"To Boldly Go.." - A 'Strategia' Career

[Death Engineering]

"To Boldly Go.." - A 'Strategia' Career

This thread will be a play through of KSP in Career 'Hard' mode' (allowing reverts) using the mod Strategia by @nightingale along with several other science and visual mods.

Complete mod list:

Spoiler

Community Tech Tree
Contract Configurator
Contrack Packs:
   Field Research
   Bases and Stations
   Tourism
Crowd Sourced Science
Custom Bark Kit
Distant Object Enhancement
Environmental Visual Enhancement
Kerbin Construction Time
Kopernicus
KSP Renaissance Collection (altered for better FPS)
PlanetShine
RealPlume
Scatterer
Smokescreen
Stage Recovery
Station Science
Stock Bug Fix Plus
Strategia
TAC Life Support
Texture Replacer
Kerbal Alarm Clock
Waypoint Manager

Throughout this career, I'll post the major decisions made in Strategia, tech tree choices, and major missions and milestones achieved. Hopefully the career will be interesting to follow for those who are interested in playing a modded career or are considering trying out one or more of these mods.

The trained eye will recognize that there are no engineering mods on the list! This is intentional and is how I've always played. While I have nothing against KER/MJ, I've never played with them and will be building all vessels with only my own sense for Δv needs

Because of that, there will be close-calls, there will be mistakes and there will probably be some lost kerbals as I always play with crewed missions and a life support mod (TAC in this case). As this is the first time I've ever played with TAC, chances of lost kerbals have increased greatly.. sorry in advance Jeb.

Let's get on with it...!

The first five launches were enough to get into orbit and open up the first five tech tree nodes:

 

At the end of the fifth launch, I made the decision to activate the 'Pilot Focus 1' to help increase funds for Tourism contracts. Was that a particularly 'bold' choice? Nah, not really. But as I mentioned earlier, I don't use engineering mods so some missions may well have to be flown more than once. 

Summary of first five launches:

The first was a basic rocket with 5 'Flea' engines with the thrust turned way down and staged ignition. Got some decent altitude and recovered the entire vessel. The following launches completed some 'landed' test contracts including an LV-T45 test contract on the final launch making it reasonably easy to get into orbit with its thrust vectoring goodness.

Next time..

There are some 'Field Science' contracts around KSC area, so I've unlocked the first 'Aviation' node so we can cruise around Kerbin's surface. Also will be kicking off the 'Tourism' contracts and possibly a flyby of Mun.

This thread will run at least until the first landings of a Kerbal on one of Jool's moons.. I hope to make it interesting and possibly even informative.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Death Engineering
hard mode

[nightingale]

Like and followed.  Looking forwarded to hearing about your experiences with Strategia.

[Death Engineering]

Cleaning up some Kerbin contracts and kicking off Tourism

In order to build up funds and science to upgrade the Launch Pad, Mission Control and Astronaut Complex, a very basic jet was used to pick up some surface EVA and crew report contracts around the KSC area. Two variations of the jet were used (one with and one without science parts). 

The KCT mechanic to 'Recover Active Vessel' was used to keep the jet intact and only had to fill the tanks before each flight reducing build times. Once the appropriate nodes were unlocked, a simple probe was sent to Mun for a flyby mission. Unfortunately, a miscalculation in battery needs rendered the probe inert just prior to hitting Mun's SOI, so it was less probe-y and more trash can-y.  Oh well, still got the contract done and much needed funds from Worlds Firsts.

Playing in 'Hard' mode with its reduced funds and rewards had not posed a problem before, but between the long build times for rockets and longer times for building upgrades (KCT) I wound up having contracts I could not complete. At one point, funds were down to only 2,388.. luckily the Mission Control upgrade was already underway. Filling up the 5 new contract slots and their contract advance funds gained enough funds to press on with the space program.

I guess I could have waited on selecting a strategy instead of rushing to 'Pilot Focus I' and tried out something in Finances (Massive Scale Launches perhaps) and probably not have run into the funds-crunch that was almost a game-breaker. Chalk it up to 'experience'.

I was surprised how much in-game time had passed before I was able to launch Tito Kerman!  I probably could have just stacked two Mk 1 Command pods, but that looks too goofy for me so I held out until I could acquire the Mk 1 Crew Cabin. Much more appealing and will be able to (hopefully..) bang out two Tourism contracts at a time.

