of space. And the mission ended … ! Altough the Kerbonauts never set foot on Moho -as was intented- the KSC considered the mission still mostly as a success because the crewmembers had escaped a gruesome fate and were rescued, and ofcourse the probe that still functions well in a polar orbit around Duna. Dohat and Kircas highlighted by Bill: Jeb and Bob highlighted by Desden: Thanks for watching … !

After being in orbit around Eve for 230 days, the Crispy Rock and its crew began burning for a Hohmann-transfer back to Kerbin on day 308 of the mission. It took two passes to reach escape velocity. It appeared the timing of the interplanetary transfer was a bit off and a massive mid-course correction of 1400-1450 m/s was needed to eventually encounter Kerbin … ! However, due to the mass of the vessel being shrunk to around a mere 13 tons at this time, this correction was relative quickly done with still enough fuel left after the burn. Day 345 … Celebration in the Hitchhiker Module, because the ship entered the SOI of Kerbin … ! Relative speed was around 1550 m/s at 80.000 km from Kerbin, and increased to roughly 3600 m/s just above the atmosphere. The crew decided to put the PE at 40 km. Despite the PE being at 40 km, some additional retroburning was needed to avoid drifting into interplanetary space again. It took a significant amount of time to establish a stable LKO (100 km) with proper aerobraking and some retroburn, but at day 355, the crew signaled the KSC that they were ready for extraction. Two flights will be required to get Jeb, Bob, Dohat and Kircas down to the surface.

Really thought-out mission with interesting designs ... !

Thanks for the Rep ... ! When returning to Kerbin, I really shouldn't get somewhat careless as the vessel doens't have any parachutes and falling to death on the home planet would be a bit laughable after such a journey through the inner Solar System ...

Day 198: the unmanned tug 'Ramelia' has managed to reach the Crispy Rock. The crewmembers were delighted ... ! The unmanned vessel had to use a considerable amount of fuel to make some major course-corrections, but a bit over 50% of fuel is left. The new combination has a total mass of around 18 tons, so reaching Kerbin probably won't form a problem. However, the next suitable launch-window is months and months away ... !

Le mod es les formidables ... ! Those celestial bodies look well-designed, will download it soon ... !

Well, its a successful failure so far … Small update this time: at day 138 of the original mission, the Ramelia Combination began a Hohmann-burn towards Eve. The total mass of the vessel wasn't that huge so escape velocity was relative quickly achieved. After some orbital corrections, the probe on the front of the vessel was released. While the main purpose of the Ramelia Combination is to rescue the 'dead' Crispy Rock in Evian orbit, the probe was designed to take a look at the Evian surface. Its day 193 of the original mission, and 55 days after launch, the probe reaches the purple planet several hours ahead of the unmanned tug. The landscape beneath the thick clouds would soon be revealed. The probe makes a fiery entry in the atmosphere, and descends slowly into the purple soup afterwarts. However, the unforgiving gravity prooves too much for the unfortunate machine. But … the most important part of the rescue-vessel manages to get into a very eccentric orbit around Eve. Massive orbital corrections will be required with probably a lot of aerobraking and burning several hundreds of Delta-V to match the orbit of the Crispy Rock, but fuel-shortage probably won't be an issue as the economical nuclear engine has no problem moving the not-too-massive module around.

Back on Kerbin, the KSC has launched the 'Ramelia Combination', containing a simple unmanned tug and a cheap probe that'll eventually be dropped on the Evian surface. The combination is currently in LKO and awaiting a transfer-window to Eve. Main task of this vessel is to retrieve the stranded ship with Jeb, Bob, Dohat and Kircas around Eve. In all the chaos, the KSC has almost forgotten about a part of the Crispy Rock-mission that actually functions very well; the probe that was released from the manned vessel on day 22 of the mission … ! After the Moho-flyby, it entered Solar orbit with PE at around 3,5 million km and AP at 13 million km. After the violent but succesful orbital insertion around Eve of the Crispy Rock spacecraft and the 4 crewmembers, the KSC focused on the lonely probe and decided to direct it to Duna. On day 92, the probe reached the PE again and then activated its Ion Engine to alter the trajectory towards Duna, requiring roughly 1 km/s of Delta-V. Due to the low mass of the probe (0.4 tons), the 'burn' was completed in 14 minutes. Day 125: the probe entered the SOI of Duna with a relative speed of circa 3,5 km/s. The KSC decided to put the PE at 8 km and the probe made a spectacular entry in the atmosphere above the northern polar region. Just like the 'last-ditch-effort' aerobrake of the Crispy Rock in the Evian atmosphere, this crazy aerobrake in the Dunian atmosphere turned out to be a good guess and resulted in an orbit with AP at 254 km and EP at 4 km. Circulization occured shortly after this … !

In the meanwhile, the four crewmen have managed to improve their chances of ever returning to Kerbin, but only with extreme and desperate effort. A summary: Jebediah, Bob, Dohat and Kircas agreed they had to reach Eve and aerobrake in the atmosphere to establish orbit around the planet, making a rescue mission in the (near) future easier. It became clear they had to burn on day 35 of the mission (at PE around the Sun) to reach Eve with the least Delta-V; around 2200 m/s. The lander was transformed into some form of propulsion module. Day 35: the transfer burn occured with all regular fuel and RCS depleted after mere minutes and all Xenongas after one hour. Around 50 m/s was 'left' of the transfer burn when all propellants were used and the ship essentially became dead weight … All was lost … Or not … ? Not all was lost … ! The crew refused to give up and decided to get out and push the ship onto the right trajectory with their EVA-packs. Day 78: the ship entered Evian SOI with a relative speed of over 7 km/s and the crew decided to put the PE at 54 km. Getting too low into the atmosphere would mean certain death, aerobraking too high would mean shooting off again into interplanetary space. It was all or nothing … ! The tense crew during the dangerous aerobraking … But this aerobrake turned out to be just right; it resulted in an orbit with AP at around 1100 km and PE around 50 km. The Kerbonauts got out and pushed their spacecraft again at Apoapsis to raise the PE to at least 100 km. Now the ship is relative safe around Eve and the waiting for a rescue mission has begun … !

Well, this mission went down the drain quickly. The Crispy Rock had lots of fuel left when orbital corrections for an encounter of Moho were completed, but it wasn't enough to burn away the velocity of 7,4 km/s relative to Moho. At day 22, the front probe was released and made a Moho flyby at just 15 km from the surface. The Crispy Rock entered the SOI of Moho on day 25 with an initial relative velocity of 7,4 km/s and immediately began retroburn. Within 20-25 minutes, the ship passed at just around 9 km above the barren landscape and with velocity dropped to 5,3 km/s. At 2,2 km/s, 'normal' fuel was depleted and the Ion Engines were activated, but it quickly became clear orbital insertion around Moho would never be achieved and shooting off into interplanetary space was unavoidable. The unfortunate crew now faces years and years of circling around Kerbol with little chance of them beiing rescued, although there may be a way to improve their awful situation; although the Crispy Rock now lacks the Delta-V to reach Kerbin, Eve might still be a possibility. Proper aerobraking in the Evian atmosphere might result in an orbit around the purple planet, making a rescue mission in the near future a whole lot easier. But can Eve be reached anyway with the remains of the ship ... ? Desperate retroburn ... Ejecting the last empty fuel-tank

-Art pass for the celestial objects that haven't received it yet (Ike, Pol, Vall and Laythe are still 0.17-ish) -smaller Jet-engines (the current ones can be a bit overkill for small designs ... !)