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I think the thing people are going after with talk of a class-action would be the promises the company made regardless of the product being in EA. All the hype, all the talk about how they'll finish and everything is good. All the tidbits about velocity being good, and timelines are being met. I think this is where people are aiming. And that's a damned hard thing to prove outside of court, let alone inside of one. While there are laws that protect consumers from outright fraud, it's gonna be pretty hard for anyone to prove the company - TT, PD, IG, or some other entity in the umbrella - was intentional in deceiving the community. But, if they want to pursue it...I say good luck, and I hope they have enough cash to see it through.

-=R&D_UPDATE=- CommNet - Satelites and the Molniya Orbit I figured a good way to continue with this blog - would be to alternate between a R&D post and a Mission Execution Post. Where all the theorycrafting on "how to solve the challenge", will be poured into a post first, and then I follow that up with a Mission Execution Post. I have a feeling that a lot of good discussion can come from making a theory and testing if it worked... at least it will give people a chance to say how wrong I am in my calculations and theories - and stop me before I do something really silly Or better yet.. give people something amusing to read. Any way - Without further ado - here is next challenges Before we talk about the 2nd challenge I am going to ignore it for a little while, and focus on the 3rd challenge first = 3 CommNet Satelites in Orbit around Duna - To me that screams for a Molniya or Tundra orbit. - Something I've been wanting to try out for a while now. If you dont know what a Molniya or Tundra orbit is - See spoiler section bellow: There are 2 reasons why I am thinking about a Molniya Orbit: A Geostationary orbit will not have Line of Sight to the poles of the planet - and It would make sense for future settlements to be near the poles were there is water ice. So a Tundra and Molniya orbit is necessary for such an settlement to be able to communicate with KSC. (Roleplaying) Since the orbit is highly elliptical, it will be more likely that none of the satelites are hidden behind Duna - which should be able to have reliable coms with KSC with fewer satelites and that there are no signal loss to KSC. (except when Kerbol is in the way) Now how do I propose to make a Molniya constellation around Duna you ask? My plan is this: Get 3 long range satelites to Duna and space them 120­° from each other around the planet, 0° inclination. Get them to burn to a 60° inclination to Duna while maintaining ~120° separation. (hopefully the burn will be quick.) Have them raise their Apoapsis to 6700km. (half a sidereal day - see vehicle design section to see how the AP is calculated) Now to complete this task - the Molniya satelites needs a carrier with an antenna strong enough to get signal from Kerbin. If you guessed that this will be the satelite from challenge 2 you are correct. My crazy idea is to make a Satelite Carrier - deploy it to Duna and put it in an orbit where I can space out the 3 Molniya Satelites in a 100km orbit - Then perform the 3 steps to deploy them at their correct molniya orbit (Pe: 100km Ap: 6700km) . After this the satelite carrier will deploy the 6 small cube satelites evenly on the 100km orbit - which will provide signal around the equator. Once that is done - we will see how much Δv it has left on the Satelite Carrier and find a good plan for that. If this sounds like it's going to be difficult... I agree... This will be a test of my patience and precision. Resonant Orbit Planning: Now I thought I would have to sit and actually use my brain to calculate the correct orbit periods etc for launching the satelites to get their space even across the orbit - however I was gifted this great tool that does it for you. Use this to plan the spacing of satelites. When I plot in 6 satelites orbiting at 100km I get these ranges: The smart thing about planning around 6 satelites LOS is that it resonates with the 3 Molniya satelites - which will be deployed on every second orbit instead of every orbit. If you - the reader - sees that I have made some terrible error.. please enlighten me Now the parameters of the mission has been planned. Now it is all about designing the vehicles. <<<<<<<<<<Designing the Vehicles>>>>>>>>>> The CommNet Satelites: Left: Cube Satelite - Right: Molniya Satelite. Molniya Satelite: 1064 Δv Cube Satelite: unknown (25kg of Monopropellant and 2 RCS thrusters. - more than enough Δv) Now for the communication satelites the Molniya Satelites are the ones that will be most demanding. They will have to burn from a 0° inclination to a 60° inclination - then raise its apoapsis to match ½ a sidereal day... Now.. How to calculate this number was lost on me. Even though I could find the equation online multiple places I could not get google to calculate it propper. So I asked for help on the forum, and help was received. Thanks to @K^2 and others for helping me wrap my head around this. To aid others (and myself in the future) I have decided to save the process here: How to find the AP: To find the AP for your desired Molniya Orbit you need to first find the Semi major axis of your orbital period - you do that with this equation: If you punch that into google so it looks like this: You should get this number: 3,719.831km - which is the Semi Major Axis for a ½ a Duna Sidereal Rotation Period. Now this number is the distance between Apoapsis and Periapsis - you may think "but that is an oddly big number" - at least that is what I was thinking. But that was because I "forgot" that there is a planet in between, and that the distance we are shown is taken from the "sea level" of the planet/body. We there for have to subtract the planets diameter. (or radius*2) Now - I have decided that I want a PE of 100km above Dunas Surface - So to find the AP you have to use this formula: This should give you a distance of 6,699.662km - which I have rounded up to 6700 km - With 1064 Δv I hope we have enough Δv to finish both maneuvers. (it seems like it should be enough?) This formula is "plug and play" so to speech - you can go to the wiki and lift the numbers, pick your PE and find the AP for any body you want. If you want to know more read here: The Cube Satelite: If we look at the Resonant Orbit Calculator numbers: See spoiler section bellow: we can see it only requires 40.4 Δv to lower the AP to 100km - I therefore decided that it would be more cost effective to just give the small satelite 25kg of monopropellant and 2x RCS thrusters to decrease the AP. This makes the satelite much lighter than if it had actual engines - and I can carry much less fuel - thus making the satelites much lighter. The Satelite Carrier: Satelite Carrier with 6 cube satelites and 3 molniya satelites. Carrier: 2091Δv The carrier will have 2091 Δv which should be ample since it's going to be launched from LKO: 80km and the Δv map shows it only requires 1690 - 1700 to transit to Duna Low Orbit. See spoiler section below for reference: Now - one does not need to look at this monstrosity of a satelite twice to see it wont fit in the small cargo bay for the SDG... So My "promise" to make everything fit within the small cargo bay only lasted until the next challenge... *Teehee*because - of course this was the only excuse I had for a glider re-redesign - It wouldn't be me without it. The SDGv2: Left: SDGv2 - Right - SDGv1. When I first flew the SDG on Challenge 1 - there were 1 obvious thing that struck me. It does not need the docking array. The vehicle is not meant to dock with K.G.01, like the Multi Fuel Gliders are. So I can do away with that and get more cargo space already - without changing the center of mass and drag a lot.. - how ever.. the satelite is still too long... But I figured I could add a bit of Tube in the end where the vertical stabilizers are and sort of have the satelite twist itself out of the glider... That being said.. I can easily see things go "wrong" though here... namely: A theoretical comparison of me getting the satelite out of the cargo bay. Nothing has ever gone wrong from banging sensitive electronics out of the box... *cough cough* - Luckily Kerbal tech is sturdy tech... Here are the two cargo spaces clearly visible - The SDGv1 still loaded with the probe that was send for the Duna Fly By of Challenge 1. and here a side by side comparison. Luckily the weight savings of ditching the docking port means that even though the Satelite Carrier is pretty heavy at 8.06t - double the payload of its cusin, the Multi Fuel Glider - it only increases weight by 2.22t. Something I am confident that the 1st stage will not have any issues getting into orbit. Weight distribution across platforms: Multi Fuel Glider:.............................................................25.34t SDGv1:................................................................................22.28t SDGv2:................................................................................27.56t <<<<<<<<<CONCLUSION>>>>>>>>>> The plan has been made, Math has been calculated and vehicles designed accordingly. Stay tuned in to see if the plan survives first contact with reality. See you in the next one.

Well, its worth a shot at least, with the most recent news I have been thinking of actual realistic ways microtransactions could be implemented without directly harming the game with some suggested prices to go along with it.. Also aswell even if they say "no microtransactions" it seems that they need if it if there is rumors that the game is going to be cut, or we will lose developers... As of right now we don't know the situation for ksp 2 and the team.. "unethical" or not if stuff is "cheap" some people will find a use of some things useful while others don't if there was a unethical way to monetize it instead of just being free QOL the game might be better for income.. (problem is t2 launched the game in EA when it was a YEAR away from being anything useful, pretty much destroying the reputation of the game).. Custom Kerbal Creator / Custom Director Kerbal - 5-10$ USD This is a highly requested feature for ksp 2, being able to create customer kerbals, i think if the feature was free it would allow a certain amount of cosmetics but the paid would allow all cosmetics in ksp 2. Custom Director Kerbal, could be a pfp a kerbal that is "the director (which is you btw)" that would be able to interact more "kerbal friendly" compared to just the characters talking to the "screen", this could also be used as PfP for saves or in multiplayer settings you could use your custom director to be the pfp instead of either a custom photo or your steam pfp. This could be a little high, but i think the amount of work that is required to get it running and then making sure it works on multiplayer/ (if) there is more cosmetics it would allow "People to create kerbals of there own imagine" Custom Flag Implementation - 3-5$ USD Quite a few people request this to be a main in-game FEATURE, there is a mod that does this however the mod misbehaves a lot and does the stock flag instead of the custom one, They can be extremely high detailed flags I think they could make it a microtransaction that is cheap enough that almost anyone could buy it but it would not affect the users if they didn't have it, A Few CC's and a lot users could want such a thing in game. I think this shouldn't controlled in the sense of company censoring what photos are and are not allowed. In multiplayer it should be the owner of the server or local server that should be able to "remove" the offending flags and have an outright option to ban users from uploading and using Custom Flags.. Users can have as many as they want and can be limited on multiplayer if the owner so chooses. This will also include adding "parts" to add large flags that wrap around crafts in many sizes, or just straight huge flags that could be lit up by lights, and stock ksp 2 flags can use this for free. Hex Color Editor - 3-5$ USD Cheap easy mod that adds Hex color fine control to the game (Unethical) in my mind and should be free, however using Spicats Suggestion if all UI updates was approved i don't see why this couldn't be a paid feature its cheap at relative cost and would make users VERY happy, while also not breaking the bank, Supporter Pack #1 - 15-25$ USD This would include a "Music Bouns" of 1 additional song for each situation, planet, and ambient noise, The music is one of the key notes that i have found and have seen many others saying its "very good" for the game. This would include a "Banner Around PfP" or Color Change or A Speical Title.. saying that you purchased the supporter pack.. Would include a special flag(s). Be able to put custom crafts in the menu screen(s) We do not know if multiplayer would even have pfp or titles however, i think it would be a cool thing to add. yes this is pretty much try convince to keep intercept games with ALL of there developers with a job, is absolutely silly to think that we will sit down with people getting fired, and only getting corporate talk. These could be microtransactions that keep small amount of income coming to the game to show people might be interested besides the absolute devestion of trust when the game got forced to be released. (perhaps don't launch a game a year to early and then try to can the developers when we are getting remotely close to an actual game cause of your mistakes cause you are down a few million dollars..)

With talk of class action, I'm going after a joke

Hello! It’s been a while! I know that many of you have been wondering about the status of KSP2, so I thought I’d give you an update on how things are going. We have an incremental update on the way! The v0.2.2.0 update will address a number of common user experience issues, some of which have been causing frustration for quite a while. In many cases, a thing that was reported as a single bug (Delta-V calculations being incorrect, or trajectory lines being broken) were actually half a dozen or more closely related bugs. We identified a series of issues that we believed were negatively impacting moment-to-moment gameplay and the first-time user experience, and we dug deep into those bug clusters to make meaningful improvements. Some of those issues include: Parachutes don’t deploy reliably (doubly true when fairings are in the mix) Fairings don’t protect their contents from heating Trajectory lines in the map view sometimes disappear (often related to erroneous designation of craft as “landed” when in flight) Landed vehicles fall through terrain during time warp Maneuver nodes refuse to allow the player to plan beyond the calculated Delta-V allowance, which in many cases is an incorrect value We’ve submitted changes to address a number of these issues – in the case of the last one, we’ll just be letting you plan beyond your current dV allowance while we continue to improve our Delta-V accuracy over the longer term (there’s a very challenging set of problems to solve in the pursuit of accurate Delta-V projections for every possible vehicle that a player can make, so this is something we’ll likely be refining for quite a while). For this update, we’ve also prioritized a new kind of issue: in some cases, the first-time user experience is undermined by a failure of the UI to clearly communicate how to progress between phases of gameplay – put simply, we sometimes put new players in a position where they don’t know what they’re supposed to do next. We’ve received a huge quantity of very helpful user feedback in this area since the For Science! Update. For example, since most of us are seasoned KSP veterans, it never occurred to us that we hadn’t fully communicated that “revert to VAB” is a very different thing from “return to VAB.” We received a rash of bug reports from people who were confused about having lost progress after completing their missions and reverting to VAB. Yikes! Similarly, the lack of a clear call to action when a vehicle can be recovered frequently left new players staring at a landed vehicle and not knowing there were more steps to follow. We’ve made some UI changes to address issues like this, and we think the flow has improved as a result. Another usability issue that even catches me out on occasion -- trying to do illegal actions (for example, parachute deployment) while in time warp states other than 1x. In fact, we believe quite a few bug reports we’ve gotten about actions being broken have actually been the result of people attempting to do things under time warp that weren’t allowed. This is an area of ongoing work for us – not only do we need to do a better job of communicating to the player when they’re warping, but we also need to make clear what actions are and are not allowed under both physics and on-rails time warp. We’ve made some small UI changes to increase the player’s awareness of their time warp state, and we’re looking forward to seeing if those changes feel good to you. I know we talk a lot about the value of Early Access, but this is a great example of how your reporting helps us target our efforts. We still haven’t nailed down the exact date for this update, but we’ll notify you here once we’re on final approach. Most of our team continues to be pointed squarely at the Colonies update. We’re making a lot of progress this month on colony founding, the colony assembly experience, and colony gameplay mechanics. There are lots of interesting problems to solve here – some are super obvious (colony parts exist at a wide range of scales, and the Base Assembly Editor – the colony version of a VAB - needs to feel equally good when you’re connecting a small truss or a giant hab module). Other issues – for example, how vehicles interact with colonies on both the systems and physics levels – come with a lot of edge cases that need to be satisfied. We remain very excited about the ways colony gameplay will move KSP2 into completely new territory, and we’re definitely eager to see what our legendarily creative players do with these new systems. In parallel with our colony work, we’re continuing to find significant opportunities to improve performance and stability. We just made a change to PQS decals that got us huge memory usage improvements – mostly VRAM (this one is still being tested, so it won’t go into the v0.2.2.0 update – but I was just so excited about the improvement that I had to share): And of course, while all this work is going on, Ghassen Lahmar (aka Blackrack) continues to make big strides with clouds. Here’s a peek at some of the improvements he’s working on today (yep, that’s multiple layers)! And because the VFX team can’t ever stop making things better, they’ve begun an overhaul of exhaust plumes to bring them more in line with reality (which thankfully is also quite beautiful): Thanks as always for sticking with us as we work through each challenge – we couldn’t be more grateful to have your support as we move toward the Colonies era! Nate

