Szkeptik

Thanks for the reply. Can I remove this SETI and leave the actual Tech Tree mod in place or can they only be removed together?

I installed the CTT mod because I liked the idea of probes first. Now I have some nodes in my tech tree that are green by default, have no icon on them, have a name but have no parts in them and are out of place as well (clipped together with another node or have no arrows going to them). I also have some nodes that look normal but are actually empty. Some of the parts are missing form the tech tree entirely such as the large parachute and the panoramic control pod. Can anyone help me fix this? Otherwise the tech tree seems to be working fine and I have no difficulties researching the nodes (though I haven't got to any of the buggy ones yet.). I also have: ScienceAlert, Kerbal Engineer Redux, Chatterer

These would crop up for vessels that you put in orbit on previous contracts. If you take the contract some random parts of the vessel in question will be damaged and you have to take an engineer there to repair them. This will give you an incentive to revisit old satellites that you just put up and forget otherwise.

I just pretend the early satellites are TV sats or something and are owned by the corporation that contracted me to put them there.

I'm not turning anywhere. The craft is stable going straight up until the 9-10 km mark, and then it just flips around uncontrollably in a random direction. I even had a not perfectly balanced craft (radial parachute and antenna on one side) flip over towards a DIFFERENT side than the overweight.

Doesn't matter how the craft looks or how fast it's moving or if it has sas or if it has fins anywhere. Around that height it just randomly starts to pivot in a seemingly random direction and it starts doing flips. Sometimes I can stabilize it sometimes it just doesn't respond to anything. Reaction wheels don't seem to help one bit.

Since resource mining was shelved indefinately, it feels like a big waste of work to let all the resource maps the devs have already showed us go to waste. If you remember the screenshots form around 0.19, there were over a dozen resources scattered on planets. I thought, what if instead of mining these, they would become individual sources of science. We have budgets and contracts now, and I think it would be a great way to enhance the science system and at the same time allow for lots of contract opportunities if these resources would become different sources of science. So you might get a contract to find and recover a sample of Blutonium. First you would have to send scanning probes out to find deposits on planets. These wouldn't tell you exactly what it is, only that there is a deposit of something in a certain area. You'd actually have to land and analyse samples in a lab to understand what it exactly is. So you might get lucky and get blutonium on the first try, but it might be something else. We'll need an automatic lab for this, so you wouldn't need to send manned missions every time, automatic rovers could scoop up and analyse it. The contract would also state what purity of the material they want. An automatic lab couldn't tell you the purity, so you would have to send a manned mission with a more advanced lab module to figure that out. Now purity would vary inside the resource zone, so your team would have to sample many different areas and analyse the samples in the lab to determine what the purity of the material is at that spot. The purity would change along a gradient, so if you keep sampling the area, you could reliably close in on the higher purity zone -which of course wouldn't necessarily be in the center of the resource zone-. This would be a great use for rovers to speed around in a few km diameter area looking for the higher purity samples. The devs could add a sample collection module that would allow you to collect and number a bunch of samples and then take them all back to the lab in one go. Once you find a sample pure enough, you'd have to transport it back to get the contract. You'd get little to no science for this, since you were working on a contract and the findings are not yours, but you could also go out and find sources of the different materials for yourself and do science on them. The higher gradient you find, the more science you can get from analysing it. Rethinking and prioritizing science points: I think we could make the "general" science points we have now less effectual at unlocking techs, and instead redesign the science advancement system by science "types", that could be tied to the type of materials you do science on. To stay with our Blutonium example, if you wanted to unlock nuclear techs like the NERVA or nuclear generator, you'd need to collect blutonium science points for that. Maybe you could also use regular science points to unlock it, but you'd need several times as many of those than blutonium points. This way you could prioritize science and not just any mission to anywhere would yield more or less the same amount of science. On spacestations: Since spacestations are currently not very useful, I thought this idea could be extended to give stations some love: The more advanced contracts could ask you to combine two or more samples of different materials. Since not every material can be found on every planet, you would often have to ferry a resource from one planet to the other. Instead of taking a sample you found on Dres to Duna to combine it with something else you found there, you could have a lab in orbit around Duna, and only take the Dres sample there, and take the Duna sample to orbit as well to do the experiment, and then you could fly the result back to Kerbin with a lot less fuel. Alternatively: Contracts could ask for different research environments, sometimes demanding a zero gravity experiment with the material, which of course could only be done in orbit. Different Laboratory Types: There could be different level laboratories, each more expensive and heavier than the last. The more advanced lab module would require more electricity and staff as well, and give you more details about the material being studied. Contracts could ask for certain details that only a larger lab could mesure. Tweakable labs: Since tweakables were added you could designate on construction what experiments a lab can do. I'm sure the devs could come up with many funny experiment types. In small labs you could only designate one type of experiment, larger ones could have 3 types, even larger ones 5 types etc. So you could have a lab in orbit but get a contract for an experiment that your lab can't do. You would now have to build and launch a second lab module for your station that is capable of doing the desired experiment. This would give a point to docking and modular stationbuilding.

