Xacktar

Massively Impressive! The ship looks amazingly cool in the after-launch orbit.

Built the Tylo Claw here to do something I haven't done in years.... land on Tylo. The in-game delta V calculator is quite useful. Made it to the planet with plenty to spare and managed to safely land about eight km from my target. Did some science, then took a dangerous low-fuel bunny hop. Lost my engines and fuel, but arrived at the [REDACTED] on Tylo. After some flag-planting and transmitting even more science, my mission was complete. Between the mission rewards and experiments done, I managed a nice haul of 16,000 science!

Decided to knock out the mission to plant a flag on Pol. Tedcas here seems happy with his new home.

Spent some time launching these orbital science labs around Kerbin and Duna. The labs are kinda strange to use in low orbits. I wish you could keep the instruments deployed so resuming and pausing the studies didn't mean endless cycle animations for the experiments.

Had a bit of an interesting glitch today. Switched from controlling my rover on Vall to my rover on Pol and, uh, had an unexpected hitchhiker. Vall wanted to come to Pol too. Since I am never one to let an interesting glitch go untested, I continued to switch to different places to see what I could do with my extra Vall. After switching back and forth to Vall a few times I managed to capture this: This is a picture of Vall inside Vall inside yet another Vall. Kinda pretty, actually. XD

Welp, I made a mess of a trip to Jool. This is Roverstack 1. It looks nice now, but only years later as it reached Jool did I realize my mistakes. First off, my communications antenna were too weak for transmissions from Jool, So it periodically lost comms unless I was close enough to the Big Henry probe on Bop to relay the signal. This presented many challenges, especially when coupled with the fact that I had a fairly large probe core for each of the 4 rovers and together they used more power than the exposed solar panels could provide. Whoops! Had to turn off all but one core as it flew to make sure it stayed electrically positive(when I could control it) Upon reaching Laythe I realized my second mistake. I put a decoupler in the wrong spot so two rovers had to burn through the Laythe atmosphere together. Rover 2 had a hard time of it but ended up making a good floatation device after we missed landfall. After that we popped over to Vall to deploy Rover 3 and find out it's signal strength was also too low to transmit back home. Next was the rover for Pol. This went surprisingly well but had the same commnet issue as Rover 3. I see a relay satellite mission in my future.

Ah yes, that old chestnut. Almost tied with 'forgot to bring an antenna' as things to make you go 'ARG!' in the middle of a mission. In other news... the adventures of Big Henry continue! Went back to the ship and used its remaining stages to visit the beautiful Pol. And then Bop. Had just enough fuel to land on Bop and end Big Henry's epic tour of the Jool system. Afterwards, I got the mission to sample Jool's atmosphere, so I used the Big Henry launcher to send Bill on a one-way mission to probe the depths of Jool's atmosphere in a glider. Tried to see if I could slow myself enough to glide into the depths but ended up imploding about 18k from the surface. Rest in peace, Bill Kerman.

This is BIG HENRY. He was meant to be a simple Jool probe but it turns out I overengineered him just a little bit. He not only made it to Jool, he did low flybys over Tylo, Laythe, and Vall, gathering goo and radiation data from each one and sending it home. He has a full hydrogen and micro stage left, so I may boot up the game tomorrow and see if I can swing by Bop and Pol. Did not expect ol' Henry to be so dang good.

Imagine flying through space in your rocket ship when you look out the window to see two aliens tap dancing on each other in orbit. XD

Okay, now I want the screenshots to see how odd it looks. XD

Made this for everyone!

I've noticed that too. Seems to happen to both landing gear and parachutes.

I call it 'Stress Testing'

Getting into the holiday spirit with flying reindeer and sleigh!

Alright. I did quite a bit today, but I'll stick to the non-discoverable expeditions to avoid spoilers. Say hello to the Duna Pelter 1 . Took this lovely ship to the planet of it's namesake and saw some 'stuff' there. Gathered a whole bunch of science and set up for the next planetary tick on the old KSP checklist. After another launch of the Duna Pelter type rocket, and a rather unfortunate entry trajectory, I managed to make it to the Eve orbit and get some lovely science from the pretty purple jewel. Then finished up by landing on Gilly and finding out I bonked my landing gear along the way and only one leg worked. Ah well, Gilly has forgiving gravity! Lastly, took all the science transmitted and made a bigger, heavier rocket to send back to Duna's orbit so we could visit Ike. Here's three kerbals wondering how they are going to get back home without that big tank of fuel they ejected before landing.

You are in luck then! I'm also a big fan of linking missions with discoverables. It's a lot of fun!

Got the 'Lil Chonker' mission to put 200 tons of something on Minmus and tried to fulfill it with this monstrosity. Unfortunately, too much fuel was lost so it did not count. I have to return to the drawing board and figure out how to do something worse, but with greater efficiency. Also did some landmark tourism, and, um, 'normal' kerbal activity.

Built this lovely monster and sent it to Jool. Unfortunately, fuel and map-mode bugs kept me from sending the landing portion anywhere.

Went to Dres and saw the rings. They kept hiding behind the planet, though. They are very shy.

I discovered that you can control the engine of a craft even after leaving it. Right click and enjoy!

Some fantastic shots there! Wow! That X-Wing is seriously good.

Oh, that is a really cool, Scarcrow!

I've just been fiddling for the most part. I learned a few tricks in KSP that allow me to fudge things a bit in KSP2 and still get there. My normal 'no plan' process is this: 1: Launch out from Kerbin to get 'close' to the orbit of my target planet. 2. Check the yellow dotted line that shows where the inclinations can be adjusted. 3. Set a maneuver on that line and use it to get the inclination in line. 4. Play with that maneuver to see if an intercept is possible near the AP. If not, just keep it on the inclination fix. 5. Warp warp warp until you see one of the two intercept markers get close. 6. Set a maneuver near or at the PE and play with it until intercept. 7. Warp somewhat closer, but not to the sphere of influence. 8. Set another maneuver node and play with it until you can see the a few things: a. The entry and exit points on the sphere of influence are in line with the plane of the system b. The exit trajectory is vastly changed, but still in line with the plane of the system. 9. Finally enter the sphere of influence, slow down time, and make final adjustments.

Built my first heavy ship and took a trip out to Jool and Vall. More pictures behind the spoiler tag!