Assuming he really didn't know what was coming when he wrote this forum post a week ago, it's a good bet Nate is feeling like a broken man right now. His vision of KSP 2 is in tatters and the studio that he helped build is no more. He's almost certainly sick to his stomach about his soon-to-be unemployed staff, many of whom he likely recruited himself on the promise of his vision for the game. Many of them will have left high paying jobs in software, aerospace and other game dev companies to join Intercept. His reputation is in pieces and his future in game development is very uncertain. Even if he somehow falls upwards into Private Division into some sort of executive job, it will likely be some sort of token 'Product evangelist' role for the remnants of the Kerbal IP, probably more out of embarrassment on PD's part and to deflect from their own poor judgement on KSP2's development. Even if he was authorized to make a statement by Take2 legal, I very much doubt he would have the stomach to say anything. He likely just wants to crawl into a hole somewhere. I would love for the whole story of what happened in KSP2's development to come out, it is surely a fascinating tale. Even with NDA's, I'm confident people will talk. The game dev world of Seattle is small. People gossip, especially people with an axe to grind and who devoted years of their professional lives to a project that was so badly mismanaged and eventually canned by Take2. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest in the next few weeks if we start to see anonymous posts on this forum or Reddit from disgruntled former devs to justify their roles in what happened. Paul Furio, the ex-Technical Director already seems eager to explain his side of things on LinkedIn and Reddit. Non-disclosure agreements be damned, these people have their professional reputations to salvage and will be desperate to tell their side of the story.

The problem for Take Two is that they are in a position whereby anything they do is doomed. There are only 4 scenarios that play out for them this morning. Scenario 1 Take Two comes out with an announcement indicating that yes, the studio is closing, but they are going to continue development under a new studio. So sorry that this had to happen, and right after we gave Nate the green-light to talk about an upcoming patch, but we're truly sorry and we promise things will be better from here on out. The community will respond with varying levels of "you went through this with Star Theory" and "you have continuously delayed this game" and they'll raise pitchforks and burn TT's buildings to the ground. Scenario 2 Take Two comes out and completely dismisses the rumors and stories, indicating that things are just fine and there is nothing to worry about. So sorry about the misinformation, and right after we gave Nate the green-light to talk about an upcoming patch, but we're truly sorry and we promise that this will not impact KSP2 in any capacity. The community will respond with varying levels of "we've been asking for more communication" and "you have lied to us in the past" and they'll raise pitchforks and burn TT's buildings to the ground. Scenario 3 Take Two comes out and flat admits the project is canceled. So sorry this had to happen, and right after we gave Nate the green-light to talk about an upcoming patch, but we're truly sorry to anyone who purchased the game. The community will respond with varying levels of "we told you this would happen" and "you made all these promises" and they'll raise pitchforks and burn TT's buildings to the ground. Scenario 4 Take Two says and does nothing. No explanations, no messages, no communication. The community will respond with varying levels of "why aren't you telling us what's going on" and "we just know it's canceled so rip off the band-aid" and they'll raise pitchforks and burn TT's buildings to the ground. There is nothing that Take Two can do in the immediate future - today, tomorrow, perhaps the coming weeks? - that will ease tensions and make this all right. Unfortunate for them, and unfortunate for the community.

Check Intercept discord #announcments Still at work. Can't talk about it.

Announcement dropped.. Dev Team still hard at work "Talk More when we Can" Not in a position to upload to imgur.. check intercept discord or X

Request denied, speculation is fun Granted, anyone attacking someone else for their opinion, belief or perception of the situation has lost the plot. Debate and discussion is fine, but some folks get way too heated and too fixated on being "right" or the ironclad belief that the evidence that convinced them of something MUST be able to convince everyone else of the same, and anyone who doesn't accept it is being [Malicious/Copium/Hateful] and must be attacked. Its really good to talk about this, a lot, it brings attention to the matter, shares information and conclusions, and lets people get an understanding of things. But we're not enemies here, two corpse in one grave and all that

While I was walking through the National Museum of the United States Air Force last Saturday, I was reminded of all the KSP replicas of those same aircraft. Some of them looked like they can be done with pure stock parts and no DLCs, while others (mostly the older ones) need mods that come with more parts. So, I started this thread for everyone to showcase their replicas of the aircraft that the four large hangars (plus the Missile Gallery) have on display. The guidelines for this showcase thread are simple: You are free to use any and all parts necessary, including ones that come in DLCs and mods. Vehicle has to be functional. Which means pictures/video of the craft in action. Similar performance stats are a plus. EXCEPTION: if the craft in question could not move on its own (as in it needed to be attached to a larger assembly to go anywhere) then the functionality requirement may be waived. e.g. the Apollo 15 command module. You'll only need one picture of your best replica (or half-assed; it shouldn't make a difference in that case), since it's useless unless attached to the rest of the spacecraft. If you want to make the rest of the rocket assembly, fine. Only the capsule made it to the museum, and that's what I need. Vehicle has to look as close as possible to whatever real-life craft you're trying to copy. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you have photographs to reference. Build something not yet claimed on the checklist (link below) first. EXCEPTION: for craft that appear more than once in the museum (such as the Superfortress and the Twin Mustang), you may only sign off on one of your craft's variants. Leave the rest of them for others to claim. e.g. I only do one Twin Mustang; the one in the Korean War section in Hangar 2. I'll leave it to someone else to get the other Twin Mustang in Hangar 3 and claim it on the log. If you want to show something that's already been showcased on this thread, fine - but you don't get credit for it. I don't care if you built the craft 7 minutes or 7 years ago, so long as it's yours. If you have an old stash of aircraft replicas that you're willing to showcase (and can work), great. Weaponry (e.g. guns, bombs, missiles) not necessary, although I won't object to them either. If the original aircraft was manned, so is your replica. If the original aircraft was unmanned, so is your replica. I won't object to a probe core for your manned aircraft if it doesn't deviate too much from the aesthetic, so long as you include the appropriate crew module/s. You don't need to match the passenger/crew capacity of your original aircraft, so long as your replica comes close to looking like its real-life counterpart AND it's functional. e.g. if you use one or more Mk. 3 Passenger Modules for an Air Force One variant, as long as your aircraft makes a convincing replica I don't mind you exceeding or falling behind its real-life counterpart's passenger capacity. Those things weren't designed for carrying a lot of people anyway; just provide comfort for the president and his staff. (SIDE NOTE) Whoever builds the Douglas VC-54C "Skymaster," I'm not requiring you to install an elevator in the back to load polio-stricken passengers in and out. If you do and the plane still flies smoothly, even better. The one housed in the museum was designed specifically to transport then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who needed a wheelchair. Craft files a plus. Below is the link for the replica checklist: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tA9IGsSCQIuTFjw9eNHYcgv8JboCxKiAy9ep5-nflR0/edit?usp=sharing Here are the instructions on how to use it: Pick an aircraft that has not already been built Like I said earlier, if you want to build something that's already been done here, don't steal credit from the original kerbalnaut. And for duplicates, you can only claim one of the type. Once you're done, write: Column D: Your KSP Forum name Column E: The link to the specific forum post showcasing your replica/s It is acceptable to put more than one craft in the same post. Just leave a link for everyone to find it. Column F: Whatever DLCs you used to make the replica If this doesn't apply to that specific craft, leave it blank Column G: Whatever (parts) mods you used to make the replica If this doesn't apply to that specific craft, leave it blank Column H: (IF YOU WANT TO) Additional notes that other readers may find interesting Please don't modify someone else's notes. If you want to debate/talk to someone about their craft, don't do it on the spreadsheet. Source for my list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_at_the_National_Museum_of_the_United_States_Air_Force Click here to see this thread's replicas assembled on KerbalX As a prize, if you make at least one replica from each of the four hangars (not counting the air park or missile silo since they're too small; specific hangar category (e.g. Early Years vs WWII, Experimental vs Space) doesn't matter), you'll earn this sweet badge: I made it myself. It's a representation of all four hangars by using a combination of the following four logos: U.S. Army Air Corps, whose planes dominate Hangar One. Classic U.S. Air Force, which became mainstream at the time period Hangar Two covers. Modern U.S. Air Force, which has a lot of planes in Hangar Three still in service. NASA, since the space gallery is in Hangar Four. Entries from the Missile Gallery can be used as "wild cards." They're ultra-rare, so get them while they last. Depending on what hangars you lack, it can be used as either a Hangar Three or Hangar Four entry. To make things fair for everyone, only one Missile Silo entry per person All Four Hangars Badge Recipients @Mars-Bound Hokie (Me, the OP) @swjr-swis I'll start us off with my favorite, the SR-71 Blackbird. The SR-71 Blackbird on display in the SPH Picture taken February 2020. Ted Kerman enjoying himself flying at high altitudes at a speed higher than the aircraft's real-life counterpart. There you have it, folks. Have fun, and I can't wait to see what you got. Build a plane from each of the four hangars, and you get the badge.

Ah yes, the bad publisher strawman, specially useless when we talk about a product that got a free pass to delay for 4 years and turn from a complete release into barely working early access. For Science! was a minor patch confirmed.

I would love to see a Kerbol Origins or OPM port, or Parallax. I'm not sure how likely or feasible it is, but it would be really nice to see those mods ported over to KSP2. Despite KSP2's bugs, the game has improved a lot and can be seen as a similar title to KSP1. Honestly the amount of creativity generated over the course of KSP1's lifespan is staggering, and it shouldn't just be abandoned. Anyone interested in a OPM/Kerbol Origins/etc. revival? Maybe like a "modloader" that you install into KSP2 with mods that you can enable and disable? I don't know KSP2 modding, so maybe i'm not the right person to talk about this, but it still would be cool.

Let me rephrase this whole upnate into a single sentence: "We're working on showstopping bugs, PQS optimizations, prettier clouds, and also prettier engine exhaust plumes". Now go back to this thread, check what people wanted, and see if this post is that. Spoilers: it is not. If you want to know why traffic is slow, why the auxiliary bridge supposed to alleviate traffic has not seen construction progress in months, why the paint on the road hasn't been fixed and it's still illegible, why your boss insists on not telling you when you'll be getting your next free day... the guy rolling down his window to talk about "look how nice the clouds are" doesn't help.

