The OTC 1.0.4 Edition -- Episode 18: The Kerbin Station Timesink

[Geschosskopf]

The Ore Travelling Circus 1.0.4 Edition

I decided to start over in 1.0.4. I also decided to use 100% reentry heat just to be silly (given the broken nature of atmospheres at other planets) and use a few "challenge" mods like AntennaRange and USI Life Support. If life support ever becomes stock, I'd favor something like USI-LS for several reasons. First, it makes no judgments about Kerbal biology, which IMHO is way better than imposing human metabolisms on alien Kerbals. Second, it allows me to continue regarding Kerbals as a type of fungus able to go into suspended animation in the absence of nutrients. And finally, having 1 generic resource of "Supplies" fits my headcanon of the Kerbal world being set in an Age of Sail/Discovery/Enlightenment society .

This is also a career game, so science works and income must be derived from contracts. This limits what all the Boffins can do early on, and they don't like it . So the 1st order of business is to research all the parts to shut the scientists up, then use those parts to make money to build the empire eventually. Therefore, this story begins with pillaging Minmus.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

* EPISODE 1: Pillaging Minmus Revisited (this post)

* EPISODE 2: Pillaging Minmus Done Better.

* EPISODE 3: Probe Stuff. Launch of SENTINEL, some other probes, and the 1st Duna Flotilla

* EPISODE 4: Transfers and an Impact. Departure of 1st Duna Flotilla, an asteroid hitting Kerbin.

* EPISODE 5: 1st Duna Flotilla Departs (and Other Stuff). Such as the launch of the 1st Eve Flotilla.

* EPISODE 6: 1st Eve Flotilla Departs (and Other Stuff). Includes Mun Beast mission.

* EPISODE 7: 1st Eve Flotilla Arrives.

* EPISODE 8: Kerbin Interlude. Has some design and testing of stuff for both the 2nd Eve Flotilla and the 2nd Duna Expedition.

* EPISODE 9: Odds and Ends. More 2nd Duna Flotilla design and testing. Arrival of SCANsat Moho. Completion of SENTINEL contract. 1st Duna Flotilla crew vehicle starts return journey.

* EPISODE 10: 2nd Duna Flotilla Launch.

* EPISODE 11: 2nd Duna Expedition and 2nd Eve Flotilla Depart

* EPISODE 12: 2nd Duna Expedition Arrival Part 1 & 1st Duna Flotilla Return to Kerbin

* EPISODE 13: 2nd Eve Flotilla and More 2nd Duna Expedition Arrive.

* EPISODE 14: 2nd Duna Expedition Landings

* EPISODE 15: 1st Sortie of DORK

* EPISODE 16: The Pyramid Scheme

* EPISODE 17: Launch of the 1st Jool Expedition

* EPISODE 18: The Kerbin Station Timesink

EPISODE 1: Pillaging Minmus Revisited

A lot has changed since

I last systematically pillaged Minmus of science a little over a year ago. Let's see... Kerbals have acquired learning disabilities so now you have to lug 3 of them around instead of just 1. The tech tree is wider and longer, there's more stock stuff on it and everything for a given set of parts is divided up between more nodes even less logically than before, so you need lots more science overall than before. And thanks for aero/heat being things now, you can't just ignore airplane stuff anymore because you at least need the heatshields and fairings in there. Oh, and science in general has been pretty much deleted from the whole contract thing so now you have to do a bunch of grindy stuff to make money to go fly largely unpaid missions to get science. (Did I mention I am not at all a fan of either Kerbal classes or the 1.x career system?)

On top of this, I've chosen to play this game with a few other constraints, such as the CustomBarnKit, which significantly increases the cost of upgrading KSC buldings, but OTOH allows you to set a low, fixed rate for pressganging, er I mean hiring-----er, I mean accepting eager volunteers into the space program. And I'm using USI LIfe Support, which is sorta like Snacks! only it's made by Roverdude so has better support in his other cool mods. Basically, it lets me continue to believe that Kerbals are fungi and can go into suspended animation when they run out of supplies, and they only requires "supplies" which can be anything. Such as the old-time sailing ship "junk" I feed my pressganged crews . But I absolutely refuse to grind and, planning ahead to spending megabucks on decent flotillas anywhere, I give myself 200% science rewards and 150% cash rewards.

Anyway, after making fair progress up the tech tree, including a landing on Mun (postponed until I could land 3 Kerbals reasonably easily)....

....it was time to pillage Minmus. From the get-go, without having sent Kerbals there, although there was a SCANsat there by this time. Minmus' low gravity makes it amenable to hopping biomes relatively easily so I decided to make a major expedition out of it and see how much science I could get. The Mobile Processing Lab can also generate science these days so I decided to give that a try as part of this. Thus, the expedition was composed of 3 ships:

* The MinEx-1 Lab Module

This was essentially just an MPL and a probe core. It had no science instruments of its own, just intended to process data for more science. And the labs work better on the ground than in orbit now, so it was sent out first to land in some big flat area (ended up being the Greater Flats) to be the rally point for the rest of the 1st Minmus Expedition (MinEx-1). It arrived with little fanfare:

* The MinEx-1 Biome Hopper

This was a lander with every available science instrument for both low space and surface use, stock and DMagic. Otherwise it was mostly 1 big fuel tank so that, upon landing, it would have about 2800m/s for jumping around. The Boffins hoped this would let it hit 4-5 biomes, the OTC at this point in time not even being able to locate Ore, let alone process it. This mission would have been much more effective if this lander could have been refueled But hitting 4-5 biomes in 1 go was still better than grinding each individually, and as the pricetag for the whole expedition was nearly $400K, it would have broken the bank to send out a wad of fuel tanks and a Claw-equipped rover to refuel the lander. But that can be arranged later if necessary.

One of the few neat things about 1.0.4's science stuff is that individual scientists can reset 1-shot experiments (Goo and Materials mostly, plus a few DMagic things). So the plan was for the lander to hit a biome and return to the lab. The resident scientist would then put the data in the MPL for processing and reset the experiments so the lander could go hit another biome. As with the Lab Module, it was sent out crewless and arrived with no excitement.

* The MinEx-1 Crew Shuttle

Seen here using Space-Y radial decouplers with built-in Sepratrons (which are awesome), this was a 3-seat ship just to take the crew of MinEx-1 there and back, and the 1st 3.75m lifter in this game. The crew was a pilot (Jeb) to fly the Biome Hopper, a scientist (Bob) to reset experiments and process data in the MPL, and an engineer (Bill) to fix any thing that might break.

The MinEx-1 Crew Shuttle also had all the science instruments to hit high and low Minmus orbit. The OTC has been saving 2 orbital survey contracts for Minmus to help pay for all this, plus a temperature scan from space above a single high-latitude point, which the Crew Shuttle would do on the way in. After getting this science, it landed beside the other ships without incident.

-------------------

So at last, MinEx-1 was all assembled in the middle of the Greater Flats, near the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian. Everybody got out to plant flags for the experience. In the foreground is the Biome Hopper. In the background the Lab Module is to the left and the Crew Shuttle to the right.

At this point, Jeb got into the Biome Hopper and fired off its surface science stuff, and Bob went over to grab the data and reset the experiments (plus those the Crew Shuttle had gotten en route), while Bill just stayed in the Crew Shuttle because he had nothing to do.

Loading all this into the MPL, Bob discovered that just a single surface sample pretty much filled up the MPL's data banks so that none of the other dozen or so experiments could even be processed. And the rate of crunching data into extra science was so slow that no more experiments could be processed for over a year. While the MPL had enough junk in the hold to keep Bob fed while doing this and then some, he, being a nob, had better things to do with his time. This looked like more of a job for interns. So the plan was altered to put all the data into the Crew Shuttle to return and just crunch as much as possible of the data from the 1 surface sample.

This having been decided, it was time for Jeb to take the Biome Hopper out on a few runs. The SCANsat had by now finished scanning Minmus for low-res radar altimetry and biomes (plus all resources used by OKS/MKS but NOT Ore, the technology for which did not yet exist). The map looked like this:

Besides miniscule gravity, another nice thing about Minmus is that most biomes (other than the poles and some of the "flatter" flats) are within easy reach of the Greater Flats. In the interests of getting the most science, the idea was to hit was was readily available in the neighborhood. First up was the Slopes biome just west of the landing site, which appeared to have the most benign contours. Besides, the angle of the ground facilitated both landing on it ballistically and heading back to the expedition base.

Then, after a pit stop to drop off the science and have the experiments reset, it was off to the Lowlands about the same distance to the west.

