capi3101

Ran a build with just Workshop and its dependencies; Workbench wouldn't open up. I then tried using a version of Workshop from KSP 1.5.1, one that I knew worked. Workbench still wouldn't open, so I restored the latest version of the mod, and then replaced KIS with KIS 1.16 (again, the version from 1.5.1). Workshop fired right up - only thing I can say wrong with it was that the box to close to window was still missing if you didn't have anything in the building queue. There was one present for the Recycler window. And everything was fitting in the boxes too. I checked that. Looks like the new KIS is causing multiple issues. No real surprise, I suppose. Tomorrow I'll try putting up a Castillo to see if I can retrain a kerbal into something else. I'm really thinking that one's just a mod conflict there, and I have my suspects, but I hope to know more tomorrow.

Was going to report the OmniShop did the same thing again, but I see that’s not necessary. Just tried opening up the OSE Workbench using the part action window on a 3D printing lab part (from the Workship mod itself). Wouldn’t open. Might try a run with just Workshop to see if the issue is over there.

Only tried it once; will try again next opportunity.

Added Kerbal Konstructs 1.4.5.56 to the mix too. So, I'm definitely seeing volume issues with stowed parts, and the connections to Workshop are definitely completely non-functional. I did not see the Equipment drain I reported earlier today; that might be because I used Classic Stock for this test, and when it happened I was in CRP mode. I'll try again in CRP mode and if that's where it's happening, that's probably sign-off for CRP mode... One other thing I saw today - since I was in Classic Stock mode, I tried turning my Blacksmith into an OmniShop. Called up OmniConverter 1 and this happened:

It's happened to me twice now, pretty sure, and both times it's been very recent, since the latest KIS version (which is why I suspect KIS). I had planned to do an experimental sandbox run later today to see if it happened again. EDIT: Meant to say that I intended to do this with a relatively clean install: Pathfinder 1.32.1.0, Buffalo 2.6.12, MOLE 1.17.1.0, OSE Workshop 1.3.1, KIS 1.18, KAS 1.1 and Extraplanetary Launchpads 6.4 on a vanilla 1.6.1 KSP install, using Module Manager 4.0.1. Just got done building it and importing the TBD rovers over. Will let you know what happens.

One last thing to report - I don't have screenies for this one right now, and I again suspect it has to do with the recent changes in KIS more than Pathfinder. Still felt it worth reporting. As I was attempting to set up Enchova Central on Duna the other day, I did my usual bit of setting the nearby TBD rover with a Wagon full of Equipment up as a distributor. Bolted Saddle to Ground. Attached Pondarosa to Saddle. Assemble. No problem - Pondy deploys. Grab a Casa, stick Casa on side of Pondy. Mash go to assemble Casa. Game tells me I don't have a working distributor nearby with enough Equipment to deploy. I check the rover. Equipment on the damn thing is empty. This was with a Wagon completely full of Equipment (12000 units) when the rover landed, and all I did was inflate a Pondarosa (900 maximum). The rest of it just vanished... I'll see if this happens again to me, and I'll try to get screenies. Meanwhile, is anybody else seeing this as well?

Seeing something else today - Those Haciendas all fit in that Buckboard when I first built this craft; game wouldn't let me get away with taking one out and trying to put it back in today. Looks like it's treating the Haciendas as if they're fully inflated when they're not. I'm guessing this has something to do with the latest version of KIS more than Pathfinder (since I've updated KIS recently). Still thought it was worth reporting.

That's the bit that isn't working for me.

I was, yes. <checks_rest_of_posts_since_my_last_one /> I guess it's been that long since I've tried to use the Blacksmith or Clockworks at any of my bases. Known issue - got it. PAW? Not trying to be dense; genuinely not following you here. Do you mean the Pathfinder button on the toolbar? EDIT - just tried it; I take it that's not what you meant.

Anybody else having issues with the Blacksmith/Clockworks at the moment? Clicking on the button to open the Workshop on the right-click menu is doing nothing for me at the moment; the button to open the recycler is completely missing. Going at it through Manage Operations has much the same effect, except the recycler will open up a non-responsive window. Just seeing if anybody else is seeing the same thing. Using Pathfinder 1.32.1.0 in CRP mode, Workshop 1.3.1 and KIS 1.18 with KSP 1.6.1.