This was my worry, that we'd see a repeat of for science, dropping a milestone every december-ish. Mathed out a similar prediction earlier, in another thread, actually. On the specific topic of communication, I do think its just as much of a substance issue as it is a cadence issue. We've spent the last year and change being told there's plenty of work going on it the background, things are progressing great, our internal builds are so much fun - And then the community asks to see it, and we get crickets. And while I totally understand a reluctance to show off anything you're not dead certain you can deliver, it doesn't add up to a lot of people, because the trend of it actually happening hasn't been there, even before the game released at all. Lemme break it down here. The game is announced, the community goes wild. we're shown a bunch of cool stuff. Crickets, corporate drama, some date shuffling, and we don't really see much of anything. For the most part the community understands this, as we're being told that we're getting a full release of KSP2. Nearing the dates, it becomes an early access, and most of the stuff we've been talking about for the years between announcement and now is pushed out to roadmap. The community is disappointed but understanding, and takes the reassurances that what is launching will be absolutely solid as solace. The community then gets the first release of the game, and its pretty bad. We're told it'll be fixed up right quick, and the launch window features will be coming shortly. Then its not fixed up quick, and the launch window features are pushed out almost ten months. When asked to explain this both along the way and afterwards, we're more or less told that its because of parallel development in various features that'll speed up the content cadence. But we're given at most some extremely surface glances of this parallel content, and its extremely difficult to actually identify any signs of meaningful progress. The community requests more information and expresses discontent with what is being provided so far, and is promised some level of improved and expanded communication, but with no commitment to any specifics. At the same time, existing communication avenues dry up, providing even less insight into the active progress of development. This triggers another round of communication concern and inquiry, to which the community is told that all the work time has been put into planning out the next levels of work, and therefore communications can't be prepared just yet. This is followed up by information that suggest the patch cycle is stagnating, not accelerating in its timelines. Those last two parts is where it starts to fall apart, because its a bit of a leap for someone to accept that "We have multiple parallel development streams making content" and "We have nothing to talk about because we're planning what we will be doing next" are both true at the same time. If you've had a year of parallel development streams, it doesn't make sense to the average person that you have nothing to show for it across all the streams - While corporate communications is reluctant to talk about anything meaningful that might end up not getting added, the people who already paid just want to understand what the development team is doing and where it might be going, even if they hear that a thing is later cut for non-viability. But if you can move past that and accept that first combination condition, then the patch cycle appearing to be on the same timeline as the last one doesn't add up, suggesting that at a minimum, the parallel development chains aren't going to yield any meaningful increases in patch rates. Effectively, and likely with no malice, the community now has years of being overpromised and underdelivered to, and the scope of those overpromised and underdelivered situations have been coming in smaller and smaller - First it was the entire thing, then parts of the thing, then update cadences, now patch cadences, now communication cadences - Every step feels like its been backwards to many. And I do want to be clear that it is "Many" and not "All" - I don't speak for the whole community, but discontent doesn't have to, not on its own. This isn't an element of the community being told "You won't get this" and then being mad, this is that element being told "We'll do better" and then not getting anything better, over and over and over - Even if the rest is fine, that group is entirely in their rights to be angry about it at this point, because they're feeling lied to. And I think it shows in the cancellation of the KERB and its reception - People for the most part agreed it wasn't working and were ok with it going, the discontent was that it was the only remaining reliable communication path, and that's the thing we keep asking for. Most of us salty folks don't care if we get communications every week, two weeks, month, or even three months - Within reason, we don't want the game to reach that 2028 date in my quoted post . But what we do want to know is that if you come out and say "First of every month, meaningful update", that I can swing in on May 1st and see something that's actually of substance to the game. Not a filler dev article though, I guarantee you that we'd prefer 2 paragraphs and a screenshot of one singular colony feature sliver or a long piece that ends with "None of that worked so we went to the drawing board" over 10 paragraphs and math diagrams about how clouds in gas giants work IRL but why Jool doesn't do it the same way. That might be cool, but its completely irrelevant to the roadmap we want to hear about. The last thing I want to hear is "We'll provide updates on our plans to provide updates two weeks from now" and then come back in two weeks to hear "So we've discussed the initial plans to create a cadence for communications that'll provide details, but we're pushing out that information a few more weeks, check back later". KSP2 is in a bit of a do or die scenario - Not the game as a whole but its communications. You need to decide publicly and vocally, whether you will actually provide more meaningful information and details on a meaningful schedule, or will you prefer to work quiet and just roll in whenever you feel your ready. Trying to play the middle ground of "we'd love to we're totally working on it and doing it" without delivering is just making the whole thing look worse and throwing a lot of doubt on it. You're setting yourself up No Mans Sky style, nodding along to nice sounding things that people ask about without the seeming ability to deliver. You can look at is as "Look how much damage a single comment about development streams has done to expectations" as a reason to clam up, or you can look at it as a reason to speak more to explain what context was missing from that comment as to the actual development streams. But you need to make a decision. And that's the end of my rant from a community perspective. From a personal perspective, I find it disappointing and frustrating that a fully funded and well staffed studio full of professionals are struggling to meet the standards that indie early access games set in the early 2010's, before anyone even knew how to do any of this. There was this indie game called Kerbal Space Program managed to make frequent and meaningful communication updates to its users, while also having frequent and meaningful content patches and enhancements. These updates were relatively small, simple, not particularly heavily edited, and even included stuff that ultimately didn't come to pass that still informed the community as to what the focus at the moment was, and where things might be going. I am getting more and more of the feeling that our "Communications" are being treated as investor statements and press statements rather than being intended for us.

I'm going to say something contentious. Now that manned flights are growing closer, we have to address a fact that isn't being spoken: space travel is dangerous. The Artemis program, or something connected to it, may have the first death in space in over a decade. Maybe not in the first launch, not in the second, hopefully never. But for all the talk about commercialisation, this is space exploration and it is not safe. This isn't pronouncing doom. As Chris Hadfield says in his TED talk on fear versus danger, NASA has considered risk, reduced it where possible. He also said that the Space Shuttle was a complex flying machine and the chances of a catastrophic event was, when he flew, 1 in 38. He still went. SLS and Orion is less complex, we have far better robotics than Apollo ever did, and an honest-to-Oberth partially-reusable 'space truck' in Falcon 9. However... we cannot fully design out the chance of death, nor pretend that we are not putting people in harm's way. SpaceX makes it look easy. SpaceX also has "Stay Paranoid" emblazoned on the desks of Mission Control. Even the Apollo 9-like mission proposed in tandem with SpaceX could result in deaths. What brought this on? A blog post by Wayne Hale on the laser-focus on monetary cost as the be-all, end-all of space exploration: https://waynehale.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/blood-and-money/ If in the future something does go wrong, I have a polite request for the few people reading this: don't go mad. Do not argue yourself into the hole that all exploration should be done robotically. That you knew this would happen and humans should never have left the ground, never mind Earth. Do not let your fear control you. If you see someone else who likes space falling into the same trap, I request - because I can't make you do a damn thing - that you pull them out. Wayne Hale thinks the risk is worth the reward, that it is brave to take on this risk, and so do I.

I've noticed a few people on this forum play Ace Combat games (like five lol) and I also noticed that you could make threads about specific games here. Seeing as there is no dedicated Ace Combat thread, I made this for Ace Combat players to talk about... well, Ace Combat and such. How do you do the campaign, what's your go-to fighter and special weapon, etc. Ace Combat is a series of games that take place in the alternate universe of Strangereal. Strangereal's Earth has different continents and countries. The player's character is a "silent protagonist" and is always a fighter pilot from one of the fictional countries. Common traits of Ace Combat and their campaign-based gameplay involve: a wide spread of aircraft and weapons, enemy ace pilots, and giant superweapons. Not to mention the excellent storytelling (usually), graphics and music. Also, fun fact: more players play KSP than Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown by monthly average from Steam, but roughly the same number of games have been sold for each. AC7 released five years later than KSP, however.

This is a pretty simple thread, you just talk about what you did today. It can be in games, but not ksp as there is a thread already for that. I went to our local mall because I have money from Christmas and wanted to see what I could get. I looked around, my indecisiveness led to me not getting anything. After that I looked for DnD books at a book store near us. I didn't do much else, a lot of sitting on youtube. I also have a bit of a sickness.

Albert and the Martians “Breaking news from the CNN Election Headquarters. It is currently 10:14 PM and we can finally call it: Al Gore has WON the Presidency; he has reached 270 electoral votes with a victory in Illinois at 100% of the vote in. He is now the first Democratic candidate to be elected to the Presidency since Jimmy Carter in 1976, ending the Reagan-Bush streak of Republican control of the White House.” On Tuesday, November 5th, 1996, Al Gore won the Presidency over Republican candidate Bob Dole. He won the country's vote by campaigning on a staunch platform of addressing social and economic issues, alongside pushing forward science and technology. Gore’s victory though, despite it being the first blue victory since 1976, was not the talk of the country for very long. As four astronauts were preparing to go further than any human had ever gone. They were going to Mars. Robert Cabana, Eileen Collins, Greg Harbaugh, and Linda Godwin are awoken at 5:00 AM on December 2nd to prepare for their launch at 10:00 AM. Space Shuttle Atlantis sits at LC-39A, having been undergoing fueling for the past 3 hours in preparation for launch. Atlantis will launch the crew alongside the two pilots of the Shuttle (John Casper and Llyod Hammond) into orbit, and then perform a rendezvous and docking with the MMETV that sits in orbit now. But this was just one part of a 7-launch marathon to get everything for the first human mission to Mars into space and on its way to the red planet. It began on November 23rd, with the launch of the first half of the MMETV aboard a Jupiter 524-A at 4:26 AM. Following that, the second half was launched on November 28th at 1:17 PM. The two halves then met in orbit and docked together, forming the complete, fully fueled MMETV. Then, on December 1st, the day before the crew's launch, the “MSVs” (Mars Surface Vehicles, the Ascent and Descent Vehicles respectively) were launched together on a Jupiter 544-A, the heaviest variant of the SDLS rockets. The two are launched docked together, with Jupiter’s second stage propelling them to Mars, and then with the Descent Vehicle performing orbital insertion, as it only has to descend to the surface and has greater propellant margins. They will deploy their solar panels and radiators and operate on low power mode until they reach Mars in August of next year, just before the MMETV. That brings us to the morning of December 2nd. At 7:30 AM, the crew reach the launchpad and head up the elevator to board the Shuttle. This will be the last 2 and a half hours they are on Earth until they return in three years. The crew are strapped in by 8:00 AM and ready for launch. Final preparations occur over the next two hours until the crew access arm retracts and the last few minutes of the countdown begin. Upon reaching orbit, Atlantis makes a first OMS maneuver to set up a rendezvous with the MMETV. The catch-up takes about 8 hours, with Atlantis then moving in to dock with the forward port of the MMETV. These docking ports are the first functional flight variants of the IHDS docking port that will be used on Space Station Harmony, and there is no better mission to test them than on Magellan 2. After a successful docking, the crew all work together to move supplies from Spacelab II into the MMETV hab. About half of the supplies and equipment are being brought up on the Shuttle, while the rest will be in the dedicated supply module that is to be launched aboard a Titan IV in a couple of days. Skylab played an essential role in determining the mass and volume of food and water needed for an entire 3-year round trip to Mars; the 200-day missions total supply amount based on crew diets was extrapolated out and adjusted for the additional exercise and work that the Magellan astronauts will be undertaking. With all of the supplies offloaded from the Shuttle, a video conference is held with NASA Administrator Ken Mattingly and outgoing President George H.W. Bush. Although Reagan initiated the Magellan program, HW has seen it through its development and first two missions and has fought hard every fiscal year for the program to get the funding it requires. He has only a few words at this press conference, but he uses them to express his gratitude towards NASA, his appreciation of the Magellan program, and his hope that it will be part of his lasting legacy as President. Pleasantries out of the way, the Shuttle crew return to Atlantis and begin undocking and departure from the MMETV. Atlantis lands the next morning at the KSC and is shuffled back into the OPF for maintenance over Christmas and the New Year. The MMETV crew wait 2 more days in orbit, getting accustomed to their home for the next 9 months. Then, on December 4th, Titan IV rips off the launchpad at SLC-41 carrying the Supply Module. 12 hours after launch, the Supply Module reaches the MMETV and docks on the forward IDHS port. 24 hours pass as the crew continues to get comfortable inside the Habitat, and then, the next night, preparations begin for the most important operation to this point. Trans-Martian Injection. This maneuver has been calculated by computers the size of a room multiple times over the past couple of years. It is the most efficient trajectory to Mars available in the 1996 transfer window and will give the MMETV the most fuel for orbital insertion and return to Earth. At 8:49 PM on December 5th, the seven nuclear thermal rocket motors of the MMETV start up and begin the 16-minute burn to send 4 astronauts on a mission to Mars. 16 tense minutes pass, controllers sit idle in their chairs, watching in utter silence as the velocity graph steadily follows the pre-determined outline on the main screen of the Mission Control room. ABC, CBS, and CNN have cameras in the room as the event is broadcast live on television to millions of Americans. The astronauts sit with their suits on in the forward flight chairs as the slow 960 seconds pass. But eventually, the motors shut off, and Houston erupts in cheers and applause. A nominal trajectory is confirmed, and Bob Cabana, Eileen Collins, Linda Godwin, and Greg Harbaugh are on their way to Mars. Three days later, they become the first humans to leave Earth's sphere of influence and the first humans to enter interplanetary space. Over these three days, the final two chapters of Magellan 2’s departure from Earth are completed. On December 6th, the Magellan Habitat is launched aboard a Jupiter rocket on a faster but less efficient trajectory. Following this, on December 8th, as the MMETV leaves the Earth-Moon system, the EERM rover, adapted for operations on Mars, is launched aboard another Jupiter rocket on a similar fast but less efficient trajectory to Mars. The habitat and rover will be the first spacecrafts to perform aerobraking at Mars to minimize the propellant needed for orbit insertion. With Magellan 2 now on its way to Mars, 1997 begins with the ball drop in Times Square. A few weeks into the year, on January 20th, Al Gore takes the Oath of Office to become the 42nd President of the United States. As humans make their way to another planet for the first time, and a new face in government takes leadership of the country, America looks towards the new century with optimism. A New Era Has Begun.

Respectfully, The post did talk about them working on each of these problems: And even more he talked about fixing one of the main annoyances that come with the problem. While this doesn't necessarily fix the Delta-V calculator, It shows that they are committed to fixing the issue and making sure that the game stays fun while they work on it: I don't mean to disregard your concerns but I think if we are asking for more quality communication we should keep a positive attitude when they deliver, especially when it's specifically acknowledging what we have been saying for a while. I'm not saying anyone HAS TO be happy with where we are but I think a positive outlook is always better especially if one main complaint was asking for them to talk about what they are working on before it's here.

