alacrity

Before the fires get stoked too high, Easter eggs took a bit of bashing in the current life cycle of Kerbal. If you tune down your textures some of them get buried in the the terrain maps. Finding the east eggs can be facilitated with the ISAMap mod. Get a probe up with the mapper and it can scan for the anoms. There are maps posted all over the forums/other places but more fun to map them out. Alacrity

I myself for any captures other then Mun and Minmus have been using a correction burn half way out. IE Set your burn for Duna to get it close (capture time windows posted EVERYWHERE at one time or another) and just get it close..(the position carrots close but not needing to actually show a capture). Then an additional maneuver node at about the halfway point or the arc connecting your position to duna's position. use this one to fine tune your approach. Two advantages of this are a) almost no delta v needed for the maneuver (most I ever used was 38 delta V in a 7 sec burn for a Jool fine tune and that was for a crazy approach to get me into a polar orbit when I arrived so I didn't need to do a lot of inclination correction on arrival and . the second manuever is closer to target meaning when you pull the node tabs you can be more accurate. Trying to spike the bullseye from you solar orbit to any other planet is problematic, and leaves you with a huge burn at your target for slowing down. As far as the Minmus and Mun aproaches the same tricks work, but I am usually carrying enough fuel not to have to worry about it. the thing I find helps the most for this fine tuning burn is the Radial in and radial out (the blue ones). While the pro/retro burn direction (the yellow ones) give you dramatic changes in orbit and speed, they don't give you the dynamic orbital changes you may be looking for. sliding your orbit across the plane gets you a lot of options for insertion for a lot less fuel. Alacrity

I set my missions by step needs. Anything to make the next step easy. I have been around a while (v.16 or so) so I find myself repeating a few of my own campaign at each version. First thing I do is get commsats around Kerbin and Mun. The a station at Karbin and a few practice runs at Mun and Minmus. Once a get something landed on each of those, I feel comfortable with whatever mechanical changes have happened to STOCK kerbal and I spend a day downloading mods and designing my new Duna and Mun bases. After that I tend to go a little off the rails. All the new mods and updates give me crazy ideas. It is my NASA moment there. I start flinging everything not bolted to Jebs billet into space, with out a clear intention other than to see what I can do with it. I get back to actual forward thinking missions. Stations at Ike, another at Kerbin, and one at Minmus. All staging stations for the Duna run and a step off point for Jool missions. This time around I did manage to finally get a Jool mission together and launched. Now I have a Minion probe with Kethane detector around each moon of Jool. All unmanned as I am still designing the replenish ships for the jool system. I haven't played through the Wiki missions tho I will prolly take a look today and se what al the fuss about. Alacrity

I never ever repost other peoples stuff... don't link other peoples face book, or flash on about this or that twitter...But this, after a series of very ugly failures made me feel so much better I had to share it here http://imgur.com/gallery/bg2rqZf Hope this makes your next failed landing easier to take Alacrity

For those interested... NUKEMod is working fine in 21.1. As far as what I am using it for: With TT modular wheels NUKEMod is the best parts scaled for stable driving rovers I have found. Here is the large science truck with crane. The 1/2 meter parts form the basic structure every thing else attaches to. Gives me 2 meter wheel base for really good control... Max turning speed I have managed on Mun is 28 m/s while in a flat out run I gunned it up 48 m/s before terrain made it uncontrollable. Here is my Olympus station with two smaller rover, 1.5 meters sacross a a fair bit smaller, these utility rovers are still amazingly stable. I got one over 60 m/s in a flat out run, tho turning is a little more chancey. Alacrity

HoY... I would be willing to help write some story line for mods. I will PM some writing samples from my EVE online days. Alacrity

I integrate my rovers into my Olympus base rig. Both are under hung in the THSS truss work. I use the electric or Mono engines of the TT modular wheels. The seat is a handy way to populate any rover with Kerbals. For moon rovers I usually do a dedicated launch of a robo rover I can drive to where the Kerbals are and then have them board.

I am thinking that not only should R&D should increase parts available but also affect price of parts. Ignoring inflation, part pricing could be adjusted for the usage of those parts... Mass production, material science, and part refinement could effect the prices. When you first create a part it is massively expensive, but with use and repeated builds the price would fall off. Just a thought from the Miser Space Agency Alacrity

Ok first the disclaimer.... I am not a STOCK builder for the most part... I like mods For this beast I am using primarily the KAS system, Nukemod for 1/2 meter parts, Infernal/Damned robotics with some KW and B9 prolly hidden on there somewhere.... Did I mention I love mod parts. Any way... the pics Day time driving Night time glow Have used this thing a few different times for smaller rover rescue... limited fuel transport and scientific excusions. The control panels are mostly decorative but I couln.t resist and the mechJeb controller looks good there anyway. Hope this helps your planning Alacrity