At the slopes, the Boffins had been surprised to see the Biome Hopper jump when the magnetometer was deployed. Here, they could see why. Hmm, a minor desigen flaw. Carry on!

Then it was off to a patch of just plain "Flats" to the NW.

After this, another hop west to the Midlands just a bit further away than the Lowlands previously visited. When the Biome Hopper came back from this (1st 5th biome counting the initial landing in the Greater Flats), it only had a bit more than 200m/s left in the tanks. So that was the end of the mission. Jeb took the data over to the Crew Shuttle and climbed in himself. Bob reset the Biome Hopper's experiments and made sure it was all ready to go should it ever be needed again. He also made sure all the data was cleared out of the Lab Unit.

In the time the 1st Minmus Expedition had been on on the ground, Bob had only managed to create 0.9 additional science. "What a waste of money!" exclaimed all the Boffins. But as usual, various weirdos amongst the Scientists were already lining up to to go there and finish the job. Anyway, with all Kerbals aboard and 37 experiments in the hold, the Crew Shuttle made ready to depart.

So off it went, leaving the Lab Module to crunch numbers on autopilot (or maybe not, but that's what interns are for) and the Biome Hopper nearly out of gas (so any further expedition will need to fix that).

On the way back, Jeb set a Kerbin Pe of 40km and did 4 aerobraking passes to bring the Ap down to a reasonable level of about 500km. The Crew Shuttle, still having beaucoup fuel, then circularized at 85km, ditched everything but the capsule and the remaining 100+ days of supplies, and splashed down in the ocean a bit east of KSC.

And here's the payoff:

When MinEx-1 left, there were only 140 science points and $100K in the bank, and the OTC's rep was at 650. Transmitted data (mostly DMagic stuff that gives 100%) had accounted for abouit 3000 science so, with the 5000 brought home by the Crew Shuttle, the mission turned a profit of over 8000 science (at 200%---4000 or so at 100%). The mission added $1700K to the bank, less $400K to launch it so a profit of $1300K including 3 contracts (at 150% rewards, so nearly $900K at 100%). Rep increased by about 90 somehow (I'm not sure how rep really works). No strategies at all in effect and the OTC's admin building languishes at level 1.

All this science put a nice dent in the remaining nodes of the tech tree, including making it possible to find and use Ore at last. And the Klaw. And rover wheels. And the 2.5m docking port. Yay!

And, as icing on the cake, the new Asteroid Day contract made its appearance (and was accepted, given I've got 35 years to complete it).

So, all in all, a fairly productive mission. But the ability of MPLs to generate science seems of little value. It takes forever to get anywhere with it and meanwhle transfer windows are passing by, so you can't just let it run for the years necessary unless you have some spare Kerbals (which are expensive unless you do a lot of rescues or use pressgangs), and even if you can do that, life support complicates things. In this case, the money spent on the Lab Module would have done better on a 2nd or 3rd Biome Hopper (they only cost $90K, the Lab cost about $150). With multiple Biome Hoppers, I could have hit the other 4 biomes (I only got 5 out of 9) without needing any refueling. Given ground docking sucks (especially if you have zero rover wheels yet), I didn't yet have the Klaw, and had no way to make my own fuel, multiple Biome Hoppers would have been the cheaper solution.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Vagani]

good read, really enjoyed it +rep

[Geschosskopf]

good read, really enjoyed it +rep

Thanks! I had fun doing this and learned a lot about some of the new game mechanics. What I learned was that the entire mission above could have been much simplified. I overestimated the utility of the the MPL and designed the mission so that lander had to return to the MPL. This was a HUGE waste of time and fuel because the MPL turns out to be about useless these days.

Given that even a 0-star scientist can reset Goo and Material experiments in EVA now, there is no absolute requirement for the MPL on a pillaging trip. In fact, all you need is 1 lander with a scientist aboard and enough fuel (either in the lander or in space) to hit the desired number of biomes. Having the scientist aboard removes the requirement for returning to the MPL between biomes, which essentially doubles the number of biomes the lander can hit on 1 tank of fuel. So if I'd just left a (rather smaller and simpler) crew return ship in orbit and sent down only the Biome Hopper and scientist, I probably could have hit every biome with the fuel in the 1 lander.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 2: Pillaging Minmus Done Better

So the Boffins were pretty disappointed with MinEx-1 and decided to go back for the remaining 4 biomes only without the MPL. The Scientists were quite disappointed but were mollified when the Boffins stated that the only Kerbal going would be a scientist. Newly developed 1.25m probe cores would do the actual flying. And thus was born MinEx-2, which contained just 2 ships:

The MinEx-2 Biome Hopper Mk 2

This was a redesign of the MinEx-1 Biome Hopper with a bit more fuel, a probe core, rearrnaged experiments for easier access and no interference with the landing gear, and a few new experiments that R&D had recently created. All this made the ship about twice as expensive as the older model, at $187K.

The MinEx-2 Transfer Vehicle

This had a single Mk1 inline cockpit with a heat shield and chutes, the only thing that would return to Kerbin. Below this was a small de-orbit stage, a slightly bigger stage to get home from Minmus, and then a 2.5m transfer stage to push itself and the Biome Hopper Mk 2 out to Minmus. All this on the 2nd 3.75m rocket, this time with bigger tanks that were now available.

It cost $166K so the total price for the mission was $353K, nearly as much as MinEx-1. Further, while MinEx-1 had turned a nice profit thanks to contracts, nobody in the civilian world was interested in Minmus just then so this all came out of the OTC's own pockets.

To save fuel in the transfer stage, this entire monstrosity (less the SRBs) would do the rendezvous with the lander. Maneuverability was assisted not only by lots of torque but also huge Space-Y RCS blocks at strategic points. These things put out about 14x the thrust of regular RCS thrusters but really slurp down the monopropellant.

This rather strange plan worked quite well and the MinEx-2 Transfer Vehicle ditched its assent stage once it had met the MinEx-2 Biome Hopper in LKO. The assent stage then blew up spectacularly thanks to the TAC Self-Destruct charge that had recently been invented. However, unusually for the Boffins, they didn't watch this show because they were concentrating on the docking. As they had good reason to.

The docking alone covered nearly 30% of the cost of MinEx-2. That was the only contract available that did anything helpful along the way. In fact, the mission had been designed around docking. It probably could have been done better without.

Anyway, once assembled, the combined force of MinEx-2 burned out for Minmus. Does this count as "Apollo-style" ?

Once at Minmus, Bob transfered into the lander and one of the probe cores shoved the Transfer Vehicle clear (it was the only ship with RCS). During the descent, Bob used the new RPWS antenna in both high and low orbits, and the new Soil Moisture sensor in low orbit.

Bob's 1st landing was in the Lesser Flats near the equator. Just before landing, he did the usual thing of the Multispectral Scanner and Orbital Telescope to take pictures, then did all the other instruments on the ground, collecting the data and resetting the experiments. The plan for this mission was to land here in the Lesser Flats, jump to a spot of Highlands near the North Pole, then hit the Pole, and finish up in the Great Flats, which are the valley east of the 1st landing here.

From the highlands to the pole:

Here's Bob at the pole climbing back aboard after collecting all the data and resetting the Goo and Materials.

Then it was a long jump back to the equator on the Great Flats.

Then it was up to meet the Transfer Vehicle. Science doesn't seem to be able to be pumped from pod to pod so once docked, Bob dragged all the data out of the Biome Hopper Mk2's can and put it in his pockets, then EVA'd to the Mk1 Inline Cockpit of the Transfer Vehice. But getting into this thing from EVA proved quite a problem due to his orientation relative to the ship. He just could never hit the "magic spot" to grab or board the cockpit. Finally, the Boffins made some snide remark about "scientists can't EVA" and rotated the ship around to make it easier for Bob. This worked and all the data ended up in the right place.

All told, that was 29 data sets. Many others had already been transmitted.

So the MinEx-2 Transfer Vehicle disconnected and shoved off, leaving the MinEx-2 Biome Hopper Mk2 in a 100km orbit. It sitll has about 1400m/s of the 3000 it started with after the 1st landing, plus a large stockpile of supplies. Minmus has been pretty well cleaned out of science by now so there's not much sense in using it again, but it's there as an emergeny lifeboat if needed.

The big 2.5m transfer stage still had about 400m/s in it so instead of junking it, Bob flew home with it and did several aerobraking passes behind its big shield. This turned out to be fortunate for several reasons. First, having this fuel and the other stages intended just to come home with meant getting home sooner with fewer aerobrakes. And as it turned out, the 2.5m stage protected the new RTGs on the outside of the Mk1 Inline Cockpit. These burned off during final reentry and if that had happened during an aerobraking pass, Bob would have been up a creek.