Gotta agree to disagree then, that was a painful read. Whilst you're free to like what you like, I fail to agree on any of the things you like, and some other things are plainly not a matter of personal opinion, like not being able to read the fonts on the UI, or loading times, or "potential" and so on. For loading times, on a new and clean game, the loading speed difference between KSP1 and 2 is minimal. Sure, the initial load is faster, but at the end of the day, a game made 10 years ago loads a whole *checks notes* 15 seconds slower from startup to flight. And that's with KSP2 still being in its incomplete infancy. Potential does not define a foundation. Foundation is a word reserved for how well the codebase and the game systems are put together. If "what I believe this game can be" was a metric, then every game in development has infinite potential and thus the strongest foundation. That's just not how it works. In reality KSP2 has the same engine as the prequel, the same middleware for some features, but a much heavier save system, and also a much heavier inactive-vessel simulation. KSP2 will be thwarted by that in the future. It also still builds and saves vessels as a tree, it still calculates fuel flow mostly the same way (something something "inspiration" from the code of the previous game), it still handles the atmosphere like the previous game, but thanks to that passive simulation and bad saving system, vessels popping into range still kill your game, orbits change randomly, and the game grinds to a halt with vessels and partcounts much faster than the prequel, to the point systems (like heating) have to be "streamlined", and part-counts have to be hammered down with new, revolutionary "all in one" science modules, station modules, and in the future colony modules too... or having the logistics layer be abstracted to numbers instead of seeing your vessels come and go. Right now, saves are just a couple vessels for 99% of players, let alone making any vessel in the hundreds of parts for maybe the last couple missions, and most people play serially too (fully complete one mission before launching the next). So really, KSP2s limits haven't yet applied to most people and thus it's no wonder they really think the game is better off. When colonies and interstellar arrive, along with more resources to keep track of... it's gonna be a mess, yet devs refuse to address it and have let the bug report sit unattended, and only mentioned the problem once in the K.E.R.B. and that's... the opposite of potential. So yeah, you might slowly start to realize why people who talk highly of the foundation, potential, and what not don't seem completely grounded in reality to me, and why the lack of proper technical talk in devblogs is worrying. I don't care at all for how they failed to replicate eclipses, or how they had to tesselate a line to draw a circle, I care to know why we're still stuck on something as primitive as tree based vessels, and how they plan to deal with high part counts, or even something as basic as what their target is.

