JeanHavoc

When I first saw this image I thought it looked a bit off. Then I realized why; Skylab never looked that way in its operational configuration and seeing it as it was intended to be threw me off a little. In retrospect, I wonder if the Russians ever had to repair any of their old Salyut stations due to launch complications? Might be interesting to find out!

So I've been doing a ton of crew rescues and tourist hauling lately. The work has made me quite a bit better at orbital rendezvous than I've ever been in the past. It does get a bit grindy though - especially since I basically use the same craft every time. Namely this thing: It can land on Mun, orbit Minmus and bring everyone back alive all in a single trip with fuel to spare. You can't see it in this image but the Crew Cabin and Capsule are connected with Clamp-o-Tron Jr.'s, mostly for role play considerations - I think of it as a conduit between the two that the Kerbals can pass through. In any case, it works. My only complaint is the Kerbin system is now becoming clogged with derelict capsules of every sort. I'm not sure what to do about this, to tell you the truth. Plus I'm still trying to figure out how all these unfortunate Kerbonauts ended up stranded in the first place.

The color of the surface of Minmus has always reminded me of the green patina that is associated with well weathered copper. I'm not sure how you could get an entire planet covered in such a metallic overlayer, but it's more plausible than iced cream and or frosty treats I should think. Perhaps the "lakes" represent molten copper that solidified over time. I mean, why not?

I feel I should clarify here that I've tried suborbital reentry going East, North and Retrograde - the result (without drogue parachutes) is always the same - explosive death. At least, that is, when I don't have a rocket powerful enough to give me a very long arc, like say half way across the planet's surface.

There are certain science benefits to heading north, including landing at the pole. Since, in this case I wasn't planning to go to orbit anyway I felt there wasn't a need to go the usual eastern route. It's just an expedient way to keep things moving forward in the early going.

I never really suggested "more power" was the solution. I tried trajectories that peaked at 40 Km and covered more than a fourth of the circumference of Kerbin and still blew up on impact without the extra parachutes. That must have been something like 900 Km or more and the result was the same as if I had gone up to 70 Km and only covered say half that distance. I consider the matter solved as the drogues work perfectly well; it just wasn't an intuitive solution for me. Orbital rendezvous and rescue, easy - this, very hard. Strange how that works out sometimes.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I can tell you the trajectory was not covering (as mentioned above) half the planet. I think my definition of "very steep" and what others have presented here may be rather different. But in any case, the point I was getting at - more broadly - was in the difficulty of replicating a truly intermediate mission profile between atmospheric and orbital flight. When I return from orbit I aim for about a 25 Km periapsis which has never given me any complications For very simplistic designs that barely hit 40 Km of altitude I'm not going fast enough to encounter these problems. I feel like KSP is rather nudging me to go from atmospheric directly to orbital flight without any in-between, which is certainly doable at early tech levels. I think perhaps the rocket I was using was simultaneously too powerful and not powerful enough, including as it did an LV-T45 engine and around ~ 2,500 m/s of D/v (per KER). It could get me to 70 Km, and give me some horizontal velocity but not nearly enough as it turned out. I felt like it was a perfectly fine incremental design, I think the game might disagree.

I'm early in Career mode. I'm wanting to do a simple suborbital flight wherein I reach the atmosphere and come right back down. The ascent and reentry go fine; heat shield works properly, rocket exhibits no peculiar instability. The problem is on the way down; namely I'm going too fast and by the time it's safe to deploy my Mk16 parachute, I'm too close to the ground and I end up making my own crater in the surface. Now, I follow a launch profile that's similar to what I'd do going to orbit - and my path is a wide arc covering a fair bit of distance between KSC and, in this case, the northern areas of the continent. I've attempted to slow my rocket's speed, I've changed the apoapsis from 70 Km to 50 Km to 40 Km all with the same end result; and again I apply plenty of horizontal thrust, but obviously not enough. The common factor is that I exceed 1,000 m/s of velocity on the way up, which puts me "over budget" if you will coming down. All I can think to do is to build a rocket capable of reaching orbit and then simply fail to do so, in order to fudge what should otherwise be an intermediate step between atmospheric flight and orbiting the planet. My vessel is just a Mk1 Pod, a Mk16 parachute and a 1.25 meter heat shield. That's all. Update: Well the solution, obviously, is to use drogue parachutes. I tried everything else and no re-entry profile works without them. That's fine, lesson learned. I'm still curious though if this is really working as designed, particularly when considering the constraints of early career mode.