Got a quick question - can someone tell me what the process looks like for using the new Castillos to re-train colonists? Either I'm not doing it right, it's not working like it should, or I've got a mod conflict somewhere. Okay. So, I right-click on a Castillo with a group of colonists that have finished up their contracts and select "Retrain Kerbals". I get a list of buttons on the left with the names of the Kerbals currently inside the Castillo, and on the left side I'm presented with their courage and stupidity value as well as their current role, and below that there are buttons that let me select a role (Tourist, Pilot, Scientist, Engineer). Bottom most button there is "SET", and at the bottom of the whole interface there's a button marked "OK". I pick the button corresponding to the Kerbal, pick the button corresponding to what I want them to be, and hit "SET". I get a message says "press OK to confirm changes" or some such, which I then do and the interface closes. What's supposed to happen next? Is the change supposed to be instantaneous? For me, nothing is happening. Using Pathfinder 1.32.1.0 in CRP mode with KSP 1.6.1.

Couldn't say; guessing we both had the same idea there... And now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

I can sure try, though the devs only let you give out so many per day...

Well, at least they're on the ground. Alive this time. If they'd landed in the Midlands I might even say "let's just park it here". Newsflash - it didn't work. Rather, the game accepted the new gimbal data, but my rover remained stubbornly on its side... In other news, @Triop just gave me my 1,000th "like" on these forums...

Ferram discontinued NEAR with 0.90, IIRC. It was kinduva joke mod in the first place, in all honesty - the FAR atmospheric model without all the extra tools that make flying with that model worth it. Incidentally, the FAR analysis screens will show you your level flight AoA and general flight characteristics for various speeds. The mod does have a bit of a learning curve, but not necessarily a very steep one; FAR-flyers can help you interpret what it's telling you. Of course, that's a discussion for one of the FAR threads, not here. I fly FAR, and I use AA. And as it turns out, I also use NavUtilities - all exceptionally useful plane mods. If you have any questions about any of them, please ask. Love AA, BTW @Boris-Barboris; I credit much of the success of my last few career saves to it alone.

