Tw1

Made a kind of sequel. By dragging kerbals behind SRBs with a cable, I got them much higher than I could with the cannons, or by strapping a seat on the side of the SRB. Also, could a mod please move this to mission reports, now that we have it again? This no longer belongs in general discussion.

Part 2/2 That daredevil Tomcas, back from the dead, was ready for another go. This time, I popped out the suit's built in RCS, and brought his spinning to a stop. According to Tomcas, this was a "circularisation burn." Yes Tomcas. There is a reason his stupidity meter is almost at the max. As is the way things normally work, gravity did its thing, and Tomcas plummeted... with his bodily shape intact. Safely touching down with parachute, I knew that this kind of trip is nice and survivable. That last launch only went 77km. I knew I could go higher. When I cleared the atmosphere, I engaged the RCS, but instead of burning in a futile attempt to get into orbit, I fired upwards. The altimeter climed 70k, 80k, 90k, would I reach 100? Argh, just short. Then I had an idea. I fired my RCS as soon as I cleared the atmosphere, to avoid wasting it fighting drag. But as it doesn't have a TWR greater than one with Kerban's gravity, all it does is decrease the rate your vertical velocity falls. So maybe, if I fired it earlier, I'd sustain a higher speed for longer, and get higher. Oh, and Tomcas landed safely. And planted this flag. He won't be back any time soon. Looks like this last experiment falls to his partner. 3..2..1.. Doing his duty, for the good of kerbal kind, Lodfrod griped the controls of his jetpack trying not to shake. Waiting for the optimal time to start... (roughly when the amount of time it takes to empty the pack equals the time until apoapsis. I hope.) Soon, he could see the curvature of Kerbin. Up, up, up,.... fuel almost gone... We've done it! 100km. And more... Now that's high. And that's how you get to space with one SRB. Now, how to achieve orbit..... Btw, this is my new fountain.

Is that base kethane you're using? Looks a lot fancier than what I've got. This is an interesting way to scan for it. I'm going to try it now. Edit: I upgraded my kethane.

In the demo, they just went splotch, all over the ground. In the full version, 0.18, I bounced and lost half the engines, and one landing leg. Melmy was not going home that day. Later kerbals would visit the site, and stare respectfully at the abandoned lander, and the detached leg, and remember the first epic step into space. This is the kind of rocket I made to do it. The bit that actually made it to the Mun is right on top. You can make out the little radial thrusters.

Alternate title:How to get your kerbals really high. Part 1/2 Last night, something prompted me to see if solid fuel could be transferred between SRBs. As logic would say, you could not. But I now had a kerbal, and an SRB with a KAS cable connected. I'm sure you and I both can see the potential here. This one time, I launched a large SRB with a probe core on top, and it cleared the atmosphere. Recalling that, it was time for experiments! OK, But that wasn't big enough. And leaving the pod connected only slows us down. Time to bring out the decouplers, and a Rockomax BACC! Dilmy Kerman: "Hey, hold my beer" Soon enough, re-entry flames appeared. We're going that fast. ♪♫Up, up, here we go, go. Up, up, here we go, go ♫♪ And then the computer crashed. Rebooting the computer, I decided to take a different approach. As Project Kannon failed to provide a cheap way to put kerbals in orbit, I was still looking. And this had potential. But as you know, to get into orbit, you need to get horizontal velocity. The SRBs were tilted in hope that they'd slowly pitch over. Also, I used three this time. Because more boosters has got to be better, right? Bill Kerman stepped up to the plate, grabbed his parachute, and got ready for blast of. Soon enough: The cluster tipped over way to early. Bill was spinning all over the place, turning it as he went. Until: Uh, Bill,? You should be going the other way. Further experiments, mainly adding more fins did not yield better results. Possibly a combination of the cable being of centre, and the whole set-up being wobbly on the launchpad. Would a centrally placed cable be better? Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos at this point. But it wasn't better, this set up was even more unstable. Time to go back to basics. In my next kerbal session, I tried again with a single SRB. This time on a cupola, on top or a remote control disk, giving it a wide base for stability. The fins where placed with 6X symmetry, for extra stability. This would be Tomcas's adventure. Optimistic, isn't he? The same procedure was followed for this launch as the prevous ones: Release the cable. Exit the hatch. Collect a parachute from the Box, and grab the cable. Hop down from the ladder. Then, switch back to the rocket, fire the SRB (boom!),then switch back to the kerbal. Then it's just a short wait... Woosh! He looks so happy! Gaining speed... This SRB is flying true. Perhaps we'll go to space today! Eventually, the rocket ran out of fuel. Then I realised that if I let go of the cable, I wouldn't have the drag from the rocket slowing us down. At first, Tomcas wasn't sure what had happened. But by the time he passed 30 Km, he was loving it! We reached an apoapsis of 81.466Km. We are in space First kerman to exit the atmosphere without anything attached! This works much better than adding a seat on the side. Now it's time to come down... Tomcas continued to roll around a little as he re-entered the atmosphere. Then, something terrible happened. How can I open the parachute if you're doing that? I clicked futility, not knowing about the hotkey to activate the mod. Sadly, Tomcas would not be able to join in the celebration of his own achievement that day. Lodfrod was sent to do a second test. He was less enthusiastic. On the way down, the same effect was encountered. But this time I was ready. Fire the parachute, and we have normality. Lodfrod made it to the ground intact. It seems to be something to do with the fact that the kerbal is in ragdol mode when he enters the atmosphere. In the next part, I'm going to solve this problem, and see how high I can go. This beats going by cannon for sure.

