Vanamonde

Sorry if the way I handled it confused or aggravated you. Feel free to give the craft its own thread in the ship exchange, and welcome to the forum.

Craft: http://www./view/v2geqh851xz66nf/M114c_Science_Lander.craft

You are welcome to share the ship in the Exchange, but since your question was about the ship, it seemed wise to keep the ship and the question together. No criticism intended. I think it's a pretty ship. And there's nothing to be read into the delay in my response. I was simply at work for most of today, and only now saw your posts.

Mod question? Why not submit it to the luxurious Add-on Affairs sub-forum? Now with lemon scent! (Moved.)

Guys, stop with the panic and recriminations. Reaching the end of alpha merely means that all the major aspects of the game are in place in preliminary form. It does NOT mean that nothing new is ever going to be added again, or that work on adjusting the existing features is over. In fact, it means of shift of emphasis to adjusting and balancing aspects of the game. (Just emphasis: doesn't mean no new features.) Don't like the current science system? It's been adjusted in each of the new versions since it came out, and there's no reason to suppose that it's in its final form now. There's no reason to assume that any aspect of the game is in its final form, for that matter. The reports of KSP's death have been greatly exaggerated.

This suggestion for the game's development has been moved to Suggestions and Development.

My feeling is that a mature space program would not discard most of each ship during each flight, but would rather make reusable craft which can deliver payloads and then return to Kerbin to be refueled, loaded up again, and sent out once more. I have built a few generations of such ships now, and several hundred of you downloaded my previous versions, so I decided it was time to update the designs. Primarily due to ARM parts, the part counts have been significantly reduced, and the large one now launches as a single piece and does not require orbital assembly. Obviously, these are high-end ships which require a lot of money to build, and require that one has cleared most of the tech tree. But they pay for themselves with science contracts once launched, and then can just keep going, and the tech tree is really just the start of a career-mode campaign anyway. *************************************************************** First, here is the M117 Locomotive II class. The ship has 6 docking rings for attaching cargoes: four standard rings forward, and seniors at bow and stern. The ship can be operated without a crew, but carries a cupola for a pilot, and a hitchhiker module for up to 4 additional personnel. The Locomotive II has carried cargoes of up to 95 tons on multiple round-trip missions to Duna/Ike, Eve/Gilly, and Dres. Example: here it is, carrying two station cores, a science module, and a lander to Duna/Ike. Report of this mission. At launch, the Locomotive II costs 551,922 funds, but keep in mind that the ship can be re-used, and only needs to be bought once. I am not going to lie; these ships are not easy to get to orbit, as they are massive and not made to operate in atmosphere and rapid maneuvers. But again, each one only needs to be launched once, and then just keeps going through as many missions as you wish to give them. (With refueling, of course.) The Locomotive II should be run at full throttle throughout the ascent, and will eject 2 pairs of side boosters as it goes. The Locomotive II's flight engines are fuel-efficient LV-Ns, but these are unfortunately too weak to attain orbit by themselves. Aim for an apoapis of at least 160km, and do not transition to the final stage and LV-Ns before you have reached that altitude. The third and final booster stage will exhaust its own fuel before this is accomplished, however, so transfering fuel from the tanks of the Locomotive II to the booster during ascent will be necessary. However, once that apoapsis and most of orbital speed has been attained, pump any remaining fuel back into the Locomotive itself, and eject this final booster stage on a suborbital trajectory which will not leave it as space junk. And finally, circularize orbit on the LV-Ns. The Locomotive will need to be refueled before it is sent on missions, but is now ready to be loaded up and sent to the nearer planets. Once in space, the ship has a part count of 70, and a mass (with full fuel tanks but no cargo) of 238 tons. To assist in rendezvous and docking under dark conditions, the Locomotive II is provided with lights. Craft file: OBSOLETE *************************************************************** For the farther planets, this is the M111 Galleon class. As a scaled-up version of the smaller Locomotive II, the Galleon has a similar layout of 8 standard docking rings forward, and a senior ring at bow and stern, with a cupola for the pilot and a hitchhiker for 4 additional personnel. It also can be operated without crew. The Galleon and its previous versions have carried cargoes of up to 100 tons on missions to Moho, Eeloo, and the Jool system. Here it is loaded up with a science module, station core, lander, 2 large rovers and 2 small rovers, and 4 satellites, which payload it carried to the Jool system. Report of this mission. At launch the Galleon costs 697,615 funds, and again, is not easy to fly to orbit. But like Locomotive II, the Galleon can be used indefinitely once launched. Because of the difficulty of mounting boosters around the engine pods, the Galleon launches backwards. Once on the pad, right-click on the docking ring at the top of the launch stack and "control from here" so that the controls are oriented properly for flight. Fly at full thrust throughout the ascent as the Galleon ejects three booster stages. First, the SRBs, then a pair of booster stacks, and the other pair of boosters. Like the Locomotive, the Galleon cannot achieve orbit on its flight LV-Ns, so burn the last booster until the ship has achieved an apoapsis of 160kms or more and most of orbital speed. Before fully achieving orbit, hit action group 1 to eject the final booster engine. "Control from here" either the forward docking ring or the cupola, stage (spacebar) to activate the LV-Ns, turn the ship around, and circularize orbit with the Galleon's own LV-Ns. Once on station, the Galleon will need to be refueled, but is ready to be loaded up and sent out. Loaded with fuel but no cargo, the Galleon has a part count of 86 and a mass of 403 tons. It is also provided with self-illumination for docking operations. Craft file: OBSOLETE I hope these craft serve others well.

