Francois424

Since I decided to give 1.0.5 a small try before really diving into 1.1 with mods and OPM or 1/10th RSS. I tried using the new Buoyancy to make sea-plane that could explore Eve/Kerbin/Laythe but I suck so hard at planes that I gave up (for the moment) after wasting 3-5 hours. I was looking for something to try the new aero/engines/etc... And what better way than to re-attempt a Jool-5 ? So here we have in orbit the "Payload section", made it into orbit with 3 units of fuel left (new aero spawns re-entry effect on the way up at 40 klics ? and it's a bit more expensive than what it was in 1.0.2, the version I updated from). You can make out the 2 Vector Engines of the main lander, which features: 4 extra tanks with poodles (Tylo landing supplement), chutes and drag chutes (for Laythe), 4x 40m/s steel beams for landing gears, and the science package on top. No solar panels, but 4 RTGs (Jool is poor with solar power anyways). One RCS Tug, and an extra tank of fuel to refuel the lander. Lander is rated 5k dV with the Tylo poodles and about 4k without. Should do the trick! Now I am re-working on my Main pulling craft (posted in this thread about 2-3 weeks ago) to adapt it and make it better.

♫ Cap-tain Ker-bal, he's our hero... Gonna bring--- Kraken attacks to zero, He's our powers, Manleyfied And he's fighting on the Kerbans' side ! ♪ *Frustrated Eve, Jool and Duna raising their fists in unisson* All togetter: "You will pay for this Captain Kerbal!"

About them being useful, I am pretty fond of driving on Mun, and with thr right craft, on Minmus too. Last "season" I played KSP (in 1.0.2) I made a science truck with ISRU capabilities to refuel and used 4 of the tiny orange engine (ants?) to propel myself. Pretty good automomy between refueling too, so I got all of Duna's Biome. Could I have done it by making a lander rocket ? Sure. Would've been quicker too. But I love taking my time and KSP is perfect for guys like me. Rovers are fun (to me) and even if I sped 10h of driving on a moon/planet I don't get bored. This is also the reason WHY I want those electric propellers so much. I would not mind flying on Kerban/Duna/Eve/Laythe (and many more in the future with outer planets mod and maybe new stock KSP content). If you like rovers keep going at it, keep your center of Mass low and centered, disable breaks on the front wheels, put probe core up and forward for ease of maneuvering, and train... train a lot. As for having more of a goal, wasn't there contracts to drive from X-Y-Z at some point? maybe it was just a mod. At lease you have good details of the surface for ISRU potential base location now. Now that I think about it, going to be quite interesting to see how unmanned rovers handle when the new signal from KSC thing kicks in in 1.0.5/1.1 methinks lots of satellites in high orbit heh.

I finally got the main part of an inter-planetary ship (Jool-5 or even grandtour if refueling) in orbit. Took me forever to be satisfied with the final result and took me 5 launches to iron out a good enough launcher (at like 1/3sec because of 450+ parts). However this baby (Currently) comes equipped with a resource scanner, antenna, and a science package covered with shroud for atmospheric re-entries. Also room for 5 kerbals (one pilot, one scientist, 3 engineers). 11.3k Delta-V is nothing to be ashamed of as well, but will need extra fuel tank for rockets and the multi-purpose lander(with mining apparatus) capable of everything except EVE... final D-V will drop a bit, but should be very respectable.

Thanks for the info 5th. Can't wait to get my hands on 1.1 1.0.5, not so much but since I'm still running 1.0.2, I might upgrade, we'll see. I really wish they would add 2.5m nukes, bigger Ions, and Electric props (for drones) in stock game... looks like 1.1 too.

Oh cool ! thanks ! I actually used Ion-Hybrid 0.22 to build my first Jool-5 back in .25 and it was still working with an occasional glitch. So this is same mod afterall. Will have to try it. I would love the engines in the picture above =) Thanks again ! (PS: We really need 1.5 and 2.5m ion engine in the stock game... with electric props too for planes. At least there are mods !)

Hey all, I was googling the web to find parts I will include in ksp 1.1 when it hits, and I found this : Anybody knows where this is from ? I could definitely use these in my next serious playthru. Thanks !

