capi3101

So the props shed off about about a third of the typically needed delta-V? That's good to know. I'm probably going to be making my own attempt at a prop-launch craft in the Very Near FutureTM. Meanwhile... (1.6.1) I spent the majority of my weekend at the nascent Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly working on construction and installation of the outpost structures. On Friday, Pilot Melrie Kerman and scientist Dumin Kerman printed up two more Pathfinder Casa modules, five Hacienda modules and a second Micro ISRU module which engineer Bartzor Kerman EVA'd and installed. First up was the Casa Habitat, which the trio used to punch their tickets. These three are the first 5-star staff I've ever had in a career save. Bit of a milestone. Bartzor was able to get the Casas, the ISRU, four of the Haciendas, another Chuckwagon storage module and a Rangeland remote launch pad installed before the day was out. It turns out that the formula that the Micro ISRU uses for Equipment printing is different than the one in the Iron Works, requiring Minerals instead of Exotic Minerals as well as Rare Metals. While Exotic Minerals are absent at OR's site, these others are there in sufficient abundance to make it work. Friday also saw the successful retrieval of Mathat's Craft over Gilly via a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe, which burned to take it to rendezvous with LSV House Corrino in low Gilly orbit. Saturday I hit a bit of a snag when the time came for Melrie and Dumin to print up the three Doc science labs for the base. Turns out the print there requires some Exotic Minerals. Rather than cheat (which is certainly within my power to do), I did some reconfiguring of the nearby TBD 7dG lander, converting one of its battery packs into an Exotic Mineral container. After printing up and installing a PB-NUK on the lander so it wouldn't be totally dependent on solar power for the job, the lander took off and flew over to the Highlands 4.2 kilometers to the south (which for Gilly is a pretty significant difference considering the whole moon is only 26 kilometers in diameter). Once there, the lander's drill was deployed and started tanking up. I was really glad this plan actually worked...really didn't want to have to cheat again and I was so glad I didn't have to for once... The TBD gathered 278 units of Exotic Minerals before it lost daylight. The single RTG wasn't sufficient to keep the drill running so operations were secured and the TBD made the return flight to Ocean Ranger, where Bartzor hooked up the lander and pumped the Exotic Minerals over. Base construction continued after that, with another six Haciendas, eight Chuckwagons, 3 Doc laboratories and five Castillo variant modules printed as well as six Walkway modules. The time needed for the lander to get the Exotic Minerals and return allowed the base to print up a fair amount of Equipment and so installation proceeded rapidly, with all but five of the Walkways and the Castillos put in place before day's end. The Clinton hauling Mathat's Craft docked up at Corrino, and a Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe I'd launched over Kerbin on Thursday conducting a junk hauling mission successfully rendezvoused and grabbed its target. Owing to low delta-V at that point, the probe was put into a sub-orbital trajectory for de-orbit rather than make an attempt to land it close to KSC. Yesterday I was able to get the remaining structures installed. Ocean Ranger is now fully operational. The completed, slightly levitating Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly just after a joint Kerbolrise/Everise. My obligatory "down the mass driver" shot. And a slightly better view. Once construction was completed, Ocean Ranger began the construction of an Ikeport Core 7 craft which is destined to become space station Eveport. Construction will take 51 hours to complete. The outpost also conducted its first mass driver shot, sending up fuel supplies to House Corrino. The Clinton 7b also safely splashed down yesterday, landing 150 kilometers east of KSC and fulfilling the junk hauling contract. The replacement contract I found to be rather amusing. Uh...South Base is, like, three kilometers south of KSC. So you want me to send kerbals from Kerbin to......colonize Kerbin? And you're going to pay me to do it? Okay... Seriously, I only took the contract because I thought it was funny. It's not like it's going to pay all that well. This morning I went ahead and put the Micro ISRU I'd stolen off the TBD 7dG (which I plan to rename as Golf 1 in the near future) back and added a thermometer so it could conduct a temperature survey on the far side of Gilly. I also reconfigured it for monopropellant production so the lander is now capable of refueling itself if necessary. I launched the lander this morning and it's still en route to a 10k equatorial orbit as of this post. For kicks I went ahead and put a second Rangeland launchpad at Ocean Ranger - making it the only one of my bases to have two pads - and began the construction of a G-LOC 7a dockable return-to-Kerbin craft; it will finish up in just under six hours. Plan there is to launch it and dock it up to House Corrino for hauling to Kerbin, where it will finish out the current exploration contract. I'm not sure what the next exploration contract will be...I have my suspicions though, and I hope they turn out to be correct. Also loaded those three colonists aboard a modified Wisent 7 utility rover and drove them over to South Base. I didn't have time to unload them, but that's first on the agenda in my next session. Not much else going on at the moment. I have some tourists to send out to Mun; going to probably send them up at some point. I also am going to begin construction of a Clinton 7c aboard LSV House Atreides in Kerbin orbit and send her on over to Duna for a junk-and-kerbal mission over Ike; I have two more warp ships available, so I might as well use them. I would prefer to use LSV House Harkonnen, but her engineers are currently both aboard House Corrino; HH is currently sitting in Kerbin's orbit with no one aboard... Also got an Eve craft to design. I've got five tourists in orbit who want to go visit the surface, the jerks...

My main questions - how much did the craft weigh at launch, and how much did it weigh when you got it into orbit? Looking for an approximate delta-V value using this kind of launch system. Makes me awful glad to hear that it's a viable idea. Can't adequately express that in written words.

This is the same line of thought I've had for this same sort of thing...I've got five tourists sitting in 150k equatorial orbit over Eve right now, all wanting to visit the surface (the jerks). There's a mod I use whose name escapes me right now (and I have to post-and-dash or I'd take the time to look it up) that can control the ascent speed of 'copters pretty well. My experience shows that if you set that thing to go 5 m/s up through the lowest 10,000 m of Eve's atmosphere, you can generally survive without tearing yourself apart - same goes for final descent. After 10k you can speed things up a bit more, and then let her rip up around 20k. Pressures between 30-40k on Eve are about the same as the 15-20k regime on Kerbin, where I'd normally accelerate a plane. Let us all know how your exploits with the design work out.