Last couple of days have been quite eventful. Tuesday began with the successful return of Strange Cargo to Kerbin from Mun, where she had delivered a group of nine colonists to the Piper Alpha outpost on the surface. Strange Cargo affected a successful rendezvous and docking at space station Kerbinport, after which the South Base outpost near KSC refueled the station via mass driver shot. Next, LSV House Harkonnen warped into low orbit over Kerbol with a TBD 7c rover stuck sideways in her onboard drydock, beginning a series of maneuvers that would take her to Duna by the end of the day. The Kerbincomm Hotel communications satellite also reached its final position, finally fully establishing the outer ring of Kerbin's communications satellite network and completing the network in general. An ongoing mission to retrieve a MOLE Mark One Habitat from the surface of Minmus finally reached its conclusion as well yesterday, as the Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe hauling it to Kerbin reached atmospheric entry and splashed down intact. About this time I went to the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin expecting to find that construction of the new Muad'dib 7 Alcubierre mothership - LSV House Atreides - was complete. Instead I found out that the shipyard had run out of RocketParts for the job, and construction had halted as a result. An adequate load of RocketParts was shot up to DP from South Base and construction resumed. The shortage tacked on another eight hours to the construction time of Atreides, a craft that was already four days late on its originally scheduled delivery owing to other issues... Necessary Evil reached Minmus next, which occurred about the same time that Next Objective finally returned from its mission to Minmus. To be clear about this: Next Objective had departed Minmus before Necessary Evil had on its last delivery run, and Necessary Evil had made it back to Kerbin, docked, took on new passengers and returned to Minmus all before Next Objective had finally made it back to Kerbin. Bad burns indeed, y'all. Anyway, Next Objective affected a successful rendezvous and docking at Kerbinport, while Necessary Evil did the same with space station Minmusport. At Minmusport, colonists Nellrey, Geoffrod, Genery and Jeaneane Kerman boarded the Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander docked at the station, which then departed the station. Necessary Evil took on fuel and then departed for Kerbin, its delivery job completed; the ship should return in eight days. Meanwhile the Crater Maker made its way down to the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface, and after waiting for local daylight, it was hooked up to the outpost long enough to transfer off the colonists and refuel. After it was unhooked, the Crater Maker made its way back to Minmusport, docking successfully. DH resupplied the station afterwards via mass driver shot. While Harkonnen was nearing the completion of its ramp-down maneuver prior to final warp to Duna, I received word from Dystopia Planitia - LSV House Atreides was finally ready for launch. Muad'dib! Muad'dib! Muad'dib! Don't trust Dr. Yueh and all the other relevant literary references! Harkonnen's maneuvers caused one final delay in preparation for the launch of Atreides (damn Harkonnens anyway) - Harkonnen conducted its final warps to Duna, ultimately attaining a final orbit of 381 x 302 kilometers at 5 degrees inclination over the red planet. The intended crew of the TBD - pilot Billy-Bobcal Kerman, scientist Wenmy Kerman and engineer Chadul Kerman - made their way aboard the rover. After making one final check of the craft to make certain it was supplied, the TBD was released from the ship's drydock. Billy-Bobcal did a very admirable job of maneuvering the rover into an upright position, and ultimately the rover cleared the drydock. I still don't know how I managed to finagle this thing into an upright position - I mean, it was well and truly stuck through the side when it came off the printer. Ain't complaining though. The TBD crew began preparations for landing. While those were ongoing, I received word that the first of my four ongoing colonization contracts was complete, netting me about √2M in one big thwack. I have yet to see about re-training the colonists into more productive roles; I have the capability