Forgotten Space Program

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Glad to see you have an asteroid station! I want one too....
*Determination.

Edited April 28, 2016 by SpaceplaneAddict

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Glad to see you have an asteroid station! I want one too....

That's an asteroid station almost three years in the making.  (Baile Speir launched in July 2013.) 

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Cydonian Monk]

First the bad news. I've been unable to get anything related to this save to work for the last three days, and I suspect the docking bug I encountered at Kelgee Station is partly to blame. (Which was possibly caused by Hullcam? Some reports in that thread are identical to the issue I'm seeing, though none of my 1.0.5 mods have been updated since December or January. Meaning it's possibly something else, or an old bug?) I'm getting endless NullRefs, and it happens for this save in both 1.0.5 and 1.1.0. 

I tried to launch what would have become the Sulphur 5 LDAV tonight (first piece of the Jool mission), but it took it 30 minutes to reach 10km above the launchpad and 2 minutes into flight. That's beyond unplayable.

Something somewhere is in really bad shape.

The good news is I keep my saves backed up / sym-linked on Dropbox. So finding an autosave from before the Sulphur 4 docked with Kelgee is easy, provided I get it sometime in the next 12 months. And that's what I did. Found one that was about 30 seconds before the dock.

The really bad news is - That didn't work. At all.

So now I'm back where I was this evening, with a game that hasn't changed since January that suddenly NREs itself to sleep. I'm going to check my Dropbox backups of my GameData folder to see if something changed when I didn't want it to. Maybe try a slightly older save to restore from, just in case loading Kelgee was what broke it. Maybe it's something else entirely, such as a mod/plugin downloading its version-check file that then corrupted itself (though I think Kerbal Alarm Clock is the only mod I'm using that still does evil stuff like that). 

More than likely this means I'm going to push into 1.1.0 (or 1.1.1) before launching the Jool mission. Which is sooner than I wanted, but…. well…. whatever. First I have to figure out what’s so upset at me first.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Kiwa]

3 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

More than likely this means I'm going to push into 1.1.0 (or 1.1.1) before launching the Jool mission.

In that case you might want to go back to a save before docking Baile Speir with the asteriod, or at least copy-paste your asteroid (The Cajun Moon) into a 1.1 test save and check that the Klaws are still attached at the surface where you expect them to be. And even if they are, better to disarm and redock the Klaws. I did have a serious number of phantom force Kraken incidents with old (2014) asteroid vessels even in vanilla 32-bit 1.0.x, not sure about NREs; and any switch between 32 and 64 bit is just breaks them for good (for example if you docked the Klaws to Cajun in 32 bit, they are definitely broken in a 64 bit environment, even if not immediately obvious).

[Cydonian Monk]

As we've just officially crossed over the 25,000 views mark for this thread I wanted to give a shout-out to all of you. Thanks for hanging around. (Have no idea as to the actual view count, as a forum glitch kept it pegged at zero through most of December.) We're presently at 85 named sections spread over 45 posts, covering 84 launches and 7 flights. (Or 9 flights if you include the two orbital Aluminium tests.)

 

 

7 hours ago, Kiwa said:

In that case you might want to go back to a save before docking Baile Speir with the asteriod, or at least copy-paste your asteroid (The Cajun Moon) into a 1.1 test save and check that the Klaws are still attached at the surface where you expect them to be.....

Oh, I've been in a 64-bit environment for some time now.... Pretty much for this entire playthrough. Though the suggestion that the claws behave differently between 32-bit and 64-bit seems like a touch of madness. Not that _I_ don't believe you, but the programmer living inside my head is screaming. Or maybe crying. The claws are all glitchy enough that it's probably true.

The claws/anchors on the Cajun Moon were re-grabbed offscreen before I docked the station up, and they seemed to be ok in 1.1.0 before the save got nibbled on by the Great Powers. I'll certainly be checking saves from before that asteroid docking.

Based on logs the issue seems to be several of the mods/plugins failing to draw their menu icons in the SpaceCenter and Flight scenes causing a failure cascade, which also makes zero sense. (I still suspect a glitched craft or a glitched part.)