I've combined your threads to keep all the info in one place. Now that it is, though, what was it you were trying to do? Also, welcome to the forum.

I'm going to post the craft files for the motherships. If there's interest, I could share the files for the sub-vehicles as well.

And having stressed the fact that everybody likes an on-topic discussion, let's just talk about the subject, please.

Merginated.

Hi SkegeeDude. There are always people needing help in the Gameplay section, so your services will no doubt be welcomed there.

Hi Lichbane1401. If you can land a rover on Duna, you have the skills to do most things in the game. The rest is just practice.

These missions were too massive to wobble.

Chapter 2: Report on the Duna/Ike shakedown cruise of my smaller interplanetary ship design, the Locomotive II class. This is KSS-14 Tireless, loaded up for an expedition to the Duna system. That is 283 parts and 333 tons at departure, of which 95 tons is payload. This mission deployed station cores in orbit of both worlds. The reusable lander brought the first Kerbals to set foot on Duna, returned the science to Tireless and refueled from the mothership's tanks, and then brought the first Kerbals to set foot upon Ike. The lander once more returned to Tireless, but this time transfered science and crew to the mothership. The lander was left in Duna orbit for reuse, but an unfortunate miscalculation resulted in an additional Ike encounter which tossed it into solar orbit. Oops. Anyway, Tireless then returned to Kerbin, where it also landed a SPaRM containing the science collected during the mission. Tireless is also parked in orbit, waiting to be refueled and set forth once more.

(Craft files and launch instructions for the motherships can be found here.) This is the test flight of my most recent update to my reuseable interplanetary ship designs. In it, KSS-15 Galleon, first of the M111 Galleon class, was launched to orbit, refueled, and then loaded up with 115 tons of sub-missions bound for the Jool system. This mission required 9 launches and a price of $2.2million to prepare, and upon setting forth, comprised 566 parts and massed 518 tons. It was not the most efficient transfer, but the ship did reach the Jool system. And actually, the poor transit made it a better test of the ship's ability to get the job done, since it was able to reach Jool despite some wastage of fuel. The mission's science module, the M113 SPaRM, began collecting science readings upon entering the new territory of Jool space. Some test runs were transmitted to Kerbin, while additional runs were stored in the SPaRM for full recovery. The ship then aerobraked into an elliptical orbit crossing the paths of Laythe and Vall, from which position sub-missions could be dispatched to various locations in the Jool system. First, a rover was launched and landed on Laythe, where it beamed back science from the surface. A science satellite was next launched, and set to transmit science from Tylo orbit. An opportunity then presented itself to assume Vall orbit, which moon is my favorite world in the game, and therefore was the primary objective of this mission. On Vall I deployed another rover, a station core for future expansion, and that lander planted the flag and gathered science from the surface of Vall. The lander then returned to Galleon and the science was transfered into the SPaRM. The lander was left in orbit with the hope of being refueled and used by later missions, while its crewed transferred back to Galleon. And then Galleon broke orbit and headed higher in the system to address Jool's other two moons. A rover transmitted science from the surface of Pol, while Bop became home to both a satellite and a rover. Last but not least, a satellite was placed in the orbit of Jool itself. Galleon then awaited a return window, and burned for home. After aerobraking into orbit, the SPaRM separated and landed itself, for full recovery of most of the mission's science, along with the two science crew. An SP-42 then rotated Galleon's weary flight crew with fresh pilots, as the ship awaits refueling for its next mission. Results: The ship returned to Kerbin after deploying a mission to either orbit or land upon every body in the Jool system. Financial Results: Outfitting the mission cost $2.2million, but the contracts it completed earned $3.8 million, for a tidy profit. On top of which, the 4 satellites, station, and 4 rovers deployed along the way can continue to perform science contracts. The lander is made to be re-used and also waits future missions in Vall orbit, and of course, Galleon itself needs only to be refueled and loaded up with another payload before it, too, can be sent to other worlds. Science results: This mission transmitted 2670 science points, and another 3756 science was recovered with the SPaRM. This was my most elaborate KSP mission so far, and I hope it was of some interest to at least a few people

This request for help with a mod has been moved to Add-on Support.

Duna is relatively easy to reach, and the atmosphere assists your landing, though chutes alone will probably not be enough to being the ship down without damage. So a combo chute+thrust landing gets it done. Eve is even easier to land on because chutes are more than enough, but getting back from Eve is one of the hardest things to do in the game. So Eve is actually easier, if you don't care about coming back.

I was telling Katateochi that when I first go to the site, the craft pictures are replaced by blue, green, or brown fields, and then the pictures display if I reload the page. Is anyone else seeing that? It might just be a Chrome thing, since I've been getting errors from other sites lately as well, though this picture problem is something I've only seen on KerbalX.

Hello, and welcome to the forum. (Also, I moved your post to its own thread.)

They've only announced some prospects for the next update, guys. It's still going to be a while.

I play career as the first chapter of a campaign, then continue it in what is essentially sandbox mode. I like the challenge of achieving missions with a limited selection of parts, and then move on to having free access to all the parts to build my ambitious missions.

Translation: Thank you for sharing this interesting story, but it seems there is already a thread about it. The moderators can merge them to keep the forum tidy.

Please don't resubmit threads which failed to generate interest the first time around. That being said, Suggestions looks like the right place for this, so the thread has been moved.

Duplicate.