(1.6.1, dammit) Been an interesting week, that's for sure. Long post ahead. Monday I tried to continue my attempts to make v. 1.7.2 work for me but by midday it was clear that the current game version was more than my box could handle, or rather one or more of my mods was making the game itself unplayable, with load times topping out over ten minutes and pretty nasty lag going on while trying to play. I often play the game in spurts of 25 minutes on my work breaks; can't get anything done when half of that time is spent just loading (and then another five minutes are spent clearing it from memory when I have to get back to it). Before rolling back to 1.6.1, I had dumped the fuel out of the Spamcan 7c lander that tipped over during refueling at Enchova Central on Duna, and had set Jonas Grumby on an intercept course to take it to space station Ikeport. The reluctant revert back to 1.6.1 put me at the point where the Spamcan arrived at Enchova Central, right before engineer Chadul hooked up the resource station's hose to the lander (what made it tip over originally). This time, mods behaved, the lander was successfully refueled without tipping and the colonists transferred into the outpost without any incident. Once refueled, the lander returned safely to space station Dunaport. Grumby burned to intersect Ike and arrived at space station Ikeport a few hours later. Real Final Destination-like setup there, I guess. Anyways... On Tuesday, my Gilly-bound crew boarded Ikeport's Spamcan 7a lander along with tourist Lizemone Kerman, after which the four kerbals descended to the surface. The crew planted flags, after which the Spamcan returned safely to the station (damn near getting an encounter - coming within 2.5 kilometers - with the Infans Calcitrant Yards in the process). After docking, Jonas Grumby was refueled from the station's stores and the four kerbals embarked aboard the tourist craft. Grumby then ferried the four kerbals safely back to Dunaport. After leveling everybody up (last opportunity to do so this expedition), I did some shuffling of the kerbals at the station, with all the tourists boarded Next Objective and my Gilly crew boarding Strange Cargo; with the four colonists I'd sent to Enchova Central not returning to Kerbin, SC was fairly empty at that point. Both Strange Cargo and Next Objective departed the station after taking on fuel and set course to intercept LSV House Corrino in high Duna orbit, with Next Objective arriving first. Next Objective docking with House Corrino. That purple square left of center is Strange Cargo...decided to ride with Corrino until she came into physics range. Since it was effectively the last chance for gas, Enchova Central shot up fuel supplies via mass driver to Corrino. All systems secure, Corrino warped out of Duna orbit and set course for Eve, coming within 3.5 gigameters of Kerbol along the way and arriving in Eve's SOI at a blistering 17 kps (owing to the fact that the two planets were on opposite sides of the system). After multiple warp-backs, Corrino settled into a 749x734 kilometer, 3.63° orbit over Eve before the day was out. First thing on Wednesday, I made the determination to leave both Strange Cargo and Next Objective in orbit of Eve; I figured I'd probably need to have Corrino make the final entry into Gilly orbit on conventional drive and didn't want the two big ferry ships messing with the ship's center of mass. My Gilly-bound crew - pilot Melrie Kerman, scientist Dumin Kerman and engineer Bartzor Kerman - boarded House Corrino's spare Bigby orbital workshop and the two ferry ships were cut loose, both burning to equatorial orbits at about 150 kilometers. I took particular care to get Next Objective into as close of an orbit to the equator as I could, with an inclination of 0.01°. She'll act as the target object when I want to get space station Eveport into position eventually. With the two warp ships away, Corrino warped into position to kill off most of her remaining relative velocity before proceeding at 35% warp to Gilly. When you weigh 250 tonnes, a pair of Poodles doesn't do much usually. Sure does plenty at a reasonable speed at Gilly, though. Corrino successfully entered an 83x26 kilometers, 130° inclined orbit over Gilly and then commenced maneuvers to take it to rendezvous with the TBD 7dG base-seeding lander she had left in orbit on her last visit. Once equatorial, the ship released the Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe it had hauled along in her drydock, which then departed to rendezvous with Mathat's Craft for a junk-and-kerbal contract; that rendezvous is set but hasn't happened as of this morning. One thing about Gilly for those of you who've never visited - things don't happen very fast there at all... About that same time, I got a message from the Dystopia Planitia shipyards over Kerbin - a Bill Clinton 7b probe I'd ordered up there to conduct a junk mission over Kerbin was ready, and I went ahead and launched that probe after fueling. A burn for rendezvous with the target module was conducted on Wednesday, but I had to make a correction yesterday in order to set a good intercept. Now back to the interesting crap... I don't remember parking this thing over here...do you? Corrino affected a successful rendezvous with the TBD, at which point my Gilly crew each jetpacked over in turn. Melrie, the first over, fulfilled the current exploration contract - which was to simply EVA over Gilly - and I was given the go-ahead for landing as hoped. While drifting slowly away from Corrino, the TBD came awful damn close to a collision with Corrino's Alcubierre engine. Didn't, thank goodness...not to say that it would've caused catastrophic damage had it happened, but you never know. Once it reached the proper position to get to the pre-determined target zone, the TBD burned for landing. Melrie, you're driving this thing like a bat out of hell!! Maybe!!! The TBD set down about 60 meters shy of the original target marker. The target zone turned out to be on a ten degree grade, so Bartzor got out of the lander at that point (fulfilling the first part of the exploration contract) and began searching for a spot that would be a little more suitable for establishing a base. Yes, a kerbal on jetpacks alone can achieve Gilly orbit if they get to going too fast. Happened while Bartzor was off gallivanting around... Bartzor eventually found a patch of 2° grade about 2.5 kilometers from the original landing site and then proceeded to stand there while I puddle-jumped the TBD over to him. The TBD is effectively a monoprop VTOL is this environment, a fact I intend to take advantage of in future missions. It might be the only craft of the TBD line that's actually reusable after the initial landing... The lander sat down twenty meters south of Bartzor's position, well within range of KIS cables. Everybody/thing in position, Bartzor got to work unpacking the rover. A psychological milestone. As of this morning, the Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly is at long-last operational. Ocean Ranger right before I shut the game off last playing session. Got a lot of work to bring it up to full capabilities. So the rest of my day today is probably going to be spent expanding the outpost. I did have to do some finagling in KML to keep the nascent base from becoming Kraken food (as usual) but I'm hoping my fixes will hold. I don't know if y'all can tell from the screenie, but the base is levitating (as usual). The upshot there is that on Gilly - where you pretty much have to travel by jetpack - that's not too different from reality and certainly not an insurmountable obstacle like it would be on, say, Eve (where the base is also floating a bit). Maneuvering modules into place with jetpacks on has proved to be easier than normal in the low gravity. I did know beforehand that the site didn't have Exotic Minerals - which renders the Iron Works module I brought along useless for normal Equipment printing - but it turns out the Micro ISRU I'd brought along on the lander could be configured for Equipment printing using just Minerals and Rare Metals, both of which are present at the site. I had Bartzor re-configure the now-empty storage Wagon on the lander for Ore gathering and had its onboard drill get to work, while at the same time scavenging the lander's ISRU for the outpost's use - long story short, I've got Equipment printing going. When I need it again, I can return the ISRU to the lander for it's original intended use, which was to help it refuel its own monopropellant tanks as needed. Also got a pair of grabbing missions ahead with my probes. Any luck, those will happen today. I've got 36 days until the Ray Charles 7 telescope reaches its final position over Kerbol to begin tracking Class E asteroids threatening Kerbin. Really want that mission to get started one of these days...I wonder on how many more places I'll establish bases before that happens...