It seemed like almost every launch and recovery would unlock a new Strategia item, which gives me a lot to look forward to. I found the 'Free Ice Cream' particularly intriguing with its temporary reputation boosts giving the potential to quickly access other strategies. At some point, Strategia allowed me to activate a second strategy. Not really sure when or how that happened (Administration Building is still level 1), but I've selected 'The Mun Program' as my second active strategy. edit: Allowing me to add a second strategy at this point was a Strategia bug and I've reverted to a save just prior to adding the second strategy.

This entry closes at Year 1 Day 245. We've completed numerous contracts in the wee jet, a semi-successful Munar flyby and Tito Kerman is back on the ground grinning like a madman. It is going to take a few more 'boring' missions before any Mun landing can be attempted as the power requirements for TAC really necessitate having some kind of power generation - carrying enough batteries to go there and back would be part and mass prohibitive.

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 0.75
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 4 sci/86400
Development: 8 sci/day

Active Strategies:

The Mun Program (reverted to save just prior to adding this strategy)
Pilot Focus I

Tech Tree

 

Edited February 19, 2016 by Death Engineering
bug noted

[nightingale]

8 minutes ago, Death Engineering said:

At some point, Strategia allowed me to activate a second strategy. Not really sure when or how that happened (Administration Building is still level 1), but I've selected 'The Mun Program' as my second active strategy.

Gonna have to squash that (raised #24).

[Death Engineering]

5 minutes ago, nightingale said:

Gonna have to squash that (raised #24).

Ahhh.. so that wasn't intentional.  Thanks for letting me know.   REALLY glad I saved just prior to unlocking 'The Mun Program'.

I'll revert and make sure to not activate a second strategy until I upgrade the Admin Building.  Any idea what might have triggered it to let me unlock the second one?

[nightingale]

7 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Ahhh.. so that wasn't intentional.  Thanks for letting me know.   REALLY glad I saved just prior to unlocking 'The Mun Program'.

I'll revert and make sure to not activate a second strategy until I upgrade the Admin Building.  Any idea what might have triggered it to let me unlock the second one?

I have to leave an extra slot open to allow strategy upgrades to work.  I forgot to put the check in to the mission strategies to prevent going over the limit.  Fixed it for the next release.

[Death Engineering]

One giant leap for Kerbalkind.. But one long walk for a Kerbal

After completing six launches for profit: some pure Tourism, some pure rescue and a few that combined both into one launch, there was enough funds to upgrade the Tracking Station and VAB. While waiting for the upgrades to complete, also completed a successful Munar flyby mission with goo and science lab.

By the time the upgrade were complete, we were ready for our first Mun landing.

However, due to a problem with an attempted crewed Munar flyby before the tracking station was finished, Jebediah Kerman was lost. A miscalculation (okay, it was a guess) with the free-return trajectory pushed Jeb's orbit too far away from Kerbin and he didn't have enough fuel to burn to a Kerbin aerocapture. He ran out of electricity and died.

After a re-design of the Mun rocket and the completed Tracking Station upgrade, a second attempt was launched with Valentina at the helm. As she approached the Mun, I could see she was coming in close to the East Crater where a special surprise awaited. Without even entering Munar orbit, burned directly to a landing near the Mun arch. In order to save fuel on the lander, Val had to EVA to the arch in order to get the World's First for finding it. By the time she got to it, she'd burned all her monopropellant and had to walk 7km back to the lander. It was brutally slow.

Valentina landed safely, but nearly ran out of supplies on the return leg getting down to less than an hour of supplies left. Another redesign is needed before another landing is attempted.. really don't want to lose another pilot.

During the profiteering launches, I found that I was still consistently unlocking new Strategies. While I appreciate having all the new strategies unlocked (in many cases I had unlocked levels I, II and III of a strategy) I'm still not able to take advantage of them with the Level I Administration Building. Perhaps I was gaining rep too quickly with 'Pilot Focus I' and the combined Tourism/Rescue missions to keep the balancing 'fair' or maybe the fact I'm playing with the reduced profits from 'Hard' mode kept me from upgrading the Admin Building but it seemed somehow unbalanced; it felt like I should have already had the Admin Building upgraded.