NOTE TO SELF: Protect RTGs when using 100% reentry heat. No more sticking them on the outside as I'm used to. Although it is funny they made it up through the atmosphere just fine.

Otherwise none the worse for wear, however, the cockpit carrying its precious data came down safely not far from KSC.

And here's the payoff:

The OTC has 200 science and $2.1 million in the bank when MinEx-2 left so the mission netted 7300 science at a cost of about $250K (thanks to the docking contract). Transmitting acquired 2200 science on top of the 5100 returned. The 7300 science was enough to finish off the tech tree with 1366 points extra.

So, the OTC can now finally find and process Ore. And it's got all the MKS/OKS toys to play with, which these days include Extraplanetary Launchpad-type stuff. Hmmm. And the whole system (except for Minmus but including Mun) is still open to exploration. What will the Boffins do?

Tune in next to to see if I come up with any ideas.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 3: Probe Stuff

When we left the OTC, the 2nd Minmus Expeditiion had just come home with enough science to finish the tech tree and the new SENTINEL contract had just appeared. So the 1st order of business for the Boffins was to get the SENTINEL up because it was worth megbucks.

It had the new IR Telescope, the new HECS-2 probe core, and the new OX-STAT-XL solar panels. It didn't have the new HG antenna because that hasn't yet been integrated into the AntennaRange mod, which is in force in this game. The probe also had way more dV than it turned out to need, but because the Boffins were too drunk to remember to shift the tracking station view to focus on Kerbol instead of Kerbin, they didn't see the target orbit before launch so felt it better to be safe than sorry.

Anyway, the SENTINEL burned on the daylight side of Kerbin just enough to leave Kerbin's SOI, which gave it an Ap a bit beyond Kerbin and a Pe between Kerbin and Eve. This proved to be not far off the mark once the SENTINEL left Kerbin's SOI and the target orbit appeared. A smple burn about 14 days out from Kerbin served to get the target Ap lined up (which was really the probe's Pe at this time). Then it was just waiting 57 days to get to the new Pe and finish shaping the orbit. At which point the mission could really begin.

But long before the SENTINEL got to its 2nd maneuver, lots of stuff happened at KSC. Transfer windows were coming up and things had to be done for them. To start with, it was now past time to start getting a communications network up, so 2 of the usual highly elliptical polar-orbiting commsats with long-range dishes went up over Kerbin. There were also contracts to do magnetic field surveys of both Mun and Minmus, not to get the science but to get M-O-N-E-Y to finance the grandiose schemes of empire.

There was also a window for Jool coming up soon so the Boffins decided to send a pair of polar commsats there just to lay groundwork for the future. The OTC at this point didn't have enough money to go full-blown empire there yet.

EDIT: previously had the wrong pic here.

This ship tried out a couple new tactics. First, as usual with OTC designs, the single LFO lifter stage got to orbit with a fair amount of fuel left. Rather than just waste this as usual, the Boffins decided to burn it to put the Jool COMMsat Carrier into an elliptical orbit to shorten the burn time (and save fuel in) the transfer stage. Getting this done ahead of time allows doing only the last part of a multiple-pass transfer burn at the time of the node, making the burn more accurate.

This seemed to work pretty well so has been adopted as standard when circumstances permit. The technique is to get into a circular orbit to start with and create the transfer node several days in advance. Then burn the lifter's remaining fuel when the ship is passing the node so its Pe will be there when the time to burn the rest comes. Then scrap the original transfer node and create a new one in the same spot for the same time but using only the remaining dV needed.

Once out of Kerbin's SOI, the Jool COMMsat Carrier also adjusted its orbit to meet Tylo for a braking gravity assist rather than try to aerocapture (this game has 100% reentry heat, which is stupid I know but I'm doing it just because). With the tools available (not PreciseNode because it's still stuck on 1.0.2), al lthat could be done was to get the orbit about tanget to Tylos, but no closest approach markers appeared. Fine-turning this encounter will have to wait until the probe is within Jool's SOI I guess.

The OTC also had 3 very lucrative contracts for Duna: building an orbital station at Duna and performing orbital surveys of both Duna and Ike. This required 3 ships: the station, a science return orbiter, and the usual pair of long-range commsats. First up was the station:

This was called the DUMBASS (Duna Ultra-Modern Base And Space Station). Although sent out crewless, it could well serve as the nucleus of a future OTC station so was built accordingly, including a large stash of junk for the future crew to eat. Junk being brined meat of unidentified origin mixed with peas and oatmeal, it would keep indefinitely, just as it had on the old sailing ships of several centuries before.

There was nothing special about the commsat carrier, same payload as the one for Jool (and Kerbin), just a smaller lifter. The science orbiter, OTOH, was a bit strange, mostly because it would never touch the DUMBASS. Why waste the supplies there on a worthless scientist how was serving as a guineapig anyway? And thus was born the DISCO (Duna and Ike SCience Orbiter).

The DISCO has enough fuel for a round trip instead of relying, as usual, on return-trip fuel being made at the destination. It consists of a 1-seat pod, a 2-seat living area converted into a suite of rooms for the 1 occupant, enough junk for well over a year, and a probe core to fly it all. Plus every science instrument known to Kerbals. It also went into an elliptical parking orbit where it will wait a few days before leaving. Mostly so the recently pressganged guineapig can recieve basic training from videos.

There was also a window for Eeloo about the same time so the Boffins sent another commsat pair there while they were at it. And that's all the money they felt like spending prior to getting some return from this 1st Duna Flotilla. Which should hopefully come in just before the Eve window, for which there are other contracts. The Boffins want to keep a minimum balance of $2 million for the time being.

Anyway, tune in next time for the adventures of the 1st Duna Flotilla.

Edited July 12, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Kagame]

This reads a lot like my campaign mode- we use the same mods, I just don't use USI-LS or Antenna Range.

[Geschosskopf]

This reads a lot like my campaign mode- we use the same mods, I just don't use USI-LS or Antenna Range.

Great minds think alike .

I like AntennaRange way more than RemoteTech because the former is by default pretty contemporary while the later is stuck in the days of real "core" memory being small magnetic rings strung on intersecting bare copper wires. Besidesm AtennaRange is designed for career games because its main thing (by default) is simply to require bigger antenna to transmit science over longer distances. But given that you can finish the tech tree fairly easily before the 1st window to Duna rolls around, AntennaRange really doesn't do much in career games unless you want to roleplay it. Which you can do without installing the mod and thus save some RAM. But then you don't get the visual confirmation in the map view that you actually have comms links.

As to USI-LS, Roverdude is in bed with Squad these days (which is a good thing) so if/when KSC gets stock life support (and I REALLY hope it doesn't), it will be fairly similar to USI-LS I'm sure, if not a direct incorporation. So I figure it might be a good idea to get used to it now and have it in the game so the update transition isn't quite as fatal.

[Kagame]

You might have a point there. I keep meaning to download Snacks, so now might be a good time...

[Geschosskopf]

You might have a point there. I keep meaning to download Snacks, so now might be a good time...

I don't always (OK, hardly ever) use life support mods. But when I do, I prefer USI-LS .

I've used Snacks! in the past because it also fits my headcanon. However, t has a variety of issues. Or at least it did back in the day. USI-LS takes the same general idea and does it better IMHO. Plus it fits seamlessly into OKS/MKS by the same modder, which is always an advantage when the lives of Kerbals are at stake.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 4: Transfers and an Impact

As promised, the next thing to happen was the departure of the 1st Duna Flotilla, proudly led by DUMBASS (for the money) and the Duna Long-Range COMMsat Carrier (for practical necessity) with their conventional transfer stages:

And then DISCO (for the science, which means for the money). This was crewed by some science gradstudent named Ansen, who was there primarily to move data from experiments into the pod and reset the Goo and Materials. This rocket was powered by 4 of the new Atomic Age dual-mode LANTERN engines, although constrained to work in LF-only mode. Given as this mod comes with a lot of radiator parts, the Boffins were curious to see if they were really needed. Given that stock radiators had caused problems (supposedly) earlier, they didn't trust them, and figured the best way to determine if they were really needed was to try without them. After all, Ansen was aboard to take notes .

But despite a burn of about 5 minutes, and the engines glowing a lovely cherry red, however, nothing really got hot. Ansen reported his butt did not get any warmer during the burn.