@Stewcumber, I agree with @KerikBalm - your quadcopter needs to have two blades rotating clockwise and two rotating counter-clockwise in order to cancel out the induced torques; I've got a setup like that on my Echo Flyer. Ideally, your fore-and-aft blades would spin one way and the port-and-starboard blades would spin the other (doesn't really matter which way you set it up). Do that and you should be able to fly it pretty close to the same way you'd fly a helicopter in KSP. Now, learning to 'copter in KSP is a whole other matter, of course. All I can suggest there is practice practice practice. And don't over pitch/roll in any single direction.

Where's your CoM and CoL on that craft, out of curiosity?

The Cruise Flight controller operates in one of three modes - Level, Heading and Waypoint. If you've left it in Level mode, it'll flight straight on the current heading; you have to pick Heading if you want it to fly in a particular direction, and Waypoint if you want to direct it to a specific spot. Similarly, you have to press a button in order for vertical control to engage. Same goes for speed control. Try playing with those if you're not already. If so, try SCE to Aux.

Alright, I'll give this a try. If it's not detailed enough, I'll shoot a video and post it to YouTube when I've got some free timeTM. 1. I go to a Castillo where I've got some colonists whose contracts are completed. At this point, I've got over 40 such kerbals at DH alone; they're cutting pretty heavily into the base's productivity value. 2. I click "Retrain Kerbals" on the POW. This opens a window with a list of the colonists in the Castillo. 3. I select a kerbal to retrain, select what trait I want them to have, and then push SET. A dialogue comes up saying that changes won't take effect until I mash go. 3a. I can select any number of kerbals this way; I've tried as few as one kerbal and as many as the entire dome's worth. 4. I mash "Go". What usually happens then is that I get a flicker from the crew portraits, same as what happens when you load up a ship. I go check the kerbal(s) I just retrained to verify their training - to date, they're still clinging to their cameras. If I go try the process again, the kerbal still has the Tourist trait.

Depends on your altitude, in my experience. My Echo 3 and Delta 1 quadcopters are the same design; on Duna, the flight ceiling is 8,000 m, not enough to clear the highest peaks. Gotten it up to about 120 m/s. On Eve, it's 28,000 m, plenty high, and got it up into the transonic - but only at the higher altitudes. That Eve soup level makes quite the difference - electric proprotor craft are definitely the way to go there. I will say to exercise caution lower down in Eve's atmo; Q gets to be a factor when you're trying to change altitude. 10 m/s up and down is a-plenty there.

Looks moderately dangerous, Will Robinson...

Not much to report to y'all. I might have to roll back to 1.6.1; the game's taking ten minutes to load for me at this point and I can't play for long before the lag gets bad. Log's pretty minimal - Jonas Grumby made its burn to Ike and will arrive at periapsis in just under three hours, and in the process of hooking up the Spamcan 7c lander to the Enchova Central outpost on Duna, the damn 'can tipped over (more precisely, hooking up the resource station to it launched it into the air spontaneously and it flipped). Blew one of the craft's RTGs in the process; it still has three more thank goodness and i was still able to get the colonists she was hauling into the outpost, but I'm going to have to upright that 'can if I want to be able to use it again. In the past, I would've used a KAS electromagnet for the job; those are gone now, so I spent some time on Saturday thinking of "something else". Winch cable and connector port was the solution I came up with - put the winch cable on the Delta 1 quadcopter, put the port on the lander, connect the two and have it lift it upright that way - but apparently there's some issues with OSE Workshop and 1.7.2; print started and got to 100% done but refused to acknowledge it finished, and it was messing with my KAC timers too (trying to tell me Grumby was at Ike already when I knew better). It'd be another reason to roll back. Hoping to have better luck today.

This is why I use Alcubierre Drive. Just saying...the one time I visited the untrusted regions, it wasn't with conventional thrusters. Managed to warp straight into orbit on the first try too. Still trying to figure that one out.

Yeah, it's the Night Vision Camera from HullcamVDS Continued, IMHO the most useful of the cameras from that mod, but definitely not the only cool one. Love the docking port cam, but I have to be careful not to use it on craft where I've got ejection seats, since the keyboard command to shut off the camera is the same as the one to eject...

Window bug has cropped back up when I try to open up the OSE Workshop in the Blacksmith using the Manage Operations menu. Upside there is that I can access and use the Workshop via the POW. So far I've only made the one attempt to open the Workshop via Manage Operations so this may be a fluke. Recycler doesn't seem to want to behave via POW either. I still can't retrain my Kerbal colonists in Castillos; Deepwater Horizon is getting filled up with useless tourists at this point. I'd rather not have to install yet another dome there. Still haven't figured out the root cause. Guessing I'm doing something stupid. Using Pathfinder 1.33.2, OSE Workshop 1.2.10 and KIS 1.22 with KSP 1.7.2.

