Cydonian Monk

Easier to get a single kerbal back form Eve now than it was the last/first time I did it. And as of 1.1.x we've got that big inflatable heatshield, which makes landing on Eve a bit easier. We'll see. I doubt I'll get to that contract any time soon.

Anticipation Building Next up on the docket were the Aluminium X-4B 10 ALEC, the Jool mapping and science probe pack, and the second of three Potassium tugs. The ALEC, or Aluminium Laythe Exploration Craft, was launched in a manner similar to the Aluminium X-4B reentry test article - asymmetrical with the help of several boosters. As with the previous Aluminium orbital launch, the ALEC includes a "trunk" which will serve not only as the orbital and de-orbit stage of the ALEC, but will reenter Laythe orbit after placing the ALEC on its suborbital trajectory and stay behind as a small tug. As the ALEC climbed towards its 80km parking orbit, the trunk increasingly did most of the work. -- Next up came the most expensive set of items for the mission - Silicon 7 - the science and mapping probes for the Joolian moons. Two long-range communication satellites and six mapsats outfitted with all the latest science gizmos were rigged into the Silicon 7's superstructure. This expensive mess was launched atop another LV-07 Crescendo. The six science and mapping satellites would split off and become Calcium 1-6 once the ship arrives. Calciums 1 and 2 will enter a polar orbit of Laythe while the rest would do the same for the other moons of Jool. Meanwhile the to communications satellites, Scandium 1 and Scandium 2, will enter a polar yet high-eccentricity orbit of Jool. These two satellites feature a single dish for linking up with the greater Kerbol Communications Network, or more specifically the Argon satellites. If you're wondering how the agency was able to afford such an expensive mess of science implements and RTGs, you'll be happy to know The Boss had committed to a number of large projects. Such as constructing a base on Minmus. Or expanding Pequoni 1 around the Mün. Or other, somewhat longer term missions, such as planting flags on Eve. And there were the odd "test part at the Launchpad" missions to grind-out some funds. Once in orbit the Silicon 7 had to rendezvous with the ALEC. Ground crews would then remotely dock the two craft together. This was a delicate procedure as the external tank of the ALEC was still attached (no reason to waste fuel), and one of the payload tie-down arms of the Silicon 7 would nearly intersect the tank. In the end the crews managed to dance the two large bits of equipment together. Safely. Any fuel that was left over from the Silicon 7's orbital stage was transferred to the ALEC's external tank and the Si-7's orbital stage was jettisoned. (Yay. Space debris.) -- With the two key pieces of the stack assembled it was now time to launch the Potassium 2. The K-2 cleaned up a few details of the tug's design that were less than perfect on the K-1, nothing major and hardly anything noteworthy. Lofted into orbit atop yet another custom launch vehicle, the orbital stage of the K-2 was also to stay behind in orbit and live a new life as a small yet powerful space tug. Actually docking the K-2 to the Si-7 and the ALEC was rather a bit daunting and slow. At this point both sections of the K-2 Jool payload stack were in the very-many-tonnes mass range, so any movement from either took quite a bit of time. And a few orbits to get all lined up and docked. Sunrise. Sunset. Sunrise. Sunset. Swiftly flow the days. In time the docking was completed. And safely. And in the light of the Sun. Once all the pieces were confirmed as being one, and once everyone was content the K-2 stack had not collapsed in upon itself to form a black hole, the remaining fuel from the ALEC's external tank was transferred to the K-2's tug. Both were then discarded, the former tank becoming debris while the K-2's orbital stage was redesignated as the Chlorine 5. The Chlorine 5 then moved into a higher orbit, so as to [reduce the part count in the vicinity of the K-2] make it less likely that any parts of the K-2 stack would collide with it. -- And with that, two thirds of the heavy payloads bound for Jool were ready. The third, mostly a collection of tanks and extra fuel, would be launched next. After completing a few more grindy equipment tests and making some more crazy promises, that is. Yay. Navigation: Next Post

Cool. Next step is to land on Eve and return. Had you landed on the Mün in the demo? Or was this Minmus mission your first landing?