This challenge was continued with permission from the previous thread manager @sdj64 LINK to the old Jool-5 thread There are over forty-five pages of entries and discussion, so look and see what made it and what didn't LINK to the older Jool-5 thread. There are hundreds of pages of entries and discussion, so look at it to see what worked and what didn't! CHALLENGE RULES Given the scale of this challenge, everyone who completes the mission successfully gets a spot in the hall of fame. 1. No cheating, including the stock debug menu cheats, HyperEdit, kraken drives, or file editing. HyperEdit is allowed for testing but get rid of that H when you fly the real mission! 2. No part-clipping of functional parts (fuel tanks, batteries, crew pods, engines, science parts, SAS) into each other. It is okay to clip structural and non-functional parts, wings, and heat shields. 3. Any number of launches are allowed to assemble the ship in low Kerbin orbit (preferably below 100km, not a hard ceiling though, but do try to stay around or below 100km at most). All launches must be flown! 4. There's funding for one main ship only so all the crew, lander(s) and other stuff has to go to Jool as one big ship. Once the ship leaves LKO, it cannot obtain more parts or fuel unless it mines and refines the fuel itself. The ship can separate once in Jool's SOI. 5. Kerbals must be in a pod or cabin (no seats) for the interplanetary journey. Seats are okay for landing and flying within the Jool system. 6. One refueling mission is allowed in the Jool system if you run out of fuel, unless your ship uses ISRU. The refueling mission can only transfer resources, not parts, to your Jool 5 craft. This mission must actually be flown! 7. On all of the landings, the Kerbal must be able to get out and walk (or swim!) around on the surface. Make sure your ladders work! 8. Use Normal difficulty or harder, except, any ComNet settings are allowed including turning it off completely. 9. All the Kerbals have to arrive back to Kerbin surface at the end of the mission, happy and alive. You are allowed to optionally send up a craft to return them from LKO. 10. Mods / DLC: STOCK: only mods which do not add parts and do not change physics are allowed. This includes any informational, planning, visual, autopilot, or automatic functions. DLC: Any and all DLC made for Kerbal Space Program are allowed. MODDED: Use of most parts mods and certain game mechanics mods are allowed. You NO LONGER HAVE TO ASK if your favorite part pack is allowed! Some parts mods are prohibited. Please see below. Specific Mods: ENTRY SUBMISSION RULES 11. Submit your challenge as an imgur album, with good captions and descriptions, as a video or series of videos, or as a thread in Mission Reports. 12. Pictures or it didn't happen! Please keep the resources tab open, as well as show the informative windows from Mechjeb or KER if you use them. Take a picture of every important moment, including transfers, dockings, landings, stagings, and refuelings. For Jeb's Level, also take pictures of the science screen when you recover your craft. Alternatively, video submissions are a great way to show everyone your mission as well. These will help future participants to see exactly how you accomplished each part! CHALLENGE LEVELS 1ST LEVEL: one Kerbonaut lands on all the moons and come back safely. Low mass and low cost and low parts sub-challenges: with stock parts and physics, how low can you go and still accomplish the mission? NOTE: Low cost submissions may not utilize ISRU, or a negative cost would be possible. (Thanks @jinnantonix!) 2ND LEVEL: two or more Kerbonauts land together on all the moons together and come back safely. 3RD LEVEL: There's not enough time left for training one crew member to be an expert on all of the moons, so five Kerbonauts must go to the mission, with at least one unique Kerbonaut landing on each moon. JEBEDIAH'S LEVEL: collect as much Science as possible! Your score is the number of science points from the Jool system only, returned to Kerbin (not transmitted). Only stock experiments count for this! To score, take pictures of the science screen(s) when you recover the data. Otherwise, the rules are the same as 3rd Level. GATECRASHER / HONORARY MENTIONS: Missions completed the mission in spirit but didn't meet every requirement. ISRU: Use of ISRU will get a note ISRU on the entry description in the hall of fame. This includes stock ore harvesting and converting as well as mods such as Kethane and Karbonite. ISRU is allowed for any level of completion. GRAND TOUR: Not officially part of the challenge, but landing on all planets and moons in the Kerbol system in one mission will earn a GRAND TOUR note and the everlasting praise of all of Kerbal kind. Rule 4 is waived, but any Kerbals on the mission cannot return to Kerbin in between any landings and you still must follow the other rules. Additional optional information to help others see how the mission was accomplished: - Which game versions did you use? - What mods did you use, if any? - How many Kerbals are on the mission? - How many launches were needed to start your mission from Kerbin? - How much did your mission cost? - Did you needed a refueling mission? - Did you bring additional stuff like satellites, rovers, etc? - Share the delta-V information too, if you tracked it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, now this big announcement is in the Kerbal News, all the public is excited about this mission and even the Government is watching! Now it's up to you, to the engineers and to the bravest and craziest Kerbonauts of all time! Completion Badge: Anyone who has finished the challenge can add this badge to their signature. The Low Mass Feather badge is available for entries in the low mass sub challenge. Hall of Fame 1st Level- - @Laie Video here. Used a smaller-than-you'd-expect rocket with a dedicated Tylo lander and a spaceplane shell that encloses the Vall-Bop-Pol lander to make the Laythe lander. A very well done mission with a great video. - @Stratzenblitz75 Video here. Used a completely reusable mission involving a tiny mothership which orbited Tylo and tiny landers that explored the system. I should also point out that no nuclear engines or ions were used in the mission. Truly impressive. - @Ultimate Steve Videos here and here. Used a single launch in career mode sending Val to many places in the system including Vall. Very impressive how quickly the mission was thrown together and carried out. - @IncongruousGoat Album here. A simple, single launch Jool 5 mission that only uses 42 parts! Very well optimized and well done. Good job! - @chargan ISRU Gif here. Used an ISRU shuttle and hopped from Kerbin, to the Mün, to the Joolian moons, to Duna, and finished it off with a glorious vertical landing at the KSC. Excellent job! - @GRS Album here. Used a massive, creatively named mothersheep that carried landers for Laythe and Tylo, landing on Vall and Bop (AND DRES!) by itself. As an added bonus, the lonely Dres was even visited, that doesn't happen very often. Amazing job! - @Challyss Album here. Used a brute force 5 meter launch booster with two 5 meter side boosters. Once in LKO used a vector-power stage to boost to an elliptical orbit, then used a rhino powered mothership to go to Jool, where it completed the mission. - @5thHorseman Videos here. Used a single launch to send three Kerbals to the Jool system, where the ship parked in an elliptical Tylo orbit. From there a tug took the landers to their respective moons where they *wait for it* landed. The ship then fired all three Kerbals home safely. An amazing mission and equally amazing videos. - @Xurkitree Grand Tour Thread here. A surprisingly small mission that not only landed on all the Jool moons, but also every other planet and moon in the system. The mission sent a craft out to Eeloo, which landed and returned to Jool before heading home. Once in orbit Derton was picked up by a recovery rocket and landed safely back on Kerbin. Outstanding. ISRU Video here. I don't even know where to start, Xurkitree didn't just do a Jool 5 in this mission, they did it twice. A large SSTO ISRU craft launched and refueled on Minmus before gravity assisting its way to Jool where it completed the landings and then returned to Kerbin, WHERE IT RELAUNCHED and then detached a small non-ISRU craft which carried out the landings again. A fun note was when the Laythe lander landed by computer control while the Kerbal parachuted down. Great job on your fourth Jool 5 submission! - @dvader Album here. A single launch using only chemical engines. Used several gravity assists to make the trip to Jool cheaper in terms of delta-v. Used a small but capable plane for Laythe, and a donut lander for the other moons (with extra fuel for Tylo and Vall.) Overall a very optimized mission, complete with a near KSC landing. - @fulgur Album here. A very small and well optimized mission with a smaller-than-you'd-expect mothership. Ions were used to scoot Jeb and Vall about the system to the various moons, and then left as the small mothership made its way home, getting into Kerbin orbit with only forty m/s of delta-v remaining. (Talk about close margins!) The crew were returned safely by an Aether SSTO. - @Pro100kerbonaut ISRU Mission report here. Used an SSTO spaceplane to go to Minmus to refuel, then flew off to Jool. This mission is the most impressive in how it handled the Tylo landing. Not only was the landing done using the SSTO, but it came directly from Vall without refueling at Bop or Pol. The landings were all completed flawlessly, but was destroyed in a crash landing back on Kerbin. The pilot survived though, and any landing you can walk away from... - @dnbattley Album here. A direct ascent mission to all five moons, starting with Pol and Bop, then Vall, Tylo, and finally Laythe. The tensions on this mission were very high, as Jeb began his Tylo descent on a NERVA powered craft with a TWR of .9, managing to get it above 1 just in time to pull off the landing. From there Jeb flew to Laythe where he somehow missed the ocean (this might be a KSP first) and used the craft's jets to push it into the water for an ocean launch. After struggling back into orbit, Jeb flew by Tylo back to Kerbin, using a Duna aerogravity assist to get the right trajectory (ARE YOU SERIOUS?) Upon returning to Kerbin he was able to sneak in a Minmus landing. This mission is without a doubt one of the more Kerbal ones submitted, complete with Jeb gliding the final stage down to Kerbin with his EVA chute. - @EveMaster Grand Tour, ISRU Thread here. Additional album here. EveMaster managed to complete the Jool 5 challenge with an ISRU craft, utilizing the power of two mammoth engines and a detachable spaceplane. Also went the extra few million miles and completed a grand tour! Both Bob and Jeb were on this mission, however Bill stayed behind on Eve, so only Jeb is being considered for this entry. Regardless, an excellently executed mission. - @ManEatingApe, @Jacke, @dvader, @Muetdhiver, @Rakaydos, and @Pds314 Mission thread here. What these users have completed is the first community Jool 5 mission for this specific thread, possibly the first ever. Furthermore, this mission was done in a 'caveman' style approach, meaning no maneuver nodes, tier one buildings, and launch mass restrictions. These restraints meant the main ship was built over multiple launches. The landings were carried out by a plane and three identical landers, which carried Jeb to, around, and back to Kerbin from the Jool system with excruciating precision. I highly suggest checking out this mission's thread, it's one of a kind! - @Space Nerd Album here. Using a long nuclear mothership, Jeb and Malvis conquered the Jool system in a surprisingly easy manner. An off-center Bop/Pol lander was docked onto the side of the mothership, leading to one of the more interesting mothership designs. Jeb took Laythe, Tylo, and Vall, and Malvis handled Bop and Pol. Once all the landings were done, they flew back to Kerbin and used a 10 meter heat shield to slow down and splashed into the ocean. - @ralanboyle Video here. Using a single brute force launch, a main station of sorts was put into Jool orbit,. From there a Laythe-plane was released, and upon returning from Laythe, a lander/fuel tank combo (and an extra part for Tylo) took on Tylo, then Vall, then Bop, then Pol. They forgot to put a flag on Pol, but who cares. Also, the lander was able to return to Kerbin all by itself. Quite the capable craft I'd say. The mission is edited into a very nice video, and I suggest giving it a watch if you've got the time. - @Carbonjvd Album here. Using the incredibly stylish IPV Excelsior spacecraft, Tridous Kerman flew to Minmus to refuel, where she picked up two more crew members in Minmus orbit. From there they flew to Jool, where they refueled at Bop. After the tanks were full, they hopped to Pol, then Tylo, then Bop again, then Vall. From Vall the crew hopped back to Bop for more refueling, then flew to Laythe. After converting stored ore into liquid fuel, the crew touched down on an island, then (you guessed it) flew back to Bop! (for more fuel) From this final Bop landing, the Excelsior returned to Minmus where it all began, then safely touched down on Kerbin. A stylish landing for a stylish craft. - @camacju Grand Tour. Album here. This mission is impressive as it not only visited the five moons of Jool, but also every other landable surface in the Kerbol System. The Jool portion of this mission was completed after the mothership completed the Eve portion, then used gravity assists to get to Jool. A Tylo assist put the ship on course to aerobrake at Laythe, and after landing on Laythe the lander was then reused for Tylo. The other moons were completed using a smaller lander, and the brave Kerbonaut landed back at Kerbin after quite an exciting trip. Video here. A very well edited video of a Jool 5 mission which used only liquid fuel! Launching from the runway as a spaceplane, the craft flew up before staging its rapier engines and continuing to orbit on nerva-power. The Laythe landing was done using a smaller spaceplane, and the rest of the landings were done using a very impressive lander which used only 1 nerv engine to land on all the other moons, including Tylo! The lander also served as a trip home and as a heat shield so that the brave kerbonaut could parachute to safety. This mission is beautifully summed up in the video link, and I highly suggest checking it out. A truly unique mission! Video here. Another liquid fuel only mission! This one utilized multiple relaunches of the same spaceplane to put multiple fuel tankers in orbit. From there, the craft departed for Jool after some gravity assists and once again demonstrated the unusual, difficult, and impressive use of a nerv-powered Tylo lander. The video this mission was edited into is nice and tidy as well, and I suggest watching so you can see all the work that went into it. Video here. And yet another Jool 5 mission, but this time with only one engine! A cargo spaceplane with a single rapier made multiple launches to place several fuel tankers into orbit before flying a gravity-assist-utilizing course to Jool. Once in Jool space, the Laythe landing was conducted first, and then the plane ditched its outer shell so that just the rapier engine and a few fuel tanks remained. The craft then docked to a fuel module in orbit and flew to Vall, landed, then went to Tylo where a dedicated fuel drop-tank was used with what I'll dub "backflip staging". From there the Pol and Bop landings were done, with fuel to spare. After a fiery return to Kerbin, the brave Kerbonaut, Wildard, paraglided safely into the ocean. I recommend giving this video a watch, because it's short, to the point, and an amazing display of Kerbal engineering. Grand Tour. Video here. This mission is truly a record breaker, as not only was it a Jool 5, but it is the lowest mass Grand Tour without ISRU record holder, with a take off mass of 14.447 tons, less than a Mammoth engine! To focus on the Jool 5 portion of the mission, a spaceplane made a bouncy, thrash-flippy landing, then a tiny tiny lander was used to tackle Tylo. Pol and Bop were handled by a small ion lander, and Vall was handled by a lander so small it looks like a pancake. You should definitely give this mission's video a watch, as words cannot truly describe just how insanely optimized this mission was. - @Goufalite Video here. This mission began with the assembly of a main mothership in LKO. Once complete, the ship cruised to Jool where it used gravity assists to achieve orbit. From there, the spaceplane was deployed to Laythe, but missed its target island. Never fear! The spaceplane had such high performance it was able to fly to a nearby island. Once back with the mothership, the SSTO was drained and detatched, and a capsule on its nose was undocked and docked to the Tylo lander. The Tylo lander used 2 aerospike engines to blow its way to the surface, and the final stage of the lander redocked to the mothership to be reused as the lander for Vall, Bop, and Pol. After visiting Vall and Pol, the lander flew by itself (and out of connectivity range) to Bop, where it landed and returned to Pol all on its own (Goufalite found this method was more fuel efficient). After returning to the mothership at Pol, a Tylo gravity assist sent the crew home, and both safely landed only 50 kilometers from the KSC. This mission made me nostalgic for my first Jool 5 mission, which in turn makes this mission special to me. Nice job, @Goufalite. - @king of nowhere Grand Tour. Mission thread here. This mission was done using Kerbalism, and an absolute UNIT of a mothership. Appropriately named the DREAM BIG, this ship conducted the Jool 5 challenge with dozens of farms, radiation shields, and drop ships to keep itself self-sufficient. Fighting food limitations, mod issues, solar storms, insanity and radiation damage, the crew of DREAM BIG flew throughout the entire Kerbol system planting flags on every world. The mission thread is an entertaining read, and has a video tour of the DREAM BIG spacecraft, which I highly recommend you check it out. I congratulate @king of nowhere on completing the mission, and for not losing their sanity in the process! Mission thread here. This mission was done with tremendous build constraints, and done entirely in a no-contract career mode save. Each launch was limited to 20-25 tons, meaning it took dozens of flights to finish the main ship, the Marco Polonium. The ship used many cost and weigh saving methods, including using the Laythe lander as a stage on Tylo, and by using claws instead of docking ports in some cases. The mission also visited Duna, Ike, Eeloo, Dres, and Eve (orbit) as well. This mission is one of the most entertaining ones I've reviewed (along with one of the most optimized) and I highly recommend giving it a read. Mission thread here. This mission was much like @king of nowhere's previous two in the sense that it involved Kerbalism and self-imposed building constraints. The result was a Jool 5 mission designed and flown to be as realistic as possible, and done with a maximum LKO mass of 140 tons. Bill and Bob took the Economic Downturn and its support craft to Jool and visited Tylo first, using the Seated Man lander, then made way for Laythe to deploy the Sole spaceplane, each accompanied by the space tug Right Answer. Sole's upper stage was reused as a Vall lander, while Seated Man's upper stage was used to land on Bop and Pol. For the inner three moons, great care was taken to limit the radiation damage incurred on the crew, with Bill being irradiated all the way to 95% upon his return to Economic Downturn. The return trajectory had to be tweaked a few times to prevent the capsule overheating, but Bill and Bob ultimately prevailed, and returned to Kerbin with nearly 500kg of samples. This mission is one of the few anxiety inducing submissions due to the challenges imposed by Jool's radiation belt. If you are a fan of gripping mission threads, I suggest giving this one a read. - @Lt_Duckweed Video here. This Jool 5 mission is notable for three reasons. Firstly, it is fully recoverable. Secondly, it only uses two engines, being the nerva and rapier. And thirdly, it was edited into a masterpiece of a video. This mission began with a launch just west of the KSC, and made a direct transfer to Jool. Upon Jool arrival, the elegently designed craft deployed a nerva-propelled lander, which performed the Tylo landing. After refueling at the main ship, the lander then visited Vall, Bop, and Pol with refueling trips to the main ship in between. The lander then returned to the main craft, which transfered to Laythe, completing the final landing. The craft then returned to Kerbin and came to a stop on the KSC runway, returning with it every part it launched with. I must repeat the high quality video the mission is edited into, and strongly suggest giving it a watch. - @bwest31415 Album here. This mission began with the launch of a long thin rocket which was followed by a normal transfer to Jool. Upon arrival to Jool however, inflatable heat shields were used to induce a Joolian aerobrake, a maneuver I've scarcely seen used since the addition of reentry heating to the game. The first landing to be done was Laythe, and the final stage of the lander was used to land on Vall and Tylo. The lander then left the main ship behind and traveled to Pol, then Bop, then back to Kerbin all without refueling. Jeb landed safely back on Kerbin after a toasty aerocapture, and exited the pod to take in a nice mountain view. - @18Watt ISRU, Thread here. This mission was done as both a Jool 5 and a Kerpollo submission. The mission began with a brute force launch and direct transfer to Jool. The mothership used wolfhound engines, which was good for TWR but slow when the ship was fully fueled. The ship flew first to Tylo, and after landing, the Tylo ascent stage would be reused for later landings. Next, the ship went to Bop to refuel, then to Laythe, where a staged spaceplane returned the brave Kerbonaut to the mothership. Next Val went to Vall, then the ship went to Pol and landed, before returning the crew to Kebrin, who parachuted to the surface of one of Kerbin's icecaps. - @OJT ISRU, Thread here. This mission was fully reusable* (apart from deployed fairings but we couldn't decide if that counted or not) and landed every component of the main ship back on Kerbin upon finishing the Jool system's exploration. The mission began with three launches, one for the mothership, one for the lander, and one for the SSTO spaceplane. Due to unfortunate moon placements, no gravity-assisted captures were possible and a retroburn was conducted. From there, a surprise Laythe aerocapture was conducted, saving much needed fuel. After the Laythe landing, the main ship flew to Vall, left the plane in orbit, and then landed with the lander beneath it and refueled on the surface. Next up was a Tylo landing with razor thin fuel margins, followed by Pol and Bop. It is worth noting that this mission did not repeat OJT's previous Jool 5 mission's Pol refueling process, in which the lander did numerous trips to the surface to bring tiny bits of fuel up to the main ship. With the landings complete and plenty of fuel to spare, the ship flew back to Kerbin where it landed piece by piece, with the lander being launched an SSTO parachute module. An excellent mission, and no doubt a fine achievement. - @kspfreak Video here. This mission not only visited the moons of Jool, Bop's Kraken, and in a rather small vehicle, but also visited every other moon in the entire Kerbol System! This mission's video is a fun watch, and ends with a fun paraglide back to the KSC. A mini grand tour of sorts, and very well done. - @JeDoesStuff ISRU, Video here. An SSTO submission! Coming in with a mass at just under 30 tons, JeDoesStuff showed off an incredibly refined ISRU SSTO by flaunting it around the Jool System. Included on the spaceplane are subtle but clever features to aid in launching horizontally, such as Vernier thrusters on the nose to raise attitude during takeoff, as well as a large landing gear that is only deployed to angle the craft. I haven't seen the latter of those additions on an SSTO before, so I applaud the ingenuity! The video this submission is contained within is also very well edited, resulting in a brief, yet concise viewing experience. If you're looking for a fun video to watch, or to see a razor-thin-margin Tylo landing, then this submission is for you. Low Mass - @EvermoreAlpaca Video here. Mass of 6.2 tons. Spaceplane launch, gravity assists off Kerbin and Eve to reach Jool. Landed on Laythe with the same rapier used in the launch stage, returned to orbit with an incredible TWR, scooted over to Tylo where the most bare-bones Tylo lander I've ever seen was used to land on and take off from Tylo (saved fuel by having Bill push it to the top of the mountain), flew over to Vall where the landing was done using staged batteries and a single ion engine. The Vall lander (which was also part of the Laythe lander) completed the last two landings on Bop and Pol and returned to Kerbin using many more gravity assists before preforming an aerobraking, with Bill parachuting to the space center and landing atop the RnD. - @Alpaca Z Video here. Mass of 5.8 tons (Current Record!). Vertical launch using a whiplash ramjet engine, which was staged prior to orbital insertion. Resonant orbits with Kerbin and Mun assists were used to set up a KEKKJ gravity assiste route to save fuel. Spider engines were used in a two-stage Laythe lander design to save weight, and EVA construction was used to rebuild craft to negate the need for decouplers or rebuild the craft (or get away with only bringing one chair). Landings were otherwise routine apart from an incident on Tylo where the lander fell on its side, requiring an intuitive solution to rebuild the craft in such a way it could use redundant engines as support pillars. The video is very well narrated and goes into much more detail regarding the craft's design and flight plan, I highly recommend watching it to get the full picture of this mission. - @camacju Video here. Mass of 5.2 tons (Current Record!). This mission not only shatters the previous record, but does so with an impeccably made video. Launch mass was saved in numerous ways, one of which involved using tiny flags in place of landing gear for the horizontal KSC Runway takeoff. EVA construction was used to reassemble the craft(s) into what was needed at any given point during the mission. The vessels flown and techniques used are difficult to describe, so I highly encourage a watch of this mission to see some of the best of Kerbal engineering. - @camacju and @Ultimate Steve Grand Tour, Video here. Mass of 7.6 tons. This is a meticulously crafted and borderline perfectly executed low mass mission. This was not only a Jool 5, but also an entire grand tour weighing not even 8 tons! The video's excellent editing allows it to speak for itself, and I highly recommend you watch this mission to see perhaps the greatest low mass mission in the history of KSP. Low Cost - @jinnantonix Video here. 34,663 funds. The thread's first low cost submission! Using a low cost launch vehicle and a K-E-K-K-J flyby route, the mission put Val and a fuel-tanker station in elliptical Laythe orbit. From there one lander tackled Laythe, and another tackled the other four moons, with an extra few stages for Tylo. It is worth mentioning that this mission used no electrical charge and relied entirely on engine gimbal and some RCS to steer. On the way back, a double Eve flyby helped slow down, so an aerocapture could be done at Kerbin, where Vall proceeded to parachute onto the VAB. - @camacju Mission here. 24,070 funds. This mission used a SRB powered launch stage and a terrier powered transfer vehicle to get the landers to Jool (after numerous gravity assists). A dedicated Laythe lander tackled the ocean-world, while a multi-stage Tylo lander tackled the rest of the moons, and returned the brave Kerbonaut Wildard Kerman to Kerbin. Before heading back however, the new space-construction method was utilized to steal a solar panel from the transfer stage, marking the first time this creative form of staging has been used. Mission here. 17,635 funds (Current Record!). This mission is a more stripped down version of @camacju's previous low cost mission. This mission featured a visit to Laythe's ocean floor, and utilized eva construction to manually remove empty fuel tanks from the mission. Additionally, eva fuel tanks were used to refill the brave kerbonaught's jetpack to enable fuel savings by extended jetpack use. Low Parts - @bayesian_acolyte ISRU, Album here. A small, single stage craft comprising of 31 parts. Bayesian_acolyte said there could have been some part count improvements, but even without it the mission still did so much with so little. This mission shows just how far ISRU can be stretched, especially with that Tylo landing. - @Majk Thread here. A simplistic Jool 5 mission consisting of only 30 parts . The mission began using a very basic launch stage, and flew to Jool using a long nuclear ship. Lander reuse enabled part count savings, and usage of the nuclear ship as an ablative heat-shield helped return Val to Kerbin's surface in one piece. - @Majk Video here. Easily the most simple Jool 5 mission completed to date, accomplished using only 9 parts (Current Record!). This mission started with the 9th part, an RTG, stowed inside the command pod before installing it in orbit. It is also worth recognizing that a clever method of timewarping in the tracking station enabled refueling to take place while utilizing only a single RTG. The submission takes the form of a short, concise, and wel narrated video, and I highly encourage giving it a watch. 