of doing this, apparently. Just haven't figured out the mechanics involved yet. My attention turned next to fueling of Atreides. Several mass driver shots between South Base and Dystopia Planitia occurred, filling the craft with enriched uranium, xenon and standard fuel supplies. The General Electric 7 exotic matter jump starting craft docked to Dystopia Planitia then performed its intended job, providing enough electrical charge for Atreides's exotic matter generator to build up about 250 units of exotic matter prior to leaving dock. All this done, House Atreides was finally allowed to leave drydock on her shakedown cruise, a mission to sundive and complete the filling of her exotic matter tank. She went ahead and raised her apopasis above the Alcubierre Drive's failsafe altitude on conventional drives and the time to her first warp was set. LSV House Atreides departing Kerbin, her warp drive engaged for the very first time. At that point though, the TBD rover had reached its de-orbit point over Duna and landing attempts commenced. After several such attempts, it became abundantly clear that the design could not enter the Dunan atmosphere and land safely; the onboard engines were not slowing the craft down sufficiently to allow for the deployment of the chutes, leading to multiple hard lithobrakes with vehicle loss. Ultimately I had no choice but to order an ATO, which Billy-Bobcal affected successfully though it left the rover without sufficient remaining fuel to do much of anything at this point. Going to the drawing board, I designed a grabber probe with a more powerful engine and fuel supply - which I (appropriately for once) dubbed the Last Chance 7 - and ordered the crew remaining aboard Harkonnen to begin printing one up; printing is expected to take seven hours. I'm bummed that the Duna mission has suffered this setback, but I'm quietly optimistic that Plan B is going to work. Atreides completed her fueling dive over Kerbol and returned successfully to orbit over Kerbin. Printing of a dedicated workshop module for the ship began at Dystopia Planitia and the shipyard is continuing to recharge the GE's capacitors; at the rate of about 300 Megajoules per orbit, it should take another seven orbits to finally finish recharging. Of course, I have to be at the shipyard for it to count... This morning I began a rescue mission over Minmus, releasing the Spamcan 7 2-passenger monoprop lander from Minmusport to rendezvous with Kardon's Debris in very low Minmus orbit. Aside from that, I'm still in the waiting pattern; Harkonnen is printing up the Last Chance, Dystopia Planitia is printing up Atreides's workshop module, and everything else I've got going on is either waiting on the warp ships or just waiting for the passage of time. Sure am hoping to be able to report the successful commencement of operations on Duna to y'all in the next day or two; I really had hoped to be able to do that today...

Fair enough. Still, about the only thing that I said that wouldn't necessarily be applicable was my advice with the wings. Even in stock, 1500 m/s is still a good rocket delta-V target for a well-built spaceplane, assume your plane's takeoff mass is going be your payload mass divided by 0.15, use a 1.6 wet-to-dry mass ratio for that theoretical mass when guessing how much fuel you're going to need, and have it about 45% ox, 55% liquid fuel. And then go with however many engines for that theoretical takeoff mass that you'll think you'll need. Include one airbrake per engine. For example, let's say you build your payload and it comes out at 4.5 tonnes (not unreasonable). You divide that by 0.15; your theoretical takeoff mass is 30 tonnes. Twenty tonnes per RAPIER has been suggested; you've got thirty tonnes, so use two RAPIERS. You still assume the 1.6 ratio for forty tonnes since you're using two engines - that comes out to 25 tonnes of fuel, of which 11.25 tonnes will be oxidizer and 13.75 tonnes will be liquid fuel. At 200 units per tonne, that comes out to 2250 oxidizer and 2750 liquid fuel. Two engines, so two airbrakes. Already sets a lot of the parameters you're going to want for your final design right there. (Yes, I know that those figures are going to shoot over thirty tonnes - the "theoretical mass" is really little more than a back of the envelope estimate, but my experience shows it to be a good one).

