McFarnsworth

Eve Return, featuring Featurebloat. "That launcher sure has some expensive engines, might as well try and bring those back" "That interplanetary stage might as well be a bit bigger and be expandable so it has some use later" "If I'm leaving all that useful gear behind on the surface, might as well put some wheels and a science arm on it" But so far I'm stuck here: My terrier keeps heating up and exploding, and I don't really know why. It's surrounded by parts that have the same temp. threshold or lower, but those don't heat up. It's behind the heatshield at all times. I tried a different rocket design where it was pretty close behind the heatshield, but that made no difference either. And I refuse to spam heatshields all over the thing until it works.

My brain, today: Oh look, there's a cheap launch window to Dres, and there are some asteroids already in a stable orbit. *don't build a giant mining vessel* *don't build a giant mining vessel* So I did:

After having quit for well over a year I fired up KSP again a few weeks ago. For the past few weeks I've been playing through career mode again. Now that I've unlocked everything again, I had some useless ... interesting hardware in Kerbin/Mun/Minmus orbit left over from various contracts. So today I tied pretty much everything that can hold fuel together and fashioned a ... well, this: One lander is still hidden behind the orange tanks, and another is still on its way to join this mess. Once complete I'm not sure where I'll send this heap to.

While I agree a dV and TWR readout is pretty much mandatory, I can understand why Squad won't put it in stock. Most of my craft cause Mechjeb and KER to give me wildly inaccurate numbers. Fine for a mod, and I know why it happens and can work around it, but that wouldn't be an option in a stock game. It would be a broken feature at best, and unless you severely limit construction options there's no real way to make it work reliably.

We have some Kerbals stuck in orbit, time to go recruit them in the Kerbal Orbital Recruitment Device! For some reason they always immediately sign up to our glorious space program. We just tell them "You can join us, or else ... " and they sign up then and there. Not once have had to finish that sentence with "..., or else we can just drop you off with your family" I didn't expect that to work honestly. That, was the roughest landing ever. The top fins exploded due to heat, it flipped twice during descent, the balance was way off due to the extra capsules, the kraken tried to eat me, had to land with engines running at 120m/s because I couldn't pull up otherwise, and luckily I put the kerbals in the cockpit because one of the pods exploded on touchdown.

Today, I'm sending a ship to Eeloo, ... or Jool. Depends on how accurate the burn will be. The difference is literally smaller than the game can tell me (<0,1m/s) If anyone so much as farts on the way there, they'll end up on the wrong planet.

Had a go at building a passenger plane. Turned out rather well if I do say so myself.

Testing continues, now with a prettier plane with more wing! More mining, more science! More mishaps! And ladders that we need more of...

Someone suggested I try a VTOL plane on Duna. Testing has commenced! Works reasonably well, but needs more wing to handle more like a plane. Currently I think I can remove all wings and just use it as an awkwardly constructed lander. Could do with mining and science gear as well to be of some use. She ain't pretty either.

I reverted my Eeloo launch, because I had an idea. Those always end well. Also, I sent Snuffles (that's his name apparently) back to the surface to keep the framerate at a sane level refuel. Afterwards Valentina docked with the station. My first docking in almost a year. Still got it ... still hate it. Since I'm skipping a Jool launch window I'm taking some of the crew home with the SSTO so the poor stand-up guys lucky souls can go to Eeloo instead. And so I can make some minor modifications to the SSTO (which is also supposed to go to Jool) 841 parts, I can manually count the fps, it's at least 4!

Cobbled together a launch vehicle, and put my Eeloo ship in orbit. That's not your screen that's dirty, that's Minmus. Oddly efficient launch, despite the unconventional payload.

Today, I ... Anyway, today I played with submarines a bit more, remembered that open cargo bays float better than closed ones, but discovered I'd need to build an entirely new sub to make use of it, so I didn't. Also today I tried building a Duna plane, but soon found out flying on Duna isn't all that fun, so I didn't. Then I spent some time pondering what I was going to do for an Eeloo launch window that was coming up. I tried to build a small, efficient ship/lander that would fit in my cargo SSTO, but that didn't seem very Kerbal to me, so I didn't. What I did do, was something much more Kerbal: If you're going to spend years floating in space towards a frozen ball, might as well do it in comfort.

Built a submarine. It works, but I don't really have the patience to use it for anything.

Today I did several things that make for very boring screenshots: - Spent half an hour refueling my Jool ship - Sent a probe with a camera on a solar orbit - Landed the Dres crew on Dres for what will probably be their final refueling - Sent my Moho ship towards Moho - And the Duna crew finally gets to go home: Also today, I wanted to bring an orange tank into a 100 x 100km orbit using only 4 rapiers. Turns out I can! And it only took a bajillion tries or so. Uhh .... shouldn't that go out the other way? The final design looks very slightly different, because this one couldn't get back from orbit due to balancing issues, but I forgot to take screenshots.

Well, she's in orbit. So halfway to anywhere? Didn't feel like being fancy with the transfer stage, so giant stick of boom it is. Stuck a claw on the side, rearranged the parachutes, and slapped a satellite on the front, but otherwise we're going ahead as planned. In other news, I got a contract to put a camera in space. No waiting for launch windows needed. Small payload, so SSTO it is. Since I just shot my last 3 Kerbals into space, and finding good recruits on such short notice is expensive, I had my first go at making a drone SSTO. Here she is on the runway for her first testflight. This is going entirely too well... I have to be forgetting something. Airbrakes, I forgot airbrakes. Overshot the runway by a quarter of a planet, but we made it home. Way too overpowered, way too much fuel, and forgot airbrakes. Needs some refinement, but since the testflight already achieved all the goals, that might take a while before I can be bothered.