...than this is what you've been waiting for. This game is in early alpha and on Kickstarter right now. It needs all the help it can get! It combines In depth ship design and crew management with freeroaming Rougelike gameplay. Check out the Trailer: Here's the latest free demo: Link

The mission reports link is not working. The thread itself is still there though, so it's just a link problem. I'd also like to see something on Gilly, but everyone should add whatever they want.

Hi everyone! I thought I'd give a helping hand to those who would like to expand orbital operations around EVE in the future. My addition is the "IES Serenity" She's a heavy duty interplanetary transport carrier, capable off taking fuel and equipment to Eve and returning to Kerbin. Regrettably, because of long work hours and an unpleasant visit from the Cracken half way to Eve, I didn't have time to actually unload the cargo, and because of that she is currently a little over the 100 part limit, but is situated at a relatively high orbit around Eve, so she shouldn't bother anyone who doesn't want to get close. A nice pic when empty: And one while packed: And a view from the pilot seat: The main body was assembled in orbit from three sections: - Cargo Rail - Control Section - Engine Section The Cargo is: - Two orange tanks - Two RCS blocks (5 large RCS tanks/block) - Two Orbital builder Tugs - Five Kerbals Some more pics: The Cargo Rail: The Control Section: The second Tug comes in for docking moments before the escape burn for Eve: Burning off some speed on approach: Originally I meant to haul the fuel over to Violet station, but I ran out of time and already felt bad for hogging the game for another day, so this fine job will fall on someone after me. All in all, if someone has orbital building i mind, everything he/she needs should be there now. PS: If you want to fly it back to Kerbin and use it again: - Top up the fuel a little before you start. Without the heavy cargo it should use way less fuel on the trip back, but better to be sure. - On the side of the command section there are two normal size docking ports. Those are for extra fuel canisters (3x FL-T800) that can be dropped off mid flight. There is a saved craft that carries two of those up to orbit and can dock them to the ship. - When packed with cargo she is very heavy and very slow. Don't rush her. Other pics: Link

I once had a probe that was moving towards Jool, when suddenly it started moving out of the solar system with a considerable fraction of light speed. The movement vector was a perfectly straight line. It was awesome!

Though I agree that somehow the infinite retries should be avoided, subtracting money for a quickload is definitely not a good idea.

