Shania_L

Ha! yes, I honestly didnt know which anomaly that was until I saw it ..... also now that I have completed a biome scan I can see that Sigberts landing was pretty close to another anomaly, one which I didnt even look for while I was there .. doh The choice of landing site was purely based on having a contract for surface science in the NW crater, otherwise I would have aimed to land near one of the Lunic probes and retrieve the science from them. Elory is already under disciplinary action for his behaviour before the last flight, the last thing I need is psychotic episodes!!. Hopefully I will be able to relegate pilots to Low orbit activities and get some scientists flying missions. Only the ascent from Mun is requiring manual piloting, everything else has a probe core available. Err the 'toroidal tank', yes that .... its actually 8 cylindrical procedural tanks which slightly clip each other. I had to add them as 2 sets of 4 tanks though so I could put landing legs on 4 of them symmetrically. They are radially mounted onto a cone shaped tank inside them to which the LV-909 is actually mounted, fuel lines are required for fuel to drain from the radial tanks.

Day 236, LKO Day 237, KSC Day 238, High Mun Orbit Day 239, Low Mun Orbit

Nice! What engine is that you have on the probe? it looks quite futuristic even though you are only at the beginning of the tech tree. When using RemoteTech, especially with only 1 ground station, you are going to find the flight scheduler very useful. You can set it to perform burns while the probe is out of communications range, before you unlock manoeuvre nodes it will be a case of guessing an initiation time and burn length required though!! Good Luck

The question was launch sites, both of your examples are mobile MLRS. A V2 is at least (admittedly on the short range end of the scale) a strategic missile which makes it far more suited to what the OP probably meant which was orbital launches. To be clear I was referring to the permanent V2 bases, the ones attached to the production facilities, not the later truck mounted single launch versions.

Probably one of the V2 launch sites. May not have a per year value, but plenty launched in short succession should average out over a year to an impressive number.

Kinetic energy weapons are still a very viable option, you dont need an explosive or even armour penetration vs a spaceship. As the previous poster mentioned area denial debris clouds, essentially cluster munitions of solid dense matter would be very effective vs thin skinned vessels. You really dont expect spaceships to have thick armour plating do you? You can shoot at a ball bearing with a laser all you like, it can be made reflective enough that a lot of the energy is deflected away and even if you do over heat it, then you just have smaller particles travelling at you just as fast. How about lab grown diamond spheres? Its just crushed up carbon, given enough energy they could be mass produced pretty easy. Light can be deflected or pass straight through, maybe not as much mass as a metal ball, but when it hits at many kmps it really wont matter that much.

Following on from last weeks technical specifications post, this week we are back to actual progress reports. Day 227, KSC Day 229, KSC Day 233, KSC Day 234, KSC Day 235, KSC

So I heard the other day that the London Science museum has put on one of its temporary displays until March next year featuring the early Soviet space program as its theme. I really hope to get down there at some point myself as they have managed to get some hardware on loan from Star City, including Valentina Tereshkovas Vostok 6 capsule, Voshkod 1 and a proposed one man Lunar lander LK-3. I dont know if anyone here has already been in, or if anyone is planning to go soon, and I couldnt see a thread about it already but this looks to be quite an opportunity without having to go all the way to Russia!

The thing with screenshots is to take many, but only post those that are needed to tell the story.

Nice! I always like to see RO and upscaled Kerbin report logs, from the sparsity of your space centre can I take it you are doing an RP-01 career game? Your choice of an alternative launch site as well as a 'planes first' approach gives your report a refreshing change, hope you can keep it up!

Strannik really isn't a gentle accent is it? Nothing your stalwart girls cannot handle though!! ... Sergei however ... It seems Valentina has found something very wrong, but it is however inside her head. A truly terrifying problem that perhaps a girl from the steppes hasn't had to encounter before?