Finally got around to making the transition to 1.7.2 yesterday. To save time on getting my mods together, I gave CKAN a go. For someone who's resisted using it for a while now, I can see the appeal - I was able to get most of my apps back from 1.6.1 with a minimal amount of fuss, and for the (very few) ones that it didn't pick up it was a simple matter to go and download them manually. Still need to figure out the ins-and-outs of it, but I can see myself using it a fair amount in the future, Fiddled around in the Litterbox yesterday to check to see if my mods were working and the ones I was able to test were, but there are some I still need to check. So that said, I haven't actually played the game in 1.7.2 yet. Last report for 1.6.1 follows: It's been a busy week this past week. On Monday, Gilligan returned to LSV House Corrino in high Eve orbit, this after the warp ship had dropped off its payload of a TBD 7dG base-seeding lander over Gilly on Sunday. With the touring craft secured, Corrino warped from Eve to Kerbin, passing by Kerbol at a distance of 1.655 Gm in the process (almost close enough to have stopped to fired up the ship's exotic matter generator). Corrino arrived over Kerbin clocking 17.7 kps and warpback maneuvers began to slower her down for orbital insertion; Corrino ultimately settled into a 612x604 kilometer, 1.52° orbit over Kerbin. Upon her arrival, the G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft I'd launched from the Enchova Central outpost on Duna originally was cut loose with rescuee scientist Wehrdas Kerman aboard, burning down to a 101 kilometer equatorial orbit. At that point, the Bill Clinton 7c probe carrying Lutop's Scrap, which I'd brought back from Duna with pilot Lutop Kerman and engineer Nelrim Kerman aboard, was de-orbited and landed safely about 120 kilometers to the west of KSC. Wehrdas's turn came up next, with the G-LOC landing safely 157 kilometers west of KSC. The successful de-orbits brought three rescue contracts to a close, cleared the latest exploration mission for Gilly (by returning a craft to Kerbin's surface from Gilly's orbit - G-LOC had gone along for the ride with Corrino to Gilly), and cleared several world's first contracts...apparently I hadn't returned a craft to Kerbin's surface from the surface of Duna yet either. The replacement contracts included an offer to do a seismic survey on Mun, a rescue mission over Gilly and two space station contracts, one for Gilly and one for Eve. Since I have no space stations over there yet but plans to build them, I went ahead and snapped those up. Figured I might as well get paid for that sort of thing... With nothing to do until J.G. Backus arrived at Kerbin, I went ahead and did the seismic survey. It was night where the Mike 2 rover was located, of course. Gave me an excuse to use the night vision cameras... The Mike 2 rover eventually hit a total of six waypoints before finishing the survey, with speeds getting up around 35 m/s in an area of the Mun with a lot of steep craters. Managed to take a strut off the front end of the rover but no other permanent damage to report. After ordering up a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe in Corrino's on-board drydock in order to conduct the new Gilly rescue mission, I went ahead and had Gilligan depart for space station Kerbinport. Gilligan had been carrying the results of a Goo Study I'd performed at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike, and was supposed to transfer it over to Lutop's Scrap before the craft departed originally; I had to come up with a contingency plan for getting it down to the surface. Gilligan arrived safely at Kerbinport and docked, transferring off the study and also allowing pilot Edsy Kerman to go ahead and disembark. Edsy will likely be joining Wehrdas as a member of the next outpost crew; I still need to find a suitably trained engineer to join their team when the time comes. Corrino next completed its print and resupplies were sent up for the new probe from the South Base outpost near KSC via mass driver, the Dystopia Planitia shipyards began the print of a Clinton 7b probe to do a rescue mission in LKO, and one of the colonization contracts at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus completed with no replacement contract offered. It was at this point that J. G. Backus finally arrived at Kerbin and burned to rendezvous with Kerbinport. Took you long enough to get back, Aldler... Pilot Aldler Kerman managed to run into the engine bell of Next Objective during the docking maneuver, making it two Minnow 7 touring craft in a row that he managed to ding up; luckily this time no permanent damage occurred to any craft. Upon docking, tourist Malbo Kerman transferred over to Next Objective, final checks were completed and both Strange Cargo and Next Objective departed, with both ships burning for a rendezvous with House Corrino to commence the next multi-planetary touring expedition. Both Strange Cargo and Next Objective arrived at docked at Corrino on Wednesday. Next Objective maneuvering to dock with House Corrino, with Strange Cargo already docked up. Once the two ferry ships were docked, Corrino set course for Duna and warped into interplanetary space. She stopped about 2/3 of the way from Duna to conduct the next exploration contract, which was to transfer a Kerbal between two craft over Kerbol. To that end, Next Objective was cut loose and drifted about five meters away, at which point capsule commander pilot Eridred Kerman EVA'd over. This would be more impressive if it wasn't backlit... Eridred boarded Strange Cargo's aft Hitchhiker module, fulfilling the contract. At that point Next Objective docked on remote control and Corrino continued to Duna, arriving at about 3.5 kps; warpbacks commenced to put the ship into a 434x314, 1.51° orbit. The two ferry ships departed Corrino and headed for space station Dunaport, both arriving and docking successfully. Took this screenie a second too late...was just enough time to lose all my light. Well, both ships were docked up and it was impressive. Trust me... While still en route, Dystopia Planitia completed its Clinton print, which launched and burned for a rendezvous with Unit NS-3DC in LKO. With a second junk-hauling mission over Kerbin, another Clinton was ordered up at DP, and then the second and final ongoing colonization mission to Deepwater Horizon concluded. Yesterday, I shot up fuel from Enchova Central to Dunaport to support ground excursions, after which my Clinton arrived at its target, which turned out to be a Mk3-2.5 meter adapter; the garbage was successfully grabbed at de-orbited, landing 90 kilometers west of KSC. At that point my Gilly crew - pilot Melrie Kerman, scientist Dumin Kerman and engineer Bartzor Kerman - boarded the Spamcan 7c lander docked at Dunaport and conducted a surface excursion, landing safely in Duna's Midland Sea to conduct flag-planting training. The trio returned safely to the station, after which they boarded Jonas Grumby docked at the station along with tourists Lizemone and Magdard Kerman. Jonas Grumby then departed the station for Ike. Meanwhile, colonists Wehrlock, Bobing, Fercas and Roslorf Kerman boarded the Spamcan, which departed the station after refueling. The Spamcan then affected a safe landing at Enchova Central. Still missed the designated landing zone by about fifteen meters. I was rather annoyed about that, but not as annoyed as those tourists are going to be when they learn they have to board the outpost via winch line... I didn't have sufficient playing time yesterday to actually get the colonists aboard the outpost, but that's first thing on my agenda after I can confirm everything's still going to work in 1.7.2. The big thing I need to check is the Workshop modules aboard my extant outposts to ensure they're still capable of print jobs - if not, I'll have to roll some things back. It'd also be nice if the Castillo modules could actually re-train kerbals; that's something that I should have been able to do all along but can't for reasons I haven't been able to adequately trace to date. Once the final checks are done, I'll be returning the Spamcan to Dunaport, I need to get Grumby over to Ike and then conduct one surface excursion there. My Gilly crew will then head back to Dunaport at that point and the ferries will head over to Corrino for warp to Eve. At that point I've got a pretty big challenge ahead of me - five of those tourists are headed to the surface, and right now I haven't got any infrastructure to reliably get them down and back up safely. I may be making an attempt at that tiltrotor spaceplane nonsense I threw up on this thread a few days ago...it's the only thing I can think to try right now, honestly. Corrino will be headed over to Gilly in the meantime, and hopefully I'll be given the go ahead to begin surface operations there very soon. I have to do an EVA in orbit to satisfy the current exploration contract first. Knock on wood, landing will be next.