Immediately after Ansen DISCO'd out of LKO, it was time to burn the Eeloo Long-Range COMMsat Carrier. This ship had 2 of the stock LV-Ns on it so offers an interesting comparison to the Atomic Age engines after a burn also of about 5 minutes (thanks to being in an elliptical orbit to start with).

This ship got considerably hotter than DISCO but not hot enough to be an issue with anything. So the Boffins concluded that for the time being, radiators aren't necessary on nuke ships, at least if they're from Kerbin outwards in the solar system. Simulations of operations on Moho, however, have shown that ships (and especially EVA Kerbals) can get hot just sitting there, so radiators will probably be necessary.

In a few hous, all these ships left Kerbin's SOI and set up their mid-course tweaks. In addition, Ansen was told to test all his instruments by getting data from solar orbit, then make sure he could really retrieve all the data.

Everything worked great and Ansen accomplished his mission without having to let go of the ladders. Remembering the problems Bob (and Scientists) in general had with EVAs, the Boffins had this time installed a "training wheel" ladder system. 2 normal ladders led from the pod and across the 2.5m adaptor. At the end of the lower ladder, the path forked and then joined a circle of rigid ladder segments all the way around the reaction wheel unit just above the Universal Storage science array. By hitting A or D at the appropriat point while climing on and/or arround these ladders, Ansen could easily switch tracks. So he'd climb down to the fork, then go all the way around the rocket, take the other fork back to the main ladder, and thus regain the pod. It worked like a champ.

The Boffins were by now fairly confident that the 1st Duna Expedition would get its paychecks before the Eve transfer window. However, they decided it wouldn't hurt to get some more money just in case, so they accepted several more jobs within the Kerbin SOI. Besides, this gave them something to do while waiting for 1DF to arrive. To make the time pass more quickly, they only accepted missions with long travel times.

The 1st such mission was to build a base on Minmus. The Boffins pointed out that the OTC already had one they didn't need and were quite willing to sell, but the Scientists threw so many spitwads and shot so many rubber bands across the office that the Boffins relented and agreed to build a new one if the customer was willing to pay. Thus was born the Great Flats Base, which was set up in pretty much the same spot Bob had visited on his 2nd trip to Minmus.

Another mission was of much more interested both to the Boffins and the Scientists. This job, which paid about $500K, was to get science from near and on a Class C asteroid. There was no need to divert the asteroid, nor even return the ship. This latter requirement suited the Boffins just fine as it allowed a smaller, cheaper rocket and thus maximized profits. The Scientists whined that they wouldn't get as much data that way, but were eventually beaten into submission.

As it happened, a handy Class C asteroid had just been discovered on a path that would impact Kerbin in about 28 days. So the Boffins threw a bone to the Scientists by saying that they were welcome to whatever parts of the probe survived the impact .

As you can see, the Roid-Sniffer Mk 1 duly intercepted the asteroid and got its data. Kaching! But between launch and arrival was quite an adventure. Due to the 2-Body Gravity Glitch, the probe kept falling back into Kerbin's SOI every few seconds, then popping right back out again. This happened 20 or 30 times in rapid succession, then finally the Roid-Sniffer got stuck in Kerbin's SOI on a highly elliptical open orbit with a 250km Pe. So the mission seemed doomed at this point and the Boffins wrote it off and went on to do the mid-course burns of the various interplanetary ships.

By then, the Roid-Sniffer had gone on around was about to escape Kerbin again so the Boffins decided to give it a look and see what, if anything, could be done about it. And surprisingly, the Roid-Sniffer seemed to have gotten a gravity assist off Kerbin was still heading to meet the asteroid more or less on schedule at more or less the same distance originally planned before all the SOI shenanigans. A slight burn cleaned up the intercept and the Roid-Sniffer accomplished its mission with 2 days to spare before the asteroid entered Kerbin's SOI.

The Roid-Sniffer, being merely designed to sniff roids, was utterly incapable of affecting the asteroid's trajectory or even orientation in the slightest. It was just along for the ride, "But hey, a science-return is a science-return" as the Boffins reminded the Scientists. The asteroid would hit in the northern hemisphere about 45^ latitude and just on the pre-dawn side of the terminator, so the big question was whether or not it would land in the water. Based on prior experience, the Boffins predicted that the thing would weathervane so the Roid-Sniffer would use the rock as a heat shield, and then parts of it might survive after the rock rolled over on the ground.

However, this was not to be thanks to the 100% reentry heat setting.

After hitting the atmosphere at about 3200m/s, there was no weathervaning at all. The rock began heating first (#1 above) and totally vaporized at an altitude of 43km (#2 above). The Roid-Sniffer itself was on the verge by that point and began to break up at about 30km (#3 above) with its various parts continuing to burn and explode in tight formation down to about 25km. By then, all that was left of the Roid-Sniffer was its 1.25m service bay, everything inside of which had already exploded (#4 above). The service bay, however, survived until it slammed into the ground at about 40m/s, the only part of the whole assembly to reach the surface.

The Boffins thought this was all excellent data on which to plan future missions but the Scientists went into mourning. Especially because they noticed that when the asteroid vaporized, it didn't explode in flames but popped into a cloud of dust. A cloud of dust that looked disturbingly like the spores released by dying Kerbals. Was the asteroid really alive? Were Kerbals the result of panspermia, descended from the spores of ancient asteroids? Could asteroids bring space plagues or alien invaders to Kerbin? Should asteroids be saved from certain death? Sadly, the data they got from the Roid-Sniffer was inconclusive on all these questions.

So here's the situation as of now, with 1DF about 1/2way to Duna.

Tune in next time for whatever happens next.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Landwalker]

Very much enjoying this!

Where are those boosters from? They look mod-y, but then again, it's been so long since I climbed that far up the tech ladder that maybe they're stock. If nothing else, they don't look like anything I've ever used...

[Geschosskopf]

Very much enjoying this!

Thanks!

Where are those boosters from? They look mod-y, but then again, it's been so long since I climbed that far up the tech ladder that maybe they're stock. If nothing else, they don't look like anything I've ever used...

Those are from SpaceY Heavy LIfters. So are the decouplers used, which have integral Sepratrons in them and look nice and sleek besides.

SpaceY is a great mod. I have it mostly for the 5m diameter rocket tanks and engines but it also includes a lot of SRBs in all diameters up to 2.5m, some huge Sepratrons, and some new engines in 1.25m and 2.5m diameter. Plus associated hardware like decouplers, SAS modules, thrust plates to make cluster engines, etc.

However, the textures aren't DDS yet so you very definitely need Active Texture Manager if you want to use SpaceY.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 5: 1st Duna Flotilla Arrives (and Other Stuff)

Seeking to emulate my hero Kuzzter, I offer my excuse for not updating this recently---I was on vacation, too. Vacation was actually just this past weekend but I've also been quite busy at work. Anyway, I did some kayaking in Lake Fausse Pointe State Park.

Being right next to the Atchafalaya Basin, LFP is naturally full of les cocodries (the Cajun bastardization of "crocodiles" aka alligators). How the Cajuns got into the habit of moving the "r" from the 1st to the last syllable I don't know, but it's been going on since the get-go. There's a town named Cocodrie that was founded in the 1700s, about the time the 1st Cajuns arrived. Anyway, I had an air-conditioned cabin (it's about 95^F most of the day), the cabin had a pier, and the pier (and all identical piers in the park) had a big red sign about les cocodries.

You can also see a little baby gator, only about 5' long, in the water nearby. But there were plenty of others in the 8-10' range right here around the cabins. "Do Not Feed The Alligators" takes on a new meaning when you're in a kayak . Fortunately, although they come around looking for leftover bait whenever a bass boat pulls up, they're not yet at the stage of attacking kayakers and in fact get out of your way. So I tried to stay out of theirs .

--------------------------------------------

Back to the OTC, which has yet to hit a lick with Ore, when last seen the 1st Duna Flotilla had just shoved off and a few other things were going on. One of these other things was the SENTINEL contract probe and it finally, after going about 1/2way around Kerbol, got into position and started its scan.

The object of this game is to find 20 Class D asteroids that "threaten Kerbin". I really have no idea how that's defined. It's supposed to happen "passively" and give me update messages as it finds some but so far I haven't seen any such thing. I don't know if I need to track all the asteroids it finds or if this really is passive. Of course, it hasn't been there very long and the contract has 35 years to run so I'm sure it'll happen slowly.

A necessary consequence of being inside Kerbin's orbit is that it pulls out ahead of Kerbin over time. Which is good, I guess, because that lets it spot asteroids itself instead of the Tracking Center doing it. But so far, while it's spotted a couple of Ds and an E, all have been in stable orbits that will never touch Kerbin. The interesting thing, though, is that these orbits are HIGHLY inclined, like 30-45^. Which is kinda cool if I ever want to spend the colossal amount of dV to go visit one. But it does show things the Tracking Center will never see.