Went to space. (short pause for effect.) With the fins set up right, and letting go at the right time to reduce drag, I can get to about 83 Km. Full story here. Also, found a really cool fairing generator plug in, and took it as an opportunity to revise my launch vehicles. Had some fun launching odd payloads and getting fuel tanks to drain evenly again. And lastly, landed on Vall for the first time. And it is beautiful, so spoiler ahead. Yeah. Ran out of fuel on the vertical decent. Bounced, lost the probe cores and ended up like this. But a few things survived, including a mechjeb core, cameras, and one functional solar panel. So not a complete loss.

Great. I'm convinced. Bye old subassembly mod, you're going.

Awesome! Maybe this should be in the instructions of the first post somewhere? (If it is my eyes must be failing me. I' may have to put them on probation.)

*fistpump* Awesome! Thanks for the info. I'm glad my fave craft and lifters won't need a full rebuild.

One thing that would be useful, is the ability to easily overwrite a sub assembly with an updated version, without having to type in the exact same name. Otherwise, this looks fine. But I'm not really seeing any advantage over the existing patched version of sub assembly atm.

An idea for you, probably has popped up before but, what about adding a hotkey? For triggering parachutes fast, or in situations where clicking your kerbal isn't very practical. I suggest "P" as it's not doing anything and it makes sense. A second press could change it to fully deployed perhaps.

Also, my silly little experiment with the KAS mod shows you can't exchange solid fuel. Logic works.

End fight gets rid of the ship. Don't press it. Lost my first Mun lander that way. At least you'll never make that mistake again. And now you can make an even better tank station and shuttle! (Or, use the saved craft, it's much quicker.)

Click on one tank, hold Alt, click on the second. Proceed to press buttons and exchange fuel. You'll get little blue buttons that let you move fuel in and out, and one to stop it in the middle of the exchange. All resources, even electricity can be exchanged this way. Well, maybe not solid fuel. (Or can you? This calls for an experiment! to the VAB!)

Looks like the next project will be a rendezvous capable ship. Also, welcome to the KSP forums!

My reaction too! I wanted it.

What intrigues me more is how they evolved to consider 4 rotations of their planet one day. A day on Kerbin must be confusing.

This must be from when Moho still had atmosphere.

The trick it is fine tuning the side of the planet your orbit passes when you enter its SOI. With a bit of cleverness, you can get to any orbit you want this way, if you've got the Delta V.

Found one of my favourite vehicles was corrupt. So using images, I rebuilt it from scratch, and gave it a new name. The Kerbmobile! Cut down the mod usage by quite a bit, and I still fully intend to use it all all bases where possible. Took it on a drive west of the KSC, to test its limits, and wrecked it on the side of a mountain. Damn gravity. Using my new launch vehicle, I assembled this station in three parts. As it was just thrown together, I call it Slapdash station. Also fiddled with my starfighter's launch vehicle so it wouldn't leave debris in orbit, and docked a few of them at the station. And lastly, in 0.19, the Duna team made orbit with fuel to spare, and I had the recovery module rendezvous with them. Docking went well, and the capsule that holds my crew is now safely in between its arms. Hope the clampotron Jr stays on when I turn on ASAS for the transfer burn.

Was noticing something like this happening in the SPH earlier. Will have to try this out.

*Hums Thunderbirds theme*

Well worth the read. Very hitch-hikers-guide-esque. Have 5 internet points. Maybe there could be something about how kerbals consider 4 rotations of their planets to be one day. Maybe kerboligists think that 3 hours of daylight just isn't enough time to get anything done.

Perhaps the K here is standing for whatever kerbals measure temperature by.

For me, I only docked things the slightly larger than a mark 1-2 capsule, with assistance from mechjeb. Anything larger, I'd have to let ORDA do it. But just last night I docked my Dres lander to its return module entirely manually. 'Twas the cause of much celebrating.