Tw1

Today, I performed save surgery. I frankensteined my long term sandbox game into a career mode game to do science. At first, putting craft files in would stuff up the selection thing. But after extensive testing, I managed to get the important ones in. I also went and added in technodes to all the mod parts I have that didn't have them yet. So now I have the interesting situation where the tech tree is empty, yet I have two very well equipped bases on Mun and Minmus. Filling it out won't take long.

I did post earlier, but I realised I'd forgotten quite a big one- no mucking around on planets that I don't have any business on. As in, if I haven't gone and seen it for myself, and done a few trips, I won't participate in forum challenges, or games that involve going to that planet.

Well, two of the modules still in orbit.. Nope! Though a case could be made that Minmus's stable geography and crystally surface would be quite nice for storage of such waste, my operation here is strictly for science. We can't have Kerbin's elite scientists being more irradiated than they would be just going to space! Which reminds me, I must go find those old RTGs I put somewhere.. Don't worry, it comes with time! I've had the game for almost a year now. Also, mods. KAS, and LLL are great for building things. Kerbal alarm clock makes having many simultaneous flights more manageable, and most of these flights were partially automated using mechjeb. Also, this was done bit by bit over many days.

I agree, that's a lot of its charm. Kerbin represents Earth, a home planet, and an origin. Laythe represents possible future homes. That said, it's been mentioned a fair bit Laythe will possibly gain a lot of volcanism (it is being acted on by a lot of tidal forces from Jool and the other moons), making it less simple to find a pleasant spot, and it is also possible that the oceans have different chemistry to Kerbin's, possibly containing notable amounts of ammonia, or strange salts. There's also a lot of debate about what the surface radiation level would be- that would restrict eva time, and limit the chance of finding/establishing life there. Hopefully they will leave it moderately hospitable, you just will need to take care.

And here is a slightly more polished version of that!

Launched the upgraded Sh'tuule (now with motorised wheels and apostrophes,) in its B configuration, to set up a cheap Dres mission. The rest of the space program has been focused on base building, the probe would be small and cheap. The vessel was accelerated to near Kerbin escape speed, then the probe deployed. Then it slowed down again, so they wouldn't spend more time in space than they had air for. On the way down, bits of wing started to go "poof" Collided with the launchpad somehow. That can't be right.

You could always add them to KAS's addmodule, then you should be able to pick them up, carry them around, and all that.

Remember the shuttle watching Tomdan Kerman from a few days back? I had him lined up for a little experiment in mind transfer. (Which failed BTW) But then, something weird happened with Wack-a-kerbal. It's a fountain! Turned on hack gravity to fly over there, and it turned into a wonderland of geometric shapes. Also, I'll throw in my tower thing.

As the forty five or so who looked at the last one probably guessed, today, I'm testing my emergency fast return system. Also, potential execution device. But first, other modules! All nine of them! Hey, don't groan. Ok, just three. These will make up the Minmus Institute's own launchpad. Getting them into orbit intact was no easy feat, and then, it turns out they needed landing legs. And more power. Sidtrey bolted on a docking port, to make addition of this solar tower possible. Then it was a case of moving all the attached legs into the right spots. And before too long, the little space center was bolted together on the ground, and ready to go. It doesn't have any metal supply yet though, so Danble was free to play around with this mechjeb unit, left floating when the pad unfolded. Supposed to be a GIF, but is only working when you click on it. Now, that cannon. I brought in a Kerbal who has experience in these kind of things. He's landing from orbit with his rocket pack there. After a stop at the tower to refuel, Wehrwin jetted of to the cannon, ready for launch. Five, four, three.. It was so quick I couldn't even use [ or ] to switch to him. Had to do it in map view. Look at the speed! My trajectory was not the best- I'll try a greater angle next time. Also, the eva parachute I'd picked up had vanished when he unloaded after launch. Small issue. Soon, as in, while I was still adjusting the trajectory, we could see all of Minmus. I managed to get it to pass within Kerbin's atmosphere. It would be an 18 hour flight, which wouldn't be a problem, except that I'd neglected to disable the life support mod. *POOF* Bye bye Wehrwin. F9. That was an anticlimax. Next time, maybe. (Have a shot of him safely on the roof of M.I.S.S.S's main module, 100% not asphyxiated.)

