capi3101

Glad to hear it. If you do need any additional help with anything, feel free to ask.

Spent the bulk of my playing time yesterday with ScanSat Eve performing narrow-band passes in search of suitable sites to put down a TBD base on Eve's surface. I've cleared ten of fifteen biomes as of this morning, and three of the ones that are left are seas (I'm amazed at just how much of Eve's surface area is covered in liquid - never really realized it until now), so I'm calling the job finished. Pretty sure Olympus would've been usable but it's not equatorial, and I can't find the Craters for the life of me. I'll probably be putting the base either in the Midlands or Lowlands, since they both have concentrations of all the key resources I'm looking for. I've got a target area selected near a boundary between the two, so the next step is to put down an unmanned Hellhound rover in the area to scout for someplace suitably flat. What time I didn't spend with ScanSat Eve yesterday was spent with print jobs aboard LSV House Harkonnen, which finished warping from its high polar orbit over Eve to a high equatorial orbit. First order of business for the day was the print of a heavily modified White Noise 7 communications probe, which replaced the lost Evecomm Bravo satellite I was forced to deorbit on Monday. When complete, the White Noise - rechristened as 'Evecomm Bravo', effectively ignoring that the previous probe ever existed - was fueled and burned to rendezvous with the Evecomm Alpha satellite, which was in position and became the reference point for the new satellite's deployment. Evecomm Bravo (fore) at a distance of twelve meters from Evecomm Alpha (back), with Eve's Eastern Sea and Crater Sea visible. The probe successfully made the rendezvous, then conducted the necessary set of maneuvers to put itself in a final position, successfully completing Eve's CommNet network. ♫ Triangle Man, Triangle Man ♫ / ♫ Triangle Man hates Particle Man ♫ / ♫ There's a fight ♫ / ♫ Triangle wins ♫ / ♫ Triangle Man. ♫ Harkonnen also completed, fueled and launched two more Pink Noise 7 communications satellite carriers and another ScanSat, in this case ScanSat Gilly. The probes will be left in high orbit over Eve and sent to Gilly when I get the go-ahead to begin exploration operations there. At this point, Harkonnen doesn't have enough remaining Rocket Parts on board to print off the Hellhound I need for the surface scouting run, so she'll be heading to Duna as soon as ScanSat Gilly clears the physics range of the ship's Alcubierre Drive; I'm giving it an hour at this point, which should be sufficient time. Harkonnen is carrying a fair number of tourists wanting to visit Duna and Ike, and she has staff aboard needing training, so that all will get underway as soon as she arrives. While there, she'll undergo a resupply mission. My plan had been for her to go back with the TBD landing on Eve, so at this point I may be sending LSV House Atreides currently over Kerbin to Eve with the printed rover. Makes sense to do that. Still have a planned colonist/tourist delivery run to Minmus scheduled with the new Auk XVI spaceplane as well. Nothing really interesting going on right now...

Fairly minimal amount of things to report to y'all today. Because it had been a while since the last time I'd designed a spaceplane and I found myself with the desire to design a 12-passenger craft, I spent a good chunk of my playing time yesterday building the Auk XVI. One of these days I really need to get around to doing something to help me keep track of which Auk is which. I mean, there are sixteen in the series now and I've only retired four of them... I did get some time to perform a test launch yesterday; still haven't done a full mission yet though. The intent is to send nine colonists and two tourists to Minmus with this thing though, in violation of the well-known and generally correct rule that wings in space are dead mass. Looking forward to doing it sometime in the near future. The other main thing that happened yesterday was the position of communications satellites in orbit around Eve. As noted in yesterday's update, Evecomm Bravo was launched without sufficient fuel to attain its final position and had to be deorbited. I went ahead and resurrected the design of the White Noise 7 kitchen sink probe from v.1.4.x, taking the time to strip off the booster and all the unnecessary junk to turn it into a dedicated comm satellite. Modifications complete, I ordered a White Noise up for construction aboard LSV House Harkonnen in polar orbit over Eve. Bravo was an equatorial probe, so warp maneuvers to put Harkonnen back into an equatorial orbit commenced. That would've gone better had I not experienced a prolonged bout of mental flatulence and forgotten completely what was involved there (namely that, when using Alcubierre Drive, you wait until you hit a local maxima in latitude before warping back towards the equator). I'm still heading back that way as of this post. The idea will be to complete the probe, launch it, have it rendezvous with Evecomm Alpha and then position it from there using the same profile as the original Evecomm Bravo. Positioning of the Evecomm Charie, Delta, Echo and Foxtrot probes took place yesterday, with Charlie, Delta and Echo attaining final positions and Foxtrot reaching its final position just this morning. Evecomm Foxtrot burning into a final circular orbital position at just over 1100 kilometers above Eve. The probe, like all of the others in the constellation, will complete one orbit every ninety minutes. Before leaving polar orbit, Harkonnen also completed the printing of ScanSat Eve, which launched and proceeded down to a 150 kilometer polar orbit. The probe completed the orbital survey of Eve shortly thereafter, and the narrow-band scanners have begun their surveys for suitable landing sites for the next TBD base. I've scanned six of Eve's biomes so far, with three of them - the Midlands, Lowlands and Poles - showing adequate suitability. Highlands are out, unfortunately. I'll be sticking with the probe as it surveys the other nine biomes; the Midlands are looking the most promising so far in terms of ore and materials needed for Equipment processing. Today's probably more of the same. Once Evecomm Bravo is in place, I'll have the communications network at Eve fully established. Harkonnen will leave two Pink Noise satellite carriers over Eve as well as a ScanSat; these will head on to Gilly when the go-ahead is received to head that way; once those probes are completed, Harkonnen is scheduled to head on to Duna; she's still hauling tourists heading that way as well as the crew that's heading to Eve's surface - I want to get them trained up as much as possible since it's unlikely they're going to leave there once they've arrived. The colonist flight to Minmus is also on my radar, and I've got a couple of other small contracts in and around Kerbin that I'd like to get started once I have a free minute or two (translate: as soon as ScanSat Eve has given me reports from the remaining biomes).

No, it wasn't - KIS 1.16 was for KSP 1.5.x. But the later versions of KIS haven't played particularly well with Pathfinder or some of the other mods that work with Pathfinder, OSE Workbench being probably the most noteworthy example. AVC will tell you that you're not using the latest KIS version, but it's a small price to pay if it lets the mod work the way it should, IMHO.