So, I've played KSP a bit since 1.1 was released. I haven't got any of the (newer) updates but I do have a question. It would appear that nowadays the most difficult mission profile possible is a simple suborbital launch from KSC itself. I'm find it easier to get to Eeloo than to go up to 70 Km and come back down without exploding on impact. I'm -not- going straight up and coming down again either; in fact I'm finding even an apoapsis of 50 Km to be too much. Although it seems to be more dependent upon the velocity I reach - anything over 1,000 m/s prior to decent is a guaranteed death sentence. This occurs even if I'm just coming down with a one-kerbal capsule, heat shield and parachute. This isn't a huge problem but I like to progress in a natural way to orbit and I'm finding myself stumped by this problem. Any advice, and is this how things are supposed to be? Somehow I have a hard time imaging Freedom 7 being way more difficult than Apollo 8, but maybe I'm wrong there.

I would say the most important part of it for me is, I just can't be bothered to relearn everything at this point. There's no incentive - moreover, to me the earlier product wasn't broken and didn't need fixing. It did exactly what I wanted it to do and gave me a level of challenge that was fine - I wouldn't have been opposed to implementing heat damage and/or making incremental adjustments to that model but Squad has gone in another direction. Now after three years I have to ask myself why I want to sit down and start over - to do the same missions to the same places all over again? I mean I liked the game, but it's not like my life revolves around it. I don't have any angst or hate against KSP, as I said. I feel I got my money's worth and then some. As for me, I can't get to orbit; nor can I find any tutorials on how to get to orbit with just the basic parts available in the first 3 tech tree nodes. I have plenty of money but no science; purchasing the EVA upgrade is doable, but at this point redundant. I've watched Scott Manley's tutorial on flight, and I get his points - but he used parts I don't have and can't get without an enormous level of grinding in the form of tiny science returns (which I simply don't want to do). Once you get above the atmosphere from what I know you must get some kind of heat shield in order to, you know, live, so the fourth choice tech-wise is already made for you. I've lost kerbals within my first couple of flights due to the rockets coming down spinning due to wind and losing their parachutes; and this is before I could get decouplers. I've had capsules slam into the ground because I deployed the 'chutes too late - despite following the tooltip info which claimed deploying earlier was risky or suicidal. I use fins on my rockets, they seem to do little good, the rocket usually falls over of its own accord and spins out of control. I never built super asymmetrical monstrosities even before the aero changes, so its not like I'm trying to fly cubes into the Stratosphere. This is just frustrating; however wrong or fanciful the previous model was I at least understood what was going on; and this to say nothing of the changes Squad has been making post 1.0. Why should I keep doing this? Until I have a reason I see no purpose in -not- stepping away.

I'm pretty much done with KSP I think. And this isn't really a bad thing. I spent seven U.S. Dollars to enjoy a game for three plus years. I got my money's worth ultimately. The thing is I don't want more realism, or more challenge in the game; for me it was fine just as it was prior to version 1. All the extra layers of complexity combined with no new places to go just add up to frustration on my part. I know most of you (apparently, anyway?) like the additional real world details, but for me it's just stuff that I don't want to have to deal with. The game isn't fun anymore and I have other things to do in life rather than try to figure out how to play all over again. To hear some of the comments around here it's like a significant segment of the player base wants to require a degree in Physics and an internship at CalTech to be able to make sense of the game's mechanics. For those of you who want to be required to recreate MESSENGER style missions in KSP, involving multiple gravity assists, years of transit time with zero room for error, excelsior to you. That's awesome, but its not for me. Perhaps in the future when and or if KSP gets more planets, and or more stuff to do with the new features I might be convinced to take another look. For now I'm content to move on (more or less). I have no bitterness or angst, like I said, I got what I paid for and then some.

I have never flown by or landed on Bop. Not sure why, I keep thinking about how I'd put together a mission expressly to land there but I've not really gotten the plan off the ground yet. Not that I don't want to go; I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

Well that explains that. I somehow set a thrust limiter that was holding up my rocket without realizing it. At any rate - at least to contribute here it all seems pretty interesting so far. Flying without maneuver nodes or patched conics is a pain though, I think in the future I might upgrade that capability first, despite the cost, it just seems really worth it to me. Also, I don't get much use out of my non-Pilot Kerbals early in the game - but I imagine the scientist will be pretty good to have along once I get two and three seat capsules/landers. The Engineer I'm not as sure about yet, repacking chutes could be a useful benefit down the line though. Anyway, I'm having a good time.

I also do not have the Steam version of KSP. Mostly because when I bought my copy there -was- no Steam version, and I've just elected not to change over. Primarily this is because I see no actual benefit to making the move. As it is you can put KSP into your Steam menu and launch it from there, and get the Steam overlay and take screenshots in Steam all without giving up your Store copy. Unless/until they can show me an actual benefit to doing something differently, I'm going to keep things as they are.