Threw a whole bunch of stuff at Minmus. And Mun as Well. Most of it is still in orbit, but did land some. Wackjob tribute perhaps? Danble was just lying around when the launchpad arrived. But then, he spotted an opportunity to reprise his most famous photo. Sort of. () And after that, he discovered the mechjeb trampoline.

I was tempted to write a story about a kerbal who just became a kerbalnaut, and left his proud family an life in the city, travelled to KSC, then died in a rocket crash. But I was merciful.

Sounds like it's time to invest in a new computer, if possible. Something nice and beefy.

The next few modules are up! This one is the main habitation module for the base. The Minmus Hotel. Accommodation for institute members, and their guests. Located about 3.3 km away from the main laboratories, so that EM waves from the Bistro & Disco don't interfere with the equipment. The other wing is the space lounge. Next, the Sh'tuule (Formerly Shtuule) landing. It still seems odd, landing a plane backwards like this. The final landing was done with the chemical engines, to avoid irradiating the ground. As the main way of getting around here is with the jetpack, and they might be going to need monopropellant in the future, we'll need a big storage tank for that. That's what this is: However, it just ran out of fuel before touch down, and wasn't quite close enough to conect up. To fix this, I used the reaction wheels to wiggle it closer to the intended spot. Then Melmy and Philner linked the modules with ease. But having no fuel left adds another problem- my usual method for booster disposal is not going to work. Attempted to push them down the slope. This didn't work so well. But I might be able to get rid of them another way. Orbital scans revealed a reasonable ore deposit a short way away from the base, so I could potentially have a craft building facility here. Which will probably should include a recycler rover. There were two more modules landed in the last flotilla, but that'll be in the next post. Untill then: Parachutes on an airless moon? Why would I include that....

No nuclear engines in Kerbin's lower atmosphere. Seats aren't to be used for interplanetary flights. Heat shields are nice to have in thick atmo. Interplanetary missions must be long endeavours- none of this land, walk around for 10 min, wait for return window business. If the game glitches, I get to fix the result. Kerbals need space, and must be kept alive.

This was my Apollo mission, back in 0.20. It was interesting how much more focused I was on that, compared to my regular flights to the Mun. I based it on later Apollo voyages, with some kerbalish twists. You'll see: Not sure I'll try it again, this one pretty much seemed a full experience to me. But if I did, I'd make my rocket a little different, so the stages were used more correctly, and replace the poodle on the MEM with an LV-909. I only used a small amount of its thrust anyway, as my lander was slighly unbalanced. I was really happy with the way the whole thing looked though.

Oh dear... Should I tell my Kerbals to rename the fleet? The correct pronunciation is more like shuttle, but with the last syllable very exaggerated. Somewhere in between "Shh-toul" or "Sh'tule" is the correct pronunciation. On the subject of awesome photos, here is the classy hab module of my Minmus establishment. To the right, is one of the (possibly) offending shuttles, to the left is a storage thing for Oxygen and Monopropellant. (Eventually, for refueling kerbal suits.) Apart from maybe adding a kethane converter here, so I don't need separate tankers for each resource, the originally planned modules of this base are done. But scans detected ore deposits just a bit to the west. More detail will be in the mission report. Also, here is something blowing up because the last version wasn't removed from the runway.

At the moment, it's been Minmus. The shininess, the low gravity, and the cool base that I've been setting up there, all make it nice for visit. There's also the seclusion- It's still within easy reach, but takes longer to get to. And the sight of Kerbin and Mun from a distance is a little inspiring, considering us humans come from a one mooned planet.