I had this problem not too long ago. Which versions of Pathfinder and KIS are you using? Try rolling back to KIS 1.16 if you're using a later version. If you're using KIS 1.16 with Pathfinder 1.32.4.0, say so and we'll go from there.

Well, as usual, RL kept me away from my laptop over the weekend, but Friday was pretty significant. After departing space station Kerbinport late in in the day on Thursday, both Strange Cargo and a Minnow 7b touring craft made separate rendezvous with LSV House Harkonnen in a resupply orbit over Kerbin. Both ships arrived nearly simultaneously. Since I wanted to put Strange Cargo in one of the main ports amidships but no ports were available, I went ahead and docked the Minnow first. Once docked up, the Minnow promptly undocked, taking the adapter module with it. The Minnow then affected a second, final docking position to the Bigby Workshop Module. With the way finally clear, Strange Cargo docked amidships. Three docking maneuvers for the price of one. Strange Cargo coming in, with the Minnow (right) already docked to LSV House Harkonnen. Once the two ships were secured and their engines safed, Harkonnen proceeded to the apopasis of her orbit above 300 kilometers, where a pre-warp static bubble test was conducted. Since everything was contained within the bubble and nothing broke off, Harkonnen pointed radially outward and warped out. It's a real shame that I don't own a theramin. Just saying. Once clear of Kerbin's SOI, Harkonnen set a direct course to Eve. She came into Eve's SOI with an orbital velocity of around 19 kps, and so a series of warpback maneuvers commenced to slow her down enough to put her into orbit. Took up the better part of my lunch break on Friday... LSV House Harkonnen approaching Eve. Harkonnen did finally slow down enough to enter a 1,700x1,600 kilometer equatorial orbit over Eve, at which point the Pink Noise 7 communications satellite carrier the ship had been carrying in its drydock was released. Unfortunately, I had failed to fuel the craft all the way prior to release; it only had 28% fuel reserves at that time. While that was enough for the Evecomm Alpha communications satellite to reach a final position, Evecomm Bravo had to be deorbited this morning for want of fuel; I don't know about Evecomm Charlie just yet, but I'm not confident as to its chances... After I got Evecomm Alpha into position, Harkonnen began the print of another Pink Noise 7 for deployment in polar orbit over Eve, after which it was time to finish the conditions of the Explore Eve contract that had brought me to orbit in the first place. Val got out and took a very brief spacewalk, and Jeb transmitted a crew report back to KSC; these two activities cleared the contract. The next exploration contract will see me landing on Eve, something I'm not prepared to do right now - I've got some other things I want to take care of first. But with that contract done, Harkonnen did go ahead and warp to an 85-degree inclination. The second Pink Noise was launched just a short while ago, and this time I made sure the stupid thing had a full tank of gas before I mashed the Release button on it. I'll be working this morning to put Evecomms Delta, Echo and Foxtrot into their positions and I'll try to get Evecomm Charlie into position if I can. If I can't, I'll probably scrap the original Pink Noise entirely and do a new one, though I'd prefer not to if I can avoid it; I will have to replace Evecomm Bravo at some point in any event. Harkonnen is currently printing up a Booger Flinger 7 scansat probe for Eve; in will be done in less than an hour's time. Since I've committed myself to putting a ground base on Eve, it make sense that I figure out where the best spot to put one is going to be. I do plan on printing up two more Pink Noise probes and one more Booger Flinger to deposit in Eve orbit before Harkonnen leaves; those probes will be heading to Gilly when the time comes (going to send them there the old-fashioned way since I doubt very much that warping there would be a very cost/time-effective idea.). Harkonnen will be heading on to Duna after deploying the communications satellite constellation at Eve; I've got tourists that want to visit various points of the Duna/Ike SOI, plus staff that need training. The plan is for Harkonnen to resupply at Duna and head back to Eve before going back to Kerbin - when she returns to Eve, I hope to have designed a TBD base-seeding craft that will withstand Eve entry and have it ready to deploy in her drydock...

Not a great deal to report to y'all today. Yesterday's shenanigans began with the positioning of the Bi-La Kaifa Shipyard in a 100 kilometer equatorial orbit over Duna. Ya hya chouhada. I think I'm now finally out of ready references to the works of Frank Herbert, so I'm going to have to start reaching for the more obscure ones... The shipyard is currently unmanned, so I'll have to get an engineer up there at some point if I intend to actually use it. Meanwhile, an attempt was made to land the station's transfer stage at the Enchova Central outpost on the surface for recycling. I messed something up somewhere - though Trajectories was telling me I'd be spot on for the recycling unit, at landing I was a good 1200 m to the west. Since it hadn't cost me any real money though, I just went ahead and terminated the flight rather than make another go at it. Had other things I wanted to do. One of Mission Control alarms went off shortly afterwards - these are ones I set in KAC when a contract offered is boring or stupid and I want to take care of other things so I'll let it expire rather than just saying 'no' right away. A contract came up to 'Plant a Flag on Eve'; I went ahead and took that contract. I'm now committed to the notion of putting down a base on Eve's surface. Oughta be fun. Still haven't yet calculated the efficacy of a mass driver on Eve at the unit's current settings; probably oughta get around to doing that sooner rather than later. (For the record, I've said for years that I'd install Mechjeb when/if I ever successfully launched something to orbit from Eve's surface. A mass driver shot isn't in the spirit of that pledge...) With some time to kill before Strange Cargo returned to Kerbin - at that point the only thing I had going on - i went to the South Base outpost near KSC and inflated a Castillo Factory there. The new facility should greatly improve the base's fuel production capacity for future Kerbin-based missions. I then headed over to the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun and had the staff there construct a Castillo Observatory, Relay, Depot and Factory; over the course of a few days, the staff manufactured enough Equipment and Konkrete to inflate all but the Factory before Strange Cargo hit Kerbin periapsis, at which point my focus shifted to the ferry ship. Was kinda hoping for a kerbolrise with this screenie...oh well. Strange Cargo put into the dock at space station Kerbinport successfully last thing yesterday, and this morning I shuffled around kerbals and refueled Strange Cargo. A group of eight tourists bound for Duna, Eve and Ike are now aboard the ship, and five KSC staff heading that same direction have boarded a Minnow 7b touring craft that was also docked at the station. Both Strange Cargo and the Minnow have departed Kerbinport and are on their way to a rendezvous with the warp ship LSV House Harkonnen currently in a resupply orbit over Kerbin. Upon the arrival of the two craft, Harkonnen is scheduled to begin establishing some infrastructure over Eve before heading on to Duna with the tour group. I plan to resupply Harkonnen while at Duna since it's now fully possible for me to do so, at which point I may launch the new Eve base mission from there... Harkonnen's mission will likely be taking up most of my time in the coming days but I've got a couple of other things going on. I've got a new colonist batch heading to Minmus along with a pair of tourists, and I think I'd be fun to send a spaceplane all that way for the hell of it, so I'll probably be doing that soon. Piper Alpha has that Factory to inflate, and I should look to see if I think the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus would also benefit from some more of the new Castillo structures; probably would. Got a couple of sciency things to take care of too.