At this point, the only object in the Kerbol system that i have never encountered at all is Bop. I actually had to research that a bit since I thought I might have had a flyby or some such in the past, but evidently not. I suppose I'll need to remedy that situation in the future, perhaps with a lander of some sort.

I've had a couple of interesting contract's pop up during this latest career play through. One of the most recent was really one of the most pointless. I was asked to test a PB-ION Electric Propulsion System landed on Minmus. The request, in of itself, isn't unreasonable - but as I did not have access to Ion Propulsion tech, it meant I was taking the drive to Minmus with no fuel to speak of. Naturally, when I ran the test, nothing happened. The fun part is I got paid 94,500 in funds and collected 135 science and 225 reputation for this waste of time. Pretty sweet stuff. I also had a mission wherein I was supposed to test the S3 KS-25x4 Engine Cluster in Kerbin orbit. Again, not unreasonable but as I had no access to the large Kerbodyne parts I was forced to design a means to get the part into orbit using only what I had on hand. It worked, and I was paid nearly 1 million in Funds for my trouble but I never could quite get past the ridiculousness of the whole affair - case in point: They've also asked me to test a Kerbodyne KR-2L Advanced Engine on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, and to test an LFB KR-1x2 splashed down at Kerbin. I've had fun, but sometimes I do wonder about the sanity of the contract writers in KSP.

I actually had a minor bit of difficulty understanding just what some of the missions were asking for. Particularly those that want you to test certain components under certain conditions. I was surprised to find out that merely having an engine in use within the test parameter window was NOT enough, rather the engine has to be activated during that window. Of course, it's a minor mistake in the scheme of things but it did force me to read the mission briefings more closely.

Upon Further review - I find that the links I click on the KSP website, after logging out and back in open quickly, but they do nothing. No download starts. How interesting, is it messed up? Does the store not work with Firefox? I'll have to check.

I've been trying to download the Win-64 version myself - with a resultant "invalid version" error for my trouble. I figured there might be some sever stress and longer-than-normal download times but I didn't expect to be completely blocked. I should note I too get the Line 132 Parse Error when trying to download the normal 0.24 version off the KSP Store. As for Steam, I just seen no benefit to transferring my purchase to date. I suppose if I'm completely unable to get 0.24 for days on end while Steam users are having no issue, I might change my tune just for efficiency's sake. Note: after waiting a bit, I tried to download the 64-bit version once again. Now it tells me I'm "Not Authorized." How droll.

So what exactly is the point of filling out the entire tech tree in three missions? If the lot of you are in such a hurry to get to sandbox mode, why not, you know, play sandbox mode? Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed that people have figured all this out and can exploit the system to such an extent, but why bother? I've never put a rocket on the pad and spammed every possible permutation of science to collect the maximum number of points, why should I? Nor do I set up Mun Missions to touch every biome and score every point possible in one go - again, what's the incentive? I like working up the tech tree, I like having to fly missions without access to every part I like to use. I mean it's made me more competent in designing rockets by doing more with less, so why are so many people subverting this and then patting themselves on the back for it. I genuinely don't see the benefit here.

I've been noticing something of an issue with science point-returns myself, particularly when it comes to manned planetary flybys. Yesterday I had a very lengthy mission (900 days+) where I took a three man capsule on a tour of Kerbal's inner solar system. In total, I had five flyby events, one at Mun, two at Eve, one at Moho and one at Duna. Now I expected to get zero from the Mun encounter, and I had already flown by Eve once before so I expected a diminished return there as well. However, when the capsule made its way back to Kerbin I was surprised to find that I had received credit for one -and only one- flyby, that of Moho. It was so bad that none of the other encounters were even listed. Now in retrospect I remember a similar mission in which I flew by Minmus and Mun and only got points for one pass but this is a real problem now that I see it on a larger scale. There's just no getting around the fact that it would be inconvenient in the extreme to have to limit your manned encounters to one object in one context since the rest won't be counted. I have no idea if this is a bug or a feature (or who knows, maybe both), I just think it's something people need to be aware of. I learned my lesson that's for sure.

