GigaG

Due to the massive payloads that I am sending skyward on columns of explosives, I need to be able to recover my core rocket stages. These usually make it to orbit with a bit of fuel left. The basic core uses the giant decoupler, 2 S3-14400 tanks, and 1 S3-3600 tank, along with a KS-25x4 cluster. So I simply attach 16 radial parachutes, along with a probe core, and some control systems. Splashdown is vertical at just above 9m/s... then all the fuel tanks cave in due to their low impact tolerance. How do I recover giant rocket cores? I'm thinking of 2 ways to engineer this- -MOAR CHUTES! -MOAR CHUTES organized to have the stage land sideways. I will also make sure to attach batteries and an RTG to ensure a controlled landing. So which of these options makes more sense? I think the sideways landing does, because when the stage tips over in the water in a vertical landing, the tanks will probably get destroyed. Can anybody link me to somebody who has successfully de-orbited and recovered a giant rocket core?

Crap. I figured to break even I need... wait for it... TWENTY-FOUR RTGs to maintain an indefinite burn with 2 ion engines. Seriously... How many tons can 2 ion engines lift from Bop? Considering the fact that this is a 100,000 kerbollar mini-lander, I plan to use the same lander for both Pol and Bop and carry extra xenon aboard the mother ship. Here is a component list if you need it. It's a pretty big lander, but Pol and Pop and pretty small moons... 2 "big" xenon tanks 2 radial xenon tanks 1 Okto-2 core 1 Communotron 16 8 small battery packs (100 charge per pack) 10 cubic octagonal struts 2 ion engines 2 command seats 1 Science Jr. (they look heavier than they are, honestly) 2 Mystery goo 24 RTGs (I want to be able to indefinitely burn, only limited by my xenon stores.

Sorry, I just didn't realize that no experiment on an unmanned probe would go to the core. You read my mind - my plan is a double-ion-engine Bop/Pol lander. Gigantors are a bit too big. Well, actually, how many tons can two ion engines lift from Bop (the larger of the 2 if I remember correctly.) By the way, I'm definitely bringing at least one RTG to avoid running out of juice. My plan is to make a robo-probe that is capable of carrying a Kerbal. Bonus question 2 - Can a Kerbal store surface samples and EVA reports in a probe core? What about a command seat?

Can a Kerbal extract science from a probe core like he can from a manned capsule? One more "bonus question" - Pound-for-pound, what is the most efficent power source (I'm looking to power a double ion drive)

This is a pretty simple concept - better recovery of stages and boosters. AKA, we should be able to turn of despawning of low-altitude debris, or make debris with probe cores stay spawned. When you invest hundreds of thousands of Kerbollars into your heavy-lift first stage, you sort of want some of your cash back. My solution now is to have my core stage boost into orbit and recover it using RCS and a Remote Guidance Unit, but I'll still lose my boosters.

I've been using a central core made of a KS-25x4 cluster and 2 of the largest fuel tanks on top (with one smaller one on some payloads.) Usually, except on light payloads, this will be accompanied by 4 liquid rocket boosters in an asparagus configuration. I've recently begun experimenting with using 8 SRBs instead of 4 LRBs. I also tried 4 SRBs, but it doesn't quite leap off of the pad like it used to. Also, this experimentation results from trying out combinations due to unexplained rapid unplanned disassembly of the first stage (the fuel tank just above the main engine cluster) when the last set of boosters separated. At any rate, SRBs should be cheaper, although I do have 2 million in funds now, so cost is not a huge matter. If done properly, you can make orbit (or close to it) on this stage alone.

Never experienced this. However, since 0.24, I recently had a variant Hell Kraken which was initiated by hitting a Kerbal which had been frozen during EVA after being ejected from a command seat with another Kerbal. This happened on Minmus. The stuck Kerbal went skidding like it should have, but suddenly disappeared without any smoke, if I remember correctly. The Kraken struck when I tried to switch that Kerbal. It was unusual because the altitude indicator did not have any numbers at all, while they cycle (infamously to 666666 at some points.) Another Kraken I found was when a Kerbal on EVA got stuck in the struts that reinforced part of my ship, causing the Kerbal to be flung kilometers behind the ship in Ike orbit. I failed to re-insert Jebediah into orbit (periapsis was underground due to high terrain on Ike) and Jeb went permanently dead for some reason, forcing me to manually respawn him.