OP: Are you using stock air or FAR? I'm assuming stock, in which case my advice isn't going to be terribly useful to you. But I'll offer it anyway...some of it is still applicable to stock. So, first thing's first - like a rocket, start with your basic concept and build the payload. Payload in this case includes anything other than fuel tanks, engines, wing and landing gear. Grab the mass of that payload and divide it by 0.15; assume that when your plane is said and done, it's going to weigh about that much and plan accordingly. If you're doing Whiplashes, you're going to want one engine per 30 tonnes of theoretical plane. With RAPIERs, one engine per 17 tonnes. Panthers, I haven't tried to get into orbit there, so go with what other folks tell you. Theoretical fuel load: Assume here that you're going to want somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 m/s of dV for the part where your plane becomes a rocket; that'll get you to orbit, futz around a bit and come back. For most purposes, that's a wet-to-dry-mass ratio of 1.6, and I usually reverse the ratio (instead of 45% fuel and 55% oxidizer, go with 55% fuel and 45% oxidizer; this will give you some gas for the atmo part of the flight). If you're wanting an interplanetary spaceplane (say something you want to get to Laythe with), include the fuel for that with your payload design. From there, you build your fuselage, engine and intake assemblies. For the wings, I use a set of formulas that work in FAR; the wing loading is designed at 0.5 tonnes per meter, aspect ratio at 2:1, and uses a composite setup dependent on Procedural Wings that gives an approximation of the wings used on the Shuttle. I generally give the plane one set of airbrakes per engine, and set up my gear in a tricycle pattern with the brakes and friction turned up all the way in the back, with no brakes and 2.5 friction up front as well as 1.25 damper. I usually go with no steering on any of the wheels; in my experience steering is more trouble than it's worth. Hope that's moderately helpful.

I fly FAR a lot, and I use Procedural Wings for all of my planes using a set of parameters that approximates the same dimensions/shapes of the Space Shuttle wings (it's not 100% accurate since you can't do oblate curves, but it's close enough for jazz). Usually I start re-entry opposite KSC, and keep the nose around 40-50 degrees elevation until I don't have enough pitch authority to hold that anymore. Usually gets the speed down pretty effectively. At landing, I'm usually on a 3-5 degree glide slope, like a normal aircraft. Can I see a screenshot of your shuttle? Just curious what it looks like. Add your CoM and CoL balls at landing if possible. If it's a bonafide Shuttle replica, you're dealing with a tailless delta design, is that correct? In that case, the best advice I can give you is to bump up the pitch authority on your elevon controls to maximum. The other thing I'm curious about is your wing area and mass at landing (your wing loading). From the behavior you're describing it sounds like it might be a tad on the high side. I'll know more when I see your design. Are you playing with any other mods? Sorry that I'm not answering your question directly; I don't know the Shuttle numbers off the top of my head.

Logged a little over two hours playing time in aggregate yesterday, and I don't have a lot to show for it. A fair amount of the time was spent with the second run of a Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander between the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun and space station Munport in orbit. The Crater Maker was at the outpost at the beginning of the day, having delivered eight of nine colonists the day before. The lander affected a successful return to the station, docking and refueling before colonist Sonden Kerman boarded. The lander then departed and affected a second landing at Piper Alpha, with Strange Cargo departing Munport for Kerbin while the lander was awaiting its de-orbit burn. I parked the lander just a shade too close to that new Castillo module I added the other day...yes, it's touching. Pilot Patrod Kerman got out and hooked up the lander to the outpost so Sonden could disembark and the lander could be refueled once again. Job done the lander was unhooked and returned to Munport, docking there safely by day's end. Piper Alpha then conducted a set of mass driver shots to Munport to refuel the station and the landers parked there. LSV House Harkonnen completed her build of a TBD 7c base-seeding rover while still in orbit of Kerbin. I had failed to reorient the rover vertically in the VAB and as a result it did indeed come out sideways when I went to finalize the print. A test release-and-revert took place; the test showed that the rover could still be safely deployed, so plans to use it to colonize Duna proceeded as planned. Harkonnen took on the resources the rover would need to conduct its mission via mass driver shots from the South Base outpost near KSC. Once fueled, Harkonnen proceeded to its apoapsis point above the fail-safe altitude for the ship's Alcubierre Drive and proceeded from there to warp to the ramp-up point over Kerbol. As of this morning, Harkonnen is about 1.5 GM over Kerbol on a direct free-fall course, gaining speed to enter parking orbit into low Kerbol orbit; the ramp-up will take about 8.5 hours to complete. From there the ship will wait until she's vector-aligned with Duna before conducting the ramp-down and final direct warp (knock on wood) to LDO, at which point the fun begins... With all other operations effectively in a holding pattern, engineer Haydorf Kerman at Piper Alpha grabbed her trusty screwdriver and jetpacked the three kilometer distance to Mun Outpost 1, where she proceeded to disassemble the outpost and pack away all the structures aboard the Wisent 7 utility rover I'd parked out there a few days prior. Once that job was finished and the outpost was no more, she drove the Wisent back to Piper Alpha, parking it on the station's launch pad. Haydorf then got out and jetpacked back to her reactor module, at which time the launch pad's recycler unit was activated and the Wisent was successfully recycled. The completion of Mun Outpost 1's decommissioning effectively secures all ongoing missions at Mun for the time being, at least until the first of the colonization missions completes itself seven days hence. This morning, I'm pretty much still in a holding pattern. Strange Cargo, Necessary Evil, Next Objective and House Harkonnen are all currently en route to their various destinations, as is the Bill Clinton 7b probe I've got bringing a garbage payload to Kerbin from Minmus. The final positioning of the Kerbincomm Hotel communications probe - which will finally finish Kerbin's comm satellite constellation after nearly a hundred days - will occur before all of these happen; that should be a fairly straightforward job. Printing of LSV House Atreides at the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin is also nearing completion. The ship will be tasked with setting up an outpost over Ike, and with Harkonnen already having established a good chunk of the needed orbital infrastructure and orbital surveys, the ship can go straight ahead with preparations for colonization. I already had a capable pilot - Janpont Kerman - available, so yesterday I went ahead and hired scientist Elidun Kerman and engineer Thombles Kerman to make up the remainder of the Ike-bound crew. I may go ahead and try to do some early training with the trio before they head out to Ike; certainly I've got time for it at this point. I'll probably bring engineer Ceri Kerman along for the ride; a third star's worth of experience certainly wouldn't hurt for her to have...

