Kerlington Intergalactic Mission Reports (PIC-HEAVY)

[Kagame]

Welcome to the official thread detailing the exploits of my single good career-mode game, Kerlington Intergalactic. Please note that, while I do occasionally enable fuel cheats to get my Kerbals back home alive, this is otherwise 100% legit. I do use MechJeb, which some of you may not deem to be legit, but here's my explanation: Sputnik, Apollo 11, Mir, Skylab, the ISS, all of the real world's space missions have relied on computers to do the bulk of the work, leaving the fleshy bits in between the seats and the controls to be effectively a backup system. I'm a rocket administrator, not a rocket scientist, when I play KSP. The other mods I run are Kerbal Engineer Redux and Kerbal Inventory System, and that's pretty explainable. I do think pipes are kind of cheating, but I shall nevertheless abuse them to their fullest extent once unlocked because docking is no fun. Anyways, let's get on with it!

Let's start off with a recap of what happened before I created this thread:

Notable Achievements of Kerlington Intergalactic:

Suborbital trajectory achieved fairly early on in the game. Heavens pierced.

Orbit and deorbit more difficult I expected, thanks to the new tech tree. Still completed.

Mun flyby achieved, but no science of considerable value was gathered thanks to materials bays not being unlocked.

Orbited, landed at Mun with a manned ship. Return trip probably doesn't count because Alt+F12 keys were harmed to make it possible. (Do the impossible, etc.) However, as a rendezvous and EVA crew transfer to another ship in LKO was required to make the final landing, it was still an undertaking that required considerable skill. Total net science: 120, if memory holds.

Minmus flyby achieved. Also accidentally achieved sun orbit. Probe rechristened "Well, oops." Probe later decommissioned due to Kessler syndrome.

Orbited and returned from Mun with a separate ship. No drama, but that's when you know it's a good mission.

Orbited Minmus with "Minma I".

Orbited and landed at Minmus with the unmanned lander "Minma II". Jury is still out on whether Minma II actually landed or just crashed and got very, very lucky.

Orbited Minmus with a manned orbiter to gather science. Manned orbiter was equipped with an unmanned lander featuring a barometer, materials bay, and thermometer. Unmanned lander, "Minma V" landed without any drama thanks to bleeding-edge lighting technology and far too much delta-V. Manned orbiter... kind of didn't have MechJeb on it thanks to a design oversight, but would have had the dV to make it home had itbeen present on the vehicle (if you're wondering, 1200 m/s on deorbit of Minmus). Spiral Power alone powered the ship back to a safe landing on Kerbin because fighting spirit overwhelms even ridiculously inefficient course-correction burns. Well, okay, I say safe, but most of the solar panels blew up. And all of the batteries. And the antennas. But, hey, the crew made it back safe... with a mysterious 4 XP gain in one fell swoop.

Lifted the core of the space station "Thunderball" to 100x100km Low Kerbal Orbit.

Looking forwards, we have a deadline looming for both a Duna landing and another flag-planting on the Mun. And with the budget dipping below a million funds, these missions are non-optional. Updates as the situation evolves, hopefully every day.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Kagame
Pics, pics, glorious pics.

[Kagame]

Mission: "Howl's Moving Castle"

Kerlington Intergalactic has decided to take on a risky Munbase contract, due to the large reward offered, and the fact a munbase is pretty stinking cool anyways. Add in the fact that we've had an outstanding contract for planting a flag on the Mun for a long time and... well... We've decided to use a unique approach where the moonbase is pulled into orbit of the Mun via seperately launched unmanned tugs, which are free to orbit the Mun indefinitely, given they barely cost anything.

One of the two unmanned tugs used to pull Munbase Alpha into Mun orbit. I've christened these the Monkey Paws.As they proved a capable and reliable platform, I'll probably continue using these for short-range stuff like this.

Munbase Alpha, docked to Thunderball Station, prepares to recieve its second and final Monkey Paw unmanned tug. Not shown is the docking attempt where this Paw accidentally got attached slightly backwards.

Munbase Alpha, complete with tugs, undocks from Thunderball Station.

Munbase Alpha, by this time rechristened Howl's Moving Castle due to its slightly ridiculous shape and overall castle-ish appearance, performs a Hohmann transfer to get into the vicinity of the Mun. Not shown: a bunch of other orbital finagling. 150km orbit around Mun was established, et cetera. Really a lot of boring stuff.

Having jetissoned the Monkey Paw tugs, Munbase Alpha" begins its landing. I chose a landing site called "Twin Craters" due to the fact that two craters made up an entire biome all by themselves.

Munbase Alpha is successfully deployed on the Mun. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this whole landing thing. Twin Craters, being a completely unique biome, netted about 130+ science even on transmission alone. The crew reported that the regolith in this area was rich in rare resources... this probably means that Munbase Alpha will be the hub of IRSU activity in the future. Lucky break, huh. Both the Mun contracts were completed, yielding about 200,000 funds on top of cost-of-craft. Overall, a resounding success. I'd worry about sending a rescue mission to poor Val, but she's actually going to be holding down Munbase Alpha for a while, at least until I either desperately need a pilot, or IRSU mining is unlocked.

That's all for this mission, folks! Thanks for readign!

[Kagame]

I always heard that Eve was the "final boss" of KSP, so I was very surprised when a contract turned up to orbit and land on Eve when I just barely landed on Duna. I took my standard interplanetary lander design, stuck a couple Goo containers on top for fun, and set out on a mission to the purple planet. Good news is, I finally figured out how to run MechJeb for interplanetary transfers, so this one I actually made 100% legit.

Interplanetary stage of my probe launcher. Note the 5,172 m/s of dV while in 70x70 LKO. Here's what my command string was to MechJeb after I achieved LKO: *select target: Eve* then transfer to another planet, as soon as possible. Let the transfer happen, wait until your orbit switches from Kerbin to Sun orbit, THEN Hohmann transfer to target. Wait until your orbit switches from Sun orbit to Eve orbit, then circularize at altitude 150km. This maneuver sequence burned almost all of my remaining dV, though, so I am looking for a more efficient alternative. After that, pick the landing site of your choice using Landing Guidance!

Drogue 'chutes deployed, most of solar panels burnt off.

Ain't Eve pretty? Purple's actually my favorite color, even though I'm a dude.

Safely landed, contract completed, science collected. (366.6 science from one mission. o_o)

That's all for this mission, folks! Happy landings!