Bishop149

Because we could do it if we wanted to . . . the only reason we don't is because humans are rubbish and prefer to spend money on things that are no where near as impressive, like wars. So yeah ok, its fiction because the Kerbs seem to have a far more advanced sensibility that human kind. At the risk of becoming political, the UK government want to build a train line that will shave about 30-60 minutes off travel covering about 1/3 the length of the country, the proposed cost of this train is around £40 billion (which will almost certainly at least treble when they actually build it, these things always do!). This figure is around middle of the range for estimates of the cost of a manned mission to Mars. So: Train, agreed by most to be a huge politically motivated white elephant vs manned mission to Mars I know what I'd rather have.

I'll vote but I too question the "fiction" aspect . . . KSP is one of the more modern day tech / accurate games out there.

Try not to kill Kerbals No stranding them either, a return to Kerbin option must exist and if it doesn't must be designed as a rescue mission. Haven't lost any during Career mode yet. Edit: I guess I can add: No mods that alter core game mechanics or add additional functional parts. The only mods I use are either aesthetic, or information providing (Engineer Redux)

Jool system for me, although prehaps I will have to check out Moho. . . never really been there. I especially like Pol, its one of the few bodies that looks equally good / impressive from both ground and orbit. Yeah also the pretty views:

Yeah often when messing around in Jool orbit my biggest challenge is AVOIDING a Tylo encounter. Pol is a frequent target of mine and I often have to orbit Jool a few times to get a good encounter oppotunity with Pol. . . . any more than about 3 orbits and it seems the likelyhood of Tylo getting in the way at some point is near 100%. I quite often areobrake directly into Laythe orbit from interplanetary approach. . . . its a DeltaV of about 6-7000 m/s. Laythe Pe of around 17-18km usually does it.

Lots of stuff arriving at destination. I expanded my base on Pol, adding a rocket jumping rover and a fuel pod designed to refuel it. Base area now contains the Base, Fuel Pod, Rover and a return to Kerbin ship landed a little way off. Frank Kerman inspects his new rover My first ever mission to Eeloo also arrived at encounter. Burned into orbit and dropped the lander:

I have an increasingly extensive base on Pol. Not modular, kind of gave up on those what with the saggy landing legs of 0.22 . . . impossible to line anything up anyway as everything will be end up at a random height / tilt. Mainly because I like the way it looks from orbit and its easy as pie to get up and down from. It pretty much an ideal stop over / jumping off point for the rest of the Jool system. Tylo definatly. . I hate Tylo. . . always getting in the way and screwing up my maneuvers. Tylo is No1 on "The List".

I too have had similar problems. In my case the green repacked chutes did not explode on attempting to deploy them with staging, they simply didn't work at all. I deployed them manually and whilst the chute model changed from the packed to deployed state and the "cut chute" option became enabled . . .no actual chute deployed. I waited for a minute to see if they were just invisible or something. . . nope no reduction in airspeed. . . Oh ****! I think I fixed it by switching to the space center and back to the craft again. Then the repacked chutes were grey and worked properly.

Areobraking into orbit is somewhat variable in its difficulty. For most returns to Kerbin you won't be far wrong with the 25-35km Pe height, if in doubt over do it a bit and then you'll end up on descent anyway which may be what you want anyway. I usually try to areobrake into orbit before descent so I can pick my landing site. . . I prefer landing on land, as close to KSP as possible. A direct intercept with Laythe however is more tricky. . . . coming in at 6-7000m/s a difference in Pe height of 500m can be the difference between hitting the ground hard at fire and death speed, get into a nice orbit or flying off into space again. Aerobraking at Duna I wouldn't recommend because the atmo is two damn thin. . . the one time I tried it I set Pe height to 3km. . . . . still needed to thrust to slow down enough.

I have 2 Kerbals in permanent residence on Minimus and 3 on Pol. The guys at at both bases have a rover to drive around in. The chaps at Pol also have two space craft capable of getting them to back to Kerbin, which could easily carry them to Laythe if needed, as the next most habitable planet. . . they wouldn't be leaving again though. Jeb is usually off somewhere manning the first test flight to somewhere. . . he currently just returned from Dres. So my system Kerbal popululation would drop to about 6 Two would be stuck on a iceball orbiting something not there anymore. . . . Minimus would probably end up as a dwarf planet. One would likely be on a craft which may more may not have the DeltaV to send him somewhere useful. Three would probably be ok. You know what, I'm sending the Minimus lads a Jool capable shuttle. . . .