In what will surely go down in history as one of the boldest strides in science and engineering, the Prime Minister of The United Kerbal Republic has given the go-ahead for the Wotan Project. The Kerbal Space Administration will build and launch a three man expedition to Duna that will return safely after more than a year of doing science on the red planet. Though it's everyone's dream come true, the prime minister did request a hefty budget cut that required a last minute redesign of the Wotan mothership and its subsystems. Instead of a single use station design that would stay at Duna even after the crew returns, a modular system will be designed that will return to Kerbin orbit in its entirety, to be restocked and reused for later missions. The Plans are as follows: The Wotan is constructed in orbit from the mission-expansion section and the engine section. Two probes take up the primary fuel canisters and another brings the two minimalist design landers (Lander A and . The landers were designed as cheaply as possible in order to allow for their jettisoning in case the Wotan proves too heavy to return. Once the construction is finished the Wotan waits for the launch window in 200km orbit. Our three brave "volunteers" are: Jebediah Kerman, mission commander and pilot for Lander B Bob Kerman, senior research fellow and test pilot, pilot for Lander A Bill Kerman, Aeronautics expert, Piloting the Wotan The launch window finally opens and the team receives the burn vector from mission control. Fuel canisters are jettisoned as they are spent Aftera long journey, the Wotan arrives in polar orbit around Duna, using the planets atmosphere to lose speed, conducting measurements as it approaches. After the Wotan achieves stable orbit, Bob kerman goes EVA, inspects the ship and boards Lander A for the long awaited Duna descent. The lander enters the atmosphere and effortlessly glides towards its polar target. Bob seems satisfied with the situation. He must be thinking "Not Bad". The lander succesfully returns to orbit with lots of science, but runs out of fuel and monopropellant just shy of a randezvous. Damn budget cuts! Jebediah jumps into Lander B and rushes to help his friend in need. He manages to dock the two landers together and tow Bob back to the safety of the mothership. Reunited in the Wotan PCC, all the aquired precious science is uploaded to the mainframe, samples are cataloged and stored. Jebediah soon grows impatient to test his own landing skills and insists that he do an Ike landing. He hops back into Lander B, checks all systems and fills up the fuel supplies and sets course for the large moon. ...and lands with great finesse. On the way back, however, things go horribly wrong... Jeb returns into Duna orbit, but on a very unfortunate vector... and runs out of fuel. It seems the scientists at KSC made a grave miscalculation when they believed returning from Duna would be more costly on fuel than from Ike. Bob immediately jumps into lander A to return the favor to his friend, but not long after he undocks, Bill contacts him and tells him the computer did the calculations, and he does not have enough fuel to randezvous with the stranded Jeb. After a quick redock, Bob insists that they use the Wotan's main engines to do the rendezvous, but the mission directive strictly forbids the use of emergency fuel supplies if the mission itself is not in danger. Bill, as the designated Kerbal in command decides mission protocol is primary, and Jeb cannot be helped. All the while, Jeb, knowing the rules better than anyone and realizing his predicament, starts to expend his precious remaining energy to transmit the scientific results he collected on Ike's surface. The transmissions towards KSC continue for several minutes before the connection is lost and Jeb's lander goes dark forever. Bob and Bill are heartbroken, but they must press on and the launch window back to Kerbin is not open for much longer. If they stay now they might get stranded around Duna as well. Bill sits at the helm, plots the couse and engages the return protocols. The Wotan sheds all the used scientific experiments, extra monopropellant and the now useless lander to minimise the fuel needed to get home. We have a good return vector to Kerbin. Starting escape burn... now. After a long journey back home and quite a few passes into Kerbins atmosphere to burn off speed, we finally settle into a stable 200Km orbit, and soon meet the small pod with Kirbert Kerman at the helm, tasked with bringing the crew back to KSC safely. The Wotan is powered down with only a minimal lighting and computer control active, awaiting its next mission. Though the Wotan Project was considered a great success by all politicians involved in the decisionmaking, and it did return home with a massive amount of interesting data that allowed for a large leap forward in materials science, the cost of the mission was felt gravely by all in the KSC complex. If only we had more resources, we could have built better landers. We could have taken more fuel... The media didn't buy the political ploys to make the mission seem perfectly executed, and the attempt to push Jebs tragedy onto the sidelines. The mission became widely known as the Wotan incident, and it is unlikely that the great NERVA engines of the slumbering beast will awaken again anytime soon.

edit the OP and click "advanced"

There's no way to do that. Holding on to something that's moving several hundred meters per second is impossible. The drag would literally tear your arms right off. Only Schwarzenegger can do it, and only in movies. The Kerbal falls off because he's experiencing massive atmospheric resistance. Like being hit by a train.

This is what makes the early science game too fast and easy. You can just collect a bunch of science from Kerbin. I think the surface biomes should be dropped, since realistically by the time a civilization starts space travel, they should be past the time when a surface sample or temperature measurement at the surface of their own planet could yield any useful info. I think only the lower/upper atmosphere, near/high space areas should stay.

Their main reason was that during test builds, resource mining was just not fun and made the game very tedious. Quote from Harvester Resources might make it into the game eventually, but the type of resource mining the devs had in mind before seems to be off the tabble for good. Keep in mind please that I wouldn't like this thread to end up as another debating place for why resource mining was canned and if that's a good or a bad thing.

