Death Engineering

I come from a fairly extensive KSP1 experience, so I agree with most or all of the things wrong with KSP2 mentioned here. The one thing I will add that really irked me was how "disposable" KSP2 made Kerbals seem. In KSP1, the game was generally stable enough and game-play was logical enough that Kerbals rarely experienced glitch-based de-Kerbalizing. Sure, sure.. spaghettification and landing leg mishaps, but in KSP2, the game seemed hell-bent on chewing through as many Kerbals as possible. In KSP1, we'd plan a rescue mission and the stranded Kerbal would still be there. In KSP2, you'd be lucky to replicate the landing zone without physics glitching. And a safe EVA over to the rescue vehicle was a slim chance. (This may have been better on last update; I gave up long ago). From auto-loading too many crew, falling through the surface of bodies, just plain vanishing between saves.. I started to care very little about "rescues" or getting them home safe. The game wouldn't even let me, more often than not. Save-game management/confusion also contributed to this lack of interest in making it a safe and successful mission. And I never once really understood the vessel management system. Maybe it's my style of play and over-familiarity with KSP1, but for my gameplay experience, KSP2 made me care less about the Kerbals. And being in the game's title, that to me seems problematic. I've gone back to KSP1, modded and pretty, and happier for it. What's really sad is that KSP2 only needed to be a tightening up of the code and incorporate some popular parts and visual mods. For example: Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 Lastly, IMHO, at it's heart KSP2 would never have worked. It was doomed from the start. With the amount of rendering and physics going on, by the time things were scaled to interplanetary vessels and multiplayer, we'd have been all buying new computers (again!).

Yeah! Let's check it out

Thank you!

Did anyone happen to download the 2.5x dV map from the OP? It vanished (like today I think)

I call this valley north of KSC 'Shangri La'. This shot is from about 3/4 up from the bottom of the valley and is looking almost directly South towards KSC. Flown here in a modified Aeris 3A to carry a passenger photographer. Location: 36' 2'' 11 N , 74' 49'' 37 W It also hosts a monolith!

These two points are critical to enjoying the stock game. Once the "I launched my first rocket!" missions wear off, more complex missions require the ability to plan multiple maneuver nodes in succession along a flight path regardless if we have the delta-V to do it. Gravity-assists and rendezvous' with other craft all need the flexibility to plan beyond ones' means. Besides, are we really going to trust the limit is accurate? Ehm, no. And the dV reading not counting-down is like the gas needle in your car always reading full. "Yep, you filled up! Yay! Oh, how much is left? Well.. how far did you drive and how many times did you stop at the drive-thru for a coffee then drive slowly past your ex-girlfriend's house revving the engine? Ok.. take all that away from your initial range and you're set!" Okay, it's not that bad, but I'm in the auto industry and I never resist the chance to use a car metaphor. Exiting the SOI after a mission to return home IS game-breaking when the expectation of adherence to basic orbital mechanics is in place. Sure, the methods suggested here all work and have worked but WHY? As others have said, this is a basic necessity for a space simulator and has worked for a decade in V1. Missing this in the next bug fix will be very costly to the long-term viability. I've been relatively silent on KSP2 since launch, and I am happy for the huge list of bugs being fixed. But, I am concerned that the game engine has flaws hidden deep within the codebase that will make bringing this to maturity a challenge. I've played KSP1 a lot. Like seriously. I've seen bugs in KSP2 that haven't been addressed that I saw in KSP1 1.4.3. Weirdo bugs that cause vessels to flip out or physics to collapse into spaghetti, all fixed before KSP1 1.12.x. If these still exist in KSP2, what other ghosts in the machine are there?

I just can't play something so utterly and disappointingly filled with bugs. As a career, I support and troubleshoot buggy software. The last thing I want is something way worse as "recreation". Call me when this thing, oh I don't know, works? Orbits drift or disappear, parts fall off spontaneously, whole designs sink into the VAB floor like it was made of quicksand, EVAs that knock the lander back into space, EVA's that fall through the terrain, I mean it is truly endless. I give KSP2 a few low chance of ever making to as feature-complete as KSP1 got.

I'm excited for colonies and long, long, loooooooong missions.

Welcome back, michal.don! Just curious.. what, if any, mods did you install to increase difficulty/realism?

I totally agree with general suggestion that Kerb's are still very prop-like in IVA mode. Can you imagine free IVA travel in the current KSP? Stuck on a ladder, jammed between the command seat and the control panel.. wobble-wobble-POOF! Scratch one kerbal.

Jim, prolly.

Is this only when on the KSC overview screen, but normal everywhere else? There was a mod that caused that bug at one point... harmless mostly harmless.