I've already ruled out glitched contracts and missing agencies, FWIW. Those tend to produce different bugs.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[RocketSquid]

6 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Oh, I've been in a 64-bit environment for some time now.... Pretty much for this entire playthrough. Though the suggestion that the claws behave differently between 32-bit and 64-bit seems like a touch of madness. Not that _I_ don't believe you, but the programmer living inside my head is screaming. Or maybe crying. The claws are all glitchy enough that it's probably true.

It's not the claws, but the asteroid itself. Asteroids use pseudo-random numbers to generate their surfaces, and those will change between 32- and 64-bit.

[Just Jim]

11 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

First the bad news. I've been unable to get anything related to this save to work for the last three days, and I suspect the docking bug I encountered at Kelgee Station is partly to blame. (Which was possibly caused by Hullcam? Some reports in that thread are identical to the issue I'm seeing, though none of my 1.0.5 mods have been updated since December or January. Meaning it's possibly something else, or an old bug?) I'm getting endless NullRefs, and it happens for this save in both 1.0.5 and 1.1.0. 

I tried to launch what would have become the Sulphur 5 LDAV tonight (first piece of the Jool mission), but it took it 30 minutes to reach 10km above the launchpad and 2 minutes into flight. That's beyond unplayable.

Something somewhere is in really bad shape.

The good news is I keep my saves backed up / sym-linked on Dropbox. So finding an autosave from before the Sulphur 4 docked with Kelgee is easy, provided I get it sometime in the next 12 months. And that's what I did. Found one that was about 30 seconds before the dock.

The really bad news is - That didn't work. At all.

So now I'm back where I was this evening, with a game that hasn't changed since January that suddenly NREs itself to sleep. I'm going to check my Dropbox backups of my GameData folder to see if something changed when I didn't want it to. Maybe try a slightly older save to restore from, just in case loading Kelgee was what broke it. Maybe it's something else entirely, such as a mod/plugin downloading its version-check file that then corrupted itself (though I think Kerbal Alarm Clock is the only mod I'm using that still does evil stuff like that). 

More than likely this means I'm going to push into 1.1.0 (or 1.1.1) before launching the Jool mission. Which is sooner than I wanted, but…. well…. whatever. First I have to figure out what’s so upset at me first.

Oh man, that sucks!!!  

I hope you find and fix it soon!!!

[Cydonian Monk]

6 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

It's not the claws, but the asteroid itself. Asteroids use pseudo-random numbers to generate their surfaces, and those will change between 32- and 64-bit.

Ok, that makes sense. I'd like to think they're somewhat deterministic given the seeds don't change, but after what I've seen professionally working with audio files I know those surface generating routines probably have different outcomes even from 64-bit to 64-bit. 

Edited April 28, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[Cydonian Monk]

On April 28, 2016 at 11:13 AM, Just Jim said:

Oh man, that sucks!!!  

I hope you find and fix it soon!!!

Found it!

The culprit here makes no sense, but I did find it. (Actually part of it makes sense, and was an issue I was aware of, but... I'll explain.)

The issue turned out to be six flags (over Texas?): Five that use an old (prefix) system of mine involving parenthesis (that causes a pretty severe bug seemingly at random), and a rogue, sixth flag. One of the prefix flags was in front of the VAB "(FSK) Bob's Return" marking the return of part of my first Duna mission, two were on the island with the abandoned runway: "(ILX) East End / (ILX) West End", one more marked the return of the first part of my first Duna mission "(FSK) Dunan-X Landing". The fifth of these prefix flags was on the far side of the planet, or at least should've been, but oddly was marked as having landed at nowhere. Empty string. "(FSK) Munrock Debris." I deleted all five of these flags, especially the one that was landed at "" and orbiting NULL.

The sixth flag, placed behind the VAB, was causing issues for no discernible reason. So I deleted it too. This was the one that took some time to find, as I had to basically delete half the save (breaking at VESSEL nodes, mind you), see if it fixed it, delete half of the bad part, wash, rinse, repeat, until only one entry is causing an issue... which is a slow prospect when you're talking about a 50MB text file.

