zeppelinmage

Launched two rockets this morning; one carrying a lander, the other a simple science station with fuel. Got them both docked in Minmus orbit, in preparation to hit as many biomes as possible for science. I realize now they're both likely way over-engineered; there's somewhere on the order of 2000-3000 m/s of Delta-V across the both of them. (I wanted to be sure I had plenty of fuel, thinking in terms of the Mun.) Which just means I'll be able to bring them back to Kerbin when the mission is done.

My latest recruit... Derlock Kerman.

For the record, upgrading worked fine. Currently launching the next mission in my Munar X series. I do have to re-do my alarms, and the Kerbal Engineer isn't "counting down" delta-V like it used to... but otherwise, everything's working well.

I would certainly do that, if I could find the .sfs files at all. I do a search (including system and hidden files), and nothing comes up. I think the Demo save was integrated into the program, and since I simply overwrote the Demo with 0.22, it's using that same functionality for my primary career save. Either way, I have 0.23 and the updated mods downloaded... going to backup and then try and see if upgrading works in a few minutes.

Yep, this directory doesn't exist. Yet my save game works fine. This is what worries me about upgrading.

Yep, gonna back up, for sure. I don't want to lose all this work I've done so far.

Another n00b question... My primary save file doesn't have its own directory. (Can't edit persistence files, since they don't exist.) Probably because I started with the Demo, and overwrote it with 0.22. Might that cause problems?

Ah, very nice. Glad to know this n00b's assumption was incorrect. The only mods I use are Kerbal Alarm clock and Kerbal Engineer, so shouldn't be too painful to update.

...That is the question. Currently, I'm running 0.22. This is my first game, and I've had it a whole three weeks (Year 1, Day 83). I've unlocked most of the tech tree so far, only a few Tier 7s and most of 8 left. maybe... 6000 science to go. I've been debating lately whether to upgrade to 0.23 or not. If I do, am I correct in my assumption that my current save game is incompatible and will be lost? And what will I be missing out on? (I realize these questions, or similar, are likely answered elsewhere... links to those answers are appreciated. )

Continuing my Munar X exploration program - sending landers to each Munar biome and returning the science to Kerbin (600+ per trip). I've hit three so far without issue, Munar landings are becoming routine for me. With Nuke engines unlocked from the last mission, I wanted to see if they'd improve the efficiency of my lander. So, I pulled off the LV-909s and their attached accouterments. I played with the engine/fuel setup before deciding to just stick with what's worked. I re-assemble the engine nacelles and launch my fourth Munar X expedition. Everything goes to plan, until I start coming in for a landing. With orbital speed dropping to near 0, I press G to extend my legs. ...Wait, I don't see any- Oh crap. I forgot to add legs to the nacelles. I say, screw it, my last landing was under 2m/s, so we can do this. Unfortunately, my horizontal speed was a touch too high. I hit surface, and land "safely"... just the LV-909s disintegrated on impact. ...all four of them. Okay, Revert, let's try this again. I make sure to add the legs, then I add a little more fuel to try and hit some of the more eccentric biomes. The extra weight took enough off my insertion delta-V that I had to circularize with my lander. That basically ate through the fuel I had planned for inclination change. I can still work with this, there are a couple biomes along the orbit I still haven't hit. I select one and come in for landing. This landing went fine (since I now have legs), and I perform the science. Bob re-boards and takes off for Kerbin. The flight back goes (mostly) to plan, save for overshooting KSC by a few hundred km, but I've done enough water landings that I know the lander will float. Under 10k, I pop the drogue as per usual, and wait for the vertical velocity to drop. Around 1km up, the drogue disappeared. ...Wait, what? I immediately pop my other four chutes to see if I can recover... nope, they rip away, too. With all my fuel burned off, I have no choice but to watch helplessly as Bob and the lander plummets into the ocean, destroying that precious science. Moral of this story? When you have a working design... don't mess with it!

This was supposed to be a Munar mission. But instead of decreasing my warp as I approached the Mun, I accidentally accelerated to maximum. I warped through 8 days before I realized what was going on. And, of course, the ship got slingshot into an escape trajectory. D'oh! Luckily, since it was a "land and return" mission, I had plenty of fuel aboard. A quick prograde burn, and Bill will eventually return home. ...half a year later.