Actually I'm pretty sure that on KerbalCon the devs stated that the resource system would not be implemented, at least not in the way we've seen in screenshots a few versions back.

The current biome based system could also stay in as a means of starting up your science flow, but you could only easily unlock the first few tech nodes that way. For other tech nodes, there should be a requirement for certain types of science points that you get form a certain type of material. Pretty much yes. I actually agree with the devs that having over a dozen different materials that you have to mine just to get the parts you need would turn this game into a mining simulator. At the same time, I think the game really needs an aspect of discovery. A way you could explore planets and find useful things other than the biomes, which are usually obvious from just looking at the planet from orbit. Even though in real life every space rock is a useful source of knowledge, there are bound to be special rocks as well, that could expand science much more than just any surface sample. Ps. I think at least one mineable resource should be included, that lets you make fuel. Having to refuel everything from Kerbin is about as grindy as mining a dozen different resources for parts.

So i usually start my burn when there is T-x time left where x is the burn lenght. So my burn will end right at the node. While this works well for the easiest maneuvers, if I plot a maneuver that is not just pro or retro burn, but a more complex one with inclination and eccentricity etc., I will usually end up quite off the mark. The resulting path will be generally right, but never on the mark even though i burn the exact time in the exact direction. I tried burining from T-x/2 to T+x/2 but got mixed results. Starting the burn at the node is always bad. So am I missing something, or is it normal that you need to do secondary correctional burns after the more complex trajectory changes?

Thanks for the feedback! I added some extra ideas on spacestations to the OP.

Since resource mining was shelved indefinately, it feels like a big waste of work to let all the resource maps the devs have already showed us go to waste. If you remember the screenshots form around 0.19, there were over a dozen resources scattered on planets. I thought, what if instead of mining these, they would become individual sources of science. We will have budgets and contracts coming up in future builds, and I think it would be a great way to enhance the science system and at the same time allow for lots of contract opportunities if these resources would become different sources of science. So you might get a contract to find and recover a sample of Blutonium. First you would have to send scanning probes out to find deposits on planets. These wouldn't tell you exactly what it is, only that there is a deposit of something in a certain area. You'd actually have to land and analyse samples in a lab to understand what it exactly is. So you might get lucky and get blutonium on the first try, but it might be something else. We'll need an automatic lab for this, so you wouldn't need to send manned missions every time, automatic rovers could scoop up and analyse it. Then if you confirm that it's really what you were contracted to recover, the contract would also state what purity of the material they want. An automatic lab couldn't tell you the purity, so you would have to send a manned mission with a more advanced lab to figure that out. Now purity would vary inside the resource zone, so your team would have to sample many different areas and analyse the samples in the lab to determine what the purity of the material is at that spot. The purity would change along a gradient, so if you keep sampling the area, you could reliably close in on the higher purity zone -which of course wouldn't necessarily be in the center of the resource zone-. Once you find a sample pure enough, you'd have to transport it back to get the contract. You'd get little to no science for this, since you were working on a contract and the findings are not yours, but you could also go out and find sources of the different materials for yourself and do science on them. The higher gradient you find, the more science you can get from analysing it. Rethinking and prioritizing science points: I think we could make the "general" science points we have now less effectual at unlocking techs, and instead redesign the science advancement system by science "types", that could be tied to the type of materials you do science on. To stay with our Blutonium example, if you wanted to unlock nuclear techs like the NERVA or nuclear generator, you'd need to collect blutonium science points for that. Maybe you could also use regular science points to unlock it, but you'd need several times as many of those than blutonium points. This way you could prioritize science and not just any mission to anywhere would yield more or less the same amount of science. On spacestations: Since spacestations are currently not very useful, I thought this idea could be extended to give stations some love: The more advanced contracts could ask you to combine two or more samples of different materials. Since not every material can be found on every planet, you would often have to ferry a resource from one planet to the other. Instead of landing a sample you found on Dres on Duna to combine it with something else you found there, you could have a lab in orbit around Duna, and only take the Dres sample there, and take the Duna sample to orbit as well to do the experiment, and then you could fly the result back to Kerbin with a lot less fuel. Alternatively: Contracts could ask for different research environments, sometimes demanding a zero gravity experiment with the material, which of course could only be done in orbit. Different Laboratory Types: There could be different level laboratories, each more expensive and heavier than the last. The more advanced lab module would require more electricity and staff as well, and give you more details about the material being studied. Contracts could ask for certain details that only a larger lab could mesure. Tweakable labs: Since tweakables were added you could designate on construction what experiments a lab can do. I'm sure the devs could come up with many funny experiment types. In small labs you could only designate one type of experiment, larger ones could have 3 types, even larger ones 5 types etc. So you could have a lab in orbit but get a contract for an experiment that your lab can't do. You would now have to build and launch a second lab module for your station that is capable of doing the desired experiment. This would give a point to docking and modular stationbuilding.