I use Pathfinder/Buffalo my own self. Having the ability to build new craft in situ is a real time saver, as is being able to expand a base's abilities as needed.

I've been considering the possibility of using a tiltrotor design on Eve for a while now - and by a while, I mean before the Breaking Ground update opened the possibility to make one stock (there's a tiltrotor engine in the Buffalo mod). Curious to know how high and how fast such a design could go...and if it could transition to a practical spaceplane design. I know my Echo Flyer has a service ceiling of 28,000 m on Eve. That's an eleven tonne craft. Electrically driven rotors rule... I mean, you get between 12,500-15,000 m up in Eve's atmosphere and it's like flying at sea level on Kerbin. Between 40,000-50,000 up it's up like it is around 30,000 on Kerbin, where RAPIERs switch over. 50,000 is already halfway out of Eve's atmosphere. If you could get a tiltrotor plane going 1,500 up there on electric props, it'd only take 1500 - 2000 m/s or so delta-V to get it into orbit from there. Just a thought. Would love to hear about some practical attempts...might have to make a few of my own...

(1.6.1) Had a moderately busy last couple of days. Kicked off my Friday by sending T. Howell III into the shipbreaker at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus. Lot easier to get into the drydock if you can fly in the space between things. Can't ever really tell when it's going to count as an "I hit it" or not... Once the craft was recycled, its replacement craft J. G. Backus made a burn to return pilot Aldler Kerman and tourist Malbo Kerman to Kerbin; the craft will arrive at periapsis over kerbin in 34 hours. Meanwhile, the print of a Hodor 7 nuclear battery at Non Mentha commenced; installation of the unit at Non Mentha occurred on Saturday and after a mass driver shot of Enriched Uranium from the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface, the shipyard was able to switch over to nuclear power. Gilligan returned to LSV House Corrino in high orbit over Duna, having successfully picked up engineer Nelrim Kerman. Nelrim boarded pilot Lutop Kerman in Lutop's Scrap, which had been grabbed by a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe and was docked to Corrino. Once Gilligan was secured and final checks completed, House Corrino conducted her first interplanetary warp, heading to Kerbin. Corrino encountered Ike on the way out; fortunately, she wasn't on a direct collision course. Got me a nice screenie out of it. Owing to the fact that Duna and Kerbin are in close conjunction with one another at the moment, Corrino entered Kerbin's SOI at a mere 3.5 kps; two warp-backs later, she settled into a 547x327 kilometer, 0.9 degree orbit over Kerbin, at which point the Clinton was cut loose. Got two rescue contracts riding on the successful recovery of this craft. I should probably get around to the actual atmospheric entry and landing of the thing... After putting the Clinton into a 100 kilometer equatorial orbit, Corrino departed Kerbin for Eve. Unlike Duna, Eve was almost 180 degrees on the opposite side of Kerbol; the warp saw Corrino pass within 1.725 gigameters of the star, and she entered Eve's SOI at over 18 kps, so a more routine set of warp-backs were required to get her into orbit. She ultimately did enter a 902x836 kilometer, 1.57-degree orbit over the purple planet. With a final destination of Gilly in mind for Corrino, I went ahead and had Gilligan depart Corrino at that point; I figured I wouldn't be able to warp straight into orbit over Gilly without needing to use the conventional engines to kill off the last few hundred m/s, and didn't want to have to deal with the extra mass imbalance throwing things off. Once Gilligan was out of physics range, Corrino warped into a position to bleed off most of the rest of her speed over Eve. At 170 m/s, the relative velocity for Gilly started to creep upward and the final warp to take the ship took place, with the Alcubierre Drive set to 30% thrust limit once the ship was well clear of Eve. Upon arriving in Gilly's SOI, the Alcuiberre Drive was secured, the Poodles were lit and the ship made a conventional retrograde burn to put her finally into a 67x10 kilometer, 101-degree inclined orbit; corrective burns to put her into an equatorial orbit took place afterwards. House Corrino is not my first warp ship to visit Gilly, but she is the first one to successfully enter a stable orbit. Before establishing herself in a final 10.9 x 10.0 kilometer, 0.34 degree low orbit, the GLOC 7a craft with scientist Wehrdas Kerman aboard departed Corrino and then turned around and re-docked, fulfilling part of my current exploration contract for Gilly (to dock to objects in orbit). Upon arrival in her final orbit, the TBD 7dG base-seeding lander was finally cut loose from the ship's drydock; currently the craft is unmanned, with the crew still sitting at space station Kerbinport. After deploying the lander, Corrino burned to get out of physics range of the lander, and then activated her warp drive to take the craft back to orbit over Eve. Already out of Gilly's SOI but still close enough to see it, with Eve over there on the right. Corrino conducted a set of warps to allow her to accelerate back up to a speed that would take her pretty close to the orbit of Gilligan; ultimately she settled into a 661 x 610, 1.35-degree orbit. Gilligan conducted burns for a rendezvous, which will take place a little under 1.5 hours from now. Once docked, Corrino is scheduled to return to Kerbin, where the GLOC craft is scheduled to depart and land. Lutop's Scrap also needs to land, and I need to figure out a way to land a goo study that Gilligan is currently hauling. Other than that and barring any replacement contracts, my whole program is now waiting for Backus to get to Kerbinport; the craft is still a few days out. I'm guessing I'll be warping ahead to that eventuality today once everything else is settled.