Why these just now became an issue is beyond my comprehension.

 

With that issue now resolved I took a look at KSP v1.1.1. I launched 3 test ships. I crashed 3 ships. They each rattled themselves apart before they made it above 30km. Phantom force bug. Violent one at that. Nothing particularly weird in the construction, just a basic stock Saturn V. So we're going to keep trucking with KSP v1.0.5 until KSP v1.1.2 or KSP v1.2.9 or maybe even KSP v2.0.0 gets released. Or at least until I get this Jool mission underway.

Oh, and there's this awesome-looking shadows bug with either Scatterer or EVE or Distant Object Enhancement or Planet Shine or.......... something:

I also discovered that in KSP v1.1.1 Jebediah can walk on water. So there's that.

We'll be back to our regularly unscheduled updates sometime tomorrow. I think.

[cubinator]

The shadow thing is Scatterer. Turn off godrays in the main menu and it'll go away. I would also turn off "draw atmo over EVE clouds" too, it seems to cause a weird glitch involving half the screen being tinted blue when high over Kerbin. The eclipse thing is really cool though!

[Cydonian Monk]

7 minutes ago, cubinator said:

The shadow thing is Scatterer. Turn off godrays in the main menu and it'll go away.

Excellent, thanks. I'll tweak with Scatterer's settings next time I'm in 1.1.x. Looks amazing, but given it's still in development I'm not too shocked to see the occasional bug.

[RocketSquid]

8 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

With that issue now resolved I took a look at KSP v1.1.1. I launched 3 test ships. I crashed 3 ships. They each rattled themselves apart before they made it above 30km. Phantom force bug. Violent one at that. Nothing particularly weird in the construction, just a basic stock Saturn V. So we're going to keep trucking with KSP v1.0.5 until KSP v1.1.2 or KSP v1.2.9 or maybe even KSP v2.0.0 gets released. Or at least until I get this Jool mission underway.

Oh dear. I just finished getting everything updated to 1.1.1

[Cydonian Monk]

5 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Oh dear. I just finished getting everything updated to 1.1.1

Now you get to update everything to v1.1.2.  Haven't checked yet to see if rattle-bug is still a thing or not. Suspect it might be fixed based on v1.1.2 release notes.

[Just Jim]

5 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Now you get to update everything to v1.1.2.  Haven't checked yet to see if rattle-bug is still a thing or not. Suspect it might be fixed based on v1.1.2 release notes.

I don't know about that one, but it seems to have fixed some more of the landing gear problems!  

[RocketSquid]

3 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Now you get to update everything to v1.1.2.  Haven't checked yet to see if rattle-bug is still a thing or not. Suspect it might be fixed based on v1.1.2 release notes.

The good news is that 1.1.2 isn't modbreaking, so I can just continue blindly onward using my already-established patchwork of pre-releases, community hacks, and "doesn't actually work but at least it doesn't break anything" mods. Of course, there actually aren't that many of those, just enough to be annoying.

[sal_vager]

Pinned for TOTM May @Cydonian Monk, congrats !

[Cydonian Monk]

1 minute ago, sal_vager said:

Pinned for TOTM May @Cydonian Monk, congrats !

Cool.  Now I'll never be able to find the thread.  (j/k)

Thanks!

[KAL 9000]

TOTM May! Congrats! (P.S. Sorry I haven't posted in a couple days, been on a trip and just got home last night).

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, sal_vager said:

Pinned for TOTM May @Cydonian Monk, congrats !

@Cydonian Monk you certainly deserve it, great work so far! 

[Mjp1050]

This really should be nominated for Thread of the Year... I haven't enjoyed a series so much since I read the Foundation series.

[Cydonian Monk]

7 minutes ago, Mjp1050 said:

This really should be nominated for Thread of the Year... I haven't enjoyed a series so much since I read the Foundation series.

High praise indeed! Thanks! (Just wait until The Mule shows up....)