Ahh right, well in that case I think its about time I did a launcher comparison. Skipping all the sounding rockets with their integrated payloads, I will only show the launchers capable of carrying separated payloads. First up, SkyBolt IV SkyBolt V HoundDog I + Ib HoundDog II HoundDog III Direct comparison Family photograph, seen from left to right, SkyBolt V, HoundDog Ib, HoundDog II, HoundDog III. Spoiler: Because that big red button was too tempting !! But as you said "Concise" here you go Name________First Flight___Launch Mass_____Rated Payload SkyBolt V, _____ Day 42 _______14,500kg _______ 1,000kg LKO HoundDog Ib, ___ Day 63 ______ 50,700kg ________3,000kg LKO (without upper stage) HoundDog II, ____ Day 167 _____ 87,100kg ________5,000kg LKO HoundDog III, ____ Day 227 ____ 136,300kg ________10,000kg LKO

A plan? as in thinking up what I am going to do before I actually do it? Surely that violates the laws of causality or somesuch? I have a vague idea of where I am going, but nothing as concrete as tying launch mass to a timeline, I just know that for the next phase of missions, 3 tonnes just wont cut it. The 8 tonne test weight was intended as an easy boilerplate mission, HoundDog III is actually rated for a 10 tonne deadweight payload. I have however, already simulated a Medea launch (14 tonnes) which is required to complete its own circularisation. (Because when you give a Kerbal a 10 tonne lifter ofcourse the first thing he does is put 14 tonnes on it)

Day 220, Minmus Helmdar IIb has been retired after 71 days continuous operation Lo-Res RADAR altimetry scanning the surface of Minmus. With IIc now in place performing its biome scan, the IIb is obsolete, it burns the remains of its fuel and performs a perfect impact into the Polar regions leaving no debris. Contract parameter complete, Retire RADAR scanner, 14,015 Funds, 5 Science, 6 Reputation. Day 220, KSC Science from the Lunic IIa Minmus lander has been processed and the final 2x '300' nodes are unlocked. Ion propulsion and Nuclear propulsion. 2 KCT points spent upgrading VAB build queue #3 (Now 1.2) All science progress is now on hold until the R&D lab can be upgraded. Meanwhile Day 221, Minmus Day 224, LKO Helmdar III completes its scan of surface Karbonite, transmitting it home results in contract completion. Science from Kerbin orbit, 46,148 Funds, 1 Science, 115 Reputation. Also, Multispectral scan of Mun/Minmus contract completion, 141,900 Funds, 58 Science, 60 reputation. Day 226, High Kerbin Orbit Day 227, Kerbin Meanwhile at the KSC You didnt just think I was going to abandon it did you? its far too pretty for that. Kerbals are creative masterminds when it comes to thinking up an excuse for lighting the touchpaper beneath 136tonnes of rocket. Until next time

Day 215, KSC Day 216, Minmus Day 217, Minmus Helmdar IIc-Mi performs its final 30Dv circularisation burn to settle in at 251km for its long haul biome scanning mission. Day 217, KSC Day 219, Minmus

*Puts on false moustache* Hello, I am not from a rival space program, I would like some details about your most recent launch please? The Stoli upper stage, is that a pair of Coxswain motors you are using? Keosynchronous orbit at 4,700km? What day length do you have Kerbin set at? I use a 12 hr day and Keo-synch orbit is just over 12,000km. And finally, I am jealous, your rockets always look bigger than mine ... err than that other space agency that I am not involved in at all *twiddles moustache* Especially in that first image, it must be the hex-solid-booster arrangement, what kind of TtW ratio do you get straight off the pad?

Congratz on breaking out of the local area! Is Muna-1 now in a never-to-return Kerbolar orbit? Your 'new' launch facilities, are thay in roughly the same location as the earlier launches? how have you been managing with the high inclinations?

I may not always reply, but have faith that I do always read!! Rambling .. too much? but ... this is the fan works section .... isnt the whole point of this section for people to ramble in? If you want a succinct answer you go to the "what did you do in KSP today" thread, for epic meandering rambles that fill your afternoon with meter long mosquitos and other delights you head right here

Ahh ok, so it looks like you lost pretty much all your hardware. How about career progress, funds, science etc? If I have to end up doing the same science reports again then I may as well restart from a clean sheet ... as painful as that will be

Wow, what an awesome return!! Like KSK just said, once I had started reading it .... I am sure there was something I had intended to do this afternoon ... Quick question, maybe it has something to do with BTSM, but why does the mayfly have so many wing surfaces on it? dont they add a lot of drag?

