A lady friend helping me with depression asked me "What's the point of KSP?" and heres my answer :)

[Goddess Bhavani]

Here's a very small cinematic: "Transmunar Injection" featuring the Primitive Orbital Station, because research facility upgrades are too expensive.

Background:

A lady friend helping me through depression asked me "What's the point of KSP?", to which I pondered throughout the day.

With video recording software in hand I went through the motions of performing a transmunar injection with my Primitive Orbital Station. 2 hours later I was armed with a selection of video clips that summarized what KSP really means to me: It's beauty in motion with a deep underlying layer of technical complexity that took my years to learn to appreciate.

(And no, I haven't upgraded the research facility, nor have I left Kerbin SOI

[TheSaint]

I need to upgrade my graphics card.

[Red Iron Crown]

Just beautiful.

[Kowgan]

This is beautiful. And all that without even leaving Kerbin SOI? You're awesome.

For me, the most fun moments in KSP are the EVA operations (with KIS/KAS). I guess I gotta start focusing more on that...

Thank you for sharing.

[Starhawk]

That is gorgeous.

Happy landings!

[Goddess Bhavani]

Thanks for the compliments!

I am toying with the idea of making the 'primitive orbital station' a series. The POS as shown in the video is carrying 2 mini landers to plant the first flags and footprints on the Mun, and the micro-shuttle is hitching a ride so it can be used to recover the crew of another micro-shuttle which made the mistake of trying to go too far into a polar orbit and promptly ran out of fuel.

With the profit from both Kerbin and Mun space station contracts, plus that of the Mun flag contract, I should be able to recoup funds spent on launching the POS, upgrade the research facility, and likely continue building around it with a science lab and proper sized docking ports.

Doing the TMI with junior ports was quite risky due to the possible degree of joint flexing between the ports. Thankfully I was able to use Kerbal Engineer to minimize thrust torque during the first big burn out of LKO. (nope, I don't get the 1.25m ports without upgrading the research facility!)

[Goddess Bhavani]

Pre-Weekend Update!

I managed to produce the third episode of my current Primitive Orbital Station series! It continues right where the 2nd episode (in the OP) left off, featuring a rescue mission using the micro shuttle, and deployment of the second mini lander.

At the same time I used the new "Merge" function in the VAB to assemble the Primitive Orbital Station complex, and uploaded it to Sketchfab with full annotations for all the modules / detachable craft shown in the videos.

[Tw1]

Very nice. I love the asymmetry of your station in that first shot. Using the remotetech? lines makes the orbit view shots look very techy. And that kerbal looks so happy!

I like seeing the change in lighting on the rocket- that kerbal got to spend some time on the Mun.

Good luck with the depression, that stuff sucks.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Red Iron Crown

[ColKlonk]

Some woman just don't get it !!

[Goddess Bhavani]

@Tw1

Thanks. The comms mod I'm using is AntennaRange, which recently added the pretty RemoteTech style lines RT seemed quite heavy on processing resources last time I used it in 0.90, and I'm pretty fine with the featureset of AR.

Things have been better in the Real Life universe lately, I finally got a job after venting my frustrations at staffing firms who sent me to nearly half a dozen interviews over the past 2 months - the majority of which I got along just fine with the hiring managers as they weren't very much older than myself. The reason for my unemployment frustrations is the staffing firms bickering with the employers over their commission and other petty squabbles. I got sick of being kicked around and have family responsibilities they are expected to understand; the industry I'm working in doesn't do a lot of direct hiring at the entry level thus I would 'remind' the recruiters their responsibility towards ensuring a stable income for me. Not their own commission.

It helped to get a perspective on the other side of the fence before I aired my dirty office politics; hiring managers are disappointed their HR staffing firms throw masses of applicants ill-suited for the job scope and expertise required!

My overseas friends residing in the US and UK are thankfully, really helpful understanding that frustration is related to anger and related to depression in some order or another. I used to study applied psychology in my spare time last year and I like to help people who are facing depression from relationship related issues as I used to have no end of problems with that in an earlier stage of life.

So that's how I've been managing - talking about the problem, helping others with the same problem, with a different cause, and they in turn help me by reminding me optimism can be useful sometimes

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

Anyhow back to the adventures in the small planet with little green astronauts: I've been having an obsession with turboramjets lately. A Facebook acquantance of mine started learning the arcane arts of Blender and produced some custom parts for KSP lately, so I started looking at supersonic transport aircraft. Coincidentially in the real world, the Airbus patent for a Mach 4+ jet/rocket propelled airliner is a trending topic this week.

Besides fitting in with my new workplace the other important thing this year is X-Com 2 scheduled for release this October. To which I paid homage to the truly excellent X-Com remakes from the past few years by seeing if the fat and stubby Skyranger can work in KSP. Despite a most humorous discussion in a KSP General Discussions thread over the obesity of this airframe, I had no issue at all borrowing a craft file from a KSP forumer, taking his design apart and re-engineering it over the course of a few hours, putting it back together into a Mach 3.5 capable intercontinental STOVL transport.