I made something similar in the past: Like yours but three ion engines and 4 panels. I refuse to jetpack up and down. . . its just silly. So yeah the large size of the other craft was mainly due to lugging the fuel and engine required for a powered landing. . . and all the sodding landing gear. . . oh and I wanted to fly two Kerbs.

I largely tried to make a VTOL plane again. I have achieved the VTO bit quite a few times but the L bit has always been a challenge. This time I decided not to allow myslef landing wheels meaning its a decent vertical landing or fire and death! There was A LOT of fire and death. I pulled of a good vertical landing a grand total of once:

The whole ion engine thing is a little silly. They are in the game, their power may have been increased from real life equivalents in order to make them less of a pain to use. Nonetheless no one really uses them because burns are still long enough to be a royal pain in ass even with 4x physical warp So for ion engines at least Squad should look into allowing automated burns to take place with time warp. A burn may take hours or days but its still nothing compared to the years the whole flight might take, so we really should be using the lovely high ISP Ions. I made one attempt at an Ion powered manned exploration craft taking it out to Pol. It worked really very well and looked rather nice too. but was too slow for me to have much inclination to revisit it! http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/740008303649718783/D21711B9A949E6A79BBE9E06AFC814991420F455/ http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/720868720354110081/6063AF2523ACE3063B60783B6E2185E6A7677DC0/

Yeah, its designed to be static though, great big fuel tank for the refueling of ground based rovers. Why do rovers need refueling?, well driving anywhere is too slow for long distances. . . . so my new one can fly as well . . http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/723120602457220503/56E2AE4F2CC353BD800F2487FC5137695C077FBE/ http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/723120602457221662/F5DA7947266CC6691550D9C8B8E5BAD46C8E15B7/ http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/723120602457222915/1AA9723759F96DC061B6662266642014F61DA48A/

In less dramatic fashion than Whackjob's example you can also just use I-beams for 100% solid landing legs. I just did this for the first time as I was trying to build something designed for ground based docking. . . aligning everything right is just impossible will the new compresstastic legs.

I made a rover designed to work in low gravity with the idea of sending it off to my small Kerbal colony on Pol. Design prinicples were: - Low center of gravity - Wide wheel base - Quite heavy - Thrusters! For if it all goes wrong. This is what I came up with, and it drives nicely on Minimus. Stable driving and cornering up to 15m/s, haven't yet challenged it with much of an incline. Landed ok under its own thrust although flipping from vertical to horizontal orientation on ditching the last stage was a bit tricky. Rovers are slow however, next up, a rocket/rover hybrid.

Must admit I usually use them aesthetically . . . which is why the mass thing is annoying. I don't want to add a ton to my craft just to make it look nicer!

I dunno if this is the right place for this, it is more a suggestion of a minor tweak than a whole new concept or idea. . . but anyway: The parts I am thinking of are the following: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Aerodynamic_Nose_Cone http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Standard_NC http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Sensor_Array_Computing_Nose_Cone They mass 0.03, 0.1 and 0.08 respectively which I would suggest makes no sense. The Aerodynamic Nose Cone is the largest and masses the least. The Standard Nose Cone and Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone are identical in term of size and presumably the Sensor version has more "stuff" in it and yet the standard masses more. I'd suggest perhaps: Aerodynamic Nose Cone: 0.05 - 0.1 Standard Nose Cone: 0.01 - 0.03 Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone: 0.1 - 0.2 (it after all is more than just a hollow shell)

Jeb believes he can fly! On Gilly he's not far off being right The crew of prototype Ionship 6.2 approach Jool space: The happiness of landing on Pol. . . the happy moon!

Haven't done many return missions I usually get at least 900-1000 from my runs to the Mun and back. I mostly transmit and repeat experiments which can rack up large amounts of science, I think my probe drop onto Eve probably yielded 2-3000. I have a probe doing a tour of the Jool system which is racking up nicely. I have just done my first return mission outside Kerbins SOI. . . Jeb is on his way back from an Ike landing and I have high hope for the amount of science it will yield. . . the stimates for the gravity readings are HUGE although I hear they may be bugged. Anyway transmitting isn't no good, its what NASA does 99% of the time after all Although I would like to see the implementation of things like transmission delay, line of sight and larger more powerful signalling devices required for large distances

I landed a little science lander on Eve: I also unlocked the atmosphere sensor (that used to be avionics package) and realised the ton of science it can provide. . . I plan to send them to every planet with an atmo ASAP!