I'm not content to simply warp until launch windows, so today I began another project. The Munar X Exploration Program is aiming to collect samples and SCIENCE from as many Munar biomes as possible. The first mission ended up landing in the Farside Crater. Upon return to Kerbin, the mission netted over 600 science. Not bad for 18h (Kerbin time) worth of work. Bill Kerman contemplates his rather precarious landing position while Kerbol sets behind a ridge in the background. One can only feel how unimaginably huge the universe is when both Kerbin and Kerbol are hidden from view. A brief philosophical moment from a Kerbal.

haha, yeah, you can get some ridiculous delta-v with light loads. My loads were >50t, so not as much.

I have, briefly. But not on this exact lander. My Munar/Minmusar lander was extremely similar; the only things it lacked were the reaction wheels and RCS. ...oh, and a bit more fuel, too.

Yesterday was all about experimenting with asparagus staging. Today I launched and assembled a manned Duna explorer.

I decided, while I wait for transfer windows to open up, that I'd attempt something more ambitious. I decided to try for a manned "There and Back Again" Duna mission. It took a couple days messing around in the VAB, but I finally got a lander I was happy with. Unsurprisingly, it was startlingly similar to my Munar/Minmusar lander. Then I needed the Orbital Transfer section (read: large gas tank). I had "back of napkin" calculated (read: pulled from the wiki) my needed Delta-V for the various burns: Launch to LKO: 4500 m/s LKO to Duna: 1100 m/s Possible Ike encounter?: 300 m/s Duna landing: 1000 m/s Launch to LDO: 2000 m/s Duna to Kerbin: 700 m/s Final recovery burn: 500 m/s Total Delta-V for entire trip: 10100 m/s During construction, I gave myself plenty of buffer - a few hundred m/s in most cases. My first thought was to launch the whole ship in one go. ...yeah, that didn't work. I'd need to put 100t into LKO; something I'm not skilled enough for. (Plus, I don't have those cool orange tanks yet.) So, I decided to launch it in two pieces and assemble it in orbit. Slightly saner option, despite my lack of docking experience. The lander was pretty easy. It was only 24t, so a standard setup worked a treat. Got it into a fairly circular orbit ~79km. Note the orbital stage still attached. I wasn't sure yet if I'd need that extra ~200 m/s delta-V in the tank, so I let it be for now. Then it was time to build the pusher module that would get the unit to Duna, and loiter in Dunar orbit for the lander to re-dock and return to Kerbin. Well, to get the target Delta-V to push 24t to Duna, the gas tanks ended up at 46t. Nearly twice the weight of the lander itself! So, my previous lifter wouldn't do the job. I rebuilt the lifter a dozen times before trying an option I hadn't tried yet - Asparagus. After much experimentation (just about 6 hours of playing last night), I finally got one that worked. An asparagus-staged main lifter. Two rings of six double-stacked X200 tanks, with 4x LV-T45s under each. I ended up getting it into a nice circular orbit 2km below my lander, with a whole ~150 m/s left in the main tank. Pretty good, if you ask me. I jettisonned the remainder (deleting the orbital debris so it didn't cause... problems), and jumped over to the Lander. I realized I didn't need that extra gas (plus, it was in the way of my docking port), so I jettisoned it. I had added a probe body to it specifically to burn for re-entry, so there was no need to delete the debris. Then it was time to do the time warp again while the transfer module caught up to the lander. 50 orbits later... Finally, we're close. I decided to begin my approach ~7 km, to give plenty of time before the units passed each other. Approach, slow, approach, slow, approach, slow... (Thank you, Scott Manley.) Got the units close enough to turn on RCS, and began the final docking sequence. They were still 45+m apart, but some good RCS and patience closed that gap. Before long, I had them lined up and began approaching at ~0.3 m/s. Closer, closer... Uh oh, alignment is off... Fire rotational RCS to try and line up better, slow to ~0.1 m/s and the magnets begin pulling it together. Both units rocked back and forth a few times, until finally... Lock! I was extremely relieved. This was my second docking procedure on orbit. (Third, if you count a "basket capture" of a command module.) Now, my Duna Explorer sits in a nice 79km orbit, awaiting a launch window to the red planet. Next installment: To Duna!

Jeb returns home just as the sun sets. He went EVA to better enjoy the view.

Thanks! =) I tried to go as small as possible while also meeting mission objectives. The fuel for landing took up the lion's share of those 7t. lol. The design came about due to my screwing around with rover parts. Built one I liked, then decided to deliver it.

With a little more engineering, I completed this mission. Without Mainsails.