I remembered to take screenies for y'all this time around... Yesterday began with a little bit of design work. Given the difficulties I've experienced with the length of a full Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe and fitting the design within the warp bubble of an Alcubierre Drive, I decided to try and incorporate the drive section of the probe into the recoverable bit ahead of the heat shield. That effort led to the design of the Bill Clinton 7c, which has more thrust and and delta-V than its predecessor while being nowhere near as long. I have yet to test the design, but if it's successful, the 7c might replace the venerable 7b entirely. The Non Caseus Yards over Mun completed its print of a Venkmann 7a science probe, and after receiving a shipment of Research Kits from the Piper Alpha outpost on the Munar surface via mass driver shot, the probe began a long-term Materials Space Exposure Study, with scientist Roddon Kerman supervising at NCY. The experiment is projected to take 300 hours to complete and the current rate of data gathering. I don't intend to release the probe from NCY until it's complete, but if needed I did add some external seats to the probe so Roddon can continue to supervise. Honestly hoping it doesn't come to that. The Bill Clinton 7b probe carrying Verbur's Debris from Mun to Kerbin entered the atmosphere next. KER reported the heat tolerance of the engine up around 97% when I stopped to take this screenie of the Clinton over Kerbin's crater. I honestly thought the thing was going to blow. During entry, when I finally felt it safe to decouple the drive stage, I accidentally hit the button to jettison the 10 meter shield instead of the one to inflate it... Must be one of those late-80s models. You know, the kind that doesn't have any airbags... Luckily by then the probe was going slow enough that it didn't blow right away, the ASAS module briefly getting very hot. Ultimately, the Clinton landed in the Mountains 800 klicks west of KSC on a twenty-degree slope. I counted myself lucky here. Shortly after the Clinton landed, Next Objective returned to Kerbin from its recent delivery run to Minmus, setting up a rendezvous with space station Kerbinport. Before Next Objective arrived at the rendezvous, KAC indicated that a second Bill Clinton 7b probe I'd ordered up at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyards over Kerbin was complete, so I headed over there; turned out that DP had ran out of Rocket Parts and therefore construction was not complete, so I had some shot up via mass driver from the South Base outpost near KSC. South Base inflated a Castillo Depot while I was at it, and with the extra supplies, DP completed the new probe quickly. After fueling, the probe launched. As mentioned earlier, the 7b might be retired, so this launch could easily be the final one for the Clinton 7b. Historic moment and all that, so I felt it warranted a screenie. The probe, launched to conduct a junk-hauling mission in LKO, burned for rendezvous. Meanwhile, Next Objective came into dock at Kerbinport. You're going a little fast on the X axis there...I'd slow down if I was you. You know, so you don't overshoot. Which I did... Earlier this morning, the second Clinton rendezvoused with its target, which turned out to be a MOLE Mark One Habitat. The target was easily grabbed. Got junk? The probe then deorbited, splashing down into the ocean about a hundred klicks to the west of KSC. After nearly twelve days of construction (both RL and in-game, I think), the Scan Queen outpost on Ike reported that they'd finally completed construction of the Bi-La Kaifa Shipyard, which launched from the outpost into a 25 kilometer low equatorial orbit over Ike after fueling. Shipyard with booster still attached. The drydock itself won't be inflated until it's in final position. I'll probably try to recycle the booster if I think I can get away with it... BLK is intended as the orbital shipyard over Duna, so a transfer burn is scheduled for later this morning. Once in place, all planned infrastructure at the Duna/Ike SOI will finally be in place. I do need to get some personnel available to run the outposts if they're going to do me any good of course, which is why I've been training some of late; Strange Cargo is coming back from Minmus with a couple of them right now, and it won't be too much longer before I can begin another expedition out to the red planet. Got a lot of tourists want to come take a look at it. Pretty much everything's at a standstill until the ship returns, so I might be warping ahead to its arrival later today.

You might pay attention to your critical mach number; the lower that is, the draggier your craft tends to be. Other than that, I don't know the specific in-mod parameters to watch for, just guidelines. As a rule, with FAR you want rockets around 1.2-1.3 at liftoff. Spaceplanes are generally okay in the 0.5-0.7 range. I myself go with 17 tonnes per RAPIER engine or 30 tonnes per Whiplash at takeoff; others use different numbers. Don't know a good one for Panther engines.

