TAU - A not-really-stock-anymore career

[Goomblah]

A few months back, the sandbox save I was playing on suffered a series of problems that led to me abandoning it. I had realized that my rocket-building skills had grown far beyond what I had accomplished during that sandbox save, and after installing MechJeb and KER, I found that all of my spacecraft were hopelessly outclassed by the newer, better vehicles that I was now creating. There also really wasn't any challenge to sandbox now that I actually knew what I was doing, so after a series of kraken attacks obliterated much of my fleet, I decided to move on to a new career save.

Skipping ahead to the present, Tangent Aerospace Unlimited has reached endgame, with the entire tech tree unlocked. I've sent probes to almost every body in the Kerbol system, but I've only sent manned missions to Duna, Minmus, and the Mun. Most of my kerbals are poorly trained, and only a handful have even left Kerbin's SOI. Naturally, I'm going to fix these problems with several big missions to thoroughly explore the Kerbol system with manned spacecraft.

The mods I am using for this save:

KER

MechJeb

KIS

KAS

Chatterer

KAC

Tweakscale

Extraplanetary Launchpads

Firespitter

KAX

Mk2 Expansion

Mk IV Spaceplane System

USI Nuclear Propulsion

Crowd Sourced Science

Extraplanetary Launchpads

But I'm sure that you are here for cool spaceships, not walls of text, so here are some pictures and stats:

Space Stations

Kerbin Gateway Station

My primary base of operations, the Kerbin Gateway Station provides refueling services for outbound spacecraft, and provides living quarters for crew awaiting their next mission. C-class asteroid Tuktuk is docked to the station, and has been completely mined out for fuel.

Crucible

An orbital shipyard, courtesy of Extraplanetary Launchpads. It gets its ore mostly from the captured E-class asteroid Slobad, which is then converted into spacecraft and fuel.

Slobad

An E-class asteroid, put into a rather sloppy orbit around Minmus. Slobad originally weighed over 3000 tons, but has been slowly whittled away by the tugs that brought it to Minmus and Crucible operations. At present it still weighs over 2200 tons.

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Large Spacecraft

Emerald

Originally intended for Grand Tour operations, Emerald was repurposed and renamed for Joolian exploration. Emerald weighs 420t and has 393 parts; it consists of a core module with a science lab, passenger module, and ISRU; an engine module with 18 NERVs and one Rhino; a docking module with two Klaw tugs and a Tylo lander, as well as two mining units to refuel the ship while landed. Yes, that's right - the whole thing can safely land on any airless body but Tylo, detach the miners, refuel, and then reach orbit again. dV numbers vary a bit based on payload and fuel mix (the Rhino provides a nice TWR boost when needed, at the cost of dV), but my calculations put the range at about 5.2km/s max. ISRU allows for refueling on any airless body but Tylo, though, so as long as Emerald can make it to a suitable moon, its range is infinite.

ICT-03 Exogenesis

The spiritual successor to the Atlas and Heron from my Sandbox save, Exogenesis is a big cargo carrier made mostly out of spaceplane parts, courtesy of Nertea's Mk IV Spaceplane System. The idea is to allow for safer aerobraking and reduced payload wobbling by holding everything internally rather than using exposed trusses and such. Exogenesis uses 20 nuclear engines - 16 NERVs and 4 Pluto engines (pretty much NERV * 1.33) from SuicidalInsanity's Mk2 Expansion. TWR is pretty good for nukes, and everything is geared towards a 120t payload, though it's probably capable of hauling around 250t. With 120t and full tanks, TWR is about .25g, which is my standard for nuclear interplanetary craft. dV is "a lot" - I would have work it out myself because some of the fuel tanks are kind of buggy and screw up the KER and MJ readings. It should be in the 5.5km/s range, though.