Thanks! Not sure I'd call The Boss's issues Space Madness, but we'll see. And as always, answers in time, time in riddles. (Time right now being in tenths or sixteenths, as I just launched the 500-part science satellite payload for Jool.... Yikes. Docking the ~411 parts that are left over to the Aluminium and the Potassium may result in some strange compounds and time shrinkage. Might even collapse into its own micro black-hole....)

It's a big one, that's for sure. Duna is also a fair bit closer than Jool. I haven't run the payload numbers on it yet (in terms of mass to/from specific planets), but independently it has close to 10,000m/s of Δv. Will obviously need a refuel before a return flight from Jool. With the Jool payload attached it'll produce a TWR of around 0.18 and something like 5,400m/s of the old delta in the vee. Also a tried-and-tested design, in a format I've been using for at least two years. Not entirely different from the drive of the Kraken's Harvest, as seen below. Though obviously I'm now using liquid-only tanks instead of the 3.75m kerolox tanks. Form follows function. (That function being shielding the payload from any long-term radiation exposure that's not actually modeled.)

Perfect description of my insomnia.

Agree. If I didn't have something better in mind I might "borrow" that idea. Still bothers me that flags fall over when nothing obvious changes.... There has to be a reason and a way to fix it.

You also have to consider the likelihood that The Boss may not be THE Boss.....

Hey, what-dya-know, that poster is already hanging on my wall!