I'd say it's a pretty good attempt - it flew. @Brikoleur is right, though - you're not going to be able to evacuate your spice crews fast enough at that speed. What's the handling like on it? Are the flight characteristics similar to rotorcraft at all? (1.6.1) Not much to report for yesterday; been giving Surviving Mars a whirl of late. I find certain similarities between it and my efforts in KSP to establish Pathfinder bases amusing. For example, the notion of mining concrete straight from the ground is something I think is just absolutely hilarious. Not past 12 Sols into the game but I do have a nice little mini-dome going out in some damn place on Mars whose name I can't remember... Yesterday began with the ongoing maneuvers to get Necessary Evil, recently returned to Kerbin from a jaunt over at Mun, to space station Kerbinport. The ship arrived eventually and docked safely, at which point the crews were shuffled around to Strange Cargo and Next Objective also docked at the station. Currently aboard Strange Cargo with pilot Gwenlock Kerman at the helm is the Gilly crew - pilot Melrie Kerman, scientist Dumin Kerman and engineer Bartzor Kerman - along with tourists Wehrlock, Fercas, Bobing and Roslorf Kerman. Next Objective with pilot Eridred Kerman at the helm has tourists Nellfrid, Halald, Lefel, Lizemore, Newiigh, Magdard and Dergel Kerman aboard. Both of the ships have one extra seat reserved for pilot Alder Kerman and tourist Malbo Kerman, who at the beginning of the day yesterday were stuck at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus while the shipyard was printing up a replacement craft for T. Howell III (also known colloquially as "their ride"), which was irreparably damaged in a docking maneuver at space station Minmusport on Wednesday. Nobody's leaving Kerbinport until those two get back. After taking the time for a successful landing of an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane at KSC 09, I had LSV House Corrino warp over from Ike to Duna, where it was established in a 223x214 kilometer, 1.5-degree inclined orbit. Once in Duna orbit, Gilligan (which had been docked to Corrino) departed and rendezvoused successfully with Nelrim's Pod. Gilligan at rendezvous with Nelrim's Pod. A Gemini analogue next to an Apollo analogue...there's something about this I find amusing... Engineer Nelrim Kerman boarded Gilligan, which then conducted maneuvers to return to House Corrino; she's about 45 minutes out from rendezvous at this point. Once Gilligan returns, Corrino will conduct her first interplanetary warp and head to Kerbin, where she'll be dropping off most of her recent rescuees as well as a goo study completed at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike. This morning, I went ahead and checked LSV House Atreides to insure that the craft was ready to haul Strange Cargo and Next Objective to Duna. I had to relocate the Minnow Adapter unit from one of the central docking ports to one of the ports on the ship's Workshop module, but otherwise she's ready when I am. I also went ahead and had LSV House Harkonnen return from Duna to Kerbin. Owing to the fact that the two planets are approaching alignment with one another at the moment, it was one of the easiest warp maneuvers I've had in recent memory - Harkonnen entered Kerbin's SOI at only about 3500 m/s and after just two warp-backs, Harkonnen settled into a 528x381 kilometer, 0.43-degree inclined orbit. Nothing is on the immediate horizon for Harkonnen. I'm sure something will come up soon. Last thing that's happened so far this morning is the print of the replacement craft for T. Howell III at Non Mentha. The fuel supplies from Howell were transferred to the new craft, with the shipyard providing the remainder to fully fuel the new craft and with some monopropellant left aboard for Howell's journey into the ship breaker, scheduled for first thing next session. Aldler and Malbo boarded the new craft and the docking clamps were released, at which point the new ship was dubbed J. G. Backus. A maneuver was set up to send Backus on her maiden trip to Kerbin; it will commence in just under forty minutes from now. Aside from decommissioning Howell, getting Backus to Kerbin and returning Gilligan to Corrino, I'll probably be warping Corrino to Kerbin today, and with any kind of luck I'll be sending Atreides to Duna as well. I do plan to begin constructing a Hodor 7 nuclear battery at NMY; that might finish up today depending on engineer Sulan Kerman's mad construction skills. Not a great deal going on other than getting folks to where they're going, sounds like. I'll try to take more screenies...

The forum rules prevent me from posting my initial reaction to this monstrosity contraption thing. Two words, improper phrase, first word an article, second word capable of use as a noun, verb, adjective (in gerund form) and interjection depending on context (granted, several words fit this description and y'all are welcome to pick one). What do you even call that type of craft?