I could make it VTOL by cramming in a few more basic jet engines in the VTOL propulsion bays, but I wanted to illustrate VTOL is an expensive and wasteful capability when STOVL is much more reasonable - the more mass I expend in cramming in vertical propulsion, the less fuel and payload I can carry. And a Skyranger using conventional propulsion needs all the fuel it can carry racing across oceans to respond to extraterrestrial threats on a far off continent.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Episode 4 of the Primitive Orbital Station series.

Next episode. half the station will be detached to serve as a mothership for Minmus exploration, while the lab module remains in Munar orbit permanently as a research outpost / orbital tanker.

[Canberra Gaming]

Wow some amazing work there man! Thumbs up to you!

[Goddess Bhavani]

Thanks for the compliments

I will now be taking a break from the POS series, and work on a Kerbal Automotive Program. So far I've made / modified a 1989 Ford F-150 truck and constructed from scratch a sub-compact car that seats 4 astronauts. It will be fun to try and make a car ad or a Need for Speed style video.

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[Dman979]

First- you have a very nice lady friend. Instead of berating you about what a waste of time KSP is, she inspires you to build better ships. Nice.

Second- everything here is really impressive. Nice job!

[gordon_freeman]

Excellent video and boy do I need a new computer.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Thank you. I might continue with Ep5 this weekend.

[Esme]

Very nice work, Pandora's kitten! And good luck with beationg the depression. From personal experience, it CAN be beaten. I hope that happens sooner rather than later for you!

[MartGonzo]

Beautiful videos, thanks for the upload and hope you get better soon.

[Goddess Bhavani]

The career save with the primitive orbital station had languished for some time while I indulged in a sort of Kerbal Automotive Program. This changed when yesterday I discovered the name of a Facebook KSP group member in the persistence file itself, and posting about this on FB sparked a near-revolution in my Kerbal career. The names of the original crew on board the munar orbital laboratory complex were retained as "Jeb's Contingent", while the crew that stayed back at KSP to develop future aerospace craft were all renamed after I took "applications" for the kitten space program :3

We ran into difficulties as I ended up with the majority of people becoming Engineers due to the hard-coded Kerbal jobs (jobs are assigned based on the hash of the names!) so I took some creative liberties with a handful of folk - changing male names to female names, or naming the characters after the English translation of a Celtic name for instance, ended up giving me a near equal mix of pilots, grease monkeys and boffins, which I was happy with since I could now tag people when I flew them out on missions! <3

Yesterday night, Lemlur, chief of engineer and creator of awesome automotive wheels in the mod forum, piloted mission CCRV-4 atop the new R-8 rocket powered by a Twin Boar liquid booster at its core. Onboard are two scientists, Kyle (as Kylie Kerman) and Callum (as Dove Kerman) who will augment the munar orbital laboratory i.e. force it to spit out science faster.

They will also perform medical evacuation of a sick crew member (Useful Space Stations contract pack), conduct station maintenance and augment the lab module's life support supplies, then complete refuelling of Primitive Orbital Station - Module 1 and send it along with Jeb's Contingent to Minmus!

Once they arrived at the station, it was found to be suffering from intermittent power failures due to high current draw from the lab module; being launched with Tech Level 1, the Primitive Orbital Station was ill equipped to power a lab! Lemlur overhauled the entire station power infrastructure using the magic of Kerbal Attachment System / KIS hopefully providing a temporary fix to the issue by cramming the lab full of solar panels plus cannabalizing spares from POS-1 and the Crewed Cargo Return Vehicle itself (CCRV).

[flamerboy67664]

I am Alfonso Kerman. I applied in his Facebook post. What's my next mission, Chief of Kerbonaut Department?

[0111narwhalz]

Firstly, I must commend you for your music choice.

Secondly, you make some beautiful cinematics and ships.

And thirdly, you have good friends.

[Commander Jebidiah]

Kylie kerman, hmm... thats me oh well suppose you cant have everything your way. Nice videos.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Kylie kerman, hmm... thats me oh well suppose you cant have everything your way. Nice videos.

At first I named the whole crew "correctly" based on Facebook names or requests, but I realized later, everyone was assigned as Engineers with no way to change the profession in Persistence file. Without resorting to complete overhaul mods for the Astronaut Complex, I took "creative liberties".

Speaking of creative liberties, I just secured a voice actor for Primitive Orbital Station Episode 5: Cycler Orbit to Minmus!

POS-1 with its surrogate mini landers swing back to Kerbin for a gravity assist, and pick up the OS-4 Minmus Surface Laboratory facility just before reboosting for Minmus intercept.

It is manned by Alfonso, James, and Tommy. Tommy was supposed to be a pilot, but alas his name hash led to a change of career.

This is my first ever ship that looks like a sci fi spaceship and I promtly named it Space Sheep

It's also modeled after the shape of one of my little taxidermy sheep!

[Goddess Bhavani]

Hi guys!

Episode 5 of Primitive Orbital Station is out, featuring a test of the Aldrin Cycler Orbit mission concept. Valuable experience gained from the outbound flight to Minmus, and future mission plans using the same type of orbit, are documented here.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Kerbals love Minmus!