Had a reasonably busy day yesterday, starting with the completion of a new Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard over Kerbin. After fueling, the probe was launched from the shipyard and burned to rendezvous with Melrie's Capsule; the probe had originally been slated for a junk hauling mission over Kerbin but the rescue mission took on a higher priority after the unfortunate discovery the day before that pilot Melrie Kerman was trapped in a part with no hatches. The Clinton did make a successful rendezvous and grab before the day was out yesterday, deorbiting and bringing the capsule down to a safe splashdown 90 kilometers to the east of KSC. Meanwhile, another Bill Clinton probe printed up the day before rendezvoused with Verbur's Debris over Mun, which turned out to be a Pathfinder short passenger cabin. The module was grabbed successfully, and a burn to head to Kerbin was made almost immediately afterwards. I still wonder who's launching all this crap and how they get it all up there in the first place. I mean, if I built something with a Short Passenger Cab that exploded, the Cab would probably have been toast... This Clinton is still en route to Kerbin as of this posting; it's scheduled to arrive in another 90 minutes or so. While the second Clinton was making its rendezvous, Strange Cargo was making its rendezvous with space station Minmusport and I had to rapidly switch between the two, since at the time Strange Cargo was in a sub-orbital trajectory over Minmus. I got both rendezvous done successfully, though; Strange Cargo put into dock safely at Minmusport, at which point pilots Gwenlock and Edsy Kerman, engineer Gilford Kerman and tourist Hanson Kerman transferred to the station's waiting Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander; after fueling, the Crater Maker departed for a surface excursion. I decided to put the lander down at the old homestead in the Great Flats, that narrow bit right there at the equator between the two hills on either side. That's where Deepwater Horizon was located from v.1.2-1.5, in the days before I started using Pathfinder. The lander touched down safely. The original plan called for Edsy, Gwenlock and Gilford to pile out to plant flags, but as has bitten me in the backside before, the Crater Maker doesn't have any open crew hatches. The four kerbals merely returned to Minmusport one orbit later, still having received sufficient experience to upgrade Edsy and Gilford to two-star status and Gwenlock to four-star status. Upon the lander's return, fuel supplies were shot up from the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface via mass driver, at which point the crew transferred back and Strange Cargo departed the station. Strange Cargo has affected its return-to-Kerbin burn and should arrive in about thirty hours. Not much else has happened. To support the construction of a replacement Bill Clinton probe for the aforementioned junk-hauling mission, the South Base outpost near KSC shot up supplies of Monopropellant, Oxidizer, Fuel and Rocket Parts via mass driver to Dystopia Planitia and the shipyard began construction of the new probe; construction should take eight hours to complete. The replacement contract for Melrie's rescue called for a Pathfinder space exposure experiment over Mun, and to that end a Venkmann 7 science probe was ordered up at the Non Caseus Yards over Mun. Since this experiment requires a crewmember to perform, I went ahead and moved scientist Roddon Kerman from the Stevie Wonder 7 solar telescope over Mun to NCY via a Spamcan 7a lander that was docked at the telescope; he arrived at NCY just a short time ago, with a mere twenty minutes to go on the Venkmann's construction. You really have to pay attention to this approach - get going to fast going the wrong way and you'll find yourself mowing through the dock... I'll most likely have to shoot up some Research Kits to NCY for the probe to perform the experiment, but that shouldn't be a problem. At this point, I'm back to a waiting game - while I have a fair amount of events happening in the next day or two, I don't have much else to do in the meantime. I might take the opportunity to try and get a few more structures built at South Base; I dunno. Waiting for stuff's boring, and it makes for lousy log entries too...

I was about to suggest using the Pondarosa/Casa for a lower-efficiency medical effect - seems more of a natural fit there. Was off looking for something suitably mid-19th century to call it, in honesty...

Glad to have been of some help. Some more advice - in general, once I've got printing, mining and equipment production up at a site, the next thing I do is try to get a nascent base off of strict reliance on solar power. Pathfinder has three basic alternatives here - geothermal, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Whether or not you can do either of the first two will be dependent on what kind of resources are at the outpost site, so once again, scouting ahead is key. You can bring along a SAFER reactor with whatever vehicle brings your base-seeding parts; only catch there is if you intend to make that vehicle part of your base or not. If not, you'll eventually have to attach the reactor to your base. Even an empty SAFER is 1.5 tonnes, so it's at least a two-kerbal job. Couldn't say about the mass full. You can print up SAFERs at a base, but then the trick is fueling them - Enriched Uranium can't be transferred between modules like other resources and (to my knowledge) Pathfinder has no converters for Nuclear Fuel. That said, you can transfer Enriched Uranium via Mass Driver and when you do that it gets relatively evenly distributed at the target site, so you can get it into your SAFERs by shooting back and forth between two sites. A SAFER doesn't have to be full to provide a constant stream of steady, reliable power. All that said, I usually go with Sombreros when I'm prepping a new base. At Kerbin, they have roughly the same efficiency as half a Gigantor (about 12 EC/s). I usually pack 3-6 of them to start; the number you want will depend on where you're going. Only had three to begin with at Enchova Central and I had power problems right up until I put the first Hot Springs in place. When you get the other stuff built, leave the Sombreros up - every little bit helps. One thing you might do though is orient your initial base running north and south; this way as you set up your Sombreros there's less of a chance of the shadow of one falling one of the others and reducing your power as a result. Once you've got power going, you can do whatever you want with your bases. I use mine as remote launch sites, and they also support orbital space stations. What resources should you be looking for when you're scouting for base sites? Depends on your mode of play - in Classic Stock, look for good amounts of Precious Metals and Minerite. In CRP, you want RareMetals and ExoticMinerals, and ideally you want Minerals as well since that lends itself to Konkrete production and the better facilities later on down the road (in that sense, it's easier to use the mod in Classic Stock than CRP mode, since Minerite is also what you want for Konkrete). Now, my definition of "good amount" is pretty loose - by it, I mean "any amount other than 'zero' or 'unknown'". Everything else is pretty incidental. Does lead me to one final piece of advice I'll offer for now since I should be doing my paying job instead of posting here: once you've picked your mode, stick with it. Changing modes on an established base is a good way to have it go from productive to worthless in an instant. Myself, I use CRP mode because that's what I started with a few versions back. I've fiddled with Classic Stock in my diagnostic build, and to be honest I kinda wish I was using it now - fewer questions, easier Slag production, etc... Note to CRP users: noted in the latest version of Pathfinder today that Slag production needs a staffed Geology Lab Pondarosa with positive productivity; this has changed from the staffed Geology Lab Casa from the last version or two of the mod. Carry on.