Didn't have a great deal of time to play over the weekend - my log records 2 hours and 35 minutes over the past two days - but I still feel like I got a fair amount accomplished. On Saturday, I launched the new Minnow 7b 3-hour touring craft from KSC, sending it up to dock successfully at space station Kerbinport, where tourists Shepus, Eduki and Ludvan Kerman boarded. Jeb and pilot Gwenlock Kerman got in the craft's driver seats, which then departed for a rendezvous with LSV House Harkonnen in a 300 kilometer equatorial orbit over Kerbin. Meanwhile, the Bill Clinton 7b probe I'd built at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus on Friday reached its target, a MOLE Mark One Habitat. The target payload was grabbed successfully and the probe burned for Kerbin, where it is scheduled for atmospheric entry a little over 42 hours from now. Strange Cargo also arrived in Mun's SOI with its shipful of colonists heading to the Piper Alpha outpost on the Munar surface. Piper Alpha finished the printing of the Wisent 7a utility rover that had been under construction there for the past few days. Pilot Patrod Kerman EVA'd from the outpost and got in the driver's seat, then drove it the three kilometers to Mun Outpost 1. Okay kids, let's play "spot the design flaws in capi's rover"! Actually, it handled relatively well all things considered, but I still took it plenty easy. Approaching Mun Outpost 1 in this screenie. After arriving, Patrod hooked up the rover to the outpost, giving it a laboratory module and fulfilling the conditions for the outpost's establishment contract. One finished contract. And outpost. Contract and outpost. Them KAS cables, though... Job done, Patrod unhooked the rover from the outpost and jetpacked back to Piper Alpha. (I've learned that KAS cables in the latest version of the mod are 100% Kraken bait - it's like putting a thumper out on the sands of Arrakis; eventually you are definitely going to get a worm). I have no intended use for Mun Outpost 1 and will be looking into if/how I can dismantle it safely when I have an opportunity to do so. The replacement contract offered would've involved moving one of my communications satellites, and when I refused to do so, the game did not offer me another replacement. ScanSat Ike completed its orbital narrow-band surveying mission, identifying three biomes on the surface as suitable for the establishment of colony sites (all in the mountains, naturally). Combined with the broadband data I had from the probe's resource surveyor scanner, I selected an initial landing site for the establishment of a future Ike outpost along the equator. I know the area will have the resources in-situ for a large Pathfinder base, but I won't really know the whole picture until I can get a scout rover down there. The plan is for House Harkonnen (or perhaps LSV House Atreides) to prepare such a rover upon the ship's return to Duna after the mission to establish the Enchova Central outpost on Duna is complete. After spending some time conducting refueling mass driver shots between the South Base outpost near KSC and Kerbninport and recharging South Base's supply stores, it was time for the Minnow to make her transfer burn to rendezvous with House Harkonnen. The Minnow made the rendezvous successfully and docked on the ship's second Minnow pier. LSV House Harkonnen over Kerbin, with the Minnow 7b (left), Minnow 7 (right) and Bigby Workshop module (back) all docked. With the arrival of the new Minnow craft, the time had come to retire the old Minnow craft, the only true casualty I experienced from my career save's switchover from 1.5.1 to 1.6.1. Everybody filed out of the craft except for pilot Billy-Bobcal Kerman, who would be needed aboard long enough to get the craft into position directly aft of Harkonnen (owing to the fact that the earlier Minnow craft had no on-board computer control). Once the craft was in position, the recycler unit of Harkonnen's drydock was activated and Billy-Bobcal gave the ship 15 cm/s of forward thrust. Billy-Bobcal bailing. Say that five times fast. The Minnow was successfully recycled, and Billy-Bobcal got back aboard Harkonnen via the Bigby workshop's airlock module. With that job done, slightly over three thousand Rocket Parts were sent up to Harkonnen to complete the print job of the TBD 7c base-seeding rover currently under construction aboard ship. I have got cause for concern with that job at this point - the TBD is nearly thirteen meters long and the drydock is designed for craft only up to eleven meters in diameter; I'm afraid the thing will get jammed in there when I go to finalize the build. Might have to tear it down and start completely over, which will delay Harkonnen's return to Duna for at least three days or more... Once the Minnow arrived at Harkonnen, Strange Cargo entered Munar orbit and her rendezvous burn was set with space station Munport. Before she arrived and docked safely there, Necessary Evil returned to Kerbin from her recent trip out to Minmus, eventually arriving and docking safely at Kerbinport. At Munport, colonists Linbo, Richlong, Jorbro, Merwise, Genenard, Juldous, Cerlin and Theofel Kerman were loaded aboard the Crater Maker 8-passenger lander docked there, which then departed Munport and made its way to Piper Alpha, landing safely just off the outpost's launch pad. Yes, I was trying for the center of the pad. Obviously I missed, but that's not really a bad thing - had I been successful, the landing legs would've sunk into the pad when I hooked the lander up to the outpost. No telling what kinds of fun that would've caused... The outpost wasn't ready to receive the colonists when they arrived; outpost staff quickly printed up a Mineshaft portable crew tube. Engineer Haydorf Kerman deployed one of the station's spare Castillo dome modules and attached the Mineshaft to it, then linked it up with the Crater Maker so the colonists could disembark from the lander in relative comfort. The colonists are now safely ensconced in the new Castillo, where they will wait for the next 48 hours. Meanwhile the lander was refueled and unlinked from the outpost. It will make its way back up to Munport and after refueling again will be bringing colonist Sonden Kerman down to the outpost, at which point Strange Cargo will be returning to Kerbin on full automatic control. After refueling, Necessary Evil saw a change in command as pilot Gregald Kerman became the new acting capsule commander, swapping places with pilot Alder Kerman as capsule commander of Kerbinport. Scientist Frovan Kerman also moved to man the station's lab. Colonists Nellrey, Geoffrod, Genery and Jeaneane Kerman boarded Necessary Evil, which then departed for Minmus, making the transfer burn just this morning; NE will arrive in Minmus's SOI in a little over 32 hours. That's all there is to report for my weekend. I need to get the lander back up from Munport, but other than that the next event I've got on the alarm clock is the completion of the TBD rover aboard Harkonnen, which is about ninety minutes away. I will do a quicksave right when the rover finishes - if it appears I can get the rover free of the drydock, Harkonnen will be go for a Duna return mission as soon as the rover is fueled and equipped. If not, I'll revert and try to tear down the build. I'm hoping nothing disastrous happens with this whole deal (like the drydock exploding in a poof of logic, though even that wouldn't necessarily be a catastrophic loss) - more than anything, I'm looking forward to the challenge of establishing a new outpost at Duna. Got some serious plans in store there. Just have to be patient...