This is my most complicated mission to date. I've already launched manned land-and-return missions to the Mun and Minmus, as well as my previously mentioned KOES (Kerbistationary Operational Environmental Satellite) constellation. This is a combined lander and attached rover, with the plan to collect a ton of science in multiple biomes on the Mun, and perhaps find some Easter eggs with the rover. With a little re-working of my rover and launch vehicle, I was finally able to deliver my 7.1t lander/rover to the Mun. I ended up using the smaller wheels on the rover so it could escape out from under the lander (lower speed, boo). I also switched out the Skipper engines for 4x LV-T45s on the main stage, and 16x LV-T30s on the boosters. Liftoff successful! With my redesign, the main engine burns for quite a while, until the periapsis reaches ~85km. I separated the main engine here, despite there being about ~200 m/s left in it. Orbital stage was ignited when the vehicle reached apoapsis, burning to "circularize". Due to a bit of mis-timing, the orbit ended up quite eccentric: 70x400 km. Orbital stage separation. Note the extended solar panels. In my KOES mission, I found my reaction wheels completely drained the batteries if I forgot to extend the solar panels. Now I make a note to do it as soon as my craft exits atmo every time. Munar injection trajectory selection. I planned one with a Munar apoapsis ~20km. (You can also see my previous manned mission flags on both Mun and Minmus.) Burn time. Final injection trajectory. Pretty good, if you ask me. Munar orbital burn. Circularizing ~20km. Now to select a landing site. I wanted something other than what I did before. The other mission landed in the "Munar Midlands", so I aimed the inclination towards one of the craters. When that burn was complete, I still had quite a bit of fuel left in my munar injection/orbit stage, so I bled off the remainder prior to my planned LZ to ensure my lander stage had enough fuel for a good landing. Here I separated the lander to complete landing maneuvers. Because my lander (and its engines) is pointed "backwards" I had to turn "prograde" to complete the maneuver. The lander's center of mas was off by just a smidge, enough that it took a lot of feathering of the throttle and reaction wheels to get it down. After a couple attempts, I was at last successful. Touchdown! Made it at 5.5 m/s. Nearly tipped over, but thanks to the crater's incline, it remained upright. Lander and rover deployed in the Twin Craters region. Now for the Science, and the eventual roving. (I named the rover Munar Bug for obvious reasons. )

Note to self: Sometimes reaction wheels and fins just aren't enough. Thrust vectoring is just as important! I did eventually go to space today, but only after switching out the center engines for ones with thrust vectoring.

The whole shebang clocks in at just over 7t. It's two pieces - a base station with a Science Jr, and a rover that deploys from underneath. It is attached to the main rocket "upside down", so rover-first. (When I took this screenie, I realized I need to do yet another redesign... the rover's solar panels fell apart when I decoupled it, and it can't get out from under the lander's legs.) "When someone asks you if you are a god, you say YES!"

A few of my projects have been put on hold. I have an unmanned Munar lander/rover mission I've had planned for about a week now. But it's just a touch too heavy - I need Mainsails. In order to get those, I need more Science. So, I launched unmanned science probes to explore every primary celestial body in the system. The soonest launch window is 28 days out. Of course it is. So, now I have 6 probes in parking orbits waiting for their windows. In the meantime, I practiced a little docking, and managed to rescue an engine-less capsule from Polar LKO. So, being the science nerd I am, yesterday I decided to put up a constellation of kerbistationary weather satellites. Yesterday was mostly learning - the first three launches were failures; mostly due to my forgetting to extend solar panels and draining the batteries to 0. Today was more successful. Liftoff: Main stage separation: Burning for Hohmann Transfer after separating the orbital stage: I lined them up to (roughly) 60 degree separation, just like around Earth: Satellite in kerbistationary orbit: I modeled it after GOES-R, the latest generation. It's not perfect, partially due to the fact I only have access to Tier 6 technologies so far. (Yes, they have temperature and pressure sensors, despite them both being useless at 2868.75km altitude.) Being my first geostationary constellation, the orbits are far from perfect. The first three I didn't line up to exactly 0° inclination, and the others don't have perfect 6-hour periods. Kerbistationary orbits are hard. When these start drifting too far I'll definitely launch a second-generation, with better orbital placement.

A few weeks ago I was turned onto this program by a friend of mine (Neshma). I was intrigued, and downloaded the Demo. Well, I was immediately hooked. So, when i saw the game was on sale, I just had to get the full version. So far with the Demo, I've managed Kerbal orbit, Munar orbit, a Kerbal orbit rescue, and Munar landing. (I haven't yet been able to land with enough delta-V to take off again. ) I'm very much looking forward to Career Mode.