With Pol and Bop, can you get away with a light ship with one ion engine?

It increases my own morale, I guess. I just like Jeb.

I just resurrected him after he died indirectly due to a Kraken attack and wouldn't respawn. Right now, he's designing a massively overpowered interplanetary vessel for a Joolian voyage.

My plan is esentially to send a mini-space-station to Jool... lab, nukes, everything, and more than 3 Kerbals. My only issue is getting everything there in a small number of launches... preferably a single launch, maybe 2, and maybe even 3. Out of curiosity, can you tackle Pol and Bop with ion engines alone? I know you can for Gilly. And on another note, is Minmus "ion-able"? If I knew this, it could save me lots of energy in sending chemical-fuelled landers. Laythe will probably be tackled like a giant Duna, with parachutes. Probably also a jet craft. Vall will be done like a normal Mun landing. Tylo might be left off. I'd probably send 2 separate missions, actually.

I am planning a Jool mission and I figure that I should add an ion-powered, long-range Kerbal transporter in case I don't have enough delta-v to get back. Does anybody else do this?

Considering that I sorta need Jeb (moral support, I just love the guy) and that this is unintended behavior, would it be cheating to ressurect him?

It still says that respawning is on.

Sorry for bumping, I just really want an answer of whether or not I'll have to manually resurrect Jeb in the config files. While snooping through them, I found two more badass Kerbals (Billy-Bobbas and Desmund.) When I ressurect Jeb, maybe we could have an all-badass crew! Also, Billy-Bobbas Kerman is a real Kerbal name, as is another (non-badass) Kerbal generated at the same time named Billy-Bobfurt.

Does Kethane work with 0.24.2? It says 0.24 (as in pre-0.24.2)

He got Krakened (probably Gyro Kraken) during EVA orbiting Ike when he got stuck in struts while checking science sensors (didn't realize at the time to check them from the safety of the ship) and I quicksaved (stupid move, I guess it was sort of impulsive.) When I reloaded, he was OK, but he was kilometers behind the ship (I think it was behind) and on a suborbital trajectory. I tried to insert him into orbit, and almost succeeded, but the EVA pack ran out with the periapsis still underground (Ike has mostly high terrain, so your periapsis has to be at least 13 or so km to be totally safe.) He crashed into a hill and died instantly. I continued the mission without him. By the way, this is pretty much a repeat of a topic in the support forum that got no answers.

Simple - Jebediah died, has not yet respawned, and is "dead" instead of "MIA." Is this a bug or some issue? I continued flying for a long while after he died with the other 2 kerbals aboard (Bill and Bob.) My permadeath setting is not on.

