Northstar1989

@FractalUK Awesome- now what about all the problems I and other players have been having with the impact experiments? Also, I never got a response- what about the idea of creating a GUI (operated in much the same way KAS has a GUI for winch-control) for the ISRU refineries so you could add more reactions? Stuff like the Reverse Water Gas Shift Reaction and the Haber-Bosch Process (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68797-In-Situ-Resource-Utilization-Useful-Reactions) could easily be integrated without overwhelming the players with such a GUI.... What I was thinking was eight square "boxes" with each of the relevant resources (LiquidFuel, Oxidizer, LiquidWater, IntakeAtm, Ammonia, Methane, Hydrogen Peroxide, and Monopropellant), and a scrollable list with the different reactions listed on the side of the GUI where you could "select" a process to display arrows showing the pathway, and highlights of the boxes showing the reactants and products...

Look at my later experiments. The impactors were off the KSC mesh, and I still didn't get an impact event unless the impact was both very close to the impactor, and at very high speeds (over 400 m/s) Regards, Northstar

So, before I departed for the north pole of Minmus, I had my Kerbals get out and jetpack over to the nearby Slopes and Lowland biomes (I intentionally choose the landing site there to be on the edge of two other biomes) Slopes: Lowlands: Then, I made for a polar hop. I discovered I undershot it a little initially, and so ended up making a landing on the Lowlands just south of the polar biome first though (for additional !SCIENCE! from a Crew Report on the Lowlands). Nevertheless, my Kerbals made it to the polar biome eventually... Also, it seems like everybody it tasting the surface samples... Here's the *REAL* fun though- I only have 741 Delta-V to get my Kerbals home. That's more than enough if I plot my course carefully and possibly make use of a Munar gravity-brake, but it might not make for the quickest return journey (already my Kerbals have been in space for over 37 hours on what was *supposed* to be only a quick trip to the Mun...) Oh well, I'm sure I'll make it- and probably in under 24 additional hours. Even the life-support mods typically include 3 days food/water/air in a typical capsule, so 2.5-3 days shouldn't be so bad from a roleplaying perspective... (especially if I assume the craft has some basic integrated regenerative life-support systems) Regards, Northstar

The Raven is now en-route: I would have sworn I captured more screenshots than just that one after the course adjustment- but apparently not... Anyways, I shall soon be reporting on the LME's return transfer to Kerbin, and the circularization of the Raven Mk2... In the meantime, for those who haven't hear (which is probably most of you), I bought the old game Freespace 2 on Good Old Games.com some days ago (it's cheap- 9.99 USD. If you haven't bought it already go do it! http://www.gog.com/game/freespace_2), and am looking for a team to play that with. For any of you who are interested, shoot me a reply on the thread I started on that in the Space Lounge: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69857-Freespace-2-Looking-for-Squads Regards, Northstar

OK, so I had a bit of fun hopping around on Minmus: Apparently, a bit *too much* fun though (I should have known when Nebles decided to taste one of the surface samples!) I actually spent quite a bit more Delta-V hopping around than I anticipated (I didn't take the most fuel-efficient hops possible- instead opting for lower, faster trajectories), and ran out of time to make a visit to the poles before the Raven Mk2 arrived in Minmus' SOI... I also forgot to take a Crew Report at my initial landing site (Minmus' Greater Flats). After I adjust the Raven's course so its periapsis lies close to where I want to circularize it, I'm going to make one last stop at Minmus' north pole, and then send the Light Munar Explorer home... If I'm running *particularly* low on fuel, I might even have to rely on a gravity-assist (actually, a gravity-brake) from the Mun to make it all the way back to Kerbin... Regards, Northstar

Also, many of you might be intrigued to learn that the Light Munar Explorer has undergone a change of mission plan. Instead of making a Minmus flyby, and performing a burn to set the craft on a more-or-less free return trajectory to Kerbin, I decided instead to make a direct Minmus landing (from a collision-course trajectory). Here are the pictures: This was a bit nerve-wracking, as I saved the deceleration of over 500 m/s for a carefully-timed suicide burn to save fuel (no images of that, sorry- I was too focused to take any screenshots until after the suicide burn was over) close to the Minmus surface. Luckily, my trajectory took me straight in on one of the larger "flats" or lake-beds, so I didn't have to perform any course-corrections to come in on a flat landing spot first... Some of you might have also noticed I got quite a bit of science from the landing, which was nice. This was because I hadn't visited Minmus since before they added biomes there. Next up: sub-orbital "hops" to additional Minmus biomes before retuning to Kerbin. Regards, Northstar