I dug up my old "Solar Cruiser" A 3 Ion drive science automated ship to do a Jool-5 of High/low flybys of all the moons + Jool itself. Why ? Oh I wanted to get the blueprints out and see what I would do to it comes version 1.1, actually this ship was made in 0.23.5 and slightly retouched in 0.24.2 and sat there since. So I have a lot of modernization to apply to it and I feel it will be much much smaller, and manned by a Scientist... Much like modern cars kinda suck compared to say, a Chevrolet Belair '59, but performs much better. So here are 2 shots of this grand old lady in orbit of Kerbin :

I would fully develop it to continue to match (more or less) our system. So adding Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, each with a few moons (say Saturn and Uranus gets 4, Neptune gets 3, Pluto gets 2). I want something very very close to Halley's Comet trajectory, but since everything is scaled it would be too. Perfect to land a base on if not in a hurry and take it off at the Neptune analog for a rather free (if only long) ride to the edge of the system. Once those are all added, add stuff/flesh-out/improve ground texture for any and all celestial bodies... including the skybox. All of these addition would simply double (perhaps more) the time it takes the players to wrap-up everything. With 64-Bits memory should not be an issue and for lower systems, just make a menu option to uncheck the extra planets after Jool if they don't have enough memory or to load the basic (ie current) textures. I feel the outer planets are sorely missing and even tho we have amazing mods to correct that, I'd love the official stock game to take care of this. Everyone would have the same system and it does not matter if no one goes to Uranus or Pluto, it would be a fun option to have. EDIT: I might change the color of Kerbol into an orange-red sun. I'd have to test and see how it affect luminosity and gameplay... if too dark it becomes annoying afterall.

Thanks 5th. Looking forward to the new shuttle engine and 64-bits more than anything here. The 1.5m converter is not bad, but I was comfortable enough with the big one. Will most likely allow me to shrink my manned Duna isru rover by a meter tho, hey not a bad idea.

#1- M55 thud. Not the most efficient, not the most powerful, but very good for flatter landers and looks very good. It's one of the engines I use the most until Nerva and even in some cases even afterwards. It's probably going to be outclassed by the new shuttle engine when it gets published (1.0.5 I think). If I am to believe Wikipedia and apply the 1/6th scale of KSP... A max thrust of 350 with ISP of 462(vac)/366(asl). #2- Nerva. I am just frustrated there is no 2.5m of this. #3 - Dawn (Ion engine) Same as Nerva, no 2.5m of this. But with the new 5k xenon reservoir you can make pretty small and efficient probes with this. I wish it would have an engine sound (I cant describe it, but the best one I am thinking of would be the Ultravision sound from Neverwinter Nights one. Feels like light powder being consumed or something... not a musician here cant name it sorry).

I reproduced your design (Because it's beautiful!), except with top pod being mk1-2 3 kerbal pod (stuffed with 3, 3star engineers). I landed on Kerbin in a 0.018% area and it was very slowly draining fuel away instead of making some. I can conclude that for your design to be worth it, you need at least a 0.03 (or 3%) ore vein. Maybe all 5 star engineers would yield better results as well. Nice design ! [EDIT] Yup, found a 7% ore vein on the Mun and it works fine. Loving it... Thanks again for the elegant idea !

I'm planning and not playing. After 2 very exiting and developed game were rendered unplayable due to the 32-Bit Memory limitation I got enough. I played a small game where I did Minmus science and rover design, but nothing much past that. So I'm planning... Lots of planning. Stuff like: - I have sketched on paper my future interplanetary ship (Ring-shaped, fuel tanks tacked on the rings) with docking at the back to carry cargo, passenger or Expeditions like Jool-5. - I revised my Jool-5 plans, but with all the new pieces, including the new engines I'm pretty sure stuff will change along the way. - I'd like to do a Grand Tour with Outer Planets mod installed - I want to set-up the "Halley Station" (Match the Kerbal equivalent of the Halley's comet), - Also explore all of Eve/Duna/Laythe biomes using an electric electric prop plane (smaller than my 0.25 version since no need of science lab anymore !). So lots of stuff to design/plan for. I got a few things sketched out and ready to try. I'm also starting to list mods I want to have... some I even do not know their names. Is firespitter still around ? I know my old improved nuke engine mod is gone, I need to try and get EVE and Planetshine to work... science alert, KAS, K-engineer, maybe remote tech (I like the computer that comes with it a lot... I wish the same cpu was available as stand alone... asked creator, got no response). Outer Planets. Also on another build of the game, 1/10th RSS... with I hope all planets up to Pluto and it's moons eventually. Now that memory wont be a problem, why not ? There was Alternis Kerbol I never tried... I know there's "New Horizons" that 5th Horseman is playing and it looks almost the same, but I wonder. I also want to mod the tech tree... I feel the current tree is worse than the old one we used to have. Now it's impossible to have Ion engines at low tech. I want to make them available before the nerva in the electricity node. Never tweaked the tech tree before, so I hope it's not too hard. I want to make most science instruments into the same line as well and over at low tech tier so I can make complete science vessels early and not have to come back to a biome every time my scientists learn of a new gadget. I also want to design/rework some of the parts in the game... Having hour long burns with the Ion engines kill the fun... same with nerva on huge vessels. So larger parts (2.5m ion engines same with nerva) with same ISP but better thrust. for Ion think between 5-15 thrust, nukes about 250. Necrobones did a revamped RadioIsotope generator last week (I think it was 1.5m ?) I want that as well as it will be useful when I get to the outer planets. I'd like to duplicate the ISRU refiner (with animation) into a nuclear reactor that uses a new resource "Uranium" (only possible to get some from the VAB)... so nuclear reactor with a finite life time. Also electric propellers for my Eve/Laythe/Duna planes... If I cant make Firespitter work okay again I'll mod the wheesley basic jet engine to only eat electric power and adjust ISP to be reasonable. Like I said... lots of planning. lol. Not touching the game until 1.1 but I'm starting to want to play it... and it's itching more and more as weeks go by.