Note: This is a true story. Launching the first mission to Duna was a great mission for Kerbalkind. Jeb, Bill, and Bob went atop their massive rocket. It's central core was a super-powerful 4-engine cluster, followed by "asparagus-staging" 4 massive liquid rocket boosters. Atop it was a short Rockomax Skipper stage, and atop that was the Kommand and Service Module, a 2 Kerbal capsule whose twin nuclear engines would provide the primary propulsion during transfers. The Dunar Module sat on top - it was built similarly, with the same amount of fuel, but had provisions for landing, more RCS capability, science equipment and a capacity of only 2 kerbals. It also had twin nuclear engines, which would work for launch in Duna's low gravity. Finally, the DM had 6 parachutes - 2 drogue chutes and 4 normal chutes - which would slow the craft down. The KSM and DM were stacked on top of each other, with the KSM's nose connected to the DM's tail. The whole upper stack was stabilized with struts for the launch and trans-Dunar injection. The cost of the mission was almost $300,000, but Duna was the next frontier of space exploration - besides, plenty of science would be returned. Duna I was launched into an equatorial Kerbin orbit with little issue, besides the known issue of this rocket producing mysterious explosions when the first set of liquid boosters are jettisoned. The mission profile called for a transfer to Duna, of course. This went perfectly fine. After a few reloading of quicksaves (first attempt went too low), Duna I entered orbit around Duna. Ike was not a problem - the approach led Duna I into a near-polar orbit. The Dunar Module separated with Jeb and Bob aboard - Bill had just respawned after a Kraken attack at Minmus, and he didn't really want to participate in what may be the riskiest mission in the history of the program. He would stay up, functioning as Kommand Module Pilot for this portion of the trip. Entry of the Dunar Module went smoothly, with chutes deploying despite the fact that the drogue chutes deployed later than originally designed (I changed the atmosphere pressure value and could not return it.) As the parachutes approached full opening, Jeb throttled up the nuclear engines. Before landing, the engines slowed the lander to a safe landing speed. Out on Duna, Jeb and Bob did science, collecting all the data that they. They did wish that they could have brought more disposable modules (Mystery Goo or Science Jr.) or even a processing lab for the Kommand Module, but that was impractical, considering the size of a lab. The first Kerbals on Duna planted a flag. Right before liftoff, the parachutes were repacked. The Dunar module would not be returning to Kerbin, but looking back, this feature would be useful if liftoff failed. Liftoff used quite a bit of fuel, but they were able to get into a near-polar orbit and rendezvous with the Kommand and Service Module. The docked ships proceeded to Ike. Despite transferring from a Dunar polar orbit, the crew successfully encountered Ike and got into an orbit at about a 45 degree inclination. This time, Bill decided to accompany Jeb to the surface. Once again, the Dunar Module detached and proceeded down to Ike. Ike was thoroughly studied, and liftoff went without incident (besides nearly smashing into some mountains at periapsis.) Rendezvous was conducted once again. Once the Dunar Module was docked, the crew began to transfer supplies and science. But as Jeb spacewalked to check some of the scientific sensors to make sure we didn't leave any data, he got stuck in struts atop the Dunar Module. Somehow, this act summoned a Kraken (I think a Gyro Kraken), causing Jeb to contort and fly away at ludicrous speeds. I accidentally quicksaved while Jeb was being Krakened, so I could only reload with him stuck on a suborbital trajectory towards Ike. Despite using all of his EVA fuel to insert himself into orbit, his periapsis was underground (most of Ike is at high elevation.) Jeb smashed into the surface, dying instantly. Hoping to avoid the fate of their comrade, Bill and Bob checked the sensors from inside the ship. (I didn't realize that I could get all the info I needed from in the ship until after Jeb was doomed.) Luckily, the only 2 sensors that needed to have data removed were easily accessible by ladder. After topping off the Kommand Module's RCS tanks with the surplus fuel from the Dunar Module and transferring all the remaining fuel from the Dunar Module into their own fuel tanks, the now-unmanned Dunar Module was cast off. It had the ability to operate autonomously, so it was de-orbited using RCS and crashed into Ike. About a year or so later, the planets had aligned. Bill and Bob were eager to get home. They changed their Ike orbit to an equatorial orbit and found a rather efficient path home. As the Kommand Module approached Kerbin, the Service Module, with barely any fuel, was jettisoned. All that was left was the Kommand module, consisting of a docking port, an RCS tank, some thrusters, a large reaction wheel, 2 radial parachutes, and the core capsule. Slamming into Kerbin's atmosphere, the Kommand Module glowed brightly, but made it through. The Service Module made its uncontrolled re-entry nearby, and from external view, one could see its solar panels breaking off. The parachutes deployed without incident. With 3200-something (if I remember correctly) science points and one less Kerbal than they departed with, Duna I splashed down without incident almost 3 years after liftoff, allowing the Kerbineers to finish designing most of the remaining technology that they were working on. As of the last time I checked, Jeb is still listed as "dead" and has not respawned. He has died once before. I imagine he will respawn someday, though.