My eldest has made it as far as 6-2 in SMB1 without warping. And no, not a retropie console - the original NES that I got for Christmas back in...'87? '88? I forget. Still works.

It's even cooler when you get the kids to play the same games you played - just yesterday my eldest got hacked off at my middle kid because he was having a bad run in the original Super Mario Bros and my middle was making fun of him over it. Going to raise me a trio of retro-gamers yet. (My NES still works - got it hooked up in my living room...) Still haven't gotten any of them interested in KSP yet...

Not much to report for my afternoon and evening activities yesterday. No screenies either, I'm afraid - all the ones I took just weren't all that terribly interesting to look at... My afternoon began with a refueling mass driver shot from the South Base outpost near KSC to space station Kerbinport. Owing to the fact that South Base had just resupplied LSV House Harkonnen in a 300 kilometer equatorial orbit over Kerbin after that ship's initial infrastructure mission to the Duna/Ike SOI, there wasn't sufficient Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer available to completely refuel the station. I made sure that the two Brew Works refineries at South Base were set to manufacture LF/LOX before heading off to do other things. Floppy rocket syndrome showing up at Kerbinport had me a little concerned, so next I got out of my game to check to see what was up with my KJR install. Turns out that a version or two back, I had deleted and failed to replace one of the KJR .dll dependencies, which is why it wasn't working properly. A quick reinstall job later, floppy rocket syndrome was no longer apparent at Kerbinport or Harkonnen. Pretty happy about that. An Auk VII 16-passenger spaceplane I had launched earlier in the day yesterday arrived at Kerbinport, and after shuffling around kerbals at the station, nine colonists - Linbo, Richlong, Jorbro, Merwise, Genenard, Juldous, Cerlin, Theofel and Sonden Kerman - embarked aboard Strange Cargo docked and fueled at the station, with Jeb giving up the driver's seat to Sonden (generally the ship operates on its probe core anyway). Strange Cargo departed Kerbinport and burned for Mun, where it should arrive in a few hours' time. From there the nine colonists will make their way to the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun. The colonist contracts for PA don't pay nearly as well as the one I got for Deepwater Horizon on Minmus a few days ago, but every little bit helps. After Strange Cargo departed, the Auk departed and landed safely at KSC 09, taking tourist Halvin Kerman back down with it; his contract was for a mere up-and-down, which had been well completed at that point. The Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe under construction at the Non Mentha Yards over Minmus was completed and released from its mooring. I immediately realized that I'd forgotten to fuel it up - luckily it had a small amount of monopropellant aboard and was able to turn around and grab ahold of the drydock. Fuel was shot up to Non Mentha and transferred to the probe, which then was released a second time and burned for a rendezvous with its target, a MOLE Mark One Habitat that Non Mentha's crew had brought up from the surface of Minmus a few days ago. That rendezvous is scheduled to take place in the next half hour. Earlier I'd reported that the print job of a TBD 7c rover at House Harkonnen was scheduled to take 36 days to complete, which I'd classed as "not really acceptable". With attempts to cancel the print job causing the game to crash, I decided to take an alternative approach and attempt to rectify a flaw in Harkonnen's design by giving the craft a MOLE Bigby Workshop in an attempt to speed things up (I'd added MOLE laboratories inadvertently when I'd first designed the ship, and as a result Harkonnen's vessel productivity never got above 0.8 despite having a very competent crew aboard). A dockable Bigby module was designed; the original plan was for Harkonnen to print that up itself but with the game crashing, I elected to do it the old-fashioned way. After adding a 700 m/s transfer stage (roughly three times what's required to boost from 100-300 km over Kerbin) and booster to the design, a workshop was shot up to Harkonnen and docked successfully. Once the crew transferred into the workshop, the productivity jumped from 0.8 to 11.2 instantly - the TBD print job will now complete in a mere seven hours. The plan is to complete that job and before releasing it, use the TBD and Harkonnen's mass driver to store some Equipment aboard. Once that's done, Harkonnen is heading back to Duna, where the TBD will land and establish the Enchova Central outpost on the surface. It's looking like this is going to happen now; the only potential sticking point I'm seeing is that the TBD was designed in the SPH instead of the VAB (i.e. it's oriented horizontally instead of vertically), so there's a chance it may not fit in Harkonnen's drydock. Hopefully it does and the colonization of Duna can commence... (LSV House Atreides under construction at the Dystopia Planitia shipyards over Kerbin, incidentally, will have the same design flaw as Harkonnen; I'll ultimately have to rectify it the same way. The basic Muad'dib 7 Alcubierre mothership design has been changed to incorporate Bigbys at this point, so if I wind up with a third warp ship it won't have to have a separate Bigby module printed up. So there's that at least.) Last thing I did was add a Titan Instrument package (from MOLE) to the design of the Minnow 7 3-hour touring craft and adjust the design's RCS thrusters to compensate for the extra weight. The modified craft - Minnow 7b - is currently sitting on the pad awaiting launch, which will take place after the Clinton grabs the aforementioned MOLE habitat over Minmus. From there it is heading to Kerbinport to pick up a group of tourists to take over to Harkonnen; they'll be riding along on Harkonnen's next hop for a smattering of different contracts. Eventually I hope to recycle the Minnow currently docked to Harkonnen; it got jacked up somewhere along the line and now it thinks it's still shrouded/stowed. Next things up in the pipe other than the habitat retrieval mission and the Minnow launch include the completion of ScanSat Ike's mission to perform narrow-band orbital scanning passes of all of Ike's biomes, the recharging of South Base's supplies, and the final completion of Mun Outpost 1's contract; a plan to put a lab on wheels and drive it over to hook up via KAS cable is in motion, with the printing of the lab-rover currently underway. I'm actually kinda hoping to get to a bit of a breathing spot in the action soon, and it's beginning to look like that might happen.