(1.6.1) For as much as I've done the last two days, you'd've thunk I'd've hit the F1 key a little bit more often. I do have some screenies today but they're crap. Can't say I've been building mechs or rotorcraft either...haven't even flown a rotorcraft for a few days now... My day on Tuesday began with the arrival of a Spamcan 7a lander at space station Ikeport; the craft had picked up rescuees pilot Lutop Kerman and scientist Wehrdas Kerman from LSV House Corrino in high orbit and was in preparation to land them at the Scan Queen outpost on the surface. At Ikeport, the lander picked up fuel, then departed to carry out its intended mission. The two rescuees landed safely, planted flags and then punched their tickets to 3-star status with the outpost's habitat module, and after refueling there, the lander returned the pair to House Corrino before returning to its assigned moor at Ikeport. House Corrino then received a shot of supplies from Scan Queen via mass driver aimed at helping Bill and Engineer Gemlorf Kerman finish the construction of the TBD 7dG base-seeding craft destined for Gilly; the construction required the delivery of a load of Material Kits, which were sent from space station Dunaport aboard the Nostromo 7 resource lander docked there; the Nostromo stayed long enough for the TBD's construction to finish up, then headed on to dock at Ikeport. Another supply shot took place between Scan Queen and House Corrino, this time to fill the newly-constructed TBD full of monopropellant and Equipment. At this point, House Corrino is ready to commence its mission to deploy the TBD to Gilly, but first the craft is scheduled to warp back over to Duna to conduct a late rescue mission over there. She'll also be warping to Kerbin - her maiden interplanetary warp - to drop off a few of her rescuees before proceeding to Eve/Gilly. While all that was going on, Necessary Evil arrived over Mun with pilot Gregald Kerman at the helm and tourists Magdard and Dergel Kerman aboard as well as pilot Melrie Kerman, scientists Siefen and Dumin Kerman and engineer Bartzor Kerman. The craft docked safely at space station Munport, at which point Melrie, Dumin and Bartzor (the Gilly crew) boarded the station's Spamcan 7a lander along with Magdard, who had a contract to visit the surface. The group punched their tickets; because Siefen upgraded to 4-star status, the decision was made to scrub his landing and make just a single surface excursion. The Spamcan landed in the Farside Crater safely and the Gilly crew each got out to plant flags before safely returning to Munport. Don't know why I took this very uninteresting screenie - it's just a 'can approaching a space station. Maybe it was something about the angle of the station highlighting the dual mass drivers...I don't know. After the crew docked and transferred back to Necessary Evil, fuel supplies were loaded onto the ferry craft, she departed the station and burned to return to Kerbin; transit to periapsis took 7.5 hours, during which time T. Howell III arrived over Minmus with pilot Aldler Kerman at the helm, ferrying tourist Malbo Kerman and colonists Lizfred, Alfen, Sidbald and Sidmund Kerman. The craft rendezvoused with space station Minmusport without incident, but there was an incident at docking - I failed to pull in the craft's solar panels as she approached her assigned moor, and when they collided with a pair of the station's radiator panels and I was unable to back off, a panelpocalypse happened... Too slow on the draw to catch it actually happening, unfortunately. Aftermath's clear enough though... Minmusport lost all four of its radiator panels, which isn't a catastrophic loss - the only thing they'd really ever be needed for was to cool down the station's ISRU if I ever wanted to do fuel processing in orbit, which I've never really needed to do. All four of her solar panels are also intact though that's not a loss either necessarily since the station has SAFER reactors on her mass driver unit. The real damage was to T. Howell III - she lost both her solar panels, which unfortunately necessitated the hard decision to decommission the craft and order up a replacement at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus so that Aldler and Malbo could get back to Kerbin safely. Construction began yesterday; Sulan will have the new craft ready to go in eleven hours. Meanwhile, the four colonists transferred to the station's Crater Maker 7 bulk passenger lander and its lower section delivered them safely to the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface, where they are scheduled to remain for the next seventeen days. While I was at the outpost, I had pilot Suly Kerman and scientist Lenbal Kerman print up a set of missing Castillo modules - specifically three walkways, an observatory, depot, factory and replacement launch pad. Engineer Janbles Kerman was able to deploy the Depot, walkways and launch pad; the observatory and factory are going to have to wait until the outpost can produce sufficient Konkrete to deploy them. In the meantime, supplies were shot up to Non Mentha to support its construction, Howell left Minmusport with Aldler and Malbo and maneuvered to dock at Non Mentha, and the Crater Maker returned safely to Minmusport. With a contract to send colonists to the Enchova Central outpost on Duna, I next decided to send up an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane from KSC to space station Kerbinport. Colonists Wehrlock, Bobing, Fercas and Roslorf Kerman boarded the plane, which launched successfully and made its way to the station, docking safely. Auk IX approaching Kerbinport, with Strange Cargo, Next Objective, India Princess and an Auk XVI 12-passenger plane all docked and visible. Station's busy at the moment... The four colonists boarded Next Objective, while an existing batch of tourists boarded Strange Cargo, both currently moored at the station; once Necessary Evil arrives back at Kerbinport, both of the other ferries will be heading over to LSV House Atreides currently in high Kerbin orbit. Atreides will then warp over to Duna to drop off the colonists and do some other shenanigans there before moving on to the real stop on the tour, Eve. Got five tourists that want to visit the surface there. Still no idea how I'm going to go about doing that - looking forward to the challenge, though. Today, I'll be bringing Necessary Evil into the dock at Kerbinport, landing the Auk IX (still have reason to keep the Auk XVI docked at Kerbinport for now), probably commissioning J.G. Backus and recycling T. Howell III. I might also be able to sneak in House Corrino's warp to Duna, and I'd like to begin printing up a Hodor 7 nuclear battery for Non Mentha; apparently it was also still running on solar power, despite what I thought about having all my bases switched to nuclear already a few days ago. Hoping to be able to get the Gilly crew to their destination soon as well. Still considering whether or not I want to warp Corrino directly there (doable though tricky - I've tried it many versions ago with MSV Fat Man, which didn't have a conventional drive to take that last 80 m/s off the speed I needed to get into orbit) or take the slow route with the ship's conventional drive. Not sure I can actually do the latter - going to depend a lot on the distribution of mass. I won't be landing the craft just yet in any event - not until I've got the contract to do so. Hopefully soon.

I imagine that's probably really susceptible to Kerbin's microorganisms...though since the only buildings on Kerbin are at the KSC and the planet is a lot smaller, I imagine they'll have an easier conquest before they all croak... EDIT: I suppose there are a few at KSC 2...forgot about those.

(1.6.1) Not much to report to y'all today; screenie-less day too. Almost certainly will be that way for the coming week unfortunately, the way things currently look. Much of my day yesterday was spent getting Necessary Evil to space station Kerbinport. While the craft had safely aerobraked the day before , she ran out of gas attempting to set up a rendezvous with the station (so even if she had made rendezvous, there would've been little that could be done other than watch the station zip right on past. Left with the option of building a new Da Luv Boat 7 emergency tanker at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyards or launching one directly from KSC, I chose the latter; I figured I didn't want to wait a week for Ceri to get off her stupid butt to build the thing. In the VAB, I drained the extant craft design of fuel and slapped on a pre-built booster of the appropriate size for the resultant mass (just short of thirty tonnes), and launched the craft to orbit. Upon leaving Kerbin's atmosphere she was dubbed India Princess and her on-board mass driver was activated; supplies for the business end of the ship were then sent up via mass driver from the South Base outpost near KSC. After successful rendezvous and docking, India Princess transferred her fuel supplies to Necessary Evil, which then departed and set up for rendezvous at Kerbinport; India Princess did the same once additional fuel was shot up from South Base. Both craft arrived at Kerbinport at almost exactly the same time (no surprises there all considered) and the two both docked safely to the station, with India Princess assuming the port that will be assigned to Laggin' Dragon should I ever get around to launching it. India Princess utilized her remaining fuel stores at that point to refill several of the craft docked at the station, after which tourists Magdard and Dergel Kerman boarded Necessary Evil and the ship departed for Mun; she'll arrive at a 15 kilometer equatorial periapsis over Mun in just over five hours. Over Ike, the Spamcan 7a lander rendezvoused and docked with LSV House Corrino in high orbit. Pilot Lutop Kerman and scientist Wehrdas Kerman boarded the craft, which then departed en route to space station Ikeport. They are still en route as of this post. Upon arrival there, the Spamcan will take on fuel supplies and then ferry the two down to the Scan Queen outpost on the surface largely for flag-planting training and refueling before bringing them back to Corrino. Corrino is scheduled to remain in orbit of Ike until construction of the TBD 7dG base-seeding craft is completed, which will be in a little over three days. By then, I hope to have the outpost crew's flag-planting training at Mun complete. I'll probably be sending them out to Duna aboard LSV House Atreides; she's the only warp ship available at Kerbin at the moment. I've also recently picked up a colonization contract for the Enchova Central outpost on Duna, so I'll need to send those folks up in the near future, and I've also picked up another orbital Duna rescue contract, so I've got plenty of reason to head out that way in the very near future. Going to try to get 1.7.x up and running today - wish me luck, y'all. Something tells me it's not going to happen...not today at least.