2nd Level - @jinnantonix ISRU, Album here. Used a big launch with a self-refueling vector-powered lander that made multiple Laythe landings and mined ore from every moon. Two kerbals were landed on each moon and the lander was recovered at KSC. - @Kerbolitto ISRU, Album here. Excellent mission done using two space shuttles capable of refueling on moons. Absolutely amazing job. In all things I ever thought I would see happen in KSP, a space shuttle landing on Tylo was not one of them. - @Marschig ISRU, Videos here. Not one, not two, but three ISRU planes flew to Jool and to all five moons on both the 3rd and 2nd levels. The SSTOs also visited Duna and Minmus in their missions before landing back at the KSC. Truly exceptional. This is the first time I've seen three Jool 5s all submitted at one time! - @PhoenixRise86 Album here. Used a mothership for the first part of the mission, then resorted to ions to get to Ike and Minmus, then safely back home. Also, this is the first 2nd level mission to not use ISRU. - @GRS: Album here. The highly anticipated Sheep v2 did not disappoint, and went above and beyond by visiting not just Jool's moons but also Kerbin's and Dres. Used massive nuclear boosters to get around the Jool system and the Tythe lander to get two Kerbals on every moon and Dres, before using the Sheep v2 to land the entire crew on Minmus and Mun. Spectacular! - @Xurkitree ISRU Video here. This modded mission utilized ISRU, a nuclear mothership, and eight aerospikes to land on all five of Jool's moons with Cerdrin and Lodous Kerman. Returned the lander and mothership to LKO where a separate rocket retrieved the crew. I highly encourage watching the video submitted, it is excellently edited and the music supports the awe of the mission. - @QF9E Thread here. This mission used a blunt-force approach by lifting off on a powerful launch stage, and made quick work of Jool's moons. The moons were all visited by one lander, which dropped various attachments that helped it land on some of the bigger moons. At the end of the mission, the three brave kerbonauts safely touched down in the ocean, and a BFR style spacecraft recovered the remains of the lander in Kerbin orbit for historical preservation. Truly an impressive mission indeed! - @Mars-Bound Hokie ISRU Mission here. Using the Anubis II SSTO, Tancan, Fernal, and Kenby Kerman flew to Minmus to refuel, then blasted off for Jool. After touching down on Laythe to refuel, the crew went for Bop, then to Tylo. After landing with no liquid fuel to spare, the Anubis II was refueled, then launched for Pol. After a risky auto-piloted landing, the ship refuel before bounding to Vall, where the crew had a group picture. Heading back to Kerbin, a mix of brute force and aero-braking was used to get the trajectory needed to get back to the KSC, and then the crew refused to ditch the plane and pulled off the legendary runway landing. - @king of nowhere Mission here. "And so I completed the Jool 5 in day 383, 1 hour and 9 minutes of a new career" are the words typed by @king of nowhere at the end of the mission thread, and fundamentally capture the astronomical accomplishment documented within it. In a career save speedrun, it was decided to focus on a Jool 5, and the mission was optimized for time rather than mass or cost. The amounts of delta-v put into each maneuver to achieve bullet-like trajectories around the Kerbolar and Jool systems is simply jaw dropping. Over the course of the flight, the La coscienza di xenon and its landers managed to plant flags on all 5 moons within a 12 day window, which I don't believe has ever been done before. If you wish to see the chronicles of a one-of-a-kind, record setting Jool 5 mission, the flight of the La coscienza di xenon is the mission thread for you. Grand Tour Mission here. @king of nowhere's second Kerbalism Grand Tour, but with radiation shielding 3 times less effective, bugs, life support issues, frantic crew members smashing fuel cells and dumping food overboard, and so much more! This mission chronicles the Nail Bolt on its tour around the solar system, finding monoliths on every world and making it back in roughly two decades. This mission thread covers the begins, rebeginnings, redesigns, quick fixes, and compromises that took place during the Bolt's journey not just to Jool's 5 moons, but to every other surface as well. This is one of the most thorough submissions the challenge has seen, and is a great resource for those considering Kerbalism entries of their own. - @Lyra Mission here. A single launch mission! Using a spaceplane for Laythe, a notably slim Tylo lander (with a reusable upper stage for Vall), and an ion lander for Bop and Pol, this mission was a pleasant, self contained romp around the Jool System. One unique aspect of this mission I've seldom seen elsewhere was the use of claws on the nuclear mothership's outer hull. This allowed the landers to not need docking ports and attach to the hull like barnacles. A very clever, mass saving decision for the landers for sure! 3rd Level - @iAMtheWALRUS Grand Tour, ISRU, Album here. Used SSTOs to launch the mission and used moon hopping to get around the Kerbol system. Very nicely done. Also, first 1.4 submission - @sturmhauke Album here. To put it in the words of the pilot them self; "A mostly reusable mission to all 5 of Jool's moons. Single launch SSTO carrier drone, with a separable mothership and 5 landers." Very well done and efficient mission. Used fuel cells to power ion crafts for Bop and Pol, sent a plane to Laythe, and conquered Tylo with a rocket lander. - @mystifeid Album here, ISRU. Used two launches to put a mothership and a universal lander into orbit. Then used left over launch stage to boost to Jool and then around the system until it ran out and was staged at Tylo. Bob landed on every moon, accompanied with a different Kerbal for every moon. Very nice mission, and even had the added bonus of a near KSC landing. - @PhoenixRise86 Album here. Used a single launch of pure rocketry, no jets, ions, or nukes used in the entire mission. This mission did the Jool 5 mission in style, with some of the most interesting landers I've ever seen, including an aerospike Laythe plane. - @Marschig ISRU, Videos here. Not one, not two, but three ISRU planes flew to Jool and to all five moons on both the 3rd and 2nd levels. The SSTOs also visited Duna and Minmus in their missions before landing back at the KSC. Truly exceptional. This is the first time I've seen three Jool 5s all submitted at one time! - @jinnantonix ISRU, Video here. Of all the Jool 5 missions I have seen in this thread so far, none treat their Kerbals better than Jinnantonix has. The craft was modular in design and split into several different arrangements for various landings, and came with a gravity spin for deep space transit. Very considerate, and very awesome. - @Grogs Album here. Two launches to build the main ship in orbit, one crew launch for realism. Used a giant transfer stage to get the landers to Jool. Chemical engines pushed the landers about the Jool system, with nine Kerbals in total being involved in the mission. Once the landings were completed the mothership returned to Kerbin where a fourth launch collected the Kerbals and returned them safely to Kerbin. - @Pipcard ISRU Thread here. A well executed, eight Kerbal mission with one of the longest ships I've ever seen in this game. Excellent mission that toured the Jool System in an engaging thread. Mission was assembled in multiple parts, flew to Jool, landed on the moons (being sure to refuel on Bop and Pol when needed), EVA jetpacked off Tylo, and the crew was returned to Kerbin by a separately flown space plane. - @Kerbolitto ISRU Mission here, here, and here. Kerbolitto's second submission! Using a space shuttle with several surface experiments, a crew of eight explored the system. The Tylo landing was done with perfect margins, landing with no fuel left! This craft may also hold the record for lowest TWR launch of Bop in history, and an outpost on Laythe with a mini-plane was even constructed. Bob chose to stay behind and man the base while the crew returned home. Excellent end to an excellent mission! - @Ksp Slingshooter Album here. Assembled the main ship using multiple launches, then flew to Jool, settling in an elliptical Jool orbit with some help from a few gravity assists. From there the landers detached and flew to their moons, one by one and completed their landings. Due to some unexpected occurrences at Laythe, the Vall lander swooped in and rescued the Kerbal, taking both back to the mothership. Without enough room in the command pods for everyone, two brave Kerbals rode back to Kerbin on ladders, detaching and re-rendezvousing during timewarp. A rescue craft was launched, and met the mothership just in time, with only three minutes to transfer the Kerbals before a fiery re-entry. Truly a Kerbal mission! - @RoninFrog ISRU Thread here. Using the gloriously huge HMS Sauron, Jeb and 16 friends took to Jool in this massive SSTA. First they stopped at the Mun, then flew to Pol, then Tylo, then Vall, Laythe, and finally Bop. On the way back to Kerbin, time and fuel and the positions of the planets made a Duna landing prove itself most useful, before heading back to the Mun, and finally, back to Kerbin. This 1 stage mission has some amazing screenshots in its thread, as well as most amusing comments for each picture. If you're wanting to learn more about an ISRU approach, I suggest giving this mission a peak. - @OutInSpace Video here. Using a total of eight launches, this mission's mothership was constructed methodically, complete with an enormous pair of transfer boosters. After heading to Jool directly, the mothership flew to Tylo, Vall, and Laythe by itself, and sent an ion craft to Bop and Pol instead. After numerous attempts, the Laythe plane was finally able to show what it could do, and the 5 crew returned to Kerbin orbit, where they were picked up by a landing craft. If you want to see the nitty-gritty maneuvers used during a Jool 5 mission, I suggest you check out this mission's video. Its editing and methodicalness make it an unintentional flight-tutorial for getting to Jool. - @Entropian ISRU Mission here. Using a 5 meter tank with 5 meter tanks strapped on the side and a large cluster of mastodon engines, the craft rocketed off the pad to Minmus, where it refueled and went off to Jool. Landing on Laythe proved to a close call, with ZERO delta-v remaining upon touchdown. From there the ship bounced to Vall, Tylo, Pol, and Bop, before making a rough splashdown on Kerbin. It is worth noting that the crew did forget to put a flag on Bop. However since every other mission criteria was met and the craft was landed on Bop it is still being counted. - @GRS Grand Tour. Mission here. This time with the Sheep v4 the Jool moons were visited again, along with 60 other destinations! Relying heavily on ion power, landing after landing was accomplished visiting worlds close to the sun, around Jool, and even outer dwarf planets. So many worlds were mentioned that the Jool 5 portion is only a tiny fragment of the overall mission. There is genuinely too much in that mission to describe here, so I highly suggest you check out the most expansive sheep yet's thread! - @s_gamer101. Mission here. This mission began with the launch of an enormous reusable launch system that placed the main ship in orbit. A trip to Jool ended with a fiery aerocapture above Laythe, where two of the crew members took a small spaceplane to the surface. After a tricky fuel situation in which drop tanks were accidentally kept as huge pieces of ballasts, the Tylo tug was used as an extra stage to boost the main ship. This proved to be enough delta-v, as once the landings were completed the ship cruised back to Kerbin, where they parachuted safely to complete the mission. - @AlpacaMall Mission here. This mission began with the launch and orbital construction of the KSS-J "Orca". Engineer construction added fuel lines and removed unneeded RCS thrusters, and the craft departed for Jool with a reusable lander upper stage, with lander stages for Laythe and Tylo. The landings were completed in the following order: Laythe, Tylo, Vall, Pol, Bop. From Bop, the Orca was left to serve as a relay station while the crew module left for Kerbin. The vessel landed with all the crew and 23458 science. - @BeanThruster Album here. This mission began with the launch of Vapidity, the mothership used during the mission. Instead of going to Jool, Vapidity made its first flight to an E-class asteroid so it could refill all of its fuel tanks (it launched almost empty to save weight). After flying to Jool, the first landing took place on Tylo, before leaving the engine nacelles in case later refueling was needed. Next, the last stage of the Tylo lander was used to land on Vall, then the lander flew solo to Bop where it awaited the rest of the ship. Vapidity took the time to take a spaceplane to Laythe, then went back to low Tylo orbit to refuel. Vapidity met the Vapidlander at Bop, conducted the landing, then went to Pol to do the same. Vapidity returned to Kerbin before the crew landed using the Laythe spaceplane. In total, the crew collected 20113.6 science. - @RuBisCO ISRU Album here. This mission began with a lot of mainsail engines to push the main craft into orbit, and delivered not one, but seven Kerbals to the surface of each moon. The first visit was Pol, where cleverly built piston legs kept the refueling craft perfectly level. Next was Bop, then Vall, then Tylo, where a rover and lab were brought to the surface and returned to orbit (except Tylo where it got left behind). For the Laythe landing, the crew took down a spaceplane, as well as a helicopter and a floating lab with plane-refueling capabilities. The helicopter was used to collect science from the local area, and after being refueled, the plane returned to orbit. After the main ship was refueled on Pol, the crew returned home. - @18Watt ISRU , Mission here. This mission is nearly identical to 18Watt's previous submission, but now has accommodated a unique Kerbal for each moon, bumping it from a 1st to a 3rd level submission. Main ship refueled on Minmus before heading to Jool, refueled on small moons, and pilots Val and Billy Bobfurt flew each unique specialist to their respective moons. - @Krazy1 ISRU, Album here. This mission was done with the Principia mod, which makes gravity and orbits behave more realistically. The spacecraft used was the "2 by 4", named after its two mammoth engines and four nervs. First the craft launched to Minmus, then visited a passing asteroid, then went back to Minmus to refuel, then shot off to Jool. After the Laythe landing, there was some trouble getting to Vall due to orbital issues. After Vall came a very bouncy Tylo landing, which was followed by a Pol landing, and then a Bop landing. It is worth noting that Bop is orbiting retrograde in this mod for orbital stability. After completing the landings and experimenting with weird orbits, the 2 by 4 traveled home, refueled on Minmus to prep for landing, and then touched down safely on Kerbin with its crew of 5. ISRU, Album here. This mission utilized an orange and gray aesthetically pleasing spacecraft. Once launched into orbit, the craft refueled on Minmus, then shot off to Jool where it landed on Vall, then flew to Tylo where it performed this landing, before nearly burning on Laythe, then finished up with Bop and Pol. Upon returning to Kerbin, some excess ore was turned to fuel to save weight, and the crew splashed down 10km from the KSC. - @Kimera Industries. Mission here. This mission's mission thread chronicles the Avocado on its journey to Jool's moons and back, using appropriately named components and landers. Due to its nuclear propulsion, the escape burn was split in two, though did not go gently into that good night, and upon arriving to Jool, took use of a convenient Tylo assist to go almost directly to Laythe. From Laythe, a lander was dispatched to Vall and Pol, then the entire ship reunited and migrated to Tylo where the landing was achieved on the fifth try. Next came Gilly 2.0 Bop, where an interesting SPOILER was discovered. Upon returning to Kerbin with little to no time for caution, the cargo container and its draggy friends kept the craft from overheating during airbraking, and the crew landed to live another day. Jeb's Level - @Xurkitree Grand Tour, ISRU Album Here. Collected 19,711.3 science from Jool on a girl's night out mission with no lack of gravity assists. A note from the author said that the mission greatly improved their skills in KSP and proved that fact well with the insane gravity assists they pulled off. Also first Jeb's Level on the new thread yay! - @ManEatingApe Video here. And here. And here. And here. And here. And here. Collected 16,532.0 science from Jool. There isn't anything I can say about this mission except you need to see it for yourself. Exclusively low tech was used, and collected in space science from all biomes. This mission did the near-impossible, with primitive parts, and landed all Kerbals safely back on Kerbin. - @SolarAdmiral Video here. Collected 42,296 science from the Jool System. Single launch on a cluster of three meter parts, before heading off to Jool. Started with Laythe first, landing using a floating platform. Science was collected with a small jet-powered boat. Next stop was Tylo, where a rover was used to collect science from many biomes. On Vall one landing was done, and a hop added to it before heading to orbit again. Numerous biomes collected from Bop and Pol by hopping around in their low gravities. Direct shot home and landed all seven Kerbals to tell the tale. Absolutely astounding mission! - @jinnantonix ISRU Video here. Collected 82,510 science from the Jool System. Single launch, one much smaller than you might expect. Used a plane to gather large amounts of science from Laythe, dove into Jool's atmosphere, grabbed science from almost if not everywhere, and even managed to use the Laythe plane as the final stage on the Tylo landing. Had an artificial gravity system to facilitate the kerbals, and landed back at the KSC. Honestly jinnatonix managed to do so much in this video I can't describe it all here so I suggest you just watch the video. Amazing job. - @GRS Album here. Collected 28,643 science from the Jool System. The long awaited Sheep mission that satisfied both the Kerpollo and Jool 5 requirements led by Simone Kerman that explored the Jool system and returned home Apollo style. The mission had a heavy launch and went to, around, and from Jool using a massive nuclear stage. The usage of the Scifi visual pack gave the mission a unique look as it took science from every moon (including Jool's upper atmosphere!) in style. Incredible. - @Jim123 Video here. Collected 8780.9 science from the Jool System. Single giant launch put a large nuclear mothership in orbit. Flew straight to Laythe where the landing was completed with a dual stage to orbit (and Jeb's jetpack). From there the crew went to Vall and landed, before heading to Tylo and dropping one of the most Kerbal looking Tylo landers I've ever seen to the surface. After Tylo biome hopping was used on Bop and Tylo, before a pair of service modules detached and went back to Kerbin, boosting each other home where the crew landed. Nice video. - @jost ISRU Album here. Collected 16940.2 science from the Jool system. Flew to Jool using a long nuclear mothership. From there an ion ore probe helped find ore on every moon but Laythe for the rocket lander. Laythe used a three seat plane for the landing, and even found a geyser while on the surface. Landed on Tylo with 1m/s to spare before refueling, and landed everyone safely back on Kerbin after leaving the nukes in a graveyard orbit around Kerbin. Excellent! - @Beriev Album here. Collected 49430.1 science from the Jool system. This entire mission was done in a 6.4x solar system. Launched off the pad with an absolutely enourmous rocket, fittingly dubbed the 'Absolute Unit'. Used many kicks to get out to Jool, where the ship split up to tackle the moons. For Laythe and Tylo, ascent vehicles were landed separately, before the crew arrived on-surface. Later, both sets met up at Vall, then flew to Pol, then Bop, and then to Dres. After a fun journey, the Absolute Unit returned to Kerbin, and the crew landed safely. This mission has an incredible execution and design, as well as a well-captioned Imgur album. I highly suggest giving it a look. - @Pro100kerbonaut Video here. Collected 10238 science from the Jool system. This mission was done with a rather interesting, asymmetrically balanced ship, and had quite the bouncy ride. On Tylo parkour was done, on Laythe swimming. On Vall two landings were done, and on Pol and Bop the lander bounced around. This mission used a combination of a gravity assist off Tylo and a retro-burn to capture at Jool, and upon return to Kerbin parachutes were attached to the crew section using a klaw. A fun mission with great editing. - @king of nowhere ISRU Mission thread here. Collected 105136 science (Current Record!) from the Jool system. This mission was insane from its conception, with the goal to collect every single bit of science from the Jool system as possible. While this goal was not ultimately accomplished, the mission is still one of (if not) the greatest Jool 5 submissions I have ever seen. To collect science on each world, a durable lander known as the Dancing Porcupine was deployed and driven on all moons but Laythe. For Laythe, a spaceplane called Absolutely NOT Albatross was used to collect science from each biome. In fact, Absolutely NOT Albatross did even more than just Laythe. Using a multi-stage attachment, Absolutely NOT Albatross visited the lower atmosphere of Jool and returned to tell the tale. The craft's brave pilot even took an EVA report while in flight before ascending. The main ship dubbed the Flying Christmas Tree, and was capable of refueling on low gravity worlds. Upon returning to Kerbin, a craft launched to return the brave Kerbonauts to their home-world. Having visited every biome on every moon, it is no surprise that this mission amassed more science than any other Jool 5 mission before it. I highly recommend viewing this mission's main thread. Amazing job king of nowhere! Mission thread here. Collected 11395 science from the Jool System. This is my favorite submission to the Jool 5 Challenge I have ever reviewed. The sheer amount of effort put into this mission cannot be overstated. King of Nowhere started this mission as a nanocristalline diamond caveman mission, which in short meant no contracts, no facility upgrades, no quicksaving, on career mode, while starting the save with severe limitations. While the mission ended up needing quick-loading, it still is eye popping to see just how much work went into it. Each launch (in the VAB) was limited to 18 tons maximum, so a work around was used by having docking ports around the base of the rocket, to which separate boosters would be docked using a runway-launched rover. This meant that many launches required multiple launches of booster attachment vessels before the rocket itself could attempt to leave the pad. After over 100 launches, the Navis Sideralis Neanderthalensis and all its cargo were ready, and the ship departed for Jool, leaving a most amusing pattern of drop tanks in its wake. Upon reaching Jool, disaster struck when the Tylo lander suffered an anomoly, and quicksaves were needed to complete the Jool 5. While at Jool, science modules were discarded after use because a lack of KSC upgrades prevented their resetting, and every aspect of the mission, from flying between moons to the landings themselves, were executed with meticulous testing and prior calculation. I cannot possibly explain everything this mission did in this little blurb, so I highly encourage anyone who wants to see some of the best Kerbal engineering I've ever seen to check out the linked mission thread above. - @OJT ISRU Mission thread here. Collected 26871.3 science from the Jool System. This mission thread contains some of the most eye-catching, visually stunning KSP screenshots I have ever seen in a Jool 5 submission. The mission itself was tested and proofed in sandbox, and consisted of a long, skinny mothership, a spaceplane, and an ISRU lander for Tylo. With the lander and plane hanging from docking points on the main ship, the craft boosted to Jool and used a Tylo flyby to capture. Visiting Vall first, the lander took around 100 days to refuel. The ship then flew to Pol where the relatively tiny lander (in relation to the mothership) flew to Pol's surface and back numerous times to refuel the main ship before it could head to Bop. At Bop a kraken was discovered, and on Tylo the crew found it refreshingly eventless. The last destination was Laythe, where the plane and lander were left in orbit so the main ship could return to Kerbin. A return craft returned the crew and science, and crew XP was had by all. - @Robin Patenall Mission thread here. Collected 61174.6 science from the Jool System. This mission began with the construction of the Emerald Star, a large and reconfigurable interplanetary vessel that required 17 launches to complete. Once built, the Emerald Star used Eve and Kerbin gravity assists to efficiently sling itself to Jool and started with Tylo. Using one of the Emerald Star's 3 drive cores to send itself down to a lower Tylo orbit, the lander successfully brought the crew to and from the Tylic surface. When the mission reached Vall, a magical anomaly was discovered, one which would prove to be only one of many odd discoveries made on Jool's moons. An SSTO found one on Laythe as well, during one of its three total landings. A monolith was found on Pol, and a deceased kraken on Bop, one which caused a crew member to lament their inability to bury it. Once the landings had been complete, the remains of the Emerald Star returned home, where it was parked in Kerbin orbit awaiting future assignment. - @problemecium Mission thread here. Collected 8755.7 science from the Jool System. This mission thread covers the finally completed tale of the Aletheia, a massive, nearly 1.3 kiloton mothership. With numerous cargo bays, it brought landers, an SSTO, a deployable space station, numerous pieces of scientific equipment, and two ARKS to return the crew to Kerbin if needed. Upon construction, Aletheia and its seven crew members proceeded to Jool, using 46% of its total fuel. The transfer section was left behind in Laythe orbit while the rest of Aletheia continued on. After Laythe came Vall, where one of the ARKS was used to refuel the Tylo lander to enable it to tackle Vall (the ARK was then joined to the deployable station and left behind). The lander then tackled Tylo, and was left behind for future use. Bop saw the discovery of a hopefully deceased Kraken, and Pol marked landing number 5. This romp unfortunately depleted Aletheia of the fuel sufficient to return to Kerbin, so the second ARK spacecraft brought the crew home safely, using a Mun assist to tweak its final trajectory. This is one of the more aesthetically pleasing Jool 5 missions, and done in career mode in a very well typed out and necromanced thread, so if you are a fan of large stylish motherships, I would recommend giving this thread a view. Gatecrashers / Honorary Mentions - @JacobJHC Grand Tour, video here. Giant single launch craft, also visited every planet and moon from the OPM planet pack. Very big. Gatecrasher because crew hasn't landed yet. - @Fraus Mission here. There's nothing that can be said about this, other than that this mission definitely had more thought put into it than any other Jool 5 I've seen. - @cqIpb Mission here. This mission was flown on an Xbox, and pushed the console to its framerate limits! cqIpl was inspired to do a Jool 5 mission after finding this thread, and despite not being able to land on Laythe due to lander instability, still had a lot of fun finishing the rest of the mission, and took a few great screenshots along the way! As of writing this, cqIpb is still new to the KSP Forums. Welcome, we're glad you're here! - @Alpaca Z, using a craft built by @Lt_Duckweed (with permission) Grand Tour, ISRU . Video here. Using a rather simply built SSTA, this mission was a simple case of flying around the entire solar system and refueling everywhere. This craft utilized air-fans, ions, vectors, and nerv engines, allowing it to be not only capable of high efficiency maneuvers, but also those requiring high TWRs. A highlight of this mission was the strategy to use EVA construction to rebuild the back of the plane to enable it to land vertically on Tylo's surface. Why bring landing legs when you have wings that could do the job just as well? This mission's video submission is also of a high quality, so I recommend giving it a view. In all, the crew of three finished their grand tour in only 15 years and 117 days! Efficient and speedy Moved to Honorary Mentions due to the fact that the crew could not exit onto Tylo's surface.