Ok, after some basic testing on 1.0.4 I will agree with you, the volume of ablative consumed during re-entry is noticeably reduced when compared to 0.90. I am running stock heating at 100%, with RealHeat (no DRE), 64k contains a CFG which modifies the physics values for thermal. My test involved a stock Mk1 capsule with stock heatshield simulated by KCT being dropped towards Kerbin from Mun orbit. I found 40km Pe was the highest altitude you could get away with and still capture to landing on a single pass, this resulted in an 8,400m/sec (orbital) initial atmosphere speed. What I found though, and I believe I saw it referred to in the RealHeat thread, was that the less ablator you have onboard then the faster it burns away, more ablator is more effective at dispelling heat with its greater thermal mass. I ran tests with the 1.25m heatshield with 300 ablator, and tweaked down to 100. The run using 300 burned up 25 units, the run with 100 burned up nearly 60. This puts you in a bit of a compromise situation, you can save craft mass by starting with less ablator and accepting that more of it will burn, or put more on to start with and have more of it remaining afterwards. When you consider that these heatshields wont just be used for in-Kerbin trajectories I think that having all that ablator and excess capacity is going to be quite useful when you want to perform aerocapture at say Jool, and then re-enter on Laythe, or Sarnus/Tekto. Even in my 0.90 version I usually tweak down the ablator volume to save craft mass, so as far as these (fairly simple) tests are concerned I would say the ablator volume burned is similar although slightly reduced than 0.90, not enough for me to want to change its effects though as unprotected parts of the craft were incinerated pretty quickly (Mun->Kerbin boost stage, jettisonned before re-entry but remained within physics range)

How did you manage this? Did you have to modify the persistence in any way? I have tried loading my 0.90 career into 1.0.4 and although it ports the craft over I cannot select them in the tracking station.

Judging by the numerous types of furry yet terrifying critters you managed to get on a single beach, I would definitely see myself volunteering to sit atop a few hundred tonnes of rocket fuel and would consider it a safe option !!!!

I'm afraid I cant give you much reference, this career game is still running on 0.90. The settings it uses are DeadlyReentry hard mode, but with the x64 mods tweaks to increase heat diffusion and toughen up heatshields. My test 1.0.4 install I run with stock heating at 100% and RealHeat to dampen it down, again with Nathans tweaks (aimed at RSS) to tone down the orbital speed differences. However I really dont have much experience of running missions on it, I have been simply trying to get my ships to transfer in as of yet I'll see if I can run some missions on this simulated with KCT, see just what you are up against. I reference to upgrading to 1.0.4, I think due to significant changes to the tech tree I am probably going to wait until I max it out in 0.90 then re-create the ships in a "new" career game with enough science to max the 1.0.4 tree artificially. This will allow me to still collect science and have a financially restricted game with contracts etc, probably my best bet short of a total re-start.

Nop, I'm not dead, I'm still here, you dont get away that easily!! For today I have only a single launch, but it is time for the second quarterly roundup of the state of on going missions and career progress. Day 213, KSC Day 213, KSC 2nd quarter roundup. Career Progression Production Facilities Current Craft, arranged by SOI Kerbin, Orbit Kerbin, SOI transfer orbits Mun, Orbit Minmus, Orbit Progress from Iakhod has stagnated, currently awaiting developments in aircraft technology that will allow winged craft to attempt high altitude or even sub-orbital flight. (read; planes are hard, space planes are harder) There are building desires within the KSC for a permanent space facility to house Kerbals for extended periods, as well as the ability to launch multi-crew vehicles to enable specialised Kerbals to have access to space rather than just pilots. These goals will require another step improvement, and enlargement, of the current launcher family. HoundDog II's payload of 5-6 tonnes to LKO is simply insufficient for orbital construction, the council decrees that a new launcher, the HoundDog III, should be designed to handle a payload of no less than 10 tonnes to LKO. In addition the first interplanetry probes should be designed to perform basic observation of our nearest neighbours, Duna and Eve. With longer duration missions such as these there should be faster progression through the timeline due to the larger gaps between launches. All in all, a successful first half-year, here's to many more like it, onwards and upwards!