Thought I might add a bit more to my own recent adventures here. First, I'd like to share this picture since I think it's well one of the better ones I've managed to take during my time playing KSP. Really not much that needs to be said beyond that: Basically, for the first time in KSP, I've sent a Kerbal (in this case, Neilton Kerman) on an interplanetary mission and brought said Kerbal back home safely. Not sure why I never tried this before but it's done now. It was a simple affair really; leave Kerbin, orbit Eve, flyby Gilly and come home. I got about 860 science points for my trouble and this is the craft I used - shown here in a more illuminated fashion: Anyway it was an exciting trip, glad I got it done and also glad I didn't try to land on Gilly, it turns out I needed that 400 m/s of Delta-V once I made my Kerbin-return burn. Good day everyone!

my probe design has changed as a matter of necessity. I mean, there really was no other option, particularly given how limited my allotment of parts has remained even as I've moved up the tech tree - well I mean as far as building probes go. By far the hardest part is making the probes aesthetically pleasing. Guess it doesn't really matter that much but I like what I build to at least look like some thought went into putting it together. So far there are two probes that I've been using in the early going, designed to be light weight so the lack of heavy boosters wouldn't be a problem. The first is very simple and here's a pic of the probe in orbit around Ike (I went to Duna first): http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576751633640141795/066DD6BFE1B4332AA920D20E8CAB25B5B9977751/ That one I like quite a bit as it did far more than I ever anticipated it would. The second version of my probe is a lander and is basically an enhanced model of what I just posted above, it looks like this whilst on the Mun: http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576751633640150802/B24EE6179F9C07EBFC7A62193F26B1FC686E6863/ Never really did use the Stayputnik part much myself but 0.22 is giving me a reason to if nothing else. That lander by the way has an addition 100 L of fuel and some of the solar panels removed to accommodate the goo containers. In fact, that pic represents my first successful probe landing on the Mun as of the new release. I am enjoying the game as is, think it can use some tweaks going forward however.

Well ever since 0.22 came out I've been trying to do more with less. After discovering landing on Mun and coming back was, well, difficult without any of the larger rocket parts I was thinking of a new way to earn some decent science points. I just got my Science Bay and some fixed solar panels so I decided to build an unmanned probe, originally with the intent of doing some work in orbit around Mun. The probe was nothing fancy, it only had a 200 L tank and it was not designed for any long range exploration. However, after setting up my initial Munar trajectory I found out I'd pass within about 12 Km of the surface and then be ejected from the Kerbin system. My first stage was still attached and had plenty of fuel so I thought I might use my good fortune to get some more science points in deep space. With that in mind I didn't do any further orbital adjustments and after transmitting my observations I just let the whole thing sail off into an independent orbit. Well after all that, I transmitted some data (only getting a 20% return) and then wondered what else to do. I didn't have enough Delta-V to really go anywhere but I thought I could get closer to Kerbol and just sort of leave the probe to its own devices thereafter. So I burnt off all the fuel in my first stage and, by chance, I screwed things up and ended up increasing my apoapsis to the point where it was relatively close to Duna's orbit. Furthermore, by chance I found that by doing another burn some 160 days later I would pass very close to Duna itself, periapsis being less than 15 Km. And I could do it for less than 100 m/s of Delta-V. So I dumped the empty tanks and waited for the probe to get into position, after the burn I was well on my way to another planet with nearly all of my Probe's fuel supply intact. Of course, I lacked fuel to slow down to go into orbit so aerobraking was my only option. for just a few m/s cost I was able to lower my periapsis to about 10 Km, which was good because I was coming in with an orbital speed in excess of 1,800 m/s. To be honest I didn't think I'd get captured but evidently it was enough since I settled into an orbit with an apoapsis of about 27,500 Km away from Duna. I did one more pass through the atmosphere at about 14.5 Km which was enough to mostly circularize my equatorial orbit. I settled in at about 60 Km above Duna's surface and that's where the probe is at the moment. With enough fuel to go to Ike but I'm not sure if I'm going to do that yet. It was really quite interesting and hinged as much on just luck as anything else, which I guess made it more exciting. The only thing that irritated me was the massive loss of science per transmission; well I guess there aren't any free lunches even in KSP.

I kind of like the tech tree as it is. Or rather I should say I kind of don't like it very much, as it forces me to use parts and rocket styles that I never use in the early going, sans most of the stuff that I've come to rely on in sandbox. Last night, when I was first going through 0.22 I spent about 15 minutes trying to decide where to invest my science points, and I felt it was an actually meaningful decision. If I got everything I wanted up front, I wouldn't have to think about if I want to put RCS and Fuel Lines off for a while while I get a few more basic parts. More than that, I'm having to think about how to do more with less, something I never needed to do before. I'll grant you it's likely not realistic and that the progression might need some tweaks, but as far as gameplay goes I have no complaints. As a matter of fact, 0.22 has kind of been instrumental in showing me what can't be done with a particular suite of parts. Like trying to go to the Mun and come back with no battery power or solar cells. Yes I'm sure there's some madman here who could do it blindfolded, but I lost a lander that way and so I was forced to think how to act within my means. That's still a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Well, I guess that's just my opinion anyway and it's only based on a few hours of work. Still I'm pleased thus far and I have a reason to go to places like Bop now. Of course returning soil samples collected in person from Bop will be a challenge but then that's part of the fun.