Kerbal = proper known, being the inhabitance of the Planet Kerbin Kerbal = adjective, 1) decribing a design of space or air craft populated at times by too much engine and fuel and not enough testing 2) describing a mission objective that is at the same time spectacular and damned unlikely Kerbal = verb the act of adding yet another row of boosters and mainsail engines to overcome the inherant instability or uncentered mass of a payload on strutting a ship to unrecognizability. Alacrity

I often use the multi launch model with docking the beast together, but I have never built one of those "Kerbals at War" missile bargages. Not even sure how you could seperate them into launchable parts that could be reconnected. As far as super heavy launchers I don't have a lot to add.... every time I try to build one bits fall off or the whole thing collapses on itself at around 8k altitude. Alacrity

I just completed my Evil Overlord mission to Jool Mission profile was fairly light. A low weight gantry with 5 "Minion" probes transported to jool followed by a hab unit and an extra fuel storage. All systems sent without crew and Overlord to remain in orbit for future use when the Ares mission at duna start being self supporting. Here is Overlord. You can see one of the Minion's on the top right gentry. The bay doors are open to show the return vehicle storage bay. Both that section and the large lower central tank are brought up separately. On the flip side is a Kethane converter and storage tanks for future missions I do have a KAS system on there just in case, but the two large docks and 4 standard docks are the primary connection points. LoX storage is 9k/11k Power 6.5k units Mono 750 units Kethane 4k units Crew cap without escape vehicle 6 short term/ 3 long term With escape module 10 short/5 long Mission length aprox 3 years. All three parts were launched 45 days apart with the final lift putting that ship 4 days from orbital transfer, all ships left together at that point, rendezvousing at Tylo for orbit and docking up. After docking all expendable and expended parts able to be jettisoned were shot off for hopeful Tylo capture and crash landing (Still have a few bits and bobs sharing my orbit... not making me happy.) Once all the station was combined the Minions were deployed whenever the moons were closest (As you can see I haven't gotten bop's sent out yet... being a bit lazy about it.) Now I just have to get Duna set up and sent out. Alacrity

Not to rain on your parade, but the sheer mass of that thing and the parts limitation may make it unliftable. At least as a single unit. I think your option are limited to A) redesign it to be segmented and take it up and 2 or 3 sections (I know I know... lots of reworking and prolly crying... I have been there more than once) and the rendevous would be nightmarish Hyperedit that beast into orbit. Alacrity

If you can rendevous and you have a docking option (unused port or KAS system) then I would get a fuel tug out the and refuel for a final burn to land that beast. You will have to design the tug to match the center of mass on the base tho so kinda tricky. other wise the near rendevous and EVA transfer is you real only other option... trying to stop a fall with the eva pack to the surface is chancey at best. Alacrity

I just adjusted the hexcans to be empty at launch which is an easy fix. havem't had any complaints between kethane and EPL that I have noticed but sending out my launch pad to duna tomorrow so will findout then Alacrity

I am not quite sure if I understand deorbit mechanics or aerodynamic impact correctly... but as I see it there is a kerbal answer and a earth answer In Kerbal Space, I often use the kill all orbit speed and then burn my way into atmosphere almost straight down. Doing this at Kerbal I still end up hitting the 1/2 atmo barrier at over 500 m/s, sometimes without drogue chutes the regular chute die or rip off if I am going too fast. This means I still need a heat shield for re-entry at Kerbal, but I can usually get down to around 200 m/s at Duna - no heat effects but chutes fairlure is still a concern In Earth space it translates to almost 4500 mph hitting the 1/2 atmo point... I am pretty sure hitting that air density face first would crush you craft like a beer can hence the angled approach. Stone dropping on Mars would have similar effects. thundering down through the atmo so fast would damage or destroy any craft we've sent, and the chutes would prolly fail once deployed. I have not the math to figure out what vertical acceleration would act on the craft if you burned off all the lateral movement and hung the ship in space then let it drop. I do know that acceleration toward the ground would be a constant until atmo started to act as a break and even then acceleration would still be positive until terminal velocity was achieved. Also the fuel needed to stop even a small craft .... say a 4.5 tonne lander would be big, and leave little for the decel towards the surface. Maybe with very high altitude drogue's.... 1/4 km diameter canopies that release before the thicker atmo hits... might make it work tho. Alacrity

I have to say that Duna is the better choice.... little harder to land on (chutes don't work as well) but way easier to escape. I have not heard of anyone that managed to drop a launchable return vehikle. The other issues concerning habitation Temp.... Way easier to warm up duna habs, then cool Eve habs Grav... after weeks in null g, Eve's 1.7 gravs would be a serious burden in the initial time period while Duna's low grav would be a bone loss issue over the long term. Resources...Eve's dubious oceans may or maynot produce drinkable water, while duna's ice caps would be hard to mine out and create more temp issues as setting up the perm hab there would increase the need for heating I think that choosing between a lowland Duna and a highland Eve habitation... Duna wins Alacrity