I wound up cancelling a contract to test the LV-909 in flight over Kerbin due to its impractical requirements: 41-44km and no faster than 440m/s. Pretty unlikely to be at that altitude and that speed - will have to pay closer attention to those test contracts requirements.

It is now Year 1, Day 316 and after (finally) having the funds to afford it, the Admin Building is now upgrading to Level II and will completed in 28 days. Until then, I've switched the strategy to 'To Boldly Go..' while I complete some more Mun landings. Funds are at 598,144 and 41.3 SCI in the bank with only one more 45 SCI node left to unlock.

The available contracts were quite limited and only one involved a Munar mission: a Field Research contract to take a scientist the the Munar surface. This will require a redesign of the Mun lander to support passengers, and hopefully by the time that contract is done some Tourism contracts for Mun landings will pop up.

Let the Munar Madness commence!

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 0.8
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 5 sci/86400
Development: 16 sci/day

Active Strategies:

'To Boldly Go I' 

 

Edited February 28, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Completing the Mun Landing Program

After (barely) making it home on the first Mun landing, a new lander was developed to carry three Kerbals to the Munar surface. The first contract to use the new lander was a Field Research request to take a scientist to the Mun to perform some experiments on the Mun's Midlands.

During the simulation, the lander appeared to have enough Δv to make the trip. However, due to a very sloppy launch and Munar orbit insertion, the lander would not be capable of making the return trip! Luckily, there was another lander already being assembled back home. With a few mid-production alterations, the lander would become a rescue mission.

After performing the experiments to complete the contract, the crew got out their deck of kards and waited for the rescue mission to come get them. Using the modified lander as a template, two more rockets were queued up for construction to finish up the Mun landing program.

After the rescue mission, one more contract was accepted to take a scientist to the Mun. This time, the landing zone was on the Mun's Southwest Crater. As the team approached the LZ, the terrain appeared to be too steep to land. After some careful flying around the target area, a reasonably safe site was selected. The two stage lander successfully completed its mission and returned home.

Back in Mission Control, there still weren't any Tourism contracts for the Mun, but there were two Rescue contracts, both in nearly identical low equatorial orbits. Perfect! The last Mun landing mission would be a dual rescue and 'Worlds First' attempt to visit the Neil Armstrong Memorial.

Once there, the crew planted a flag on the NAM in memory of their fallen comrade Jebediah Kerman. This landing completes the Mun landing program, as Mission Control now focuses on the minty looking moon at the edge of Kerbin's SOI. At this point, the Research and Development facility still does not support taking surface samples, so there is still plenty of Mun science to be gathered once that upgrade is completed, should some extra science be needed later on in the space program.

While the final Mun landing was underway, a contract to deploy a satellite into a Kolniya orbit was completed to earn 176,425 funds. Considering the mission cost was only 27,815 funds the profit made the mission well worth the effort!

Using a slightly modified Mun lander, Mission Control queues up two Minmus bound rockets in the VAB. The first rocket will be completed in 8 days. Having learned the value of having a rescue rocket in storage from the Mun landings, Mission control will ensure a backup plan is in place throughout the Minmus landing missions.

Using the profits from the Rescue, Field Science and World's First landings, a second strategy was accepted: 'The Duna Program'. The Strategia 'To Boldly Go' strategy was also upgrade to level 2. With the massive advance funds from accepting 'The Duna Program', there was enough kash to afford upgrading the R&D facility - completing the upgrade will take 38 days. During this time, Mission Control will complete the 'Explore Minmus' contract and hopefully pick up some Field Science, Tourism or Rescue contracts around Minmus as well. At this time, however, there are no more Minmus contracts available.

More missions around Kerbin and Mun will be completed once the 'TH-NKR Research Lab' is unlocked and the space program starts building the first space stations in preparation for deep space exploration. But, those missions will have to wait until the R&D facility upgrade is completed in 38 days,

Moving on to Minmus, contracts currently active are a Minmus flyby tourism contract (which was accepted long before the Mun program was complete), 'Explore Minmus' and Strategia's 'The Duna Program'.

But for now, its time to visit the tiny green speck orbiting Kerbin!