^From what I've heard, the atmosphere has a surface density and a "scale height." Are they calculated from one entry? Also, as for polar moons being unrealistic, look at the Magic Boulder. Not quite the same, but still.

I like biomes. They may be a little bit overpowered, but they give you a reason to go back. Duna is Duna, Ike is Ike, etc. But in the Kerbin system, you have a variety of places that are not always easily explorable in one trip. Even if biomes are nerfed, I'd like to see more biomes on other planets.

Also, will KSP one day be "finished" and never updated? Or will it continuously update even after release like Minecraft?

You may know that KSP is planning a new gas giant with rings which will be even larger than Jool- http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Gas_planet_2 http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/File:GasPlanet2.png Here are my ideas-the planet will be called GP2 from now on. If this sounds like Planet Factory, I think that mod's Sentar was made to imitate all known info about GP2. Moons- Eeloo - Craft orbiting Eeloo would get a free trip to GP2. Therefore, I don't really like the idea of putting Eeloo into orbit around GP2. Perhaps Eeloo (where it is now) could be replaced with an identically sized, identically scienced, but visually different planet with similar terrain, while Eeloo itself could be rescaled into an orbit around GP2. This would seem very unrealistic to craft orbiting Eeloo, however, for the planet to change suddenly. So, even better, Eeloo could stay where it is now, and a "fraternal twin" icy moon could go around GP2. This would be invalidated, of course, if GP2 did not go into "old" Career/Science saves. I see that Eeloo will have geysers, which would be great if it is the innermost moon. It makes perfect sense - I believe that the real life Io has its volcanoes due to tidal forces upon it from Jupiter. By the way, Laythe would need something too to matc, being Jool's innermost moon, although I don't think that the concept of making Laythe dangerous is a very good idea. Maybe a little dangerous, but not too dangerous. Daphy - Not much detail to this description, but I would think the "fluff" should cause just a little bit of sinking of landing legs and cause liftoff to be a bit difficult for a few seconds after ignition. Sounds like a bit of mystery to me. Maybe it could be the extra-Kerbinian orgin of the Mystery Goo found by the side of the road. (not suggesting aliens, I'm saying that goo could have been transported to Kerbin via an impact event like Mars meteorites on Earth. Maybe it would explain why Daphy is so small - the impact broke it up. In the rings sounds like a great idea. By the way, to go with the "broke up" idea, how about some of the other tiny moons should go into orbits nearby. Maybe even a tiny "moon of a moon" a bit like the Magic Boulder. Maybe even a "binary moon" system - two moons with a relatively small mass difference orbiting each other a la a captured-asteroid scaled version of Pluto and Charon. After all, the wiki says that GP2 should have at least 20 smaller moons, so why not put them here? Potatus - Sounds like a good plan. If it rotates very fast as the wiki says it will, it should have biomes, so you get more science from the equator than the poles. There should also be mountains between the poles and the equator to make roving a bit more difficult and encourage (attempted) landing. Fonso - Oh, this sounds great. If you didn't know, this would be a moon 300km across (I guess that means 150km radius, which is a bit bigger than Dres' 138km or Ikes' 130km. If they mean 300km RADIUS, which it doesn't sound like, the size will be more like the 320km Duna.) Anyways, the moon will have a 2atm atmosphere (compare to Eve's 5atm at surface) and peaks stretching above the atmosphere. In my opinion, the largest peaks should have some ridges on the way down that require careful navigation by rover to avoid them to give getting down into the atmosphere a bit of difficulty. Not too difficult, however. I'd like to see an Eve-like surface (but still a transparent atmosphere) with lakes of methane like the Saturn's real moon Titan or KSP's Eve (although I would like smaller oceans than Eve, more like lakes.) I also would like an orangish color. In Planet Factory, the equivalent (Skelton) looks a lot like Duna and has the same radius, but I wouldn't want to see a Dunar clone, especially with a thick atmosphere. Now for my own original ideas- My moon ideas- Puff - This would