[Cydonian Monk]

Familiar Voices

They were already waiting in The Boss's office when Macfred and Thomlock arrived, escorted by the OSI director. Gletrix and Agake were sitting at the conference table, as were a few other department heads and administrators that Macfred mostly recognized. The Boss was standing against the far wall, watching them as they entered. Gene and Wernher were conspicuously absent. They sat down next to their crew mates and The Boss wasted no time getting to the matter at hand. 

"We don't usually conduct formal debriefings." A long pause as the four of them were looked over. "Unfortunately this special situation has forced our hand."

Macfred knew what this was about, but asked anyway. "Special situation?"

"You lost a ship, and a rather expensive one at that." The Boss paced along the row of windows, watching the floor and oft glancing over to glare at them. "Now we're scrambling to put together a ship to keep you alive long enough to reach Jool. Thankfully we'd budgeted for a science station, surprise, otherwise you'd be waiting for the next launch window." Pacing having worn thin, The Boss sat down opposite Macfred. 

"Given the circumstances there wasn't anything you could've done differently. It's entirely out of character for us kerbals to act in such a deceptive manner, so I doubt anyone else would've caught on to his ruse either." The Boss waved a hand towards one of the department heads "And from what we've discussed, we think the perpetrator may have simply cracked. He was in an impossible situation, forced to draw straws with his team mates. His friends. Who knows how we'd act after such a situation.

"And then there's the matter of finding and recovering the Memory of Tomorrow. This Hallock character could be anywhere, or could still be orbiting the Mün. So far he's been smart and hasn't switched on the radio. We're scanning for him of course, but with the upgrades to the tracking station incomplete and the large amount of junk out in space it might be some time before we find him. But we will find him. And when we do...." The Boss took a sip of water before continuing.

"Otherwise you four had a good trip. Wernher is busy finalizing the plans for a nuclear propulsion drive of some sort, and we've started building RTGs as fast as possible. Those you recovered from the Mün will still be useful of course, but now we can stop depending on scavenging for our survival in deep space. And Gene is making preparations as we speak for launching the LDAV.

"That's not really why we're here though." The Boss motioned towards the door and two kerbals walked in, carrying the equipment Macfred had brought back from the Mün. Shovel. Rocks. Banana in a sample container. More rocks. Data drive with the transcripts from the Pequoni 1 lander. The two tossed the junk on the table and left.

"I'm told you found something. Data from before, whispers from an old piece of hardware."

Macfred nodded and patted the top of the data drive. "First time I've seen anything like it. Everything else has been dead, no software, no notes, nothing but solid-state electronics. This...." He looked down at the small grey box. "Well, to be fair this is just one of the spare drives from the Sulphur 4. We left the original orbiting the Mün."

"So it worked..." The Boss looked at the box and then around the room. "We need to send a team up to conduct a detailed examination of the lander and its electronics. Something is different, we need to know what. And we need to do this sooner rather than later. The Jool Mission is still the top priority, but drop everything else." 

Nelrigh Kerman cleared his throat. As one of the newer kerbals from Gene's Mission Operations directorate he was largely responsible for crew scheduling. "We'll send Verly to take a look at it, and have Rozor and Elkin tag along to run some experiments. Should probably send one of the pilots along to gain experience too. Any suggestions, Thomlock?"

"Sure." The elder kerbal folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. "I think you should send The Boss along. Knows more about that lander than any of us."

The Boss glared at him. "How so?"

"Simple." He patted the data drive. "You're in these recordings. And as the lander only recorded things from the cabin or its own EVA suits, it's a good bet you were there. On the Mün." The room was quiet for a few moments until Thomlock offered more. "Come to think of it, a couple of the others in this room might just be a match for these recordings. Hmm?"

The Boss ignore Thomlock. "We'll send Mardi then. She's scheduled for the Dres mission and could use the experience. Meanwhile, Thomlock needs to have his hearing checked."

"I agree with him," Macfred interjected, motioning towards Thomlock. "What he says about the voices. Your's sounds remarkably like...."