So time rolled on and eventually the 1st member of the 1st Duna Flotilla arrived. This was the long-range COMMsat carrier. It aerocaptured at about 15km without getting warm at all (Duna's atmosphere is a doddle) and deployed its COMMsats into up-and-down polar orbits with Aps of 43Mm, 180^ out of phase with each other. Usual stuff.

Because the 1st COMMsat had to reach its Ap before the 2nd could burn, which took a week, the 2nd hadn't burned yet before Ansen arrived in the DISCO. This was the main reason for the whole flotilla, doing contracts for orbital science surveys of both Duna and Ike. Not only did these contracts pay well themselves, but due to a licensing strategy, most of the science data obtained also became cash.

Anyway, a probe core was actually flying the ship---Ansen was just there to carry the data that wasn't transmitted into the pod and reset the experiments so they could be used both high and low at both Duna and Ike. In fact, the Goo and Materials got used twice in each place, once transmitted to get the contract payout, then again to return the remaining data. After grabbing Duna high orbit data as soon as he entered the SOI, Ansen made sure everything was all packed up again and aerocaptured at 16.6km. This cost only 5 out of 800 off the heatshield so there's still plenty for back at Kerbin.

As soon as the DISCO left Duna's atmosphere, Ansen grabbed the low-orbit science there and got everything ready again for Ike. Duna contract complete for like $450K. Ka-ching! And as it happened, Ike was in a convenient spot to be hit with a minor burn just above Duna's atmosphere.

Then it was time to do science at Ike.

Another $550K in the bank! Then it was right back to Duna where the DISCO put itself into a 250km orbit so that Ansen wouldn't be tempted to raid the pantry of the DUMBASS when it arrived in the near future. This was done without aerobraking to save the heatshield for Kerbin---DISCO has beaucoup fuel. The probe core then computed the return trip to Kerbin, which wouldn't start for another 140 days, so Ansen watched Duna go by through the windows a couple times and then went into hibernation. He felt fortunate actually to be coming home eventually. After all, he had accomplished his missions already so the OTC had no real interest in him anymore. They could have just left him there to rot. What he didn't know was that the Scientists wanted him back so they could dissect him to learn what going to Duna had done to him.

All this was accomplished prior to the 2nd COMMsat doing its burn, and right after that happened, in came the DUMBASS. Putting DUMBASS into Duna orbit was worth another $770K to the OTC. Despite being the slow boat to Duna, the DUMBASS turned out to be quite sleek (especially for a station module) so actually had to make the lowest aerocapture pass of the whole flotilla, with a Pe set at 14km and going down to 13.5km in actual use.

Still, even that low, nothing got at all hot and the DUMBASS captured with an Ap about 2/3 of the way out to Ike. That by itself was enough to cash its check but the Boffins had sent a bigger wad of parts than the contract required because they thought it might be useful in the future. Thus, they had it do 3 burns to raise its Pe to 100km, fix its inclination to 0^, and then circularize without bothering to hit the atmosphere again. At this point, the DUMBASS jettisoned both its transfer stage and its nosecone, both of which then exploded from TAC Self-Destruct charges. This left the DUMBASS with docking ports exposed on both ends.

So there it sits. It's got enough RCS to tweak its orbit rather substantially, it's got beaucoup electricity (even though solar panels are only 1/2 as good at Duna as at Kerbin), it's got a large pantry and bunks for 4, and it's got a science lab that might someday yield a slow trickle of income. But mostly it's got docking ports. It'll probably never amount to anything but who knows?

And so the Boffins rejoiced in having turned a hefty profit even given the pricetag of the 1st Duna Flotilla. And the checks got cashed about 2 weeks before the Eve transfer window, so the Boffins were able to outfit a respectable Eve flotilla and get it in position with plenty of time to spare. This included:

The EF-1 COMMsat Carrier:

The EF-1 Eve SCANsat (with full resource-scanning equipment as well):

And the real reason for going here, the Eve MagSat (another big paycheck):

No probe landers for Eve, nothing bothering with Gilly, because the Eve Magsat is paying for everything and it only pays so much. And that includes the Moho SCANsat, an identical payload to the Eve SCANsat but with MOAR dV. This is going with the 1st Eve Flotilla to gravity-brake off Eve to see if that makes it any easier to capture at Moho. This had better work because the Moho SCANsat lacks the dV to do things the hard way, but the Boffins are feeling flush at the moment so are willing to gamble a bit.

All of these ships have enouth dV to capture by thrust alone at Eve, but will attempt aerocaptures there relying on their fairings and heatshields. At least the 1st to arrive will, in simulated passes. They're also, in a new adventure for the OTC, all equipped with radiators. The OTC has not yet in 1.0.4 found any need for radiators (and in fact finds the static variety to be Death incarnate), but going to Eve and especially Moho raises doubts (simulated Moho landings had EVA Kerbals feeling VERY uncomfortable). However, the Boffins were too exhausted from their vacation to remember to put airbrakes on any of these ships.

As it happened about this time some VERY luctrative contracts for doing science at Jool came up so the Boffins quickly cobbled together a MagSat for Jool. This will not only (eventually) do its own contract but a couple of other low-hanging fruit, and just the advances on these contracts were worth about $2M. So the Boffins quickly reworked their standard MagSat payload to work without solar panels, stuck a big rocket under it, and shot it off, the next Jool window being only 30-odd days away. And this time they remembered to put airbrakes on it.

This rocket has a couple new features. First, up top, the weird-looking tank is from UKS. It can hold any sort of resource and when used for LFO, it's just 1 part instead of several for the same dV. Then, instead of using the empy 2.5-3.75m adaptor, it used the 2.5m-Mk3 adaptor on top of the Mk3-3.75m adaptor, both of which can hold LFO, thereby saving height and making the entire rocket more maneuverable for the burns it had to do once in orbit.

I always like to close with a bang so here's a pic of the Jool MagSat shedding its SSTO-And-Then-Some lifter after elongating its orbit in preparation for its departure burn.

So tune in next time for the departure of the 1st Eve Flotilla and the Moho Stowaway .

Edited July 25, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 6: Eve Flotilla 1 Departs (and other stuff}

So time rolled on a few days and it was time for the 1st Eve Flotilla to leave Kerbin. This included a "gamble" probe for Moho that would gravity brake off Eve in order to save dV. All these ships had previously used the excess fuel in their SSTOATS ascent stages to get into eccentric parking orbits so their transfer burns to Eve were all well less than 1000m/s, the highest being 700. All these ships also had radiators. First off the mark was the Eve SCANsat:

The radiators unralistically did a great job minimizing the equally unrealistic heat from the LV-Ns.

The rest of EF-1 burned away without incident. Being as they were going inwards instead of outwards as usual, they were on the sunny side of Kerbin so it made for decent pics for a change.

Eve COMMsat Carrier

Moho SCANsat

Eve MagSat (the whole reason for the flotilla)

All these burns were so spaced out that each ship left Kerbin's SOI before the next burned. None were eaten by the Blackout Kraken on the way out, Mun not being anywhere near as they left.

After leaving Kerbin's SOI, each ship plotted a course tweak to finalize its approach. All the ships stopping at Eve arranged to come in fairly polar for the benefit of their probes. The Moho SCANsat, OTOH, aimed to pass Eve on the retrograde side and a bit below the equator to get flung into an orbit approximating Moho's orbital plane. This maneuver, which would cost about 200m/s, would bring its perhelion down to about Moho's aphelion. The result was as if the probe had burned straight for Moho to intercept it at its aphelion, but cost just a bit more than going to Eve, a substantial savings on the transfer burn. Of course, it will require some more tweaks and will try to gravity brake off Moho the 1st time by to pull its Ap down from the vicinity of Kerbin's orbit. But the plan is simply to reduce the dV needed to capture at Moho, and see how long such a flight takes.

While these ships were en route to their mid-course tweaks, the Boffins decided to make some beer money doing a couple contracts on Mun, one for a surface survey that required a rover, and one for planting a flag. Thus was born the Mun Beast mission, which comprised 2 ships. Here is the Mun Beast Lander, a simple, cheap rocket just to get Sanie (an apprentice artificer) there and back.

The Mun Beast Rover went out on its own rocket. The rover being rather wide, it required a wide fairing and thus wide rocket to avoid aerodynamic problems.