Okay, just watched that one... not what I was looking for but amazing nonetheless. Thanks. Too bad he did not post the list of mods he used (I guess that was EVE ? Anyways it looked so damned good).

Hey all, I am back from watching the Martian tonight and I just want to watch KSP stuff. I'm looking for a nice Grand Tour video on youtube. The best I've found so far are super quick 3min grand tours, or series that stops after 4 episodes (most promising one stopped after his first stop on Eve). Right now watching a 4h long stream (so lots of Fast-Forward to keep interested, urrgh). If you have any suggestions, post them and I'll check 'em out. I prefer stock, but it's not a deal breaker. If it has the outer planets installed or 1/10th RSS you could say it's worth bonus points. Looking for a series of episodes rather than one humongous videos that cuts out all maneuvers and all the fun stuff. I did not think finding quality grand tour videos would be so hard to do. I guess I'll have to pester a few youtubers to do a complete one... Dunno who'd have the time for it tho. Anyways thanks, and I recommend "The Martian" if you haven't seen it... some parts of the film are Kerbal-Worthy but still fit well within the film.

Enjoyed this, thank you !

I got 64 gigs of ram... Now I only need KSP to handle that. I can estimate I will use in the neighborhood of 8-16gigs with all the mods and parts (many pieces I will make myself using existing models for my endgame). No need to run texture manger and will be able to use all the mods I ever wanted as long as they are stable together.

Please do a new series on that. It's been quite a while since the last one. Don't forget to record the video feed this time tho ;-) - - - - - Personally, if going to Moho, Eve and Duna, I don't bother with orbital construction. When going to Jool, it depends on what I want to do there. Most of the time I do not need orbital construction either. I will do it if I bundle multiple missions in one go tho. Like deploying a 7 Jool satellite network for communications or doing Jool-5. I will do it much, much more when KSP 64-bits hits and I start running with the outer-planets mod or 1/10th RSS. When it takes 15 years to get into position, you want to send everything useful in one go. The only problem with building big ships in orbit is the damn severe frame loss that occurs (for me it starts getting annoying at 500 parts, 700 is barely tolerable, 1000 I've don't it ONCE and never again). Fact is, I like big ships, too bad the game can't handle it.

I used to have Win7 home with 16g ram today I have Win7 professional with 64g ram. Now the only thing missing is KSP 1.1 64bit version ! Are you Ready ?

Curious, what is that cockpit and that engine ? Your mimus rover is really nice !

Great Scott ! 22k liftoff / 24k space. Umm... I wonder... Eve escape vehicle ? no no no, make that Jool escape vehicle haha. I really love your work man, well done ! Should you be looking for ideas, For my 1.1 career I would love a high-ISP 2.5m nuke engine as an end-game thing. Maybe it burns Xenon and Liquid fuel (and electricity) to make for extreme range ? I need 4 of them on my mothership for 30K dV, lol.

This looks incredible... too bad it was stopped. I would've asked like Uranus, to have it's rings from pole to pole instead. Good luck to whomever picks up !

Not to mention 1.1 is rapidly approaching as a well. A universe of opportunities awaits ! Thanks for your hard work on these... Amazing to watch !

32, and I intend of upping to 64the moment a stable 64-bit KSP built is released. I already have the funds put aside, and I need to upgrade to win7 professional as well (my version caps at 16, but w/e at the moment). Going to run this thing with all the mods I wanted AND those shiny 8megs textures for each planet in RSS.

Thanks a lot for the summary as always... Really looking forward to start anew in 1.1 64bits not too far away is sounding really awesome. 1/10th RSS + Outer planets mods + RemoteTech2 + a bunch of beautification mods and parts.... I'm coming ! *Jumps into the stream* Weeeeeeee.....