The first rule of cheating is to not talk about cheating. Which means everyone in this thread is breaking the first rule, and therefore cheating.

Y6 D185-232 - Draco Return and Nuclear Reprocessing Module Well, here we are almost halfway through year 6, and things are moving along nicely. We're just about finished with this year's crew rotation, and Draco has arrived at the edge of Kerbin's SOI. Our first Duna mission has gone splendidly, but it is readily apparent from the crew communications that after more than two years in space they are ready to get home. Unfortunately, they aren't there yet. Their current flight path takes them on a close flyby of the Mun, and then they will burn into an elliptical orbit around Kerbin. Then they'll plot a course to rendezvous back with Minmus Station. The crew will leave Draco there and ferry back to Kerbin Station aboard a transport, and then be carried back to Kerbin via spaceplane. So, they still have a way to go before they're feeling grass between their toes again. A couple of days later Draco passes by The Mun, which slightly alters its course. The good news is that Orbital Dynamics calculated this encounter into Draco's trajectory all the way back at their mid-course correction last year, so they're all set, no burn necessary. OD wanted to use this encounter to capture Draco with a gravity assist, but we decided against that. We're not hurting for fuel at this point, Draco is still at almost 35% fuel load, if you can believe it. So we thought that a controlled burn for capture was a much more reliable choice. A couple hours later and Draco is approaching periapsis. All systems are go, the crew is strapped in on the command deck, and they are ready to burn. Over on the night side of Kerbin, Draco burns to capture into Kerbin orbit. Welcome back, Draco! So now Draco is in a highly elliptical orbit around Kerbin. However, OD has just come back with some bad news. They're in a really bad orbit for getting to Minmus. Essentially they're going to have to cruise out to apoapsis, then fall back for a day before they even get to their burn. Then their transfer orbit to Minmus will take fourteen more days after that. Sorry, folks. While we're waiting for Draco to arrive at Minmus Station, let's get them a ride. The orbital transport Capricorn is dispatched from Kerbin Station and burns for Minmus, unkerballed. It will arrive there well before Draco. ---------- About a week later now, and Draco has arrived at its burn for Minmus. And then, the next day, Capricorn arrives at Minmus Station. So now we just have to wait for Draco to whip around Kerbin again and make its way to Minmus. Stay strong, folks. You can do another two weeks in a spin hab on your heads. ---------- So now it is day 213 and Draco has finally arrived at Minmus. She coasts in and burns into a 200-kilometer orbit. A couple of hours and a couple of burns later, she arrives at Minmus Station. Chief Engineer Kirkpatrick shuts Draco's reactor down, and then Captain Kreuger takes the conn and guides her in to dock. Finally, after over two years, the crew of the first Duna mission get to see other faces and talk to other people! But they do have some work to do. They finish securing Draco and rigging the ship to take power from Minmus Station, ensuring that the reactor will be safe. Then they begin transferring their personal gear and the incredibly-valuable Duna samples to the orbital transport Orion (yes, we rotate the orbital transports, so Capricorn will be staying here while Orion carries the crew home). Once these duties are completed, the crews share a celebratory dinner together. Then the Duna crew boards Orion, closes the hatches, and undocks from the station. Then they wave a final farewell to Draco, and burn for Kerbin. While the crew is on their week-long trip back to Kerbin, we can discuss our next major project. Draco's reactor is currently just above 50% of its reactor core life remaining. It could conceivably make another trip to Duna with its current nuclear fuel load, but that would be unwise, since the reactor is its sole source of electrical and propulsive power. While we could just fly a new propulsion module to Minmus, this would get very expensive, very fast. However, we have a solution: The nuclear fuel reprocessing module! This module is a marvel of engineering. It has been a collaborative project between CKAI, Kerbal Atomics, and Kerman Systems Group robotics division for almost two years. The idea is that nuclear propulsion modules can be removed from their respective crafts and docked to the reprocessing module hub. Then the four waldo arms are used by operators to remotely remove the modular fuel elements in the propulsion module reactors. Obviously we require the use of these waldos to remove and insert the fuel elements from the reactors. It's not like uranium is some kind of liquid that you can pump around in tanks or something. LOL. These expended fuel elements are fed into the reprocessor, which then deconstructs them into their component materials. The reprocessor recovers unused enriched uranium and recycles the recovered materials into new nuclear fuel elements, which can then be reinserted into the propulsion reactors. Any high-level waste is accumulated for later disposal. This module is incredibly complex, and breathtakingly expensive. So I am only going to say this once. If any of you screw around and break this thing, THERE WILL BE NO FOOSBALL FOR A MONTH. Do I make myself clear? In any case, before we can send the reprocessing module up to Minmus Station, we need to do some prep work. We will need to increase the crew compliment on Minmus Station from six to twelve to handle the increased work load. And we will need to increase the amount of power and cooling available on the station to support the module itself. Thankfully we already have quite a bit of living space on Minmus Station, but we will need to increase the amount of spin habitat space. For the power and cooling, we will be sending up a new truss with additional solar panels, batteries, and radiators. Robby is doing the heavy lifting for us today, and after an uneventful climb to orbit, we find it rendezvousing with Kerbin Station. Once they're docked, the crew of Kerbin Station gets to work. They guide Orbital Tug 4 over to pick up the spin hab module, and then bring it down to dock with the new expansion truss. Then, once the station comes around to the departure point, they undock Orbital Tug 6 and Mission Control instructs it to burn for Minmus. Then they undock Robby and it flies back to Kerbin. Now we're going to wait a week or so for Orion to come back with the Duna crew. ---------- So, here we are a week later. Orion is a couple of hours out from Kerbin. Tug 4 is about a day out from Minmus. So we're going to launch the additional crew for Minmus Station, and then the Duna crew can ride that spaceplane down. Save us a trip. ArToo is making this run with The Pod in her bay. While they're making their way around to Kerbin Station, Orion burns in to its parking orbit around Kerbin. And then, a couple of hours later, they arrive at Kerbin Station. The crews all exchange more greetings and congratulations. Then they set about moving gear once again, transferring all of the Duna samples into the Pod for the trip down to Kerbin. Then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for Minmus and Orion departs once again. And then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for the spaceplace. They close the hatches and undock ArToo. Then the Duna crew finally burns for home. ArToo cruises through reentry. And then sails in to a dramatic nighttime landing at KSC. Finally, after almost three years in space, the crew of the first Duna mission have made it home! Ticker-tape parades and Kongressional addresses next week. Tonight they get a hot meal and a real bed. Congratulations to all of them! The next day, we're prepping the reprocessing module for launch. Gort is doing the honors this time, and it launches the next evening. Am I the only one who gets nervous seeing millions of funds worth of hardware hurtling through the air at Mach 4? Nobody else? Really? Just thought I'd ask. Anyway, while Gort is going through its maneuvers to reach Kerbin Station, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus. It's got half a day before it arrives at the station yet. Meanwhile, Gort arrives at Kerbin Station and docks. The crew gets busy deploying the reprocessing module and docking Tug 5 to it. While Kerbin Station is coming around to its departure point, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus Station. The crew guides it in to dock the expansion truss. Then once that is in place, then bring the tug around and dock the new spin hab outboard of the old one, mounting them in a counter-rotating pair. Then, once the tug is out of the way, the crew deploys the radiators, solar panels, and spin hab. Then they start getting all of the new systems tested and settled before the new crew shows up. Minmus Station is starting to rival Kerbin Station in size and function. Back at Kerbin Station, the crew undocks Tug 5 and Mission Control orders it to burn for Minmus. As Tug 5 brings the reprocessing module out to Minmus, Orion arrives at Minmus with the new crew. A couple of hours later, they arrive at the station. They've got a week or so to get settled until their job shows up. ---------- Eight days later, Tug 5 arrives at Minmus. After the usual maneuvers, it arrives at Minmus Station, and the crew brings it in to dock. Once the tug is clear and the hatches are opened, the new crew gets inside and starts familiarizing themselves. Their first task is to limber the waldos and set them in their resting positions. So far, so good. Next we'll see how they do with a real refueling....

