geb

The worst option would be if deadline and expiration are both the same thing, which would mean you could accept a contract a few seconds before expiration, and have seconds left in which to complete it.

If it's taking you four in-game years to reach the Mun, that's a LOT of repeated failure. I get the impression that these aren't meant to be a challenge at all. It sounds like a first pass at contracts, and it's just putting systems in place for tweaking later.

I'm quite curious about how this is going to work. For missions to LKO or Kerbin's moons, deadlines can cover a few days, and you'll probably have time to complete your plans (barring any screwups or navigational failure). For interplanetary missions, it'll be a more interesting problem. Are we going to have to carefully watch for departure windows and the planets aligning before we accept some of the more advanced contracts? It would be nice if the contract system took this into account and offered contracts preferentially when a departure window was about to open. It would be a gentle prod in the right direction for anybody learning this stuff, without forcing anything on the veteran players.

According to this video: you can't recover anything for funds unless it has a command pod or a probe core. Stages discarded as debris, or broken sections of ship, don't get any money back at all even if recovered.There's no workaround to allow stuff dropped in midair to be preserved.

Have fun trying to get permission to redistribute from everybody in the thread.

Putting the stranded kerbals in broken spaceships would make more sense in terms of the background, but having them free floating would make gameplay easier. Shame that we won't be able to recover other people's spaceships for the scrap value though.

Yes. Same format, same width of font. Anything else is annoying.

Entirely agreed with this. The two numbers don't have to look the same, but they should have the same width for each character so they line up.

I wonder whether rescued kerbals become available on your own crew roster from then on. Recruitment by rescue?

"But where is the heat shield?"

Once budget is in, it would be nice to see extra ways of making money added. Money generating parts would be good, such as commercial comms antenna, tourist pods, commercial cargo/experiment boxes, and so on. Basically something that will allow us to design our own profitable missions as an alternative to running contracts.

There are a lot of us, myself included, who would love stock fairings just for the aesthetic aspect. I don't care much if they add mass without a performance benefit. Looking like a proper rocket is worth it.

I have tried playing career by reusing a common design over and over again. It can be good fun. Paying extra for development costs would be the wrong way to do it though. Instead, perhaps some kind of mechanism for buying subassemblies in bulk at a discounted rate? Commit in advance to buying ten of a launcher design and get them much cheaper than buying one at a time.

It depends what comes in 0.24 of course, but I'd like to see more ways to make money. it sounds like the contracts system will be quite basic to begin with. There will need to be plenty of variety in the contracts so it's not just "Go to orbit" "Go to the Mun" "Go to Minmus". I hope 0.25 will expand on what is started in 0.24 and give us missions that feel meaningfully different.

The science system in BTSM has a few flaws (waiting five game years for the long term habitation study is really not fun) but I love some parts of it. The best bit is that you never have to repeat a mission. If you've taken a reading, and done it properly, then you have 100% of the science from it. There's also no foolishness like having to return your thermometer home to get bonus science. Science results that are pure data can be transmitted at 100% as pure data.

Today was for tweaking a stock shuttle design until it is (just barely) capable of reaching orbit.

I don't feel that there's any significant difference between most of the biomes, so the game is encouraging you to run a vast number of near-identical landings on Minmus and the Mun. Reducing the number to cover only visibly different regions, or regions that add a new challenge, would be very welcome. If it were for me to choose, I'd have Mun regolith, Mun crater and Mun poles (because entering into a polar orbit is different enough to be interesting). Minmus would have only two - flats and hills.

A seatbelt would likely double the mass of the seat. It shouldn't be too difficult to fly back to the seat using jetpack, unless you fall out while an engine is running and the ship escapes completely.

That sounds like a different problem. It might not be a bug at all. Components are supposed to break if you put too much force through them! My little ion engine could not give enough force to teleport an asteroid though.