A quick question So both the following seem to be the case: - Transmitted data is worth a hell of a lot less than a returned data (which makes some sense up to a point) - Repeat measurements in the same location seem to devcreas in science value every time you do them. So if the first reading taken is a location is transmitted does this count to reduce the value of a subsequent returned reading from that location? If so I think they've messed up because no one would ever bother doing non-return missions. Why would you, you both get less science for them and also bugger up the value of the more complicated return mission you might do later.

I landed and returned from Duna! Full Mission report here

I have a probe that has somehow escaped into interstellar space. . . wasn't deliberate, I left it hanging around in Jool orbit as a result of a screwed up mission and next time I look its flying off into the sunset.

So having become slightly fixated upon Laythe as the target of most of my exploration I realised I had almost completely neglected the easiest target for an inter-planetary manned return mission, Duna. Time to correct this oversight! Primary Mission Objectives: I - Land three Kerbals safely on Duna and plant the flag! II - Return them to Duna Orbit III - Return them to Kerbin safely I have added a small addendum to the mission: Having made significant progress with the on going project to develop a ship to return a Kerbal from Laythe to Kerbin, (see here) its time to make first footfall on Laythe. Jeb is just the Kerbal for the mission! Secondary Mission Objectives I - Having left Duna's sphere of influence transfer Jeb to attached minimal ion powered inter-planetary module. Successfully deliver Jeb to make first footfall on Laythe! So 1st things 1st, Lander design. I have made one unmanned landing and return to orbit on Duna, but this MkI lander was over fueled, too heavy and under-engineered . . . didn't have enough chutes and the powered landing smacked it down way to hard. It bearly held together. But it gave me a decent idea of the fuel / thrust requirements so below is the Mk2. Its essentially 4 nuke engines and a big fuel tank. Jeb's Laythe module is bolted to the top. I was a little unsure if the nuke engines would have enough thrust to lift off from Duna (certainly don't get it off the ground on Kerbin!) so I popped a poodle engine on the bottom for good measure which I can switch on and off on an action group. Usually I test my craft before sending them up with crew but Duna alignements take so bloody long to come about I couldn't be bothered. . . it should work (but if it doesn't rescue mission lets launch it! Launch! This is about the only time I have seen all the crew looking happy at the same time. Which is ironic. . . the launch had multiple problems and has been the hardest part of the mission so far! Problems include: - Decouplers not firing (presumably damaged somehow). - Detached staged hitting and knocking off engines. - Engines randomly falling off. Anyway eventually sorted all of these, mainly by adding struts and locking gimbals! So after quite number of attempts I got to over 70km up Ap with the circularisation stage: Seeing as the lander was nuclear rocket powered anyway I decided to use its engines to power the interplanetary stage. . . the lander is basically lugging a train of fuel tanks behind it which can be ditched in stages. Disabled fuel flow from all the tanks I didn't want it to use, to make sure it burns it in the correct order. Interplanetary burn complete and Duna orbit arranged! The second image is taken in orbit and shows I overstocked on fuel some what, second tank is empty but the first still has 800 odd units of fuel in it. . . will refine next time! Descent started and ditching the last of the interplanetary fuel tanks I packed lots to parachutes due to Dunas very thin atmo. but even that lot wasn't quite enough. . . needed a tiny little bit of thrust to slow descent below 10m/s, but the chutes made it pretty easy. Down! As usual Jeb is first out the lander to plant the flag, Bob and Bill follow to pose for photo. Jeb admires a Duna sunrise Liftoff! The four Nuke engines could get it off the ground and I was pleased to see their ISP was almost at its vacuum level even landed on Duna. . . but the rate of ascent was painfully slow, the poodle was required! Orbit reattained and there seems to be enough fuel left to get them back. Once back in solar orbit Jeb waves goodbye to Bob and Bill and goes his own way to Laythe in the ion drive unit. After much loitering in Orbit Bob and Bill finally approach Kerbin intercept and areobrake successfully to orbit, I find AP of 35km for kerbin to work pretty well for most areobrakes. Time to come in for a landing! KSP in sight! And overshot. . . . precision landings are damn hard Bill and Bob have returned!! The plant a flag to commemorate. . . . which falls over. KSP have even sent a plane to pick them up. Saving them a 25km walk! Nice of them. So I have successfully landed and returned from Duna! Was very happy with performance of the craft, apart from issues with the initial launch and lots of hanging about waiting for alignments everything went perfectly to plan. If I repeat the mission in future the burn to Duna stage can have its fuel reduced by 700 units or so. I had excess fuel in the lander too but not THAT much and I like the flexibility that gives. Will Jeb make it to Laythe in his insane little Ion drive? How will the solar panels / Ion engines function all the way out in Jool orbit? Tune in next time to find out!