KSP Interstellar Extended (KSPIE) is a plugin for Kerbal Space Program, designed to encourage bootstrapping toward ever more advanced levels of technology as well as utilizing In-Situ resources to expand the reach of Kerbal civilization. KSP Interstellar Extended aims to continue in @Fractal_UK original KSP Interstellar vision in providing a realistic road to the stars. Players will first gain access to contemporary technologies that have not been widely applied to real space programs such as nuclear reactors, electrical generators and thermal rockets. By continuing down the CTT tech tree and performing more research, these parts can be upgraded and later surpassed by novel new technologies such as fusion and even antimatter power. We attempt to portray both the tremendous power of these technologies as well as their drawbacks, including the tremendous difficulty of obtaining resources like antimatter and the difficulties associated with storing it safely. The goal is to reward players who develop advanced infrastructure on other planets with new, novel and powerful technologies capable of helping Kerbals explore planets in new and exciting ways. The principal goal of KSP Interstellar is to expand Kerbal Space Program with interesting technologies and to provide a logical and compelling technological progression beginning with technologies that could have been available in the 1970s/1980s, then technologies that could be available within the next few years, progressing to technologies that may not be available for many decades, all the way out to speculative technologies that are physically reasonably but may or may not ever be realizable in practice. This is the KSPI-E release thread where we announce any releases of KSPI Extended If you want to chat about KSP Interstellar you can do it at our new Guilded Server (old: KSP Interstellar Discord Server ) For technical questions or Mod support, please ask them in the KPIE Support thread For talk about new development and features request you have to be in the KSPI-E develpment thread Latest Version 1.29.5 for Kerbal Space Program 1.8.1 - 1.12.2 Download older version from Here source: GitHub If you appreciate what I create, please consider donating me a beer you can donate me with PayPal or support me by Patreon Download & Installation Instructions step 1: remove any existing KSPI installation (GameData\WarpPlugin folder) step 2: download KSPI-E and put the GameData in your KSP Folder (allow overwrite) License Info KSPI-E code and configfiles:are distributed under KSP INTERSTELLAR LICENSE Molten Salt Reactor model from USI Core by RoverDude licensed under CC 4.0 BY-SA-NC Tokamak model from Deep Space Exploration Vessels by Angel-125 licensed under CC BY-NC SA Solid Coie NTR, Nuclear Ramjet, Nuclear Lightbulb and Nuclear Candle models and textures from Atomic Age by Porkjet all licensed under CC BY-NC SA Super Capacitator Model from Near Future Electric Mod by Nertea licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA Surface Wrapper Radiators from Heat Control by Nertea licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA Microchannel radiators from Heat Control by Nertea licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA Inline RCS stack by TiktaalikDreaming for Inline licensed under MIT Nuclear Ramjet Model by Lack licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA retractable RCS by BahamutoD licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA Wrapper Tanks from Kerbal Hacks by enceos license under Creative Commons 4.0 Inline Thermal Dish Relay Receiver by @steedcrugeon licenced under CC-BY-NC-SA at JX2Antenna Plasma Wakefield Particle Accelerator Ring by Sin Phi CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 at Sin Phi Heavy Industries If you think I missed something, please notify me Credits @Fractalfor developing the original KSP Interstellar @Eleusis La Arwall for most of the new Reactors, new Power Dish transmitters and Beam generators @zzzfor most of the original models/texturing @Boris-Barborisfor porting KSPI to 0.90 and fixsing many bugs @Northstar1989for providing theoretical basis for many of the new features in KSP Interstellar Extended @SpaceMouse for Magnetic Nozzle, MHD generator and EM drive engine @EvilGeorgefor programming Solar Wind collector and ISRU processing and several other ISRU processes @Cyne Daedalus Fusion Engine Model and Texture @Arivald Ha'gel for helping to fix several issues @MrNukealizer for his help in C# development work on KSPI @Snjo for making the code FSFuelSwitch public available Olympic1 for his help with the integration of KSPI with CTT KaiserSnow for providing Icons for Integration with Filter Extension InsanePlumber for converting part textures to DDS format A2K For helping get KSPI-E on CKAN Bishop149 for Helpi improve the Wiki and OP ABZB for Helping to find many bugs and developing Mk2 EXtension Mod SmallFatFetus for giving permission to use is Vasimr model michaelhester07 for creating Particle Accelerator NathanKell for creating ModuleRCSFX. Trolllception for helping new players understand the tables on the OP and MM scripts Nli2work for creating the Magneto Inertial Fusion Engine @Nansuchaofor helping to create documentation and guides for KSPI-E @th0th for providing Icons for the tech node @Tonas1997 for proving new technode nodes Recommended AddonMods Recommended Planet Packs/Star System/ Galaxy mods: Recommend Tech Tree: Recommended Tool mods: Suggested Challenges: Documentation & Tutotials KSPI is one of the most sophisticated mods for KSP. To help you get started, you can make use of the following resources: KERBAL INTERSTELLAR EXTENDED GUIDE KSPI-E for Dummies KSPI-E Guide by Nansuchao KSPI-E Technical Guide KSPI-E Wiki KSPI-E Youtube Videos: 9 part Russian Tutorial by @ThirdOfSeven 3 part EnglishTurorial by @Aaron Also: Support KSPI-E add support for the following mods