Both ships launched perfectly and soon Mun Beast Lander was on its way down. The landing area looked a bit daunting but fortunately the lip between the 2 small rracters to the lower right turned out to be reasonably flat.

Once Sanie was down, the Mun Beast Rover came down aiming for the same general area.

Once safely down about 500m from the Mun Beast Lander, the rover shed its descent engines amidst intentionally gratuitous explosions and drove on over via probe control.

Sanie then got in and drove around to a number of designated spots doing the required science. The Mun Beast Lander had zero supplies aboard, this not being an issue for about 2 weeks. The Mun Beast Rover, however, had supplies for a month. Per standard OTC policy, each Kerbal receives 1 gallon of beer and 1 tot of grog per day. Sanie thought this was wonderful and took the opportunity to break her fast. Until Mission Control turned off her mic, she was singing one of the traditional kerbalnaut shanties:

As I was a-walkin' down KerbCity's street

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

The OTC pressgang I happened to meet

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

Eventually, and thankfully driving under probe control, the Mun Beast Lander completed its task and brought Sanie back to Mun Beast Lander, where she somehow managed to move the science from one to the other. Munwalking while drunk is harder than it looks .

The Mun Beast Lander then lifted off and returned to Kerbin. The 1st aerobraking pass at 35km worked as intended and brought the Ap down to about 1.7Mm with nothing getting more than warm. However, a 2nd pass at the resulting Pe of 34.5km resulted in a long, hot, 2/3-of-the-planet-covering landing right now. Most of the parts hanging on the sides of the ship got rather hot although nothing quite burned off.

Due to the unplanned beginning of the landing descent, there was no picking spots or even daylight to land in. So Sanie came down in the dark in the mountains, about the worst-case scenario. Fortunately, she landed on a fairly gently sloped shoulder of a big crag with no harm done.

As a result of this mission, the OTC now has over $7M in the bank and can start thinking about doing things without contracts to pay for them.

Tune in next time to see what happens to the various Eve ships.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Great update! Love the explosions and the shanty. Hope they all come through the SOI veil OK.

[Geschosskopf]

Great update! Love the explosions and the shanty. Hope they all come through the SOI veil OK.

Thanks . All ships are safely in interplanetary space.

For the explosions, I rely on TAC Self-Destruct. Best. Mod. Ever. Seriously, if I had to choose between it and, say, MJ and KER, I'd go with Self-Destruct. It has so many uses and all of them are cool .

And here are the complete OTC lyrics to "Blow the Kerb Down"

Blow the Kerb Down

As I was a-walkin' down KerbCity's street

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

The OTC pressgang I happened to meet

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

They gave me a spanner upside o' me head

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

As me face hit the pavement I thought I was dead

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

I didn't wake up until after the burn

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

And Kerbin was fast disappearing astern

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

I was over a year on passage to Jool

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

And strapped in a chair I spent it in school

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

The videos taught me to service the Goo

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

And do all such jobs that the sciencemates do

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

When I get to Jool I am out of the hatch

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

Retrieving the data the instruments catch

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

I went round ol' Jool and his pretty moons, too

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

At each destination I serviced the Goo

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

And then a long wait and a long return trip

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

I nearly went mad locked inside of that ship

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

At last there was Kerbin, a sight for sore eyes

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

But when I reentered I got a surprise

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

The progress of Science while I'd been in space

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

Meant the Goo that I'd serviced was going to waste

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

I was paid off went out to seek my own fate

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

But found no civvy work for a Chief Sciencemate

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

With no job at home for the rate on me sleeve

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

I signed on a colony ship bound for Eve

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

So now it's the life support waste vats I tend

To me way, hey, blow the kerb down

I'll be servicing poo here on Eve 'til the end

Give me some time to blow the kerb down

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 7: 1st Eve Flotilla Arrives

And now for some more interesting stuff---spaceships interacting with Eve....

But first, the Boffins had a couple of nice contracts. First, they had to get a MagSat to Ike and then it was time for the Jool MagSat, which had been parked for a month or so, to shove off.

Then the 1st Eve Flotilla began to arrive. Because they'd left about 1 day apart, they also arrived about a day apart so there was no hectic juggling act upon arrival. First to arrive was the Eve SCANsat. Once in Eve's SOI, the Boffins determined it would take about 1700m/s to capture into a 150km orbit. Given that the probe's carrier (not even considering the probe itself) had about 2500 left in the tank for just this purpose, the Boffins decided to capture into an elliptical orbit with a 2.5Mm Ap and then aerobrake from there. After all, the ship had a heatshield and fairing so might as well use them. In fact, the whole flotilla was that way so this became the plan for all. So SCANsat Eve burned into its parking orbit to wait for the rest of the flotilla to arrive.

Next to appear was SCANsat Moho which was just doing a retrograde flyby.

Once back out of Eve's SOI, the "not quite aligned" post-flyby orbital plane would still require nearly 1400m/s to fix after about 3/4 of a solar orbit. Not a lot of savings there, this being counted as part of the transfer burn. But the object is to minimize the capture burn so we'll see what happens.

Then came the Eve COMMsat Carrier. Being slightly slower, it wouldn't require quite as much dV to capture by thrust but like the Eve SCANsat, it parked with a 2.5Mm Ap.

The Eve MagSat came last and it, needing to be in an orbit with at least 0.71 eccentricity anyway, never had any intention of aero-anything-ing. An eccentricity that big actually put its Ap out beyond Gilly's closest approach and capturing into that only needed a couple hundred m/s.

This contract more than paid for the whole 1st Eve Flotilla so the Boffins immediately put it to work to cash that check. After doing the rquired science in high and low orbits, it then had to remain in position for over a month to complete the contract.

It was now time to play with aerobraking, starting with SCANsat Eve. Deciding to be gentle with this, the 1st attempt put the Pe at 85km, just 5km into the atmosphere. This took about 40 units off the heatshield and got the radial RCS tanks rather warm, but absolutely failed to make any noticeable impression on the ship's Ap, which remained nearly 2.5Mm. So next time arround, the Boffins tried a Pe of 80km. This ate another 80 off the heatshield, nearly caused the RCS tanks to explode, and again utterly failed to move the Ap down any amount at all.

It was by now apparent that SCANsat Eve was unable to go any lower and that staying with the current Pe was doing no good at all. Granted, SCANsat Eve was quite sleek with its long fairing, but all the atmosphere was doing was creating heat, but no friction. Strange. So the Boffins abandoned all hope of aerobraking and did everything else with burns.

This meant the fairing was no longer necessary so the Boffins jettisoned it to reduce weight and thus get a bit more dV. And they learned an important lesson: retract the radiators before staging the fairing.

However, the probe had its own radiators and nothing was yet getting hot anyway, so things continued. And pretty soon SCANsat Eve was on station scanning for resources, which work best at a low altitude. The UKS mod has a resource scanner that looks for everything and also functions as a stock NBS. And thus we see why the stock NBS's GUI has that resource button, tapping which cycles through all those you can see. In this case, the probe could see Ore, Karbonite (even though I don't have that mod), Karborundum (ditto), MetalOre, Water, Minerals, Uraninite, and Substrate. The latter can be used with the rest of UKS to make everything from life support supplies to rockets.

It was then time to deploy the Eve COMMsats. As usual, a pair of these were put into vertical elliptical orbits with 43Mm Aps, 180^ out of phase with each other. The Eve COMMsat Carrier circularized by thrust at 120km first.

Once the COMMsats were on their ways, the Boffins noticed that the carrier vehicle, which had an OKTO probe core in a service bay, was rather hot. In fact, the probe core and attached RTGs were quite hot and the whole ship, in the thermal display, was glowing orange. This just from the sunshine in low Eve orbit--running the engines didn't get the ship this hot and it had had time to cool off from that, not to mention having 3 radiators out the whole time. Pointing the heatshield at the sun and opening the service bay doors had no effect on anything. The Boffins found this quite troubling.

Even more troubling was that temperatures did not go down when the ship passed around behind Eve. Something was definitely wrong here. It was also annoying because the Boffins intended to crash the carrier vehicle to learn about reentries on Eve. If it was already hot, it might not last as well. But OTOH, if all ships near Eve get hot, then this might provide good data afterall.

So the Boffins had the carrier vehicle retroburn for a 30km Pe (starting at 120km) and sat back to await results. The ship entered the air and started heating up. Again, there was no immediate, or even delayed, reduction in speed. So the Boffins started running the engines to help slow down faster. They'd left the radiators out and they finally blew off at 69km.