Though the system is shaping up, there are some parts of it that I think should be done differently. 1, One way probes are currently useless. You will currently lose large amounts of science points if you transmit anything but a crew report. Since you don't have a Kerbal on board to do a report, you really can't do anything that a return mission couldn't do better. I think there should be at least a few types of measurements that return 100% science with transmitting. Right now sending an early one way probe to Jool is nothing but a giant waste of possible science. 2, An alternative to this would be to have the game differentiate between mission types. So an unmanned probe can transmit data back, but that wouldn't decrease the amount of science you could get from making the same measurement with a return mission later. 3, A way to make science missions viable for longer periods of time. Now you build and launch a mission into space, collect all the science you can in half a minute, and then your probe is just uselessly hovering there. Probes should be capable of continually transmitting data for longer periods of time as they orbit around a body. 4, Continuous science gathering. Have large lab modules that use supplies and energy to create science. You would have to resupply them every now and then. 5, Surface bases are still not very useful, because you collect the science from around them once and then you have to travel far to find other data rich environments. It's much better to just make the lab module mobile and take it where needed. Science gathering on the surface with an immobile base should be made sustainable (maybe with #4). 6, Anomalies. They should be randomly generated at game start and you could find them on planetary surfaces, in orbit around planets or around the sun. Gathering science right next to them would be lots more efficient than elsewhere. Maybe add some scanning probe parts that you can use to find them. I'll include a poll to see what people think about the science system by and large. If you would change things, do share!

I think if it's just about finding the planets that everybody who plays the game already knows are there, it's boring and not worth it. After the budget gets implemented you won't be able to build your first craft to be a Jool return mothership anyway, so the Observatory would just be a semi-useless gameplay delayer mechanic. MAybe if other star systems get implemented with procedural planets in them then I could see an observatory as a usefull and fun thing to have.

We would constantly reach to the stars, but our wallet often can't handle it. We want to get our nine scientists to a distant planet, but our financial means are not quite up to the task. Therefore we announce a challenge for all Space Program managers out there to design a craft for us that can land our nine brave volunteers on the planet called Duna, and return them home safely with the least possible expense. We have some further conditions: Stock parts only. No autopilot mods. All flight (and landing) must be manual. It doesn't matter how the nine passangers are housed, but it must be nine kerbals put in orbit around Duna and at least six must land. Lander must contain the following parts (Not calculated into cost): 1 Goo container, 1 Science Jr., 1 any antenna, 1 thermometer, 1 gravimeter, 1 barometer, 500 electricity capacity. All above equipment must safely return to Kerbin. You can have more than one lander, but one must have all mandatory equipment and at least three Kerbals on board, any others must have at least one kerbal on board. Point calculation: sqrt(1/x)*10^6 (x is cost after mandatory equipment price and fixed price bonuses were subtracted) Point percentages received for bonuses are all calculated seperately and added to the base amount. BONUSES: Save every penny - Any parts that didn't land on Duna and safely land/splash down within 10km of KSC are calculated with half cost. Heavy duty science - Every extra 0.5 mass of any science equipment (cost not added to x) landed at Duna and returned to Kerbin adds +2% points Make most of the situation - After taking off from Duna, land on Ike before returning. +5% points. (Stacks for multiple landers if they all have at least 0.25 scientific equipment mass on board) The white hat - Land at Duna's north or south pole. +4% points for a lander with 3+ kerbals and sci equipment, +2% points for a small (>=1 kerbal) lander Post the cost of your entire vessel, plus any pictures that prove any of the bonus missions you completed.