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 0.9
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 6 sci/86400
Development: 32 sci/day

Active Strategies:

'To Boldly Go II'
'The Duna Program'

Edited February 28, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Jasonden]

On 2/23/2016 at 6:27 PM, Death Engineering said:

and had to walk 7km back to the lander. It was brutally slow.

we've all been there, man!  There needs to be an autopilot for Kerbals gone walkabout on EVA.  Otherwise my fingers start to hurt from pressing the "w" key for so long.

[Death Engineering]

1 hour ago, Jasonden said:

we've all been there, man!  There needs to be an autopilot for Kerbals gone walkabout on EVA.  Otherwise my fingers start to hurt from pressing the "w" key for so long.

Exactly! The maybe sad part is that I have time to do things like that. I work at home and can frequently spare my left hand to fly or build or dock something. I bet I have well over 10k hours on KSP but much of it in real time. 

[Death Engineering]

"To Boldly Go entry Five" or, "Read Strategia's fine print!!!"

The Death Engineering space program wraps up missions to Mun and Minmus and starts scribbling designs on napkins aspiring to reach Duna. This time most of the contracts were related to using the newly-unlocked Gravioli collector and launching two space stations: Kerbin Space Station I and Mun Space Station I. 

Even though the Station Science contracts appear to be loading correctly, none of the contracts to use the Station Science parts came up (specifically, nothing for 'Plant Growth') which was a bit disappointing. However, we were able to get some decent funds by bringing tourists to KSS and MSS and included a power generation and docking port upgrade to the Mun Space Station hoping to eventually get some Station Science contracts.

There was also a very lucrative mission to Minmus using the last Minmus lander off the assembly line: it combined a surface-rescue, Gravioli scans and an orbital rescue. Fuel was VERY tight on this mission but everyone made it home safely with nearly 200,000 funds profit on the mission! Another mission, using the re-usable Mun lander, was also very profitable but could have been better if the lander could have returned to the Mun Space Station. Instead, Valentina had to 'extreme' EVA from a low Mun orbit to the MSS. The lander, still a viable for future missions, will remain in Munar orbit awaiting a return to glory.. should the need arise. 

 

Perhaps due to an overzealous, even fanatical, attraction to Duna (okay, yes, a Mars surrogate) we accepted Strategia's "The Duna Program" at the end of the last update. At that time, we were thrilled that the huge influx of funds provided the resources to upgrade the Research and Development complex.. but maybe some attention to the fine print of the strategy would have been prudent as the -80% funds gained for milestones to other bodies was a bit of a surprise!

At that point, I really appreciated the balance of Strategia as it felt that I was running a real space program with focused goals and directed objectives. I've always played career on 'hard' mode to keep things challenging but the grind to get out of Kerbin's SOI has always been a bit of a 'yawner' once the primary goals of reaching orbit and the first Mun landing is completed. But having accepted 'The Duna Program', there was enough funds to move forward with KSC upgrades and the grind really didn't exist anymore. In a sense, the strategy was telling me to 'get on with it!' to Duna and enough with the Mun and Minmus attempts. So, after only a handful of Mun and Minmus landings, we are ready to move on to Duna!

Regarding KCT, enough points have been put towards upgrades that the time to unlock nodes has almost become irrelevant. Build times for new rockets are about 15 days and upgrading nodes is about 2 days. That seems highly unbalanced and perhaps I need to think about a 'hard mode' equivalent preset to KCT that makes upgrading nodes and build times for new rockets a bit more realistic/challenging. Until then, I'll consider re-distributing the points to focus on rocket build times and increasing science with every build.

It is Year 2, Day 143 and we are about to evaluate the next moves. We are still 1 year and 165 days away from the Duna window and had I been playing in stock KSP, without Strategia and without Kerbin Construction Time, I know from experience that I could easily have made the first Duna transfer window. However, now I am able to move on to another goal: the orbiting Hotel or the orbiting Casino while the Duna window approaches.. I guess I need to re-enable asteroids.  

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 1.15
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 7 sci/86400
Development: 128 sci/day

Active Strategies:

'To Boldly Go II'
'The Duna Program'

 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Death Engineering

[nightingale]

Awesome, really glad to hear that Strategia is helping to remove the grind!

Oh, and if you decide it's not what you wanted, you can always cancel the Duna Program...  just make sure to read the fine print if you do.

[Death Engineering]

7 hours ago, nightingale said:

Awesome, really glad to hear that Strategia is helping to remove the grind!