Having a very hard time fitting USI-LS/MKS designs into the 100k / launch limit and get the mission done. lol! Going to take another run this weekend and incorporate SSPX mod bits to get (totally admitting the truth here) the cheaty/undermass crew pods. Trying to stick with a common Duna lander that can drop crew modules, supplies or carry things back into orbit and just swapping out the modular bits that snap into the lander. In theory/testing, it works great but the two designs (lander/RTO and resupply modules) are near 200k each at launch and over 40t per payload. Stay tuned!

[snip] THIS THIS THIS!!!

I like ambient music like from Iron Cthulhu Apocalypse or Ambient Space Music or Spaceship Ambience.

Yikes.. makes my trip around the grey-on-grey one seem pleasant by comparison

Only one? I just refueled one in orbit with 3 Aeris' .. Aerae? And landed them all at the KSC! I want to recreate that loading-screen shot of the Aeris around Laythe.

Death Engineering's 'Gateway Station' This fully functional station is based on the "real" (I'll believe it when I see it..) NASA Gateway station. The lander is capable of hauling Ore from the surface to the station where it can be refined into fuel.

"We're not in Kansas anymore!" Using the Vall lander's ascent stage as a basic lander, Jeb set down in several spots on Bop's surface and got loads of Science!, including a pic on top of The Kraken. There was a nearly two-year wait until the Kerbin return window, so kept the lander attached until the last moment to give the crew some extra breathing room. This is going to be a long mission! Dropped the wee lander and left Bop orbit with just over 1,000 m/s of ▲V available. Luckily, with a two-pass gravity boost past Tylo, this will be enough. Dropped the interplanetary module and finished off the Kerbin encounter burn with the Kerbin entry pod. Brought the crew down safe in the eastern plains, with a MET of over thirteen years! More than 5.6k and about 3m from this 145k launch. Looking good to complete this challenge with some kind of silly Eeloo station/base mission. May have to unlock the VAB to get the unlimited part count when I'm ready to start that design, but for now unlocked the tech tree enough to get all the science parts from the later nodes (Seismometer and Atmospheric). Also made some KSC upgrades: KSC Upgrade Status: [■] [ ] Administration Building [■] [ ] Astronaut Complex [■] [■] Mission Control [■] [■] Launch Pad [■] [■] Research and Development [ ] [ ] Runway [ ] [ ] Spaceplane Hangar [■] [■] Tracking Station [■] [ ] Vehicle Assembly Building *New Upgrade Admin Strategies: Patents Licensing - 25% Leadership Initiative - 25% Funds in the Bank: 521,267 Science points available: 4954.6

No it isn't, not even at Level I. Mars and Duna are not at the same inclinations so there's that. At Level II you don't launch from equatorial, which changes the starting orbit. At Level III there are life support needs. At "2.5x", well.. \

Moon Orbital Science Spent some time orbiting the Moon with Bob and Bill getting as much science as they could inside of a few orbits. The unpressurized Mk. 1 pod doesn't give the crew any room to stretch their legs, so by the time they're on the return-leg they start "hearing voices" and "losing concentration". Welcome to my world. Earth Station I Used the same version of this unnecessarily part-heavy booster to get first an Earth space station and then a Moon station into place to complete 's-only contracts. The Moon version needed a kicker-stage to get out there and had to burn some of its onboard reserves to finalize the orbit. Moon Station I This station looks bigger than it is; that Jr. docking port gives some perspective, but still this is a 5-crew station with supplies on board for only 15 days for maximum crew. Luckily, we're a loooong ways off from multi-crew pods so there isn't much point in having more than one crew out there. Simple Science Plane Took this 30-part plane all around FL, VA and CA looking for science, but keeping uplink to KSC to transmit the data becomes a problem. Also, powering the Goo and Materials Bay is problematic. All it needs is a few solar panels or a fuel cell, but 30 parts..! Moon Rescue and Crewed Moon Station..maybe Our rescue contract is stuck around the Moon, and our Moon station contract requires a Pilot.. so hopefully the rescued kerb will be a pilot, or we'll be flying another crew out the the Moon at our expense. We still don't have launch escape systems or any real redundancy in our propulsion, short of a pittance of RCS ▲V, so crew-safety is marginal. Next time.. is Nenard a Pilot? Will their be enough ▲V to rendezvous with the station if he is?

I totally ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ hate that 'You didn't really want that orbit, did you? Good, cuz we changed it when you weren't looking.' special feature of KSP. Can you please elaborate your method for mitigating that?