be a moon that is very dense, but small, giving it a high surface gravity. It would have a thick atmosphere at the surface - maybe thicker than Eve - but the scale height would rapidly thin this, although the outer atmosphere would extend high up. The surface would be essentially flat, with slow and rolling hills. Everything is crushed down in Puff's gravity - as I said before, even the atmosphere itself is. Despite its distance from Kerbol, Puff would be rather "warm." The thick blanket of gas around Puff is also a very effective greenhouse gas, allowing Puff to hover just under 0 Celsius. Synco - This would be a small (Minmus-sized) moon in a perfect synchronous (stationary) orbit. Whether it is an inner or outer moon will depend on GP2's rotation speed. It would be highly reflective, making it visible from just above the clouds of GP2. Borealis and Australis - Two Gilly-sized moons in a precarious dance around GP2. Borealis has a highly elliptical orbit with apoapsis over GP2's north pole, while Australis has a nearly identical orbit with apoapsis over GP2's south pole. This means they stay over their namesake poles, hence their names. They have identical orbital periods, but are timed precisely - Borealis will be passing apoapsis over the north pole while Australis makes its close approach below, and Australis will be passing apoapsis over the South Pole while Borealis makes its close approach below. The moons themselves would appear as giant ice chunks, like Minmus. However, as I said before, scale and mass would resemble Gilly. The two moons would have subtle differences - most notably, Borealis will have a tall peak on its own north pole, while Australis will have a tall peak on its own south pole. Carve - This moon would be about the size of Kerbin's Mun. It would have a thin atmosphere about 5km high. But wait... why am I on the surface, but I'm still 5km up? Well, that's because the atmosphere is actually 10km high and very thick at the bottom - while most of the atmosphere is light gas, some of the mixture it is heavy and sinks. So where does it sink to? A 5km deep canyon that follows the equator. How do I aerobrake? Simple, put yourself in an equatorial orbit and fly into the 5km deep, narrow canyon that goes around the whole equator. The canyon would be a valuable, science-rich biome, but you would have to descend into the final km, going from a Duna-like thin atmosphere to the thick, dense fog in the bottom of the canyon. Oh, and the canyon also puts you much, much closer to the moon's relatively strong gravity. Make sure your chutes don't break as you go from barely any atmosphere to Eve-like thickness, and make sure you aim for the center of the canyon, or else you might find yourself tumbling down a cliff! Non-moon ideas- Rings - The rings will, I imagine, almost certainly not be made of asteroids or anything else. That would be way too laggy. It would just be drawn on. However, I suggest maybe giving the ring a more broken-up appeareance as you get closer. I also think the ring should produce the occasional asteroid. Vortices - Short-lived hurricanes on GP2 that last for a few days. Skim the atmosphere and you might get some extra science! But don't get too low - Kerbal scientists think that the Kraken living below is hungry when he whips up a storm! How do you like my series of ideas?

Test the TT18-A Launch Stability Enhancer landed at Gilly.

Made an awesome Lunar Orbit Rendezvous Mun rocket that is a bit like Apollo (in fact, I dubbed this Kapollo.) The lander (LM) is actually launched inverted atop the main ship, and while in Kerbin orbit, they are separated and rejoined using docking ports before Trans-Munar Injection. I just realized something... I forgot to add parachutes. And I can't revert due to quicksaves. The mission will go on, but I plan to simply park the command module in a low, equatorial Kerbin Orbit upon return (I should have lots of fuel, especially with aerobraking - I over-engineered the Kapollo Kommand and Service Module and used a double nuke propulsion system.) and rescue Jeb, Bill, and Bob during my next "rescue-a-Kerbal" contract. That will require space for 4 Kerbals and a probe core, or maybe just 5 Kerbals. Maybe if I could accept 2 rescue missions at once, I could make a "double ship." and take 6 Kerbals down - Jeb, Bill, Bob, one previously rescued Kerbal as launch pilot, and the 2 new contract Kerbals. Maybe I could make a lightweight landing vehicle with command seats - it can't be too long until I can research those.