Screenie heavy today, y'all. Didn't necessarily intend that - just kind of happened. Not a great deal to report for yesterday afternoon and evening. Tried out Stellaris; reminds me a lot of Wing Commander: Armada / Masters of Orion / Twilight Imperium. Talk about a game that could use a coherent manual of some kind - there are so many different nuances to it and little useful guidance to it all. Even the wiki is not terribly useful. That said, I enjoyed playing it and I think I could probably really get into it, given enough time. My afternoon began with LSV House Harkonnen attaining a final 300 km orbit over Kerbin. Take that, floppy rocket syndrome!! Once she arrived in orbit, Harkonnen dropped a transfer stage she'd been carrying around for one of the two Minnow docking adapters she had been carrying (the other was actually hauling a Minnow 7 touring craft). Tough to tell in this screenie - the aforementioned transfer stage is that Ant and Doughnut assembly there towards the lower right. This looked at lot cooler when it was video. Just saying. The transfer stage lowered its orbit to 100 km before conducting a final de-orbit burn. Didn't want to take the chance that it'd overheat on re-entry with all that was at stake. I think Squad has a few kinks to work out with their delta-V reporting code. The stage definitely had more fuel to burn at this point; it just wasn't burning it. The transfer stage splashed down safely, and as intended, its retrieval fulfilled the current exploration contract for Ike. Effin' Mun - always getting in the way of Kerbol. Really cramps what little style I might actually pretend to have. Let this be a lesson to you, kiddies - hauling around garbage is (rarely, but sometimes) totally worth it when you've got access to Alcubierre Drives... I'm now tasked with landing on Ike's surface, taking a walk on its surface and planting a flag, all of which correspond to my long-term plans for the colonization of the Duna/Ike SOI. Harkonnen's resource stores were refilled via mass driver shots from the South Base outpost near KSC, at which point the craft began the scheduled printing of a TBD 7c base-seeding rover. Printing is expected to take 36 days to complete, which falls into the range of "not really acceptable". To help speed things up, I designed a module that would add a MOLE Bigby Workshop to the design; the current Dystopia Planitia 7 orbital shipyard design incorporates one of these workshops and they obtain far larger vessel productivity ratings than Harkonnen has to date, so I'm hoping this will speed things up tremendously. Unfortunately, it'll be a while before I can print one up given that all of the orbital docks are in use at the moment. I'm considering delivering one of these modules the old-fashioned way at this point; my program currently has √19M, so it's not like I'm short on funds or anything. The base design of the Muad’dib 7 Alcubierre Drive mothership (of which Harkonnen is one) was altered to incorporate the workshops, so they’ll be native to my third warp ship if I get to that point - I don't intend to interrupt the construction of LSV House Atreides to make the changes, not this far along into the construction process anyway. Atreides will also have to have a workshop installed later. Only other thing that happened yesterday was the successful (if harrowing) landing of an Auk-II 8-passenger spaceplane at KSC 27, bringing back 6 tourists from space station Kerbinport and clearing one tourist contract. The replacement was also a tourist contract, with the tourists wanting to do flybys of Kerbol and Duna. I've got enough tourists and colonists wanting to head up at this point that an Auk VII 16-passenger spaceplane flight is scheduled for later in the day today. Strange Cargo will take nine colonists on to Mun. Four colonists are scheduled for delivery to the Deepwater Horizon outpost on Minmus; they'll have to wait for the return of Necessary Evil in a few days time. Finally, I've got three tourists heading up and one already at the station; three of these are going to hitch a ride aboard Harkonnen as soon as I can get another Minnow to the station. So far this morning, I've checked in on the crew at Mun Outpost 1 near the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun. The crew survived the Munar night, so they all loaded aboard the TBD 7a rover that brought them out to the Mun Outpost 1 site and returned to Piper Alpha. TBD rover crew cresting the final hill, approaching Piper Alpha just after Kerbol-rise. The Mun Outpost 1 contract requires the installation of a lab module; at this point it's the only contract parameter unfulfilled. I had the bright idea to mount a lab on a Wisent 7 utility rover, print one up at Piper Alpha and just drive the thing out there to hook it up long enough with KAS cables to click the little check-box. Another five hours and that contract will be complete. I'll have to be careful with the drive - the way the lab's been mounted, the Wisent will have a very high center of mass, not something you want when you're driving on Mun. Or anywhere else for that matter...