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SSTO Spaceplanes

Peregrine XL

The Peregrine XL is the result of me realizing that you really don't need 2 RAPIERs to get a single Kerbal to orbit. I took the tried-and-true Peregrine platform from my Sandbox save and started tweaking it to make it more practical, with more payload, while still keeping it easy and fun to fly. The end product has been the workhorse of my space program since the moment I unlocked RAPIERs (which was surprisingly early, because I focused on spaceplane research). It only carries four kerbals and about 3-4 tons to orbit, but thanks to miniaturization efforts by R&D, I can get a lot done with that. A good flight profile will get it to orbit without touching the forward LF+OX tank at all, giving the Peregrine XL 560m/s dV in an 80x80 orbit. Standard payload for the Peregrine XL consists of a small satellite with some science experiments and 3km/s dV, and a Duna-capable 4-kerbal lander (External command seats, yay!). To extend its range beyond LKO, the Peregrine can dock with a booster module (basically a LF tank with 2 NERVs on it) that gives it 4.5km/s extra dV. The Peregrine XL is really useful for transferring crew, completing kerbal rescue contracts, and deploying satellites and small probes for contracts. It's also very safe on descent - all heating issues have been worked out, it glides nicely, is stable with or without fuel and payload, glides well, and, in an emergency, has airbrakes and drogue chutes that ensure that the payload and crew survive the landing. The nose may get smashed up, but that's preferable to losing expensive science equipment or personnel.

I do have other SSTOs (including some heavy lifters and a SSTM), but I'm having kraken issues and technical difficulties with some of them, so I won't post them here until I can figure out what's wrong.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Goomblah

[CAKE99]

Can you add a download for the save and crafts?

And do you have screenshots of the missions?

Also those are really good spacecraft, +rep.

[Goomblah]

Yeah, I can provide downloads. My launchers are garbage, though, and I tend to do things rather haphazardly, so the save and .crafts will need some tidying up before I show the world how bad I am at building heavy-lift rockets...

I'm actually just about to start up the Jool missions, which is why I made this thread to show off my progress; I'll probably start things off by covering my final preparations for the mission - mostly shuffling kerbals around and topping off fuel tanks.

[Generalstarwars333]

YAY! Keep up the good work and pictures! I would give you rep, but it won't let me. It says I need to spread it around before giving it to you again...

[Goomblah]

I've been running very low on funds lately, due mostly to the extremely expensive spaceships I've launched lately (Exogenesis alone cost over 1m funds) and the crew I need to run all the mining equipment and EPL workshops. However, that same EPL and mining hardware gives me an easy way to get absurd amounts of funds with relative ease. I told my engineers to build lots and lots of RTGs, then ship them back to Kerbin for tons of money.

Each one of these pods is worth 900k, and I built three.

Sadly, only one actually survived landing; the design only has enough parachutes to land safely in water if the fuel tank is completely empty; the first pod had half its tank left upon crashing. The second one splashed down without a hitch:

The third one was set to land, but got cut in half by the Kraken about 450m above the surface. Explosions ensued

The one pod that made it was still a LOT of money, though, so I now have quite a bit of wiggle room if I need to launch a few emergency missions.

The main reason I needed so much money quickly, though, is because an Eeloo window is in 45 days, with the Jool window coming fairly soon afterwards. I would like to send off an Eeloo mission as soon as possible, since I have a contract for exploring Eeloo taking up space, and the extremely long travel time will then be broken up by several other missions reaching their destination.

Crucible also finished up a shiny new fuel lifter - the old model didn't carry enough LF or monoprop to keep up with demand, so a bigger version with much stronger RCS (another problem with the old one) was commissioned to replace it.

Pink exhaust, pretty!

Leti Kerman hooks up the fuel hauler to the mining base:

Next up: Expand the mining base's power generation capacity, add more drills, and launch the Eeloo mission!

Edited October 20, 2015 by Goomblah

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Nice! You going for a Jool 5 in this? Also, that SSTO you got looks beautiful!

-SPAddict

P.S: A career game? You have patience.

[Goomblah]

I launched the Eeloo probes and rover:

Sadly, the Eeloo window would require me to burn way out to Eeloo's apoapsis, so I've decided that the mission will be delayed a few years to wait for a less costly window.

I also did a crew transfer mission over to Exogenesis, which I used as a trial run to properly write out a tutorial for using the Peregrine XL.

Poking around Exogenesis on the night side of a planet is pretty creepy:

(being in an unlit cargo bay also helps)

Looking inside the Klaw tug holding bay:

Sadly, there was a problem during landing which damaged the SSTO, through no fault of its own - I got the pesky "collided into launchpad/VAB" bug while I was slowing down on the runway. It knocked off one of the wing strakes and part of the right-side engine column, but the rest of the plane was just fine.

Edited October 20, 2015 by Goomblah

[Generalstarwars333]

YAY! also, the crucible can make stuff in space! woah! from scratch? does stuff have to be shipped up?