No problem. You certainly will see my last crew of Kerbals (those on board the Raven Mk2) e-route to Duna soon enough. Don't forget that the following crewed modules are already in Kerbol orbit on intercept trajectories with Duna, with the following crew complements: Duna Crew Module - 4 Kerbals Eagle Mk2 (attached to the Eagle Transfer Stage) - 4 Kerbals Duna Science Module - 2 Kerbals Blackhawk Mk6 Spaceplane - 2 Kerbals Valkyrie Crew Transfer/Recovery System- 2/3 Kerblas (capacity for 3- but I believe I only had two on-board. I'll have to check at some point...) So, I already have at least 14 Kerbals en-route. The Raven Mk2 will just bring that total up to at least 16. Regards, Northstar

@Fengist I just realized for some reason I never posted the crash pics from the K-5 Blackbird: So I edited them into my earlier post, as well as posting them here... Anyways, I'm pretty much done with this challenge for a while- I just wanted to tie up those loose ends... Regards, Northstar P.S. The K-5, or the later K-7 Blackbird, while terrible for vertical landings on low fuel on Kerbin, should both make great VTOL designs on Duna. That's because the atmosphere is much thinner- so the lift:mass ratio should be a lot less excessive. The gravity is also weaker there- reducing the torque on the craft from the CoM not being in the center of the craft. The thrust would come from B9 rocket VTOL engines and KSP-Interstellar thermal turbojets, on the same basic airframe... Considering that, and my love for Duna, you might see an appearance of the K-7 in a new Flying Duna challenge I've been thinking about designing (a Mk3 challenge, with different rules from the excellent one started by Geschosskopf- one that rewards VTOL designs, low part-count, and cargo-capacity rather than Kerbal-count...)

That's an impressive craft! Geschosskopf, why is this currently in the Interstellar category? It clearly doesn't use any parts from KSP-Interstellar. Regards, Northstar

Anyways... I'm going to challenge your preconceptions a little, and ask: well what about using a mountaintop launchpad? That was from the mountains west of KSC, where I set up that launchpad by means of hauling components using *THIS* mega-helicopter- shown here during an initial supply mission to set up the mountaintop base up (I did cheat a little, and edited in additional Rocketparts using TAC fuel Balancer after the initial setup, to avoid having to continuously run out new helicopter supply missions every time I wanted to launch an additional rocket- which would just be tedious and no fun) Even a 4600 meter launch like this (over 15,000 feet) significantly reduces the Delta-V requirements to orbit: rockets experience less drag, have less altitude to climb, and can launch with a higher TWR than 2 (normally the optimal launch TWR) without losing more Delta-V to drag than they benefit from reduced gravity-losses. It would make it entirely more feasible to complete the challenge with a reasonable-sized rocket (even if using a tiny payload). Regards, Northstar

Another TINY payload. That probe would be incapable or Munar landing AND return... EDIT: On reading the rules more carefully, I don't see any actual requirement for return of the probe. That makes a lot more of the awards possible- but still requires a tiny payload fraction...

As you yourself said, the payload is VERY small. My point is that to get a large enough payload (>10 ton PAYLOAD) to orbit for a Munar landing AND return with only a single stage requires an initial rocket on the scale of the behemoth in my previous post.

You're not the first person to point out the symbol on the jet fuel tank (look earlier in the thread), but you're wrong about the density. The density chosen in-game for most things is completely arbitrary- just look at the density chosen for Xenon- a fuel we can definitively compare to a known substance. It works, though- because they never specify the units (they could be just about anything). What's actually MORE interesting, is the mass ratios they choose for LiquidFuel and Oxidizer to burn in: 9 to 11. In real life, none of the likely fuels (Hydrogen+Oxygen, Oxygen+Kerosene, etc.) burn in that mass ratio- they all burn a LOT more Oxidizes mass relative to the LiquidFuel mass. Although, the Kerbals might be pumping the rocket engines with excess LiquidFuel to ensure all of the Oxidizer gets used up, it wouldn't come THAT close to an even mass ratio in any reasonable burn ratio- ever. The symbol is Kerosene for the JET FUEL tank, but they explicitly point out in the description that the fuel is "lighter" than rocket fuel. This could be understood to mean it doesn't require any Oxidizer- but it could also be understood to mean that the single entity "LiquidFuel" actually is meant to represent a variety of different rel-life fuels, rather than any one single substance. Regards, Northstar