And now for the short, short version of what I did yesterday: 3/18: Kport xMOF Min; Min dep, att r p-Melrie, no hatch, r&d kport. SC a N. HH bp PN. SB xMOFRP HH. SB x2050Ore DP. PA D 2050 Ore 4c. SQ/EC D 3000 Ore 4c. NCY ptd BC, PA xMOF NCY. 3/19: BC + NCY, rs Verbur Debris. HH ptd PN. SB xMOFRP HH, +Depot +Factory. Everybody with me? No? <sigh /> Okay...I guess I'll translate my shorthand for y'all then. No screenies today, I'm afraid. My day yesterday continued after the docking of a Minnow 7 touring craft at space station Kerbinport. After refueling from the station's stores, the Minnow was dispatched in an attempt to rescue pilot Melrie Kerman in LKO. While the Minnow did affect a successful rendezvous, the mission had to be scrubbed when it was discovered that Melrie was aboard a Pathfinder Spyglass module (one of those parts that I haven't quite figured out what it's supposed to do). The Spyglass lacks a crew hatch and the Minnow doesn't have a grabber, so the rescue mission had to be scrubbed; the Minnow returned safely to Kerbinport. Plans are in the works now to print up a Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard when it becomes available again; I'll treat the mission as a junk-and-kerbal, even though I won't be getting paid for the junk part... Strange Cargo arrived in Minmus's SOI, and while it's not in the log, it later conducted a burn to set up a rendezvous with space station Minmusport, which is scheduled to take place about 75 minutes from now. The rendezvous has honestly got me a tad nervous - right now, Strange Cargo is on a sub-orbital trajectory over Minmus, so if I bork it up or miss it, I could find myself with tourists pasted over the surface of the minty moon. Plus I'd lose a ship for which I have a fondness. Don't want that. In preparation for the pending Eve missions, LSV House Harkonnen currently in a resupply orbit over Kerbin began printing a Pink Noise 7 communications satellite carrier. The South Base outpost near KSC conducted mass driver shots to Harkonnen to help augment its current supply stores, sending up Monopropellant, Oxidizer, Liquid Fuel and Rocket Parts. Harkonnen completed the printing of the Pink Noise this morning, with South Base conducting a second resupply shot. South Base also shot a little over 2000 units of Ore to Dystopia Planitia in support of a contract I had to drill that much ore from Mun and put it into Kerbin's orbit; after the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun had actually drilled the prerequisite amount of ore, I was credited for the contract. A similar ore drilling con job took place using the Scan Queen outpost on Ike and the Enchova Central outpost on Duna - the contract was to 'drill 3000 units from Ike and then send it to Duna's surface' because reasons. Close enough for government work. The Non Caseus Yards over Mun completed its printing of a Bill Clinton, which was set to conduct a junk-and-kerbal mission in low Munar orbit to pick up scientist Verbur Kerman. Fuel for the probe was shot up from Piper Alpha, and then the probe was released from Non Caseus just this morning. At this point, the probe is set to rendezvous with Verbur's Debris. That rendezvous is, unfortunately, going to happen at about the same time Strange Cargo reaches Minmusport, so I'll have to be very careful about how I handle both rendezvous. The only other thing that's happened so far today is the deployment of a Pathfinder Castillo Depot and Castillo Factory module at South Base. Right now, the modules are in place but they won't be able to be inflated until South Base prints up sufficient supplies of Konkrete. That shouldn't be an issue - it'll just take some time to finish. The hope is to be able to adequately support missions of larger craft over Kerbin in the future; Harkonnen is still not completely saturated with supplies (though she definitely has enough aboard at this point to conduct the Eve mission - which right now just entails the establishment of a comm network and resource surveys of Eve's surface), and meanwhile I'm pretty much neglecting LSV House Atreides also in Kerbin's orbit at the moment. So right now I've got the two rendezvous coming up. Contrary to previous reports, Strange Cargo does have one passenger heading to Minmus's surface - the plan is to conduct that mission and get the ship heading back to Kerbin as quickly as possible. Strange Cargo will swing back to Kerbinport, pick up a few remaining tourists heading on to Duna, Ike and Eve and then go rendezvous with House Harkonnen. When Harkonnen finally warps out from Kerbin, Strange Cargo will be docked and carried along. I've got enough tourists heading out to Duna/Ike/Eve to warrant the use of the larger ship for the job. I've also got a Bill Clinton printing up at Dystopia Planitia right now for a junk hauling mission; I might do Melrie's rescue instead for now, and print up a second Clinton for the job later on. I have a new batch of colonists - again, there's nine of them, and for some reason, they've once again picked the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus as their final destination. I guess people like the fact that of the places where I have bases now, Minmus has the lowest gravity and therefore they weigh the least or something. I don't know. Other than these few things though, I've still got a lot of contracts in 'waiting to get there' mode. Curious to see what the replacement missions will be for the two rescues and junk hauling missions in progress - those have the best chance of being resolved sooner rather than later.

To my knowledge, there's no extended tutorial; much of what I've been able to gather from the mod has been through trial-and-error, heavy on the error. Spending time scanning through the configuration files helped a fair amount. Even then, there's still a few things that elude me. That said, I can offer what knowledge I've been able to glean (as will others when I prove to be completely wrong about something). Just ask. Something's currently borked with Resource Distribution - I'll say that much; when I have attempted to use resource distribution recently, inevitably I'll wind up without sufficient Equipment to inflate something. Not because I didn't bring enough Equipment, mind you, it's because it all evaporated into the aether while my back was turned. So, with the last few bases I've built, I've used the KAS resource transfer station and a...oh, i don't remember what they call the damn thing now - the new excuse for a connector port. While putting up the initial facilities, I hook up the cable and keep it connected long enough to build stuff. If you ever go this route, don't leave the damn cable connected - it's got its own bugs, and they're like a thumper to an Arakeen sandworm as far as ability to call down the Kraken is concerned. One of my first priorities with a new base is to build a Chuckwagon and stow whatever leftover Equipment I don't need right away in it. This base, Enchova Central (on Duna obviously), began as a Blacksmith Pondarosa, a Claim Jumper Hacienda, a Saddle and three Sombreros. These were all packed into 2 Buckboards and sent with a lander containing about 5000 units of Equipment. If you're really wanting to do ISRU, you can't really go wrong with that setup; as you can see, it'll get you pretty far. Now, in order for the Blacksmith to work, you have to have the OSE Workshop mod installed, which does not play nice with the latest version of KIS as of this post; stick with KIS v. 1.16 if you want to use it. Get an Iron Works going as soon as you can. The other part there is to select your landing site very carefully; do your homework and get some narrow-band scanners overhead before you even land, and look for spots where you can use the Iron Works to make new Equipment on site. Beats the hell out of having to use the Blacksmith/Clockworks for the job, unless you like the notion of spending months on end building up a new base... Something to consider with any of the efficacy of any module is productivity, basically a measure of the competence of the people running it. Kerbals with a lower stupidity attribute will be more productive, as will kerbals with higher levels of experience. In your case, the scientist you selected may have factored heavily into why you didn't get more bang out of your Research Kits. Another thing you should consider is packing a second Doc and configuring that Doc as a Watney; you can manufacture more Research Kits on site that way. Of course, for that you need Ore... Start button on the Experiment screen is the one you want. Once an experiment is running, if it says "Needs Lab Time", just sit for a bit, maybe do some time warping. If the numbers go up, you're okay - you just have to wait long enough for the experiment to complete - assuming you've got enough Research Kits, of course. Hopefully all this is helpful to you. Like I said, feel free to ask about any questions you might have.