Earth Orbital Crew Launch Now that crew pods are unlocked, several minor variants of this launcher put crew into orbit. Note the sustainer central core... that is a stack of fuel tanks! The Moon orbital variant swapped out the SRB's for two LFO boosters.. all comprised of those silly little pog-shaped fuel tanks! Part-count monsters required me to upgrade the VAB as well as by the time we started designing a crew Moon lander, the mass was exceeding 140t. First rendezvous / docking / Crew Rescue / First Space Station...? Really? Had a fairly effective mission/pair of launches with an uncrewed launch perform our first rendezvous with Buzz Kerman (who turned out to be a scientist... checks out). While Buzz relaxed in comfort, Bill went up to dock with Buzz to earn some interesting distinctions, including 'First station around Earth'. Hmm.. I think a two-crew station leaves much to be desired as an actual 'station'! Oh well, I'll take the . Just some of the funds from these two launches - also rescued Buzz! Buzz EVA's to his awaiting taxi home... after doing a quick docking, that is

More stable with AIRBRAKES Since I technically failed at my own challenge, I felt compelled to re-fly this mission with a few modifications. Other than upgrading the lander to support two crew , added the AIRBRAKE seen above and a few other tweaks to make it more stable and ▲V balanced. Two Kerbs on Mars! Flew the exact same crew as last time, even, but this time we landed somewhere quite flat. When doing the entry and landing descent, I could see some extremely diverse (and dangerous..!) terrain. Steep Terrain in the background I'd say there are more places to land on Mars that are "safe", compared to Duna, but the mountainous areas would be very tricky to come down on flat ground. I'd say a powered descent would really be the safest way; use chutes to slow down then cut them to carefully choose the landing zone. Crew back aboard the TRW spacecraft Mars looks tiny at the stock-sized KSRSS, maybe even smaller than Duna. This pic is from 100k orbit. Back home Crew boards the 6-crew Earth Entry Module and jettisons the fairing before ditching the main vessel into deep space. Will be re-flying this challenge on the Level III 2.5x level, probably using a 'Copenicus' style design, which I've done in JNSQ so should be reasonably similar. Will be using the Kerbalism mod for LS/Fatigue, which will be something new for me. I'm doing a KSRSS 2.5x 'hard mode' career now over here, but haven't left Earth orbit yet, so haven't really evaluated how Kerbalism is going to complicate things - Val already has 10% 'lifetime radiation' and 'started hearing voices' in her 30-day Earth orbit mission. This Mars landing challenge is going to be much more involved next time around!

Hybrid Solid/Liquid 3-Stage Moon Flyby Probe Had to fly various builds of the same two-stage sounding rockets from Wallops and Kennedy before had enough science to build this 30-part Moon flyby probe. Still learning the fundamentals of Kerbalism, so not every flight got the most of each launch, but learning this mod is turning out to be very rewarding. I had no idea the depth of being able to configure science parts into the probe-core! Here I was carrying the temperature science part around when I could have instead just plugged one onto the probe with the Kerbalism menu in the part setup. Not quite a new game, but definitely more complete feeling with Kerbalism. Orbital Sample Return Probe Using the same hybrid SRB first stage, LFS second stage this sample return probe brought Earth and Moon space science back. With only 30 parts, couldn't afford a heat shield, so stuck with the engine bell and had no problems. Upgraded the design for Moon flyby speeds to avoid damage. Was a little put-out that I couldn't get the Science Jr. back from space without it exploding. This is likely by design and presumably needs either a contained re-entry capsule or more likely is intended to force having crew to remove the sample and pack it into a storage slot on the command pod. Orbital Sample Return Probe Moon surface return probe Had a contract from Strategia to land on three different Moon biomes so did one simple landing with just a few science parts before earning enough parts to build this Moon sample return probe. Landed (I think..) five of these on the Moon to satisfy the Strategia contract and a few others we picked up which earned enough science to finally start flying crew! Was I'd say about 25 launches to get to this point, including the sounding rockets and ones that had problems... Several LV-T45 Ignition Failures Kerbalism's failure model forces the launches to light liquid engines first, throttle up, then light the SRB's and stage the launch clamps. Add's a nice dimension to the missions, but I can see the crew probes in the next R&D node and there aren't any escape towers in there.. little nervous about that. Crew into Space! Several crew missions were flown in historic-style progression with sub-orbital, then Earth Orbital then Moon flyby missions. We'll soon be able to unlock the docking port and maneuvering thrusters, but those are on separate nodes and that likely means doing some aircraft science to take a look around the place. There is a rescue contract up to "Save Buzz Kerman, so I've obviously accepted that!