With the radiators gone, the Boffins shut off the engines and let nature take its course from here on. Everything started getting warm and the heatshield started going away but things were still OK. But strangely, one of the 3 radial engines started getting hotter than the others. So the boffins rolled the ship a bit and it cooled off but another started getting hot. Pretty soon, the Boffins had the ship continually rolling, with the engines alternating getting hot as they passed through a position of about 8 o'clock if you viewed the ship from the front. It was a mystery why this one spot got hot when the corresponding 4 o'clock position didn't.

However, despite the rolling, the engines got hotter and hotter with each pass through the "hot zone" with each revolution. Eventually, at about 35km, all 3 engines exploded simultaneously.

But that was all that blew up. At this point, the remains of the ship started slowing down and the flames started dying. By about 20km, the flames turned to shockwaves and then even that was gone at 18km. Just slightly more than half of the heatshield remained. From there on, the ship just fell slower and slower, parts of it still glowing faintly from the intense heat. It eventually fell into the ocean at 90m/s and was totally destroyed.

And the game crashed, so I decided this was a good place to quit.

All in all, with 100% heat, things are quite tricky at Eve.

Edited July 28, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

Great report, really valuable data! And disappointing...I could live with not being able to aerocapture from escape velocity, but once in an orbit it seems one should be able to aerobrake a stock ship around a stock planet using the stock heat shields and stock radiators.

[Geschosskopf]

Great report, really valuable data! And disappointing...I could live with not being able to aerocapture from escape velocity, but once in an orbit it seems one should be able to aerobrake a stock ship around a stock planet using the stock heat shields and stock radiators.

Things with heat and atmospheres are just borked in general. Like for instance that one ship getting hot for no reason while others did not. I have a feeling this is directly linked to the service bay, with which I've had problems before. I recommend not using them.

On the aerobraking, I didn't use any airbrakes That might well have made the process effective. But I forgot to put them on these ships, still not even thinking they might now be necessary. It's just a sign of the generally hosed nature of non-Kerbin air. It's so thick you can't touch it any real speed without exploding, but so thin it doesn't slow you when you're at survivable altitudes. So you then need engines and/or airbrakes to get any good out of it, even then you still can't aerocapture without getting ridiculous on heatshields.

I was most surprised at the way the radial nukes blew up while the slanty nosecones I used to attach them survived the ordeal. That doesn't seem right, either.

But still, capturing at Eve on thrust alone isn't that big a hardship, at least for small ships where a couple thousand more dV doesn't make the thing unwieldy. It becomes more of a problem for anything of substance.

Which brings us to the issue of landing. The heatshields are certainly up to the task but nothing else seems to be. This presents some annoying challenges for ship design. And the apparent need for retrothrust and/or airbrakes during the descent makes landing on a specific point rather difficult.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 8: Kerbin Interlude

With the 1st Eve Flotilla all taken care of, there was a lull at the OTC while the Boffins designed and tested stuff to satisfy lucrative contracts whose transfer windows were still a long way out. The 1st thing they did was launch the SEPTIC (Special Eve Platform Towards Income Creation), a space station for Eve that would eventually net about $1.2 million profit when it gets there.

This beast required the 1st use of the 5m Space-Y parts and weighed about 850 tons on the pad. The main point of interest is that its transfer stage uses 2 of Porkjet's Atomic Age "Nuclear Lightbulb" engines, which combine high thrust with high Isp but produce ungodly amounts of heat. Hence, the huge radiators.

The above pic was taken just after a burn of about 500m/s to ellongate its parking orbit. The burn was incredibly wobbly which at first was blamed on the deployed radiators. Retracting them helped some but then the heat got uncomfortable. Turns out the HUGE amount of gimbal in these engines was also to blame, so that's now been disabled.

After this, several new and unremunerative contracts were offered. This was the pick of the litter. Res ipsa loquatur .

However, the boffins did already have several contracts involving Duna and Ike. Besides the aforementioned MagSat mission to Ike, there were also contracts for an Ike flyby and return, the remaining part of explore Duna, plant a flag on Duna, and extract 500 units of Ore from Duna (without having to take it anywhere). Between them, these contracts all pay about $4 million and at last pay the OTC to do something feasible and useful with Ore and kiickstarting a colony the Boffins wanted to build anyway.

So first they designed the ore-extracting lander, simply and unimaginatively called the DUMB (DUna Mining Base). This thing will fuel the expedition's Duna-side operations and remain behind as a permanent base.

The expedition will also include the DORK (Duna Observation and Recon Kite), a fuelcell-powered electric-engined airplane for long-distance exploration. It's shown below during rigorous testing on Kerbin, ascertaining its STOL performance and assessing its ability to operate in rough terrain in the dark. And of course to snag a quick $170K from a biological survey contract .

After this successful operation, the DORK underwent simulated testing on Duna, where it was found to fly MUCH better than on Kerbin. On Kerbin, it was slow, barely able to reach 90m/s, and had difficulty getting above about 10km. On Duna, however, it was able to reach 1000m/s and suborbital trajectories. If it had a just little bit of rocket on it, it could be an SSTO. Not bad for a prop job, eh? And it still retainied nice STOL characteristics for rough-field landings. Plus, the fuel cells are economical enough to allow it to circumnavigate Duna multiple times on a single FL-T400 tank, at least if it can supercruise at 20km and 500m/s. This is why I closed the Flying Duna challenge

I was about to comment on the easiness of Duna's atmosphere but I just realized that the sandbox game I was testing this in has only 20% reentry heat, so I'll have to test reentry again at the 100% of the real game. But I doubt that will make any difference. The DORK wasn't even getting mach effects, let alone heat, when it was zipping along.

Anyway, getting the DORK off the ground proved a bit challenging but the Boffins remembered how they did the Dual FOOL back in '102 and applied a similar solution to the DORK. It worked but I'll show you that when I launch the real thing, which does need a few tweaks still, besides more testing. But it's like 60 days before it needs to leave so I've got plenty of time.

In other news, the SENTINEL has been reporting the occasional asteroid meeting the contract criteria (D-Class "threatening Kerbin"). I think it's now found 3 such things, about one every 2-3 weeks. This SENTINEL is a bit of a bother because you have to keep it oriented facing away from the sun. It's unique in the game like that and really highlights how annoying it is there's no function to maintain facing about the galactic N-S axis. So what I have to do is create alarms for it every week or so and manually correct its facing. Given the slow rate of finding suitable asteroids, I was tempted to launch a few more SENTINELs to speed the process up, but then all I'd be able to do in the game is continually adjust them, so no to that. I looked at the Persistent Rotation mod which solves this problem, but it also does a lot of other stuff I either don't understand or would rather not have to deal with, so I guess I'm stuck doing this the old-fashioned way.

Anyway, tune in next time for something hopefully more exciting.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[B-STRK]

Very interested to see how the DORK works out! I'm considering the same thing (only with US fuel cells rather than stock), although the ducted fans from the USI Explorer Pack produce ungodly amounts of heat (which is kinda weird for a ducted fan that runs on electricity, even considering that electric motors do generate heat, but the heat production on it's as though it were a small rocket), and I'm still on the fence about Firespitter's electric props.

Your props seem to be KAX, right? Do they have a new EC nose-mount prop, and how does it compare?

[Mister Dilsby]

Looks like you came back recharged and uneaten from vacation, it's been one great update after another! Can't tell you how much I love the explosion shots, I may have to install TAC for that reason alone...Duna I think is becoming everyone's favorite vacation spot after Minmus, the atmosphere is thin enough not to awaken the mighty beast of V-to-the-fourth-power turbulent convective heat transfer on capture.

[Geschosskopf]

Very interested to see how the DORK works out! I'm considering the same thing (only with US fuel cells rather than stock), although the ducted fans from the USI Explorer Pack produce ungodly amounts of heat (which is kinda weird for a ducted fan that runs on electricity, even considering that electric motors do generate heat, but the heat production on it's as though it were a small rocket), and I'm still on the fence about Firespitter's electric props.

Your props seem to be KAX, right? Do they have a new EC nose-mount prop, and how does it compare?

I use Firespitter, not KAX. I don't think KAX has electric props but if it does, I might consider switching because Firespitter is a bit questionable at present. Its main dll is required by a lot of other mods (and has some great modules in it that can be applied to stock parts via ModuleManager), so the dll has been updated to 1.0.4 (I think by Roverdude). However, Snjo, the original author, hasn't had the time to bring all the many parts in the mod up to 1.x standards, although some, like the electric props, apparently have been. So what I do is get Firespitter for the dll and only use a few parts from it: a cockpit, a 2-seat 1.25m crew cabin, a tailwheel, the seaplane pontoons, the electric prop, and an info pop-up part for notes, such as reminding me which action group does what. The latter is especially important for complicated vehicles with lots of action groups but which might go weeks of real time between launching them and using them at their destination.