I have two saves... one for crazy ships and one for mission profiles... The crazy is not worth restarting as I kill Kerbals by the truck load... the missions profiles one I am very careful with and do a lot of rescues on. The only temptation I feel to restart at this point is the wind the overall clock/date. Having to run up the clock to get scans from the Kethane sats has added years to the overall mission times. Alacrity

My inventory of off world kit before 21.1 was extensive as I was practicing for the Perm Duna challenge. 2 stations around Kerbal (spindle and halo), the Overlord station around Tycho, Argo in orbit around Duna, Olympus Muns station landed on Mun with 3 rovers and a kethane lab, and a a relaunch vehikle. I had comm probes around all the Jool moons, Minus and Mun, Ike and along with Kerbal, Duna and Jool. total kerbals in space was 14, not exactly a huge number, but with enough time for launches before the apocalypse I could house around 28 on all the platforms. not exactly a genetic pool you could swim in but survivable I think. Alacrity

It is an obvious historical break point in the Nasa timeline. Modifications to the Apollo rocket happened, and tech from materials research was folded into the mix. Also public perception of the space race changed so goals were realigned. I figured at would be a good time to solidify the "to the moon" tech parts, and start to look forward to the LKO habitation technologies. I see the transitions thusly Chap 1 - unmanned baby steps into space Chap 2 - the first breath of manned space flight Chap 3 - The second breath after a big scare Chap 4 - the first colonizations Chap 5 - owning the stars I thought about it quite a bit and I really think Tech and the underlying thought process behind missions changed dramatically after Apollo 13 and in Nasa the rescue of 13 demonstrated the human (krbal) ability to have extended stays in space. (On purpose or by misfortune) Alacrity

I found ore and Kethane on Kerbin tho not a lot of Keth. May have to develope oceanic dredgers to get at the gas Alacrity

I am a survivor of the EVE:Online tech/skill tree... I fear no tech tree anymore... I always saw the career mode as a "eras" of space travel progression. maybe four chapters? Chapter 1 (or chimps in space) 1940's though sputnik Unmanned rockets, suborbital launches, occasionaly launching Kerbod's little furry creatures into orbit Limited fuel/ weight issues with material sciences/ flight computers powered by potato chips Chapter 2 (what does this button do?) sputnik through apollo 13 First manned capsules, earlier asas, semi explosive landing gear chapter 3 (well this is another fine mess we've gotten ourselves in) apollo 14 through Mir completeing of the Mun/Minus exploration era, and the beginnings of the space station/shuttle era, Material sciences making better parts. Chapter 4 (It's full of stars) ISS through about 2025 (By nasa time table) Making full habitation space stations, self sustaining long term flight, and extra planetary exploration. Some experimental drives and physical sciences done on mars etc. Chapter 5 (where no man has gone before) 2025 through then For th truly wierd stuff (and interstellar ((HINT HINT))) Inside each chapter would be seeded progression in small steps with goals and such. But time will tell. Alacrity

I use the power assisted model for Duna landings. I am dong a lot of remote station work with Kethane, and extraplentary right now, so dropping anywhere from 5-25 tonnes at a landing. The biggest problem I am having lately is getting my more imaginative vessels balanced for landing. (I am really hating the smelter) Like most said a standard lunar lander should make it... less power neede during final aproach and wait for the chutes to open. Some things to remember tho... 1) Duna is bouncey... kill your speed to less then 5 m/s then kill the engines and drop the last bit. Forget the kill em and you will flip/bounce/random thing and possibly die 2) repack your chutes before you get home... Trying to repack them while in your deorbit is chancey and a little nerve racking Alacrity

Laythe gravity is too high for a decent use of the KMU to hop up into the lander. As for editing the craft file.... it would seem unlikely to work. The only way I could imagine adding ladders might work is to create a second craft file with the ladders, finding the ladder binding point in that file and trying to cut and paste it in...or create the craft and try to splice it's location and vectors into the persistent file. BOTH solutions may, can, might, prolly will, break craft files, break your persistent, or break KSP. I would say the more fun answer is build a smaller unmanned lander/rescue mission craft and get it to laythe, have the Kerbal's transfer over to the new craft and do their landing./science, and thne head back up and transfer back for the return flight. Alacrity

I truly groove on the new look/feel of the HUB/Module design of the HOME series. I still use the old hab module for my space stations but the new one is going to slowly replace all of my landed habs. Like a few others I have noticed a decided lean in the hab at lift off. still running test to see where the balance issue is but if anyone has a fix that would be great. Alacrity