Familiar Voices They were already waiting in The Boss's office when Macfred and Thomlock arrived, escorted by the OSI director. Gletrix and Agake were sitting at the conference table, as were a few other department heads and administrators that Macfred mostly recognized. The Boss was standing against the far wall, watching them as they entered. Gene and Wernher were conspicuously absent. They sat down next to their crew mates and The Boss wasted no time getting to the matter at hand. "We don't usually conduct formal debriefings." A long pause as the four of them were looked over. "Unfortunately this special situation has forced our hand." Macfred knew what this was about, but asked anyway. "Special situation?" "You lost a ship, and a rather expensive one at that." The Boss paced along the row of windows, watching the floor and oft glancing over to glare at them. "Now we're scrambling to put together a ship to keep you alive long enough to reach Jool. Thankfully we'd budgeted for a science station, surprise, otherwise you'd be waiting for the next launch window." Pacing having worn thin, The Boss sat down opposite Macfred. "Given the circumstances there wasn't anything you could've done differently. It's entirely out of character for us kerbals to act in such a deceptive manner, so I doubt anyone else would've caught on to his ruse either." The Boss waved a hand towards one of the department heads "And from what we've discussed, we think the perpetrator may have simply cracked. He was in an impossible situation, forced to draw straws with his team mates. His friends. Who knows how we'd act after such a situation. "And then there's the matter of finding and recovering the Memory of Tomorrow. This Hallock character could be anywhere, or could still be orbiting the Mün. So far he's been smart and hasn't switched on the radio. We're scanning for him of course, but with the upgrades to the tracking station incomplete and the large amount of junk out in space it might be some time before we find him. But we will find him. And when we do...." The Boss took a sip of water before continuing. "Otherwise you four had a good trip. Wernher is busy finalizing the plans for a nuclear propulsion drive of some sort, and we've started building RTGs as fast as possible. Those you recovered from the Mün will still be useful of course, but now we can stop depending on scavenging for our survival in deep space. And Gene is making preparations as we speak for launching the LDAV. "That's not really why we're here though." The Boss motioned towards the door and two kerbals walked in, carrying the equipment Macfred had brought back from the Mün. Shovel. Rocks. Banana in a sample container. More rocks. Data drive with the transcripts from the Pequoni 1 lander. The two tossed the junk on the table and left. "I'm told you found something. Data from before, whispers from an old piece of hardware." Macfred nodded and patted the top of the data drive. "First time I've seen anything like it. Everything else has been dead, no software, no notes, nothing but solid-state electronics. This...." He looked down at the small grey box. "Well, to be fair this is just one of the spare drives from the Sulphur 4. We left the original orbiting the Mün." "So it worked..." The Boss looked at the box and then around the room. "We need to send a team up to conduct a detailed examination of the lander and its electronics. Something is different, we need to know what. And we need to do this sooner rather than later. The Jool Mission is still the top priority, but drop everything else." Nelrigh Kerman cleared his throat. As one of the newer kerbals from Gene's Mission Operations directorate he was largely responsible for crew scheduling. "We'll send Verly to take a look at it, and have Rozor and Elkin tag along to run some experiments. Should probably send one of the pilots along to gain experience too. Any suggestions, Thomlock?" "Sure." The elder kerbal folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. "I think you should send The Boss along. Knows more about that lander than any of us." The Boss glared at him. "How so?" "Simple." He patted the data drive. "You're in these recordings. And as the lander only recorded things from the cabin or its own EVA suits, it's a good bet you were there. On the Mün." The room was quiet for a few moments until Thomlock offered more. "Come to think of it, a couple of the others in this room might just be a match for these recordings. Hmm?" The Boss ignore Thomlock. "We'll send Mardi then. She's scheduled for the Dres mission and could use the experience. Meanwhile, Thomlock needs to have his hearing checked." "I agree with him," Macfred interjected, motioning towards Thomlock. "What he says about the voices. Your's sounds remarkably like...." "Both of you," The Boss waved at Macfred and Thomlock, "need to see the Flight Surgeon for your post-flight physical. Have the doc check your ears first. And that's the last we'll hear of it, ok? Anything else? No? Meeting dismissed. Let's get back to work." The Boss, Macfred and Thomlock stayed seated while everyone else filed quickly out of the room. No one seemed to object. Macfred waited until they were alone before continuing. "What aren't you telling us?" "Quite a few things. Nothing you need to know. Not yet." "Why the rush to get to Jool? You know what's there, don't you." The Boss stood and walked over to the window to stare blankly at the sky. "Not with any certainty. That's why we're sending a team. A Laythe lander. An aircraft. Extra supplies. Hallock isn't the only kerbal out there." A long moment's pause until The Boss turned to face them. "I've already told you too much. Go see the flight surgeon and get back to training for your mission. You'll get more information when the time is right." -- Building Anticipation The first piece of the Jool Mission to be launched following the loss of the Memory of Tomorrow was the Sulphur 5 LDAV. Intended to be the primary landing and return craft for the exploration of Laythe, the Laythe Descent / Ascent Vehicle was the single most important part of the mission. At 456 tonnes, the LDAV, its descent stage, mounting bracket, and its custom launch vehicle were the most massive things yet launched. The launch was executed perfectly by the onboard kOS flight computer. It was placed into a 80km parking orbit and left to await arrival of the rest of its mission stack. To save on payload mass for the Jool mission, the upper stage of the LDAV was modified to include landing legs, as would normally be positioned for the Sulphur landers. The craft which became the Sulphur 4 had