Dryad One - Departure In an attempt to get a better return on investment for all the rocket hardware, the Longbeast Logistics Company is looking into options to branch out of simple goods transport. With a near monopoly on spaceflight, it's time to open up some new revenue streams with space tourism. With this in mind, it's time to send out some probes to find new and exciting holiday locations. Meet the Dryad atmospheric probe: It has long been suspected that Eve is a paradise world, covered in tropical jungles and tall pink men with tiny heads. If Dryad One can provide surface data proving the hypotheses, Eve would be a perfect holiday destination. Onwards! Banshee Tourbus Prototype - Camping on the Mun While the first Dryad probe is in flight, LLC begins experimenting with vehicles suitable for carrying tourists. Gildas and Kenrim Kerman are selected as test victims for a camping trip on the Mun in a prototype vehicle - the Banshee lander. A standard Kelpie booster forms the first two stages, with an extra Banshee Propulsion Module stage providing greater range, and the Banshee lander itself carrying the test tourists. Carrying slightly more than its design payload mass, the Kelpie booster lumbers slowly into the sky. The first stage engines strain to carry their load through the turn prograde even at full throttle. The Kelpie booster alone cannot carry Banshee into orbit, so the third stage has to perform part of the circularisation burn. It has plenty of fuel for the job. As part of the test, Gildas and Kenrim are given no direct control over the landing. The lander has to be suitable for use by untrained tourists, and so Banshee is piloted by a probe core concealed in the lower hull. The long journey in cramped conditions has not left the test victims happy, and now a complex maneuvre outside their control is leaving them very uneasy indeed. Despite their worries, Gildas and Kenrim touch down safely aboard Banshee, and begin evaluating the Mun as a holiday destination. They have been instructed to take a long camping trip, enjoying the sights, playing games, hiking, and singing songs around the campfire. Task one, enjoy the sights. Check. Gildas and Kenrim report that the LLC patent campfire simulator for use in vacuum environments is rather silly. They sing songs anyway. Two weeks later, the campers climb back aboard Banshee and activate the return autopilot. It is only at this point that they are told that Banshee has no parachutes, due to its lightweight construction and tendency to fall apart under moderate stresses. The autopilot will be landing them on rocket thrust alone. Both of them agree that there is a lot of fun to be had on the Mun, and that it was an enjoyable holiday overall, but the accomodation and travel need some serious work before paying customers go anywhere near them. Gildas submits an expenses claim for having his spine straightened again after the jolt on landing. Kenrim immediately takes time off to go on a proper holiday, claiming that he needs to go somewhere other than a two metre wide metal cylinder. The marketing team in charge of the tourism project find a few souvenirs, and hand them over to the research team. There's a lot of work to do in every department. Dryad One - Eve 190 days later, Dryad One reaches Eve. The cute little interplanetary propulsion stage has not been used. For this trip, the Unicorn upper stage provided enough delta-v for the entire trip, and no corrections were needed. Goodbye engines, goodbye solar panels. Hello heat shield. Hello atmosphere. The Dryad probe carries no batteries in its final active stage, and so it drifts slowly to the surface of Eve as a dead mass under its parachute. It sits, waiting for sunlight. As morning on Eve breaks, the results start transmitting back to LLC head office. Shortly thereafter, the sound of ten thousand "Visit sunny Eve, the paradise planet!" posters being shredded can be heard, amid much arguing, cursing, and throwing of office furniture.

Imp Three - Bringing Back Bigger Samples Leaving a rock in high orbit is messy, and the LLC tracking station staff are starting to complain that seeing it rotate the wrong way on their screens is making them dizzy. It's time to tidy up. Imp Three is an identical copy of Imp Two, except that this one doesn't have Jeb on board. This is considered a major safety upgrade. Rendezvous in retrograde high orbit is now becoming a standard procedure, much to everybody's annoyance. As before, capture with the claw is uneventful. Seeberry Kerman is ordered to pay close attention to any irregularities in the connection, both to prevent another explosion and to find out what the cause of the first one was. The second claw and docking ring are still active and accepting commands. Seeberry reports that it will be possible to free a docking node on the asteroid, and requests a new mission objective. Seeberry's request is approved. He continues the burn to drop the asteroid's orbit, but now with a new objective in mind. The broken scraps of docking ring will not be needed for this. Over a week later, the rock is in low Kerbin orbit. The maneuvres to achieve this were complicated by the Imp spacecraft relying on solar power, so any burn made on the night side of the planet is put under extreme limits. Imp Three carries enough battery capacity for a 5m/s burn while loaded with THM-614. 5m/s is not even remotely good enough for major orbital changes, so inefficient burns a quarter orbit away from periapsis have to serve instead, each burn limited in duration by the movement around the planet. Eventually the rock is low enough for another ship to take over. Seeberry takes one more sample for the labs on the ground, and then departs back to safety on the ground. Once again, a Kelpie crew taxi serves as general purpose local orbit craft, and takes on a role as tugboat. The station taxi has far greater reserves of monopropellant than the Imp, so it is used to steer THM-614 in for docking. The secondary claw is observed showing extreme wobble, and the plan is almost put to a halt. Bob onboard Kelpie one reverses the approach until this problem can be addressed. Somehow, the pivot mechanism is interfering with the hold that the claw has on the surface of the asteroid, causing it to drift loose while the pivot is free. Bob nudges the rock back into place, and the pivot is put into permanent lock. LLC structural engineers are extremely unhappy with the connection, but THM-614 appears to be stable for now. Gryphon Station has a new sample to study. Bob and the Kelpie return to their original docking port, restoring the station to full functionality.