Absolutely and completely false. You're dead-wrong. Take it from a biologist (that's my real-life specialty). Plants don't REQUIRE bacteria to grow- all they need is the proper nutrients. In nature, bacteria digest decaying organic matter into some of the necessary nutrients, pull others from the atmosphere (these are the 'symbiotic bacteria' you might have heard about- mainly they are geared to turn nitrogen into a usable form for plants), and sometimes even attack/parasitize the plants trying to grow there... There's no actual need for the bacteria, however. You can grow plants with nothing but nutrient-enriched water: which is precisely what I was referring to when I talked about "hydroponics" before. In fact, you probably don't know what hydroponics are- look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics The first *sentence* from the Wikipedia article (emphasis added) "Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil." And, from a couple lines later, in case you were thinking this only applied to certain plants: "Almost any terrestrial plant will grow with hydroponics." Regards, Northstar P.S. Even better yet, you can grow crops with nothing but a nutrient-enriched mist, via Aeroponics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics

The Duna Supplementary Equipment Vehicle made its Duna transfer from a 350 km orbit smoothly and without a hitch: And, it did it for a very reasonable approximately 1190 m/s Delta-V. Since I'm sending it to Duna unmanned (the helicopter has crew cabins, but I'm leaving them empty), I have no roleplaying issues with making use of such a low-energy transfer (estimated travel time: 7 months)- it's generally only the manned transfers that I try to keep to 2-3 months when I can... Regards, Northstar

I decided to go ahead and dock+refuel the Duna Supplementary Equipment Vehicle, shut down its reactor (the generator holds more than enough energy to run the guidance systems for several years if the vessel were constantly loaded- and I didn't want to have problems with too many Actinides accumulating...), and made the decision that I will be going for a straight shot to Duna from 350 km, and leave the fuel in the Minmus Spacedock for an eventual Minmus outpost (KSP-Interstellar added trace amounts of water-ice there too: and it's a much more useful location due to the lower gravity and higher orbit). I'll be posting on the DSEV's transfer soon... Regards, Northstar

Ok, so the 350 km depot was refueled a bit: When I was there, I also noticed my LFO tanker from earlier, still docked (I had to disconnect it to free up the connector for the new tanker), though, and remembered that my current LFO tanker is by far not the largest tanker upper stage I've put into orbit... I must have discarded the earlier version for one reason or another, though- because I don't have the design in the VAB anymore. I guess I'll be using this smaller version from now on- it should be a bit less laggy, and encourage me to start producing more fuel on the Mun, anyways... Speaking of which, I thought I should also point out- my original plan of mining Kethane for LiquidFuel and electrolyzing regolith for Oxidizer will probably only be a short-term solution... KSP-Interstellar more recently added water-ice deposits to a couple of the Mun's northern craters, so I should be able to utilize this for LFO instead... (water can be electrolyzed into Hydrogen and Oxygen gas in combustible ratio, aka. LFO) The advantage of the KSP-Interstellar system being it isn't exhaustible like Kethane- from which I can expect maybe a couple of 5 meter tank's worth of LiquidFuel from the entire moon at the most... It's primary disadvantage, however, is that it would require a Mun base near the north pole- which means I would have to launch rockets from the base into polar orbits (and then adjust them into equatorial orbits to rendezvous with the Munar Spacedock), which is a problem if I want to make use of SSTO rockets with a high payload fraction and enough leftover fuel to return to base... Regards, Northstar