Had a three day weekend on account of various appointments in RL on Friday; the weekend itself was just as busy as usual, and so I didn't have a great deal of time to play but the log is still full of confusing shorthand, so I figure I might as well share what I've been up to. On Thursday afternoon, the Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander made its way back to space station Minmusport, having delivered eight fresh-faced suckers colonists to the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus's surface. Colonist Pado Kerman (i.e. colonist number 9) had been left behind, so the lander was refueled, Pado boarded and a second landing at Deepwater Horizon occurred. Once Pado successfully transferred into the outpost, the lander was refueled once more and returned to Minmusport, at which point Next Objective, the ferry ship that had brought the colonists to Minmus, was refueled from the station's stores and departed and burned for Kerbin on automatic control. Next Objective should return to Kerbin in about four days. In the wake of Next Objective's departure, fuel supplies were shot up to Minmusport via Deepwater Horizon's mass driver, effectively securing all operations at Minmus until Strange Cargo arrives in a few days. Even then, none of the tourists currently aboard are headed to the surface, so Strange Cargo's expedition should be relatively light as far as resource consumption goes. The Nostromo 7 resource hauler set a rendezvous with space station Dunaport as well on Thursday and ultimately affected a successful docking. Been a while since I'd broken out the docking cam; last time I used it I inadvertently ejected the same tourist three times. Here we see Dunaport's mass driver and the Spamcan 7c lander docked. Once docked, the Nostromo's consist of 11,200 units of uraninite ore was transferred down to the Enchova Central outpost on the surface in a series of about sixty mass driver shots - 187 units at a time, pausing as necessary to allow the station's batteries to recharge. Job done, Nostromo's Mule resource tanks were reconfigured for Minerals and the Mineral supply was shot up from Central, with the station's/lander's fuel stores refilled at the same time. Once full, the Nostromo departed Dunaport and burned for Ike. Cargo hauling. Yeah...it's as exciting as it sounds. Five hours and change later, Nostromo put into dock at space station Ikeport, at which point her consist was shot down to the Scan Queen outpost on the surface via the station's mass driver. Shortly after that, with Konkrete production able to resume thanks to the Minerals delivery, Scan Queen deployed a Castillo Depot. The new Depot was configured for fuel stores, oxygen and Enriched Uranium storage, greatly expanding its ability to process uranium. Konkrete production at Scan Queen continues this morning, with an immediate goal to deploy a Castillo Factory module. On Friday, Necessary Evil finally returned to Kerbin after an eleven day return journey from Minmus (timing your return burns is important, y'all), docking successfully at space station Kerbinport. At the station, tourists Hadfrod and Donpond Kerman along with rescuee pilot Kardon Kerman boarded a waiting Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane, which departed Kerbinport and returned to the surface, landing safely at KSC 09. A junk-hauling and junk-and-kerbal mission were offered as replacements; a pair of Bill Clinton 7b grabber probes were ordered up at the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyards over Kerbin and the Non Caseus Yards over Mun to do the jobs. Both probes should be complete within another few hours. The South Base outpost near KSC shot fuel supplies up to Kerbinport via its mass driver, and Enchova Central drilled 450 units of ore for contract. Finally, just this morning, a Minnow 7b touring craft returned to Kerbin from an excursion to Minmus, affecting a safe docking at Kerbinport. The Minnow is scheduled to refuel later this morning and will then depart to conduct a rescue mission over Kerbin before returning to Kerbinport, at which point it's slated to haul a group of Duna/Ike-bound tourists over to LSV House Harkonnen currently in orbit of Kerbin. Harkonnen is slated to begin preparations for departure to Eve, and will be heading on to Duna/Ike after conducting some operations over the purple planet.

This happened to me a while back; problem turned out to be my install. Last time you added Pathfinder, did you completely erase it from your GameData folder and copy a new version in, or did you just overwrite what was already there? Your play mode might also have something to do with it - what mode are you trying operate in, Classic Stock, CRP, Pristine or Simplified? If you're doing a mode other than Classic Stock, did you first switch to Pristine as per the first post on this thread? EDIT: Also, which version of Pathfinder are you using, out of curiosity?

Yesterday I was mainly busy with getting supplies shot via mass driver between the Scan Queen outpost on the surface of Ike and space station Ikeport, transferring Enriched Uranium back and forth between the two outposts in an effort to fuel up the SAFER reactors at Scan Queen; that effort was mostly successful, though I'll need to continue enrichment at the outpost to get everything fueled up all the way. In the meantime, outpost engineer Thombles Kerman added a new Chuckwagon storage module dedicated to Uraninite in an effort to speed up delivery to the Nostromo 7 resource lander docked at Ikeport; the outpost's capacity of 500 units prior to the installation of the new module was wasting precious guidance data. After installation, the remaining amount needed to bring the Nostromo to capacity was able to be shot up in one go. Thus filled to capacity, the Nostromo departed Ikeport for space station Dunaport, leaving Ike's SOI before the close of business yesterday. While that was going on, Next Objective arrived in Minmus's SOI and affected a rendezvous and docking with space station Minmusport. Eight of the nine colonists aboard Next Objective were loaded aboard the Crater Maker 8-passenger lander docked at the station, which then departed and landed at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface. After the lander was hooked up to the outpost, the colonists disembarked into one of the outpost's Castillo domes, bringing the Castillo up to its maximum 32-kerbal capacity. ♫ All the stupid people... ♫ / ♫ where do they all come from? ♫ / ♫ All the stupid people... ♫ / ♫ where do they all belong? ♫ / ♫ Ah, look at all the stupid people... ♫ / ♫ Ah, look at all the stupid people ♫ / ♫ Eleanor Rigby, died in a church and something something something... ♫. I know, it's supposed to be 'lonely', not "'stupid', but... First order of business for the revised, slightly expanded and now-inaccurately named Quorum of the Twelve: get better lighting, figure out who was playing Pong and why they felt it was necessary to have it on so many screens. After refueling, the Crater Maker returned to orbit and set up a rendezvous with Minmusport, which has yet to happen as of this posting. Order of business today is to get the Nostromo and Crater Maker to their respective destinations. Nostromo will offload its consist via mass driver at Dunaport to the Enchova Central outpost on the Dunan surface, while the Crater Maker has one more colonist to deliver to Deepwater Horizon. I'm hoping to get Nostromo back to Ikeport soon with a load of Minerals to shoot down to Scan Queen - the outpost ran out late in the day yesterday just 500 units of Konkrete shy of being able to build the Depot, which I want to use to store Liquid Fuel, Oxidizer and Oxygen in insane quantities. Really I need to find more time to play. These days I'm not playing the game in the evenings like I used to, so not as much is getting accomplished as I might like. Too much RL going on at the moment.