Gryphon Station - Expansion Gryphon station has proved to be useful in the past, and could be so again. It has only a single docking port though, and limited stocks of RCS fuel. This is a problem that can be solved. The Gryphon Expansion Module mounted on a Kelpie Booster stands ready to launch. The booster carries the expansion module into LKO easily, and from that point on all maneuvres are done on RCS thrust. The module is huge and the thrusters are tiny, so this takes a lot of patience. The module doesn't have much battery capacity, so it can only operate on the daylight side of Kerbin. Docking involves a long series of small maneuvres. The expansion module attaches correctly, several days later. To serve a role as orbital transport hub, Gryphon will need a larger habitation section. Another Kelpie launch takes up a particularly troublesome payload. The Habitation Module carries no solar panels, and has limited battery life, so it must make rendezvous with the station as rapidly as possible. Half an orbit later, the station carries a second expansion module. After its previous crew departed on a rescue mission, Gryphon has been sitting empty. It will need an active crew if it is to do anything of use. The three most experienced crew are selected, mostly so that their orange spacesuits can be removed from the equipment room where they make everything look untidy. Gryphon Station is now fully equipped and operational. Imp One - Return, Recovery 400 days after departure from Duna, right on schedule, Imp One makes reentry at Kerbin carrying Seeberry Kerman and a collection of science data. The pod touches down in the western oceans, and is recovered without incident. The entire pod is hauled back to the LLC engineering and science complex for analysis, along with all its data records and samples. LLC engineers, inspired by pictures of Ike looking so grey and round, have invented the wheel!

Imp One Continued Mission - Duna 180 days after the asteroid debacle, Imp One is close enough to Duna for some early observations. Back on Kerbin, LLC engineers have spent the months prodding the asteroid sample in an attempt to figure out how it could teleport. So far, all they have achieved is to get a lot of scuffmarks and finger smears all over the sample. It appears to be just a lump of rock. They're starting to think that they need a new approach. Imp One is on course for a close flyby of Duna. There won't be any long term studies in orbit, just a few hours of experiments and a small correction burn. Material exposure tests and imaging gravitometer measurements are the highest priority. A short burst of ion thrust takes Imp One onto a collision course so that the disposable experiment pods can be decoupled without leaving space debris. The mystery goo containers will impact Duna, thus leaving space perfectly pristine, and Duna contaminated with unknown sticky glop. Seeberry Kerman checks, double checks, and triple checks that all experimental data is stowed before decoupling the science pods. Another short burn takes Imp One onto an escape trajectory via close flyby of Ike. The disposable experiments have already been disposed of, but there are plenty of instruments left for observation of Duna's moon. A close view of Ike is a strong secondary objective. As the pod departs the Duna system, Seeberry takes one last EVA to collect data from the gravitometer, and to inspect the craft. There's no good transfer opportunity for return to Kerbin for another hundred days, and then the transfer orbit will take another 300. Seeberry will have a very long wait before setting foot on solid ground again.

Imp Two Rescue - Emergency Action By good fortune, there is already a spaceship in orbit capable of rescuing Jebediah from the wreckage of Imp Two. The Kelpie crew taxi at Gryphon station has enough range to get there. The taxi is refuelled using the station tanks. The two crew aboard the station are instructed to both transfer to the taxi. Although there is a minor risk in going out on the rescue, LLC procedure does not allow crew to stay on the station without an escape pod. Bob and Herman are optimistic. This is their chance to be heroes! The departure burn goes smoothly, though again the rendezvous is a little inaccurate and requires correction. It is a good thing that the Imp Two pod life support is still intact. It's a long way out. Imp Two was working with an asteroid in a retrograde orbit around Kerbin, so the burn to match velocity costs Kelpie One a lot of fuel. There's not much left in the tank by the time it gets close. Among the parts that were torn off in the explosion was the Imp Two docking ring. Jeb will have to EVA between unconnected craft. Jeb is strictly instructed to recover the asteroid sample before abandoning the pod. That sample is all that remains of the Imp Two mission objectives. The deorbit burn is too much for the liquid fuel to cover, so Kelpie One has to finish the burn on RCS. Even though they can see the monopropellant tank pressure, and know they've got plenty left, Bob and Herman are not at all happy about this. Jeb is Jeb, of course. After a long cruise down the gravity well, and after pulling a few Gs, Bob and Herman are greatly reassured to see ground moving at reasonable speeds below them. Jeb has had several hours to calm down, and with no rocket fuel to play with, he's starting to get bored. He'll be much happier on the ground, where there are fresh rockets being built. The Imp Two mission is declared a partial success. With THM-614 in a stable orbit, there is plenty of time to decide what to do with it. In the meantime though, Imp One will be approaching Duna, and has a lot of science to do there.

It didn't seem like a classic Kraken bug. It was more like the rock had its orbital parameters scrambled while it was being unpacked from timewarp. I have no idea what caused it.