(1.6.1) Keep on trying to jump on the 1.7.x bandwagon; time keeps on slipping away from me. Slow 'net and heavy workload at work aren't helping much. Friday began with a mass driver supply shot between South Base near KSC and the Dystopia Planitia shipyard in Kerbin's orbit; the shipyard was nearly completely devoid of supplies and I needed to full up T. Howell III docked at the station. After receiving a full supply load, Howell departed for space station Kerbinport. Noting that the shipyard's receiving-end mass driver was still dependent on solar, I went ahead and ordered Ceri to begin construction of a Hodor 7 nuclear battery for the outpost; she completed that construction just this morning. Howell affected a successful rendezvous and docking with Kerbinport and after refueling, pilot Aldler Kerman along with tourists Malbo, Lizfred, Alfen, Sidbald and Sidmund Kerman boarded the tiny ship. Howell then departed on a 28-hour flight to Minmus. Efforts to get pieces in place at the Bi-La Kaifa Shipyards over Duna in anticipation of the launch of LSV House Corrino continued after that. The Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe hauling Lutop's Scrap set a rendezvous with the station, as did Gilligan, which had departed LSV House Harkonnen in high Duna orbit on Thursday. The Enchova Central outpost on the surface finished its print of a G-LOC 7a return capsule, which scientist Wehrdas Kerman rode up into orbit before burning for a rendezvous with the shipyard. The Clinton arrived at the shipyard first, followed shortly thereafter by Gilligan. Eh...sometimes you get pretty backlit screenies. Can't tell if this is one of them or not... Upon docking, Bill and engineer Gemlorf Kerman joined station engineer Ardon Kerman and assisted with the final stages of the construction of House Corrino. The trio finished the construction, after which the vast majority of the station's available supplies were transferred to the new ship. The Christmas Tree 7 nuclear battery was then powered up alongside Corrino's exotic matter generator and, as hoped, the Tree provided sufficient electrical charge for the process. Corrino remained in dock while the XM tank filled up, a process that took just over four hours; while it was ongoing, the G-LOC arrived and affected a safe docking at the station. Anybody got any ideas where I can park this thing? Part count was getting pretty intense by that point; rather than let my box melt, I ended things for the day at that point and finished Corrino's refueling on Saturday. Enchova Central then sent up additional supplies to the shipyard, depleting its own supplies of Xenon Gas, Rocket Parts, and general fuel in the process; new supplies are being prepared at this point. All preparations completed, Corrino was finally cleared for launch. No doubt a glorious day for the victors of the Butlerian Jihad. Now, I'll admit to some shenanigans at this point - at launch, Corrino left with the entire available supply of monopropellant, which I didn't discover until Gilligan departed the station to try to dock with Corrino. A revert fixed that, but on the next launch Corrino again hogged all the monoprop - this second time, I simply let the warp ship leave physics range and transferred it back via the ship's mass driver. Other shenanigans forced me to revert this second launch as well. What you're seeing is the Clinton. That bit floating off is the part that would've allowed it to dock with Corrino, and the fact that the heat shield is fully deployed and blocking the engines is definitely no good... So on the third try (which was Sunday), I made sure to set up the drydock such that most of the monoprop stayed aboard the shipyard. Corrino launched again, and then Gilligan, the Clinton and G-LOC all affected separate docking maneuvers with the new warp ship. One final mishap was the fact that I'd left Bill and Gemlorf aboard the shipyard when both Corrino and Gilligan departed, so it was necessary for the two of them to jetpack over to Corrino. But with everything finally the way it needed to be, Corrino activated her conventional drives and burned into a 175x100 kilometer equatorial orbit. Upon reaching 165,000 meters over Duna this morning, the conventional drives were secured, the Alcubierre Drive activated and the ship warped into a 245x110 kilometer, 4.3-degree orbit over Ike, where she began construction of the TBD 7dG base-seeding lander destined for the surface of Gilly. Bill and Gemlorf will have the job done in 23 hours but will need some support from the Scan Queen outpost on the surface to complete the job. In the meantime, the Spamcan 7a lander docked at space station Ikeport was dispatched to Corrino so that Wehrdas along with pilot Lutop Kerman could visit the surface and plant flags, ensuring a higher level of experience when the two of them finally do make it back to Kerbin to fulfill their respective rescue contracts. Rendezvous with Corrino will take about three more hours. Necessary Evil returned from her trip to Minmus shortly thereafter and aerobraked into a 250x45 equatorial sub-orbital trajectory; maneuvers to take her to Kerbinport will commence within the hour. Finally, Ceri finished up the Hodor at Dystopia Planitia, the new battery was docked, and Enriched Uranium for the reactors was sent up from South Base via mass driver. I believe DP is the last of my orbital stations to make the switch from solar to nuclear; the newer stations all have it integrated into the design at this point. So today, the plan is to get Necessary Evil to Kerbinport and then send her on her way to Mun. The Gilly crew will do flag-planting training out there to gain experience and a couple of tourists want to go along for a visit. I also plan to get Lutop and Wehrdas down to the surface of Ike. Already know i'm going to have a truncated day today, so I'll be lucky if I even get all of that done. Need to start my go/no-go for 1.7 too; guessing that may not happen today, but soon.

Depends...are you growing crops?