Tomdan Kerman watches closely as The Shtuule takes off. They were meant to be celebrating Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, but the only had santa suits in storage. Fortunately, they could work with that... One of Shtuule's targets: A scientific instrument, bound for Minmus, that was missing a few parts. Could be used as the core of a space station. Guess what this scientific equipment is for.. Landing The Shtuule, will Tomdan still be watching? Yes, Yes he is.

Remooving Munholes would be a pity too. They make good practice moholes. Same with pointy poles, mountainous poles are really dramatic places.

What if I told you.... Also, I suspect it's got something to do with the cockpit's origins as part of a mod in the very early days of the game, before C7 was hired. The one on spaceport was made by someone not part of squad. Edit: Ninja'd! Damnit.

Now this is an interesting implication. Does this mean we are still limited to adding about 3.5MB worth of mods to the game? I still got the game randomly closing though as I landed a plane, same as before, but it's only happened once so far.

Looks interesting. I have a possible idea for you : I like to think if the Kerbals as thinking of 24 hours as one day, and they get many sunsets and sunrises within that day. Perhaps another option could have the clock showing 6am at the first sunrise, but only 9am by the first sunset, etc. Though this would mess up the concept that a body's day is equal to it's sidereal period. Perhaps an option could be to set a local clock that only has as many hours as that body's sidereal period has. 00:00 would be when that part of it is pointing away from Kerbol. Also, is that a 24 hour option I see in the photo? The rotation period clock wouldn't be as tidy on bodies that don't rotate in exact amounts of hours. They'd end at funny times, sunrise and sunset would also be at odd times. Perhaps displaying time as a percentage could be useful. Maybe it would be more useful to define 00:00 as sunrise or sunset. Perhaps another practical tool could be having that run in reverse, giving you time until the next sunrise/sunset. That's a huge heap of ideas there, please don't feel under any obligation to attempt any of them if you don't want to. It's your plugin, after all.

Just to show that this project isn't dead, ('tis merely unconscious) : I did an experiment on the collision issue. As earlier experiments with TT aircraft wheels didn't show the passing through problems I've been getting, I built a thing with them that would fit on the track. It showed an interesting bouncy behaviour: It was stable at higher speeds than the bogie, and handled the curve much better. Yet as it accelerates further: This suggests the issues come from the track design, rather just the fact that my bogie was a single part. I think T shape track may be dodgy. Perhaps it's time to just go with a simple old box, and accept the fact that trains will fly of the track if you're a poor driver. This are my ideas for the way forward: Simpler, box cross section shape track. Less wheels per part. Possibly, one bogie will consist of anywhere from 3 -5 components. Learn how to make suspension things like on TT's aircraft wheels. The current model has a couple of modeling issues, for example, there are holes where wheels make contact with the body, causing a lot of unnecessary polygons. I'll be able to do better next time. However, if Kerbtown is truly dead in the water, there will never be the level of positioning precision necessary to make this system work. We may have a case of counting your kerbals before they crash. Though if I manage to get a plugin for animation-based train movement, or manage to pull together one for procedurally linking track segments, it should be ok with kerbtown's current state. I probably won't get on with it for a while yet, maybe not until the new year. (Though I reserve the right not to stick to these plans, and pop up with stuff anytime.) Also, if someone wants to muck around with what I made before, it's here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/igrzfcfip9wpi1j/TWRail.zip

I see it as something you can do with the atmospheric planes you design. I don't mind goofing around on kerbin, so it hasn't been a problem for me. Though, the science system itself can feel a little grindy. 23 may be the first step away from that, letting you review your collected science in the R&D labs. Hopefully, in future, we get more things where actual data can be collected, more than just flavour adding text.

I think contracts for actual landings is not the best idea. Who will realistically pay you just to land? And isn't landing on each body an obvious goal anyway? I'd prefer them to be more like "We'd like some ____ data from here, please." They'd pay for that, and it would add to your reputation. Simpler things, like landings, could be better handled by a reputation type system, than contracts. It'd feel more realistic, and immersive.