RL shortened my gaming day fairly effectively yesterday, but I was able to get a few things accomplished. The day began with the launch of the Nostromo 7 resource hauler/lander from the Scan Queen outpost on Ike, where it had delivered a load of Minerals a few days ago. Nostromo affected a successful rendezvous and docking at the newly-commissioned space station Ikeport. Next time I need to tell the director to use some key and fill light as well. Can't see crap with all this backlighting... Meanwhile, Konkrete production at Scan Queen continued, with sufficient amounts generated to deploy the outpost's Castillo dome, Pipeline mass driver and a communications relay tower. To keep the mass driver running continuously, outpost pilot Janpont Kerman and outpost scientist Elidun Kerman printed up a set of four SAFER reactors. Once complete, outpost engineer Thombles Kerman installed them with Janpont's kind assistance (the things are too heavy for one kerbal to move on their own, even unloaded). Fueling the reactors was tricky; it was necessary to turn on one of the outpost's fusion reactors to get the Pipeline online, at which point Ikeport shot down some of its stores of Enriched Uranium for the job. It did the trick, the fusion generator was shut down to save Fuel Pellets (which require Minerals to manufacture - I'm saving what I've got for Konkrete at the moment) and supplies of Liquid Fuel, Oxidizer and Ore were shot up to Ikeport. Transfer of uraninite ore for transport to the Enchova Central outpost on Duna has commenced; as of this post, 2000 units have been sent up so far, with another 9200 to go. I'm still shuffling enriched uranium between Scan Queen and Ikeport as well, trying to get Scan Queen's SAFERs filled up; that hasn't occurred just yet. Would've continued doing this, but Next Objective has just arrived at Minmus, so my focus will need to be there in my next game session. With six tourists having completed their respective itineraries and ready to return to the surface of Kerbin, I went ahead and loaded them aboard a waiting Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane docked at space station Kerbinport, which then departed. Re-entry occurred and the plane landed without issue at KSC 09, clearing four contracts in the process. I was offered three new contracts in their place, two of which I accepted and one of which was yet another 2-tourist mission. I needed to send up a pair of engineers I hired the day before to Kerbinport anyway, so I loaded all four of these kerbals aboard an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane. Pre-flight complete and four good starts. The Auk successfully achieved orbit over Kerbin and affected a successful rendezvous and docking at Kerbinport. All available craft in Kerbin's SOI are deployed at the moment, so it'll be a while before I can send these guys on. Still not a whole lot going on other than the waiting game otherwise. 114 days until the Ray Charles 7 telescope reaches final position.

Screenie-less day for y'all, I'm afraid. As reported yesterday, after returning from the Munar surface with pilot Edsy Kerman and engineer Gilford Kerman, the Spamcan 7a lander docked at space station Munport was refueled, and tourists Gilbur, Kimburry and Jedmore Kerman were loaded aboard. The Spamcan then departed Munport and successfully landed in the Northwest Crater. After Munport came back into the proper position in its orbit for a rendezvous, the Spamcan took off once again, rendezvousing and docking with the station. Once all kerbals had transferred aboard, Strange Cargo (also docked at the station) was refueled and then departed, burning to return to Kerbin. Strange Cargo would return to space station Kerbinport late in the day, affecting a safe rendezvous and docking. Once the ship had been refueled, Strange Cargo took on a set of new passengers bound for Minmus, with Edsy and Gilford remaining aboard. The ship then departed once Kerbinport once again and burned for Minmus; she's scheduled to arrive in 31 hours. That was pretty much the big sequence of events for yesterday but a few more things occurred. The Piper Alpha outpost on Mun shot up fresh supplies to Munport via their respective Pipeline mass drivers. The team at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike printed up three more boxed structures for later deployment and continued manufacturing Konkrete; first priorities for new structure deployments are the main Castillo dome and the base's mass driver unit. Finally, the team at the Enchova Central outpost on Duna reported that they'd completed the construction of a new Ikeport Core 7 space station with booster. Once the new station was fueled, it launched from Enchova Central successfully into a 75-kilometer equatorial orbit. From there the new station conducted a set of transfer burns to Ike, eventually establishing itself as space station Ikeport in 25 kilometer, 0.03-degree inclined orbit over Ike. Ikeport's establishment completes the set of intended space station's over Duna's moon, and is the third of four space station's planned for the Duna/Ike SOI. The fourth and final station currently under construction at Scan Queen, an orbital shipyard for Duna, will be complete in another two day's time. RL has prevented me from playing much today, though I did take the time to hire engineers Lucas and Ardon Kerman. After training, these two are slated to become the station engineers aboard the Duna/Ike shipyards. I'll be sending them up to Kerbinport via spaceplane after I retrieve six tourists from the station later today (also via spaceplane, in this case an Auk II 8-passenger plane that has been docked there for quite some time). Getting those six tourists down will clear four contracts; I'm anxious to see what kind of replacement contracts come up (it'll definitely have a bearing on what type of plane I use to bring Lucas and Ardon up). I also took the time this morning to replace the solar panels on the Auk XIV 36-passenger spaceplane with a set of 4 PB-NUK RTGs; this in light of the crash of one of these planes a few days ago. Should make the design more reliable should I ever have to bring a lot of folks home all at once. Later today, in addition to the spaceplane landing, I'll be sending up the Nostromo 7 resource lander from Scan Queen to Ikeport. It's likely that the current load of Minerals at Scan Queen needed for Konkrete production will suffice for establishing the Castillo and Pipeline but not much else, and so additional loads of Minerals will be required. With Ikeport established, though, the supplies needed for transport can be shot directly there; the Nostromo need never land at Scan Queen again, which means I could reconfigure the craft's center tank for additional supply transfers if I so chose (right now it's configured for extra fuel, which was needed for launches and landings on Ike). Improves its versatility. Won't know too much more about what's going on today until I see the new contracts...