Oh, and if you decide it's not what you wanted, you can always cancel the Duna Program...  just make sure to read the fine print if you do.

Hehe   Totally enjoying the mod though.  Thanks!  

Nah we're in it now and the only missions to come up before Duna/Ike aspirations will be related to the Casino. Hopefully, when I re-enable asteroid spawning some come back. 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

A Space Hotel, a Duna Landing and one EXTREMELY close call!

Carrying the space program's exploration to Duna was the primary goal of this update, but to get there we'd have to get some more funds and a little more science. In the last set of missions, the Mun and Kerbin space stations were launched but the "plant growth" contracts didn't come up.. until, of course, we'd already completed a plant growth mission without a contract!  

Whatever! That contract is so lucrative, it was still well worth building and launching another mission to the KSS-1 space station. Luckily, the Mun's plant growth contract came up before we'd launched the mission. While we were at the Mun growing whatever keeps Kerbals up at night at the space station, Val retrieved her abandoned fuel-less lander that was left in Mun orbit and completed a Munar surface science contract.

Next, attention was focused on the Space Tourism contract, selected to be the hotel because it didn't require any asteroids which the casino would have asked for. Since asteroids are turned off in this save, the hotel made the most sense. I also know the electrical needs of the casino are massive and the big battery isn't unlocked yet, so it didn't make sense to build the casino.

The hotel, dubbed 'Death Never Sleeps' was constructed in five launches: one hub and four identical spokes. By the fourth and final spoke, the build time for the rocket was barely 4 days! The hotel was constructed in low orbit and then pushed to its final orbit of 365000 km once completed. It was a little disappointing how little funds were being offered to take tourists, there, however!  Only one crewed mission was launched to the hotel, to complete a 'there's no one here' type contract, and has been abandoned ever since.

Before building the Duna missions, the KCT points were redistributed to balance build times against tech tree unlocks, as the tech tree unlocks were taking too long. With sufficient funds and science, the parts needed to complete Strategia's 'The Duna Program' were unlocked and four missions built and launched to the Red Planet.

Three of the missions were uncrewed: a reusable shuttle, a three-crew Duna rover and a basic Duna outpost with extra supplies, fuel and habitation space. The crewed mission, capable of completing a Duna and an Ike landing without relying on any other mission, was the most important launch. If all went well, the crew would be able to build the Duna outpost and carry out multiple landings but if the other three missions didn't pan out, the crew would be able to complete its bare requirements and return home safely. With a bit of luck, everything went perfectly with the landing and Val returned safely to the CM where Bill restored the science parts on the lander. 

There was one incredibly close call moment, however, when one of the Duna outpost missions while approaching aerocapture, came within only a few hundred meters of the orbiting crew!  I'm pretty sure my heart stopped briefly when I saw the gap close in under 2km and the game paused to load the physics for the orbiting crew. It was a tense moment but passed quicky.. at almost 800m/s, in fact.

We've completed 'The Duna Program' but still have more Duna contracts and 'Explore Ike' to work on, so we're leaving the strategies alone for now other than upgrading to level 3 of Strategia's 'To Boldly Go'. We'll probably move towards Dres or Jool next, but for now the crew is orbiting Duna while Mission Control recovers from the stress of the Duna accomplishments.

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 1.75
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 2 sci/86400
Development: 1024 sci/day

Active Strategies:

'To Boldly Go III'

 

Edited March 17, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Cruizin' on Duna, Madness on Moho and Deep Valleys on Dres

At this point in a career, where multiple landings on Duna have been completed and other planetary bodies start showing up in contracts, I'm usually tempted to fly down to my arch-nemesis Moho. And I usually wind up either doing a flyby instead of a landing due to the massive Δv it takes to slow down once there. Sure, I could use engineering mods and know exactly how much Δv I have, but that's just not Kerbal enough for me.

This time, however, I was sure to over build the Moho lander in order to satisfy Strategia's demands with 'Moho Probes' to land on not one, but three biomes. It was also nice to get down to Moho and complete that strategy because it is a short trip and we still had 'To Boldly Go III' active making it a very quick and lucrative mission. We also accepted 'Dres Probes' and used an almost identical craft (adding only more solar panels) to get that Strategy completed.