The Firespitter electrc props have always produced heat but at the same time have a unique (and rather nifty) air-cooling mechanism built in. Each engine consumes not only EC but also a resource called "FScoolant". FScoolant is created from the atmosphere via an intake integral to the engine, so the rate of FScoolant production works like IntakeAir for jets--a function of atmospheric density, intake area, and speed. Prior to 1.0, the electric props would just flame out like jets if they got too high and too slow. Now, however, the engine will keep running on EC alone, but without FScoolant it will get very hot. Usually it won't itself explode, just eventually shut down from overheating, but it can cause whatever it's mounted on to explode before then .

All this works quite well on Kerbin and Eve in terms of limiting the engine's performance. However, this engine REALLY likes conditions on Duna. The gravity is low, the air is thick enough for a moderate amount of wing to fly in it without much thrust but thin enough not to slow the plane down. Because of this, the electric prop can get moving fast enough to keep itself supplied with FScoolant even above 30km (of course, the air is too thick up there these days, which is a factor). A happy coincidence for Duna explorers .

Looks like you came back recharged and uneaten from vacation, it's been one great update after another! Can't tell you how much I love the explosion shots, I may have to install TAC for that reason alone...Duna I think is becoming everyone's favorite vacation spot after Minmus, the atmosphere is thin enough not to awaken the mighty beast of V-to-the-fourth-power turbulent convective heat transfer on capture.

Thanks . Getting eaten was always in my mind.

Like when this 10-footer got up under the cabin just as we were about to go down there, too, to launch our boats.

For scale, the piling to the right is about 14-16" in diameter and my foot is right at 1 foot long.

When we got down on the ground, he backed off and went to bottom and we paddled out right over him, then left the area quickly . That's really not as dangerous as it sounds. Because gators are cold-blooded, they can hold their breath forever and the food of a given area can support a much larger population of really big predators than with warm-blooded critters. So as a general rule, when paddling in Lousy Anna, for every cocodrie you see on the surface at a distance, there are probably 10 more right under you. All the time. So what's the difference when you know you're paddling over one? Fortunately, people hereabouts eat way more gators than gators eat people, and they know this so usually try to stay away. But of course it only takes 1 with a different attitude to ruin your day .

Anyway, Duna is sheer paradise when it comes to flying and rocketry. All the things in the current game system intended to make atmospheres more difficult somehow come together at Duna to create the exact opposite effect. I wonder how long that will last?

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 9: Odds and Ends

Back on Kerbin, the Boffins were very busy designing and testing the 2nd Duna Expedition (the 1st trip was a Flotilla and I number things by the trip). However, the Duna transfer window was quite a ways off and there were many other ships going hither and yon that also needed attention. Plus, much confusion was caused by switching from the Traditional (365x 24-hr days) to the New Calendar (426x 6-hr days). This latter was caused by the refusal of the life support systems to work under the Traditional Calendar. So suddenly it was now the middle of Year 3 instead of near the end of Year 1, and all the dates for doing various things now had huge numbers of days, sometimes even years, before they would occur. However, the Boffins eventually managed to deal with this, get on with their work, and tie up a bunch of loose ends. Some of these loose ends were fairly significant, however, so will be described in some detail.

First off, though, the Boffins finally declared the DORK ready for service and rolled it out for a press conference. It was a rare instance of cooperation between the Boffins and the Scientists.

Test pilots Valentina and Lagertrix (= "beer woman", a great name) showed off the various features.

The beast is powered by 2 six-pack fuel cells on an FL-T400 tank in the cargo bay, all other tanks being empty. The top and bottom are studded with all the small science instruments and antennae of variouis capabilities. It can also prospect for Ore and a wide variety of other resources that might be needed by any future large-scale colony. It can carry 6 Kerbals with life support for 61 days (or 181 days for just 2) and carries a variety of KAS/KIS tools and pipe thingies in the cockpit. The passenger seats all have a survival kit of an extra EVA fuel tank and a small ration pack. The DORK will be lifted to LKO and then docked with a transfer tug for the trip to DUna.

But then it was time to deal with SCANsat Moho. As you may recall, this had launched with the 1st Eve Flotilla and done a retrograde flyby of Eve, which had dropped its Pe to near Moho's orbit and its Ap to the vicinity of Eve, while also getting it "kinda" into Moho's plane. This had required about 1500m/s. Now, as it reached its ascending node with Moho, it required another 1400 to match planes.

Shortly thereafter, it did another burn to get a Moho intercept. Not knowing what sort of burn would be required to capture at this encounter, the Boffins aimed for a very low-altitude retrograde pass, thinking they might need to do this several times until the capture burn was feasible. Setting up the initial encounter cost 470m/s

But when SCANsat Moho arrived, it turned out that it only needed 1900m/s to capture at the desired Ap, so first it burned another 100m/s to give it a polar orbit. Thus, total cost to capture was 2000m/s.

So, 1500 to go by Eve, 1400 to match planes, 470 to get an encounter, and 2000 to capture. Total: 5370m/s from LKO to LMO, and a travel time of 1 year, 253 days (426x 6-hr year). The transfer stage still had 520m/s left in the tank. The dV Map shows 4120m/s for this trip which I have never been able to figure out. This 5370 trip is by far my best to date. The Boffins were quite proud of this achievement and immediately began getting seriously drunk .

But the fuel situation wasn't the only concern on this mission, the other was the heat from Kerbol just a stone's throw away.

I'm now using the HotSpot mod which changes the F11 temperature color overlay to make it WAY more useful. With this mod, yellow is about 1/2way to maxTemp instead of just about to explode. Anyway, the 3-minute capture burn got most of the ship warm, besides the intense sunlight. However, after a few minutes, the radiators cooled everything down to a comfortable 700-odd degrees. All the part thermometers went away except for some on the more delicate instruments, but the temperature did stabilize at a survivable level. The Boffins were quite glad they'd put radiators on the ship, and were also glad that the transfer stage was still attached as it had 2 more radiators that the probe alone wouldn't have.

And just as the Boffins were congratulating themselves over the success of their gamble with SCANsat Moho, news arrived that the SENTINEL had completed its task. It only took a little over 2 years.

As time had been rolling along, the Boffins had noticed that the SENTINEL was finding the odd asteroid and when time had permitted, they'd tracked them. They missed about 1/3 of them, however, which never seem to have appeared on the map, or were there so briefly that they were gone by the time the Boffins got the warp slowed down.

Looking at those they did manage to track, the Boffins saw something interesting. They'd found a couple of short-period comets, one with an Ap between Jool and Eeloo and the other slightly beyond Eeloo. There was also a sundiver going from about Kerbin's orbit down to way inside Moho. But all the others were in more-or-less circular orbits about the size of Kerbin's, but inclined. And the really interesting thing was that they all, even the comets, crossed Kerbin's orbit at about the same place.

While all this had been going on, the 3 shps bound for the outer planets had all done their mid-course tweaks. Here we see the Jool COMMsat Carrier, Jool MagSat, and Eeloo COMMsat Carrier on their way. All still have long trips ahead of them.

And then, at long last, it was time to start DISCO from the 1st Duna Flotilla on its way home. Due to the aforementioned problem with the calendar, Ansen had not taken nearly enough supplies with him, and the last transmission received from him, about 80 days before, had been that his last month's worth had fallen out the airlock. Ansen had thus gone into food-deprived hibernation and had no ability to control the ship (USI-LS, not fatal). But he was, after all, just a science grad student, not a pilot, so DISCO had been equipped with a probe core to do all the flying anyway. The probe core wasn't at all hungry, thanks to several sources of power, and it duly sent DISCO on its way.

Thanks to the completion of the SENTINAL contract, the OTC now had over $11M in the bank. That was starting to get into the range for major colonial projects, remembering that they would have continuing expenses until (and if) they could be made self-sufficient. But all that would take a long time. For now, it was time to make the final preparations for the 2nd Duna Expedition.

Tune in next time to see that get on its way.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Geschosskopf

[B-STRK]

First, great to see the DORK up close and personal!

Second, I guess Lagertrix would not be the designated pilot for this craft?

Third, that is a lot of asteroids and comets? Does game performance take a hit with that many objects to track?

Great update! Although I would have to say that, for the love of kerbality, let's get some NOMS to Ansen! No Kerbal deserves to go hungry! Especially grad students! [source: personal experience]