KSP-Interstellar adds the impactor experiments- though it does replace the stock seismic sensor functionality with this, so be prepared to need to send additional craft to act as impactors if you currently have any accelerometer missions in-progress... By the way, I know the LAST thing everyone else wants to see is another fuel-tanker launch, but I decided after looking at the fuel depot, and seeing just how short it would come of being able to fully-refuel the Duna Supplementary Equipment Platform (I've been really slacking-off in my refueling missions- the Munar Spacedock is running rather low on fuel given my needs for setting up operations on the Munar surface, and the 350 km fuel depot has barely any fuel left in it), that I ought to develop and send up another line of unmanned LFO tanker... Since the last unmanned LFO tanker (the SSTO design) was completely impractical; requiring a scrapper ship to act as a ferry to get the little bit of fuel it did carry to orbit to the fuel depot (my scrapper ship design also has the crew-capacity and equipment to drain fuel from unmanned vessels), and would just gradually litter my lower Kerbin orbits with vast, useless hulks that I wouldn't have enough fuel to salvage for RocketParts; I decided to re-design it into something new: Now I know this isn't the most practical design either, from a payload-fraction standpoint (it simply doesn't have enough staging to follow ideal rocket curves very closely), but it can carry a massive payload to orbit: if flown right, it can carry the entire upper stage- which weighs 106.473 tons- into a high suborbital trajectory, like shown; or into a low stable orbit- if I want to try and salvage the lower stage for RocketParts; either without burning any of the upper stage' fuel. Once again, though- technically its payload fraction can be considered 100% of dry mass if I bring the entire thing to a stable low orbit- this just adds the option of smashing the lower stage back into the ground... (hmm, I bet that would have made for an EPIC, if laggy, impact experiment, if I hadn't already decommissioned all my impact sensors- and if larger objects hitting the ground could be detected at lower velocities...) In a universe where everything is Kerbal-sized, 106.473 tons is a pretty impressive payload. It would be a lot MORE impressive, with a better payload fraction, if the first stage had been designed AFTER I had installed Kerbal Join Reinforcement. I found that with KJR, I could remove a lot of the launch clamps without the vessel being eaten alive by the Kraken (in fact, it became MORE stable with fewer launch clamps)- which means I now have the option of opening up large enough chunks of radial space to include SRB's, liquid boosters, and drop tanks to improve the payload fraction... Anyways, the point of all this was to get the 350 km enough fuel that, hopefully, I wouldn't need to send the DSEV to Minmus as well to scrape the remaining fuel out of the Minmus Spacedock's fuel tanks before departing for Duna after the Raven Mk2 comes through for its refueling run there... The idea is that I go through the hassle of another refueling mission to the 350 km depot; but save myself the hassle of a Minmus transfer, capture, and rendezvous with the Minmus Spacedock (the Munar Spacedock needs all its remaining fuel to set up Kethane mining and regolith-electrolysis operations on the Mun) in order to get the DSEV en-route. We'll see how it goes- I might still decide to scrape up those last bits of fuel anyways- in order to get as much fuel to Duna as possible, as quickly as possible... Regards, Northstar

I thought it'd be appropriate to start a new thread since I didn't end up getting Descent: Freespace, but instead got Descent: Freespace 2 after seeing how its reviews were even better than the original's, and how much work went into the open source project and upgrade project (both at http://www.hard-light.net/) to bring the game's code and graphics somewhat into the 21st century. So, for those of you who didn't know, there's this AMAZING game series called Descent: Freespace. There are two basic entries in the franchise, as well as a couple expansions for the first. The first game was called Descent: Freespace- The Great War The second game was simply called Descent: Freespace 2 They're quite undoubtedly the best spacefighter-sim arcade games EVER made, bar none. I highly recommend looking them up if you've never heard of them. Anyways, I went and bought Freespace 2 on Good Old Games (I used to repeatedly borrow my library's copy of Descent: Freespace- The Great War, back when I was a kid- so I already had experience with the series). I'm looking for team-mates for the multiplayer, which has both co-op and team head-to-head modes, using the latest Open Source Project version (3.7.x) I'd love it if some people here would show some interest in getting the game (only $9.99, for one of the best games EVER made http://www.gog.com/game/freespace_2 ) and playing some multiplayer with me... Post your replies below. Regards, Northstar

If they've upgraded the base game (and they have quite a bit in the past two years), then it only follows the multiplayer should have gotten better. It's still the same game, the same improved graphics, the same bug fixes- just with multiple other human teammates/opponents. Sure, there might still be a few holdover bugs for multiplayer- but from the reviews of the (original) retail version, it was pretty decent to start with... It'd be nice to get a team together of people who also play KSP. That way we'd have TWO games in common, and when I inevitably start to lose interest in Freespace 2 and come back to spending all my gaming time on KSP; they'll still be able to keep in touch with me here (and even play with me someday- when multiplayers is released a year or two or three down the line...) It's good to develop a reliable squad of teammates... Regards, Northstar