Back at Duna, the original landing crew (a pilot and a scientist to clean out the experiments) remained in orbit instead of returning to Kerbin on the next transfer window as their return-craft did not have enough ablator to safely re-enter Kerbin from a Duna trajectory. So they chilled with their snaks and a long game of Risk and awaited the Duna Lab and another crew member (an engineer to repack chutes). The engineer went out on an uprated command pod (more life support and more ablator) with enough room to bring everyone back home.

Getting the science lab upgrade out to Duna was part of a two-contract mission: 'Launch the Duna Space Station' and 'Complete Plant Growth around Duna'. Once those were completed, the command module with insufficient ablator to safely return home was used as a kicker to ferry the lab into Ike orbit. We'd also accepted the 'Complete Plant Growth around Ike' contract but may not get back out to Duna SOI anytime soon to complete it (if ever).

Instead, the crew all clambered aboard the ablator-safe command module and headed home. Landing on Duna and all the science from Duna and Ike resulted in 44 returned experiments and a whopping 3219 science points! These points will be used to purchase the next upgrades required to get crews out to Jool. We'll probably start looking into recyclers, some in-situ fuel mining and might even drag the massive 30t D-ZZY Cyclotron out to Jool if the appropriate contracts come up.

What I enjoy about Strategia is that it not only removes a lot of the grind, its focused and purpose-driven missions make a career more enjoyable. I'm getting enough funds and science points in only a few missions which would normally take many more (remember I'm playing this on 'Hard' setting with reduced funds/science payouts). Normally, I'd have to do more Mun/Minmus and Duna/Ike missions to scoop enough science and funds to start heading to Jool, which is fun but I like the Joolian system and all the whacky gravity assists it takes to get around there efficiently.

At this point the Launch Pad, Mission Control, R&D Facility and Administration Buildings are all fully upgraded. There is no point in upgrading the rest of the buildings, but may do so if funds permit. I am a little disappointed what there were no Duna/Ike 'Tourism' contracts, especially since I sent a reusable lander with room for 5 kerbs out there for that purpose. To try and ramp up the contract fun, we've just signed on to Strategia's 'Contract Slot Machine III'. We've also signed up for 'Engineer Focus III' to ensure we can repair broken wheels and repack chutes.

Now that our Duna crew is back it is time to focus on Jool. We've picked up a Jool Grand Tour 'Tourism' contract to complete low altitude fly-bys of all Jool's moons. We also still have the Ike plant growth contract which may or may not get completed. Hopefully some more interesting contracts will come up for Dres or Jool soon.

KCT upgrades so far:

VAB Rate 1: 1.75
SPH Rate 1: 0.15
Research: 2 sci/86400
Development: 2048 sci/day

Active Strategies:

'To Boldly Go III'
'Contract Slot Machine III'
'Engineer Focus III'

 

Edited March 25, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Narrow escapes, high-speed flybys and a few spoilers

After the least efficient and possibly longest Eve mission I've completed and a near perfect Joolian exploration of all five moons the space program's goals are nearly complete. While at Jool, two landings were completed at anomalous sites on Vall and Bop. "Wish you were here" pics in the spoilers of the landings. Flyby's around the other 3 moons completed the 'Space Tourism  - Jool Grand Tour' contract, which paid over 5 million funds on a 415k funds launch. Cha-Ching!

What should have been a straightforward mission to Explore Gilly and Explore Eve, fuel supplies around Gilly left the crew stranded in orbit. Although the Explore Eve went well with the accompanying mini-probe that landed on the surface, the lander for Gilly was more of an expensive fuel tank as the delta v to enter Gilly orbit was higher than the CM alone could afford. Using 'extreme EVA' techniques completed the Gilly landing but the crew had to wait for a rescue ship, which also wasn't enough to get them home. After a second rescue ship and a 7500 m/s burn to get there in time, the crew eventually (after 6 years..) made it back.

Even though the Jool craft had a heat shield, it was never used. Instead, the first Tourism flyby was past Laythe for a gravity brake into Jool orbit. Using Tylo/Laythe to enter Jool's orbit was always the plan, but brought the heat shield just in case a good gravity assist couldn't be found. Leaving Laythe after passing at 128km altitude then a high-altitude pass near Tylo produced a nearly circular orbit to intersect Bop where the crew landed near space seafood. With only a small push to Pol then again past Tylo to lower the orbit and intersect with Vall.