Got in a game of Twilight Imperium (3rd ed.) yesterday afternoon with my wife and 10-year old son. Won it after five hours playing the Xxcha. I don't own any of the expansions so the whole Imperial/Initiative cycle was in effect, which my son didn't fathom properly, but he still had five points at game's end, so I think I was able to teach him the game effectively otherwise. He played Sol. Missus came in with eight points at the end playing as the Jol-Nar. Not KSP, I know. Just wanted y'all to know the excuse for not having gotten more done over the weekend. Now back to your regularly scheduled thread. Short and kinda boring report for y'all today. Nostromo 7 in orbit of Ike, in preparations for landing at Scan Queen. Friday began with the landing of the Nostromo 7 resource lander at the Scan Queen outpost on Ike, carrying a consist of 11,200 units of Minerals shipped from the Enchova Central outpost on Duna. Upon arrival, outpost engineer Thombles Kerman attached a KIS port to the lander and hooked it up via a resource transfer station, at which point the lander's Mule tanks were drained into one of the outpost's Chuckwagon storage modules dedicated to Minerals. With a supply of this crucial resource finally available, production of Konkrete at the outpost commenced immediately. For its part, the Nostromo was refueled and then detached from the outpost. It remains to be seen whether it will be necessary for the Nostromo to make another run to Duna for more Minerals. If so, it may haul back another load of uraninite ore, something that is not present at Enchova Central. Earlier this morning, Strange Cargo rendezvoused and docked with space station Munport. Rookie pilot Edsy Kerman along with rookie engineer Gilford Kerman transferred to the station's Spamcan 7a lander, which detached from the station and set down safely in the Munar midlands east of the Twin Craters. The two new recruits planted flags and then returned to Munport. Later today, three tourists will also be heading down to the Munar surface to do some sightseeing. After they return to Munport, Strange Cargo is scheduled to head back to space station Kerbinport, swap out its tour group and be on its way to Minmus. Edsy and Gilford will be repeating their flag-planting duties there and will also pick up scientist Rodemone Kerban from space station Minmusport. The three will comprise the team heading out to establish a new base either on Eve or Gilly; haven't decided which one I want to do just yet... 117 days until the Ray Charles 7 telescope reaches final position...

Can't say I've experience that, unfortunately. Closest I've seen was a contract to let tourists colonize an umanned probe...naturally, I ignored that one...

Afternoon, y'all. Figured I'd give y'all a report on my goings-on before the weekend. Picked up a copy of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition on the cheap from eBay and so I'm hoping that's what I'll be doing for at least part of the next day or two. My day yesterday began with the embarkation of tourists aboard Strange Cargo and colonists aboard Next Objective, all of whom had been brought up to space station Kerbinport the day before aboard an Auk XIV 36-passenger spaceplane. Strange Cargo departed the station first and set up her burn for Mun. Next Objective departed next and set up her burn for Minmus, and then with no more passengers aboard, the Auk XIV was allowed to depart the station. A busy traffic pattern. Next Objective's on the left, the Auk is the big plane center foreground, and Strange Cargo's on the right. All three craft departed the station safely, though Next Objective damn near clipped the cupola off the forward end of the station during her burn for Minmus; she'll arrive there in 3.5 days. The Auk had a fairly normal re-entry procedure ongoing right up until she flew over Mt. Killakerbal fifty klicks west of KSC. It's at that point that I'd noticed I'd lost control over the craft. Note to self - replace Auk XIV solar panels with some RTGs somewhere. At least she glides nice and easy... The craft had run out of electrical power during re-entry. She veered off course and eventually splashed into the ocean about thirty kilometers or so southwest of the the space center. Thanks to KJR, I got a souvenir from this event, at least... I went ahead and let the crash stand instead of revert, because A) nobody was aboard and B) my program is so flush with cash right now that I could afford to take the loss without batting an eye. Set a few world's first records in the process. For the record, the plane made it down 120 meters before plopping back up. I spent the rest of the day working between the Enchova Central outpost on Duna and space station Dunaport in orbit. With power to the station's mass driver stabilized, I went ahead and shot down the remaining 11,083 units of Uraninite using a series of mass driver shots, shooting down about 190 units per load and allowing the station's batteries to recharge when necessary. I was eventually able to get the entire load down to Enchova Central, at which point the Mule resource storage tanks aboard the Nostromo 7 resource hauler/lander docked at the station were reconfigured for Minerals. Enchova Central in turn shot up enough Monopropellant, Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer to resupply the station fully, and then shot up enough Minerals to completely fill the Nostromo's tanks. To make full use of its uranium ore load and newly-ongoing uranium enrichment activities, engineer Chadul Kerman (along with the assistance of pilot Billy-Bobcal Kerman) added four SAFER reactors to the outpost; this has successfully stabilized the outpost's power reserves as intended, allowing the mass driver to remain operational at all time. While that was ongoing, I received word from the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus that four kerbals had completed a colonization mission. Easy money. So far today, I designed and printed up a Boop-Boop 7x probe at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus, which was then put into a target orbit over the minty moon for contract (surprisingly, my first such satellite of this career save). Nostromo departed for Ike and has arrived in a 25 kilometer low orbit in preparation for landing at the Scan Queen outpost on the surface, the intended destination of its Minerals consist. Strange Cargo has also arrived in Mun orbit and her rendezvous with space station Munport has been set up. I'm looking at two excursions down to the surface of Mun in the very near future. Lots of waiting for folks to get their act together going on right now - still have the Minnow and Necessary Evil coming back from Minmus, and I'll need for Strange Cargo to head back to Kerbin, pick up some tourists for Minmus, head that way and get back before I will consider sending folks on to Duna, Ike and Eve. I have eight tourist contracts right now and three of them have folks going that way. Hey, with a supply of Minerals finally arriving at Scan Queen, I can busy myself with finishing the construction of that outpost at least. Still considering the merits of setting up a TBD base on Gilly. Eve's under consideration too...

You're going to need to have a supply of Equipment to inflate/reconfigure almost all of the modules - the only exception I'm aware of is when you're reconfiguring Buckboard and Chuckwagons; usually you can get away for free there (unless you're turning them into a Power distributor, which takes a bit; it's 250 for the Buckboards and I want to say 600 for the Wagons). There are ways to manufacture Equipment on site if you want to go the full ISRU route, otherwise you either have to haul it with you or deliver it later on. Specific numbers for various inflatable modules: Which mode of the mod have you selected out of curiosity? By which I mean are you playing Classic Stock, CRP Mode, Pristine Mode or Simplified Mode? Default is Classic Stock if you haven't fiddled with that. Makes a difference as to the formula for making Equipment in situ.

Fair enough. Okay, that's a start. What kind of mass do you have on that craft? My first instinct is to say insufficient wing area. My second is to ask what you've got as far as a horizontal stabilizer on the tail, what kind of elevator surfaces are on the thing, and how far it is from the center of mass - with something that stubby from nose to tail, it could be something as simple as insufficient pitch authority. Both your screenies are from the nose, so it's tough to say what's going on in the back. A top-down screenshot could be helpful too, as could a SPH screenie with the CoM and CoL markers turned on.

Screenie? FAR or stock? Trying to figure out why it might not have wanted to take off.