It *CAN* be done- but the mass ratios are frankly insane. I built a SSTO fuel tanker a while back that carried a larger payload to what would be needed for the Munar probe (around 18 tons of fuel- you could definitely do the free-return and most of the others with a 9-ton total upper two stages), but the thing weighed over 1.25 MEGATONS on the launchpad, and used plasmodynamic thrusters for frankly insane ISP (over 1000). It also required over 20 MINUTES of burn-time (game-time, longer with lag), as its TWR was so low out of the atmosphere with only the plasmodynamic thrusters still running so as not to burn up the fuel that was the intended cargo (hey, nobody said the engines all have to burn out at the same time)- and that was with MechJeb to take away the tedium; it would be VERY painful to do manually... I don't suggest anybody try this at home unless a melting computer is their idea of a good time (I was so worried about the laptop overheating I opened the windows in winter, disabled all unnecessary computer processes, and turned off the heat in the room...) So, I don't really want to launch that again- especially since my laptop's fan hasn't been working so well lately... For scale, the black and white tank is 5 meters in diameter (the bottom tank is a super-stretchy StretchyTank). Since you would only need 9 or 10 tons for the upper stages (especially if you use 3rd-stage ion drives and a tiny probe), you could probably do it with something scaled down to about 1/2 the size- but at over 600 tons without normal staging, that would still be painful... Keep in mind that thing *just barely* limped into Low Kerbin Orbit with its payload. You could also do it with an Orion, no problem (this was a real-life technology pioneered by the US Air Force, but never actually utilized due to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty)- although I wouldn't suggest trying to land again after liftoff with a drive that releases thermonuclear warheads at pulsed intervals underneath... Anyways, OP, show that it can be (*reasonably*) done before asking others to meet a challenge. Those comments were right- it's just common courtesy. Regards, Northstar

HOLY! I knew SOMEBODY would find a use for the 48-7S at some point... That thing was impressive to look at- though it would melt my computer with that high a part -count... Question though- why so many cubic struts? If you had a smaller separation between the engine clusters, and between the engines and the driver, you could maintain essentially the same relative Center of Mass with less mass... - Northstar

OK, game is bought and being downloaded. I'll be adding the source code improvements momentarily. Now, what about setting up a multiplayer game or two? Maybe a persistent team?

I got so excited about finally unlocking Aerospace Tech that I went and immediately started designing a spaceplane: As the name implies, this is a *HEAVY-LIFTER* design. My first true plane heavy-lifter ever (I built a heavy-lift helicopter before, remember?), and a spaceplane at that! Unfortunately, I got a little too hyped up about the B9 SABRE Engines- and forgot they don't work with 0.23 yet (they are awaiting the next B9 Aerospace mod update to be fixed...) SABRE engines strictly out-perform RAPIER engines (though they require a much more advanced tech node), and there is even a jerry-rigged functional version of them on the B9 Aerospace thread created by one of the mod users until the mod updates. But I play my Career game long-term, and I wouldn't want to make use of a part that would soon be made obsolete by the next mod update... Anyways, you all must be getting sick of spaceplanes by now, but my immediate plan isn't to send this one to Duna (I'll probably wait for the next transfer window). While its design will keep eventual usability on Duna in mind, the idea behind this is to create a heavy-lifter design to get stuff to orbit in the meantime... For the moment, though, it's very much a work-in-progress (as you can see, it doesn't even have any rocket engines yet). Regards, Northstar

After deploying a trio of seismic sensors: I performed another impactor experiment: However, after all this effort I only made a measly 47.8 science... Barely worth it if I weren't already on the verge of having 1000 Science points- all I need to purchase Aerospace Tech (and finally get SABRE engines, intakes, and precoolers; as well as a new line of fuselage) So, I performed one more impactor experiment... And got *just barely* enough Science points (29) to purchase Aerospace Tech when I recovered one of the impact sensors... (I'm done with impactor experiments on Kerbin- they're simply too difficult thanks to the thick atmosphere, for too little reward. I'll be performing future impactor experiments on other planets and moons- so I decided to recover the impact sensors to reduce lag...) This is one of those techs that I've been waiting for a *LONG* time. The ability to utilize 2.5 meter SABRE intakes (both a higher radius than any other intake I've had since KSP-Interstellar discontinued their Atmo Intakes, and slightly more effective per ton than a standard Ram Intake) should do wonders for my ability to construct spaceplanes. And the 2.5 meter SABRE engines aren't a bad alternative to the puny 1.25 meter RAPIER engines either... (B9 Aerospace also offers 1.25 meter SABRE engines- though I'm not sure how they perform compare to their RAPIER cousins) Regards, Northstar