originally been intended to serve as the vacuum lander for the Jool mission. Rushing the S-4's construction to rescue the team from Pioneer Base meant it was unsuitable for the Jool mission and thus forced the compromise of the S-5. So the LDAV would be used to land not only on Laythe, but on every body in the Jool system less massive than Tylo. (Provided it had enough fuel.) Of course the crew would need to land on Laythe first before visiting any of the other moons, which might affect the mission schedule a bit. Next up was the Laythe Research Station, officially designated as Silicon 6. This small station features tightly-packed crew quarters for four kerbals, a single-kerbal lab area for conducting experiments, a bevy of science experiments strapped to the outside, power generation in the form of freshly-minted blutonium RTGs, and communications equipment sufficient for contacting Kerbin. Oh, and two KIS/KAS trunks full of supplies. And several extra docking ports, because you can never have too many. And a forward control structure (cockpit), brining the total crew capacity to 6. Launched atop a standard-issue LV-07 Crescendo, the Si-6 was placed into a direct rendezvous with the Sulphur 5 LDAV. An adapter node was added to the nose of the Silicon 6, one end fitted for a standard docking port, the other for the large, tug-mooring docking port. While this would initially be used for docking to the LDAV, its true purpose was to allow them to use the upcoming tug to transport them back to Kerbin in any ship outfitted with only standard-sized ports. The upper stage of the Si-6 was retained so that crews could later siphon off fuel into one of the later craft. Those two craft, the S-5 LDAV and the Si-6, were expected to serve as the crew's ride out to the Green planet. Their ride back, however, was as of yet undecided. In the event of an emergency prior to the next transfer window to Jool (such as running out of cheese dip or corn chips), the crew could use the Sulphur 5 LDAV's upper stage as the crew return vehicle. It wouldn't provide much in the way of creature comforts, but it would be enough to keep them alive. That's assuming they could make it out to Jool in the first place. Moving them and their various craft to the jolly green giant would require a large tug with a drive section previously impossible to build or launch. One of the most expensive pieces of equipment ever designed. The most efficient spacecraft ever. Thankfully Wernher had been busy. And such a tug could only ever have one designation. The most kerbal of elements. Potassium. K. At 631.1 tonnes, this beast and its custom launch vehicle displaced the Sulphur 5 LDAV as the "most massive thing yet launched." The rocket itself was rather simple - four cores identical to the three that launched the S-5: One Mainsail each with two strap-on boosters of some considerable power. And yet not so simple. Nor was it particularly aerodynamically sound, but they did what they could do. Perched helplessly atop the K-1 was a nosecone. Whether it provided any aerodynamic aid was up for some debate, but it was the largest the VAB crews could come up with on such short notice. The upper stage of the K-1's launch vehicle also featured four Mainsails, and had just enough fuel to place the whole mess into its rendezvous orbit with the S-5/Si-6. As for the Potassium Tug itself, the design is rather simple. Eight NERVA engines burn liquid fuel fed to them from two large, Mk3 liquid fuel tanks. A series of 24 large radiator panels and optional 16 extendable small radiator assemblies dissipate the heat (bogus heat) produced by the NERVAs (heat that should be dissipated by the ejected propellent already, but conservation of heat seems poorly understood by these kerbals). The radiators are installed on the outside of a large radiation shroud, thick enough to protect anything in front of the craft. The "cold" end is outfitted with a large tug-mount docking port, while the "hot" end features a standard sized port, to be used by refueling craft. A last minute design change saw the upper stage of the K-1's outfitted with its own flight computers and docking ports, and it would become the Chlorine 4 upon reaching orbit and retained for later reuse. The actual rendezvous was performed by the S-5/Si-6 conglomerate, as the K-1 was completely dry. (The two Mk3 liquid fuel tanks were launched empty Once both items of the payload and the tug were sharing the same orbit, the Silicon 6 undocked from the LDAV and made its way to the tug. The tug adapter would be mounted facing the tug, and the station itself had to be aligned so the tie-downs on the station were facing those on the tug. (Except not, as the payload will flip 180 degrees prior to departure, as explained below.) Once docked, the remote operators at Mission Control had the Si-6's second stage transfer its remaining fuel into the Chlorine 4. Once empty, the Si-6 upper stage was jettisoned to become a large piece of space debris. With the station docked, the LDAV itself was moved over. And since half of all the fun things in KSP take place in the dark, so did half of this docking operation. (As is only right and proper.) When the crew arrives at the Potassium 1 stack the payload will be rotated so that the LDAV and the control cockpit of the station are facing "forwards". Following that the crew (likely Macfred) will tie down the payload to the tug, and then everything will be ready to go. With the first part of the Jool Expedition launched and assembled in orbit, we'll next turn our attention to the remaining bits and bobs. Up next will be the Aluminium X-4B 10 (also known as the ALEC, or Aluminium Laythe Exploration Craft), followed by a collection of science, communications, and mapping satellites for the Joolian System (as well as some extra fuel and supplies). [I'm trying to decide right now if I want to install SCANsat for 1.1.2.... I'm thinking yes, which means I need to stick SCANsat components on these satellites too.... Meaning I need to dig out the old 1.0.5 version of its parts before the next launch. Thankfully I downloaded it back in December and just never installed it. I'm also likely to start using Space-Y and related mods as of 1.1.2, though none of that needs to go to Jool.] This second stack will be moved to Jool using a second Potassium tug, meaning I'll get to launch another of these beasts. After that will come four launches to fully refuel the two Potassiums, followed by the crew launch directly to the K-1 stack (spare docking ports for the win), and then presumably departure for Jool. That'll all be next time. Navigation: Next Post

