WhiteRaven22

Actually, I still haven't tried career mode yet. This was just the normal creative mode. I'm bad enough at this game. Science limitations would only make me worse at it. I was debating over this forum or the general one. I decided to post it here due to the new lander design and the update of my assembled-in-orbit ship design that I started in an earlier thread. I won't feel too offended if the admin move it to another forum though.

Duna & Ike: A Disaster Mission A while back I got the idea to build a modular craft for my first trip to Duna and Ike. (thread) This ship was a disaster. I hadn't yet learned the value of fuel efficiency. The ship made it to Duna orbit (just barely) and ran out of fuel. It ran out of fuel in a highly elliptical polar orbit, I might add. Two stranded Kerbals in a weird orbit around Duna. So I redesigned the same ship with much more efficient engines, went and rescued my stranded Kerbals (I wish I had taken more screenshots of this epic adventure), and continued the mission as planned. Had enough fuel to do both Duna and Ike landings and return to Kerban safely. Turns out the lander was a disaster as well. I had designed it as a clever two-shot lander that could be used for both Duna and Ike. In the end, I did manage to land on Duna (took six tries to get it right) as well as Ike (took two tries), planted flags on both and returned to Kerban safely. Everytime I plant a flag, I always watch the sunrise, even if I don't always remember to get a screenshot of it. Dres: A Pleasure Cruise Just recently, I decided to revive the craft I used for the rescue mission to Duna, do some modifications, and go plant a flag on Dres. This mission (in stark contrast to the Duna/Ike mission) was flawless. I didn't even have to load a quicksave at any point in the mission. I also remembered to take more pictures this time. Once again, this was one of my assembled-in-orbit ships with a very heavily redesigned lander (due to all the problems I had on Duna and Ike). Saying goodbye to Mun on the way out of Kerban's SOI. A few tanks of fuel and many orbital maneuvers later, our goal is in sight. Down we go. I hope this lander works better than my previous models. Fantastic! Plant a flag... ...and wait for sunrise. A couple more tanks of fuel and many more orbital maneuvers later, home is in sight. Recovery ship collects the Kerbals and pushes the last stage of the Piecemeal VI into a fall. Mission complete.

I like the upside-down failed attempts in the background of the first two photos.

I think the developers may be subtly hinting that this module is for use in a space station.

It's a cool concept, but it reminds me too much of the wobble that space craft do when they are about to fall apart in the atmosphere.

The Magic Boulder was a fairly well known easter egg in the game up until recently. Here's Scott Manley's video about getting to the Magic Boulder, back when it was still in the game.

Just found out I could use custom flags today. I'm very happy.

Maybe that's why they took the Magic Boulder easter egg out but left the code for it in the game. Maybe they're going to make it into a comet.

Cool! I'll keep that in mind. A trip to Duna and Ike is next on my list.

Thank you! That's exactly what I needed. I'm assumming from Mun and Minmus, that's counterclockwise looking down on the solar system (North pole of Kerbin visible) or East rotations and orbits.

I think there used to be a chart for this somewhere on the wiki, but I can't find it anymore. I'm trying to figure out which direction each planet orbits the sun, and which direction each of the moons orbit their planet.

That's alright. It was originally planned to be more of an exercise in modular/reuseable ship construction. And I can always manually deactivate a few engines to help preserve fuel. The other good thing about this design is it's very refuelable (as I just proved about 15 minutes ago by topping off the liquid tanks and the monoprop in orbit). If this ship is in orbit around a distant celestial body with questionable reserves of fuel for the return voyage, I could always build a second one (or something like it) and use it as a disposable refueling vessel to rendezvous with the first one. That, and as always, use very carefully planned orbital manuevers and transfer orbits and make good use of "window of opportunity" situations. Also, I'm already designing an upgraded version of this in my head that involves 10 tanks and 5 engines (basically a double-length version of the one I have now) giving me a little better range.

Space motorcycle. Awesome!

I'm at three of the four outer tank-modules now, and it's getting easier the more I do it. Having both ships pointing due north (relative to Kerbin) helps as well because then the orbit just causes them to roll, not tilt, so that's one less dimension to worry about. The fact that all the parts are similar to each other is nice because I don't have to redesign the launch vehicle. I'm going to go do the last one now.

In a 200km orbit around Kerbin, running my first ever construction of a craft in orbit. (thread)

It looks like a dumbbell, or maybe a shake-weight. The Shake-Weight Mobile!

I like your space station design.

Last weekend I finally learned how to rendezvous and dock in orbit and took some landers to Mun and Minmus (thread). During this past work week, I'd been getting some more ambitious ideas in my head about building a modular type of ship in orbit. Today I put the central-most unit in orbit, then painstakingly docked one of the outer units with it. This is my first time building a craft in orbit and it is also my first time docking items with multiple connection points. I'm still shaking and sweating a little. Jebediah is piloting the main craft and Bill is shuttling up the modules. Bill departs, headed back to Kerbin. Only three more to go... It occurred to me that the clamp-o-tron on the top of the outer units where Bill's return craft undocks (there will be four of them when I'm done) as well as the shielded clamp-o-tron (originally intended for a rescue vehicle to get the Kerbals out and deorbit the entire craft if needed) could also be used to attach other goodies to the craft, like landers or probes, making the craft more versatile than I had planned. UPDATE: Finally finished! I decided to name it Piecemeal, in honor of it's manner of construction. It is in a nearly circular orbit 202-204km above Kerbin. All the attached tanks still have about 75%-90% fuel left in them, but I'm still probably going to send up a refuelling vessel to top off the orange tanks and replenish the monoprop. Once that's done I'll have to design some modules to go on top of those tanks (lander, probe, a small seperate explorational craft, etc...). Then I just have to figure out the most important part: Where to?

Ah, okay. Thanks for the answers, everybody!

This may be a little bit of a noobish question, but I'm wondering what the command capsule in the staging area is for. I've been mostly just ignoring it until now.

No, that's not it, but I did see that one a lot in my search results.

I'm looking for a Duna mission video that I saw a while back. It was done probably between 8 and 12 months ago. It was a really well-made video (kind of like the Build Fly Dream Trailer) and I know it had by Steve Jablonsky as one of the background songs. I've scoured youtube for nearly 50 pages of different search results, but I can't seem to find it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I did learn a few other things along the way as well. One is that Kerbals can't transfer across modules via docking ports (I learned this in orbit around Mun). The other thing I learned (on a very relevant note, in that same orbit around Mun) was a crash course in EVA operation.

Thank you so much!!! Like many other posters on this thread I was stuck with this MAJOR piece of KSP (being able to rendezvous in orbit seems to be the key to "the awesome rest of this game"). The fruits of my labor (thanks to you) can be seen here.

After a very long hiatus, I recently sat down and began playing KSP again. I finally decided I was going to learn the one thing that had been stopping me from doing much more in the game for so long: How to rendezvous in orbit. Thanks to this in-game tutorial, I finally learned how to successfully operate a transfer orbit, match orbits, and dock. That's what I did yesterday. Here's what I did today: I watched the sunrise on Mun. Then I decided to take some pictures of the craft I'd designed for the trip on the way back. Then I thought, "Aw, what the heck! I'll go to Minmus too." So after some minor modifications of my craft, I watched the sunrise on Minmus as well. (As a note, I design all of my ships from the ground up. I've never so much as loaded one of the defaults nor have I ever added someone else's craft.)