Vall has something a little special on its southern hemisphere. And with the amazing terrains from KSPRC, Vall is quite beautiful in its stark cold blue and crinkle top mountains. Getting back to orbit from the landing site was very close, having only 4.62 units of fuel left (but still 10 units RCS). No longer needed, the lander was abandoned in Vall orbit before the final burn to leave Jool.

Vall and Bop secrets below..

Spoiler

Vall and Bop secrets

 

Using Tylo again for gravity assist, this time close enough to achieve the 'Flyby' objective, pushed the Jool orbit high enough to require only a 1583 m/s burn to get back to Kerbin. Brought too many supplies, in case things went as sideways as they did with the Eve mission, and wound up carrying almost half the supplies back home only to be toasted during re-entry. 

The tech tree is not unlocked yet and the final goal of landing on Eeloo has yet to be launched. It is Year 15, Day 92 and it is less than 100 days to the Eeloo window. There are no interesting missions which would require a return to Jool, which is unexpected. I would have been up to a Jool science expedition if it came up, but it has not. The 'Contract Slot Machine III' is no longer active, so we'll take what we can get, currently only Explore Eeloo, which will be done with a crew of one scientist.

The strategies currently active are 'The Eeloo Program', 'Massive Scale Launches III' and 'Scientist Focus III'. There is nearly 19 million funds in the bank, so pushing for more funds isn't exactly needed but the scientist focus should help get the tech tree unlocked on this next mission.

Life Support recycling might be needed on such a long mission (haven't begun the planning stages yet), but it was not needed on a three crew flight to Jool and back. The required LS mass was almost equal with the mass of the recyclers, making it cheaper, easier and fewer parts to just bring all the needed supplies.

 

imgur album contains spoilers..

 

 

Edited April 7, 2016 by Death Engineering

[Death Engineering]

Eeloo geysers and a space program extension

It was a 9 year trip out to Eeloo and back, but spent less than 12 hours actually in Eeloo orbit! By timing the Eeloo arrival to a Kerbin deparure window, life support was maximized by spending only the minimum time at Eeloo to complete a landing and return.

The geysers on Eeloo's crackly surface were a sight to behold! Another tribute to the amazing KSPRC. In fact, because stock KSP is so wrong after KSPRC, I won't be bothering with KSP 1.1 until KSPRC catches up (which I hear is coming Soon^TM!). I kind have wished I could have afforded to make a few landings at varied altitudes on Eeloo to do some real sightseeing, but that was not to be.

After the single landing at a near-equatorial geyser site, the single crew of Valentina Kerman, already a 'Five Star' pilot, headed back home. With two mid-course corrections, the Kerbin encounter was timed with only 3 days of life support left!  Re-entry was a nice show watching the main craft overheat and explode having entered the atmosphere at almost 4800 m/s.

The craft was a massive thing in Kerbin orbit before departure (over 300t) and returned with only a Mk 1 Command Pod, making this a very expensive launch/recovery mission. However, the mission netted 1943 science which isn't bad for a single landing without a scientist on board. Unfortunately, the space program is still a few points short of unlocking the tech tree!

This mission completed the strategy "The Eeloo Program" and the 'Explore Eeloo' contract, which leaves the space program over 18 million funds, and that was after upgrading all the buildings in the Space Center.. there is clearly no cash flow problem! Since we're close to unlocking the science tree, but still have more Strategia it makes sense to wrap up the Gene Kerman 'Crewed' Missions in the mod.

This means we will be accepting 'The Jool Program', 'The Dres Program' and (shudder...) 'The Moho Program'. We'll wrap up this career and this thread on the next post after completing these seven landings. Since we've fully upgraded the Tracking Station, the Dres-teroids are now visible so perhaps refueling there on the way to the Joolian landings will be the plan.

What is odd, though, is that there still aren't any of the advanced 'Station Science' contracts or any new 'Bases and Stations' contracts. In fact, no 'Bases' contracts ever came up - only a few 'Launch the xxx Space Station' (Mun, Minmus and Duna). Not sure if there is a mod conflict somewhere or there are just too many contracts in the pool and the good ones haven't floated up yet.

It has been a long time since I've attempted a Tylo landing, and never have tried with life-support running. Should be interesting!

 

[severedsolo]

21 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

In fact, no 'Bases' contracts ever came up - only a few 'Launch the xxx