"Both of you," The Boss waved at Macfred and Thomlock, "need to see the Flight Surgeon for your post-flight physical. Have the doc check your ears first. And that's the last we'll hear of it, ok? Anything else? No? Meeting dismissed. Let's get back to work." The Boss, Macfred and Thomlock stayed seated while everyone else filed quickly out of the room. No one seemed to object. Macfred waited until they were alone before continuing.

"What aren't you telling us?"

"Quite a few things. Nothing you need to know. Not yet."

"Why the rush to get to Jool? You know what's there, don't you."

The Boss stood and walked over to the window to stare blankly at the sky. "Not with any certainty. That's why we're sending a team. A Laythe lander. An aircraft. Extra supplies. Hallock isn't the only kerbal out there." A long moment's pause until The Boss turned to face them. "I've already told you too much. Go see the flight surgeon and get back to training for your mission. You'll get more information when the time is right."

--

Building Anticipation

The first piece of the Jool Mission to be launched following the loss of the Memory of Tomorrow was the Sulphur 5 LDAV. Intended to be the primary landing and return craft for the exploration of Laythe, the Laythe Descent / Ascent Vehicle was the single most important part of the mission. At 456 tonnes, the LDAV, its descent stage, mounting bracket, and its custom launch vehicle were the most massive things yet launched. 

The launch was executed perfectly by the onboard kOS flight computer. It was placed into a 80km parking orbit and left to await arrival of the rest of its mission stack.

To save on payload mass for the Jool mission, the upper stage of the LDAV was modified to include landing legs, as would normally be positioned for the Sulphur landers. The craft which became the Sulphur 4 had originally been intended to serve as the vacuum lander for the Jool mission. Rushing the S-4's construction to rescue the team from Pioneer Base meant it was unsuitable for the Jool mission and thus forced the compromise of the S-5.

So the LDAV would be used to land not only on Laythe, but on every body in the Jool system less massive than Tylo. (Provided it had enough fuel.) Of course the crew would need to land on Laythe first before visiting any of the other moons, which might affect the mission schedule a bit.

 

Next up was the Laythe Research Station, officially designated as Silicon 6. This small station features tightly-packed crew quarters for four kerbals, a single-kerbal lab area for conducting experiments, a bevy of science experiments strapped to the outside, power generation in the form of freshly-minted blutonium RTGs, and communications equipment sufficient for contacting Kerbin. Oh, and two KIS/KAS trunks full of supplies. And several extra docking ports, because you can never have too many. And a forward control structure (cockpit), brining the total crew capacity to 6.

Launched atop a standard-issue LV-07 Crescendo, the Si-6 was placed into a direct rendezvous with the Sulphur 5 LDAV. 

An adapter node was added to the nose of the Silicon 6, one end fitted for a standard docking port, the other for the large, tug-mooring docking port. While this would initially be used for docking to the LDAV, its true purpose was to allow them to use the upcoming tug to transport them back to Kerbin in any ship outfitted with only standard-sized ports.

The upper stage of the Si-6 was retained so that crews could later siphon off fuel into one of the later craft.

 

Those two craft, the S-5 LDAV and the Si-6, were expected to serve as the crew's ride out to the Green planet. Their ride back, however, was as of yet undecided. In the event of an emergency prior to the next transfer window to Jool (such as running out of cheese dip or corn chips), the crew could use the Sulphur 5 LDAV's upper stage as the crew return vehicle. It wouldn't provide much in the way of creature comforts, but it would be enough to keep them alive. 

That's assuming they could make it out to Jool in the first place. Moving them and their various craft to the jolly green giant would require a large tug with a drive section previously impossible to build or launch. One of the most expensive pieces of equipment ever designed. The most efficient spacecraft ever. 

Thankfully Wernher had been busy.

And such a tug could only ever have one designation. The most kerbal of elements. Potassium. K. 

At 631.1 tonnes, this beast and its custom launch vehicle displaced the Sulphur 5 LDAV as the "most massive thing yet launched." The rocket itself was rather simple - four cores identical to the three that launched the S-5: One Mainsail each with two strap-on boosters of some considerable power. And yet not so simple. Nor was it particularly aerodynamically sound, but they did what they could do.

Perched helplessly atop the K-1 was a nosecone. Whether it provided any aerodynamic aid was up for some debate, but it was the largest the VAB crews could come up with on such short notice. The upper stage of the K-1's launch vehicle also featured four Mainsails, and had just enough fuel to place the whole mess into its rendezvous orbit with the S-5/Si-6.

As for the Potassium Tug itself, the design is rather simple. Eight NERVA engines burn liquid fuel fed to them from two large, Mk3 liquid fuel tanks. A series of 24 large radiator panels and optional 16 extendable small radiator assemblies dissipate the heat (bogus heat) produced by the NERVAs (heat that should be dissipated by the ejected propellent already, but conservation of heat seems poorly understood by these kerbals). The radiators are installed on the outside of a large radiation shroud, thick enough to protect anything in front of the craft. The "cold" end is outfitted with a large tug-mount docking port, while the "hot" end features a standard sized port, to be used by refueling craft. 

A last minute design change saw the upper stage of the K-1's outfitted with its own flight computers and docking ports, and it would become the Chlorine 4 upon reaching orbit and retained for later reuse. 

The actual rendezvous was performed by the S-5/Si-6 conglomerate, as the K-1 was completely dry. (The two Mk3 liquid fuel tanks were launched empty

Once both items of the payload and the tug were sharing the same orbit, the Silicon 6 undocked from the LDAV and made its way to the tug. The tug adapter would be mounted facing the tug, and the station itself had to be aligned so the tie-downs on the station were facing those on the tug. (Except not, as the payload will flip 180 degrees prior to departure, as explained below.)

Once docked, the remote operators at Mission Control had the Si-6's second stage transfer its remaining fuel into the Chlorine 4. Once empty, the Si-6 upper stage was jettisoned to become a large piece of space debris.

With the station docked, the LDAV itself was moved over. And since half of all the fun things in KSP take place in the dark, so did half of this docking operation. (As is only right and proper.)

When the crew arrives at the Potassium 1 stack the payload will be rotated so that the LDAV and the control cockpit of the station are facing "forwards". Following that the crew (likely Macfred) will tie down the payload to the tug, and then everything will be ready to go.

 

With the first part of the Jool Expedition launched and assembled in orbit, we'll next turn our attention to the remaining bits and bobs. Up next will be the Aluminium X-4B 10 (also known as the ALEC, or Aluminium Laythe Exploration Craft), followed by a collection of science, communications, and mapping satellites for the Joolian System (as well as some extra fuel and supplies). [I'm trying to decide right now if I want to install SCANsat for 1.1.2.... I'm thinking yes, which means I need to stick SCANsat components on these satellites too.... Meaning I need to dig out the old 1.0.5 version of its parts before the next launch. Thankfully I downloaded it back in December and just never installed it. I'm also likely to start using Space-Y and related mods as of 1.1.2, though none of that needs to go to Jool.]

This second stack will be moved to Jool using a second Potassium tug, meaning I'll get to launch another of these beasts. After that will come four launches to fully refuel the two Potassiums, followed by the crew launch directly to the K-1 stack (spare docking ports for the win), and then presumably departure for Jool.

That'll all be next time.

 

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Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[KAL 9000]

I get the feeling the Boss knows a lot more than we know he knows (wait, what?)...

[Angelo Kerman]

Bruce Springsteen goes to the Mun!

[cubinator]

Just now, KAL 9000 said:

I get the feeling the Boss knows a lot more than we know he knows (wait, what?)...

I bet he knows why the space program was abandoned...And why does he go nameless like that? Being called "The Boss" instead of "[name] Kerman" sounds awfully suspicious. He's keeping a lot of secrets. I wouldn't trust him. He might even know where Hallock is going. The Boss has something up his sleeve, and it can't be anything good.

1 hour ago, Cydonian Monk said:

"So it worked..."

Hey, what worked? He knows about the drive, the station, the base, and Jool. He knows what happened and he has a reason to keep quiet about it. Something bad happened a long time ago, and he was a part of it.