High praise indeed! Thanks! (Just wait until The Mule shows up....)

Cool. Now I'll never be able to find the thread. (j/k) Thanks!

Now you get to update everything to v1.1.2. Haven't checked yet to see if rattle-bug is still a thing or not. Suspect it might be fixed based on v1.1.2 release notes.

Definitely looks interesting. Agree that the dev blog is a good read.

Excellent, thanks. I'll tweak with Scatterer's settings next time I'm in 1.1.x. Looks amazing, but given it's still in development I'm not too shocked to see the occasional bug.

Found it! The culprit here makes no sense, but I did find it. (Actually part of it makes sense, and was an issue I was aware of, but... I'll explain.) The issue turned out to be six flags (over Texas?): Five that use an old (prefix) system of mine involving parenthesis (that causes a pretty severe bug seemingly at random), and a rogue, sixth flag. One of the prefix flags was in front of the VAB "(FSK) Bob's Return" marking the return of part of my first Duna mission, two were on the island with the abandoned runway: "(ILX) East End / (ILX) West End", one more marked the return of the first part of my first Duna mission "(FSK) Dunan-X Landing". The fifth of these prefix flags was on the far side of the planet, or at least should've been, but oddly was marked as having landed at nowhere. Empty string. "(FSK) Munrock Debris." I deleted all five of these flags, especially the one that was landed at "" and orbiting NULL. The sixth flag, placed behind the VAB, was causing issues for no discernible reason. So I deleted it too. This was the one that took some time to find, as I had to basically delete half the save (breaking at VESSEL nodes, mind you), see if it fixed it, delete half of the bad part, wash, rinse, repeat, until only one entry is causing an issue... which is a slow prospect when you're talking about a 50MB text file. Why these just now became an issue is beyond my comprehension. With that issue now resolved I took a look at KSP v1.1.1. I launched 3 test ships. I crashed 3 ships. They each rattled themselves apart before they made it above 30km. Phantom force bug. Violent one at that. Nothing particularly weird in the construction, just a basic stock Saturn V. So we're going to keep trucking with KSP v1.0.5 until KSP v1.1.2 or KSP v1.2.9 or maybe even KSP v2.0.0 gets released. Or at least until I get this Jool mission underway. Oh, and there's this awesome-looking shadows bug with either Scatterer or EVE or Distant Object Enhancement or Planet Shine or.......... something: I also discovered that in KSP v1.1.1 Jebediah can walk on water. So there's that. We'll be back to our regularly unscheduled updates sometime tomorrow. I think.

Ok, that makes sense. I'd like to think they're somewhat deterministic given the seeds don't change, but after what I've seen professionally working with audio files I know those surface generating routines probably have different outcomes even from 64-bit to 64-bit.

As we've just officially crossed over the 25,000 views mark for this thread I wanted to give a shout-out to all of you. Thanks for hanging around. (Have no idea as to the actual view count, as a forum glitch kept it pegged at zero through most of December.) We're presently at 85 named sections spread over 45 posts, covering 84 launches and 7 flights. (Or 9 flights if you include the two orbital Aluminium tests.) Oh, I've been in a 64-bit environment for some time now.... Pretty much for this entire playthrough. Though the suggestion that the claws behave differently between 32-bit and 64-bit seems like a touch of madness. Not that _I_ don't believe you, but the programmer living inside my head is screaming. Or maybe crying. The claws are all glitchy enough that it's probably true. The claws/anchors on the Cajun Moon were re-grabbed offscreen before I docked the station up, and they seemed to be ok in 1.1.0 before the save got nibbled on by the Great Powers. I'll certainly be checking saves from before that asteroid docking. Based on logs the issue seems to be several of the mods/plugins failing to draw their menu icons in the SpaceCenter and Flight scenes causing a failure cascade, which also makes zero sense. (I still suspect a glitched craft or a glitched part.) I've already ruled out glitched contracts and missing agencies, FWIW. Those tend to produce different bugs.

Correct? Maybe? Forum games like this are far less fun than they would've been before the notification system, right @Geschosskopf?

First the bad news. I've been unable to get anything related to this save to work for the last three days, and I suspect the docking bug I encountered at Kelgee Station is partly to blame. (Which was possibly caused by Hullcam? Some reports in that thread are identical to the issue I'm seeing, though none of my 1.0.5 mods have been updated since December or January. Meaning it's possibly something else, or an old bug?) I'm getting endless NullRefs, and it happens for this save in both 1.0.5 and 1.1.0. I tried to launch what would have become the Sulphur 5 LDAV tonight (first piece of the Jool mission), but it took it 30 minutes to reach 10km above the launchpad and 2 minutes into flight. That's beyond unplayable. Something somewhere is in really bad shape. The good news is I keep my saves backed up / sym-linked on Dropbox. So finding an autosave from before the Sulphur 4 docked with Kelgee is easy, provided I get it sometime in the next 12 months. And that's what I did. Found one that was about 30 seconds before the dock. The really bad news is - That didn't work. At all. So now I'm back where I was this evening, with a game that hasn't changed since January that suddenly NREs itself to sleep. I'm going to check my Dropbox backups of my GameData folder to see if something changed when I didn't want it to. Maybe try a slightly older save to restore from, just in case loading Kelgee was what broke it. Maybe it's something else entirely, such as a mod/plugin downloading its version-check file that then corrupted itself (though I think Kerbal Alarm Clock is the only mod I'm using that still does evil stuff like that). More than likely this means I'm going to push into 1.1.0 (or 1.1.1) before launching the Jool mission. Which is sooner than I wanted, but…. well…. whatever. First I have to figure out what’s so upset at me first.

That's an asteroid station almost three years in the making. (Baile Speir launched in July 2013.)

Good to hear. It was (at least) one of the streamers fighting with getting it and some other comments on the forum that led me to the impression it wasn't working.

It's my understanding that multi-docking is not supported in KSP v1.1. Maybe 1.1.1?

I used to build my own PCs. But my last gaming PC? I went to Fry's and grabbed a bog-standard "almost top of the line" box. No fuss, not much hassle. Yes, it was a bit more expensive than if I'd sourced the silicon, germanium, gold, aluminum, and whatever else and run the chip fab myself, but I didn't have to futz around and tweak with it for hours on end. I'm happy with it, and in the end if you are too that's all that matters.

There will no doubt be repercussions, but unlike Kerbulans we don't torture kerbals for being overly trusting. (Especially those from other universes....) Rank does have its privileges though, and Macfred and crew now outrank basically everyone. Ah, yes, Killdozer. Pretty sure I've seen the film, also sure I haven't read the story. I'm fairly poorly read on older science fiction, aside from the usuals like Verne and Asimov. Too much modern stuff to read through. Especially since I've been buying up anthologies and magazines to read my friend's work, and haven't read any of the other pieces in said anthologies and/or magazines..... And there's all the Kim Stanley Robinson stuff I'm slogging through..... Too little time, too many stories. Minmus is an interesting spot. At a guess I'd say he's looking for fuel, but probably also privacy. Pretty easy to spot something the size of the MoT orbiting the Mün (given enough time). At Minmus the ship could most likely land safely, though I doubt Hallock will try anything that challenging. He's insane, not crazy..... And maybe he's after some mint ice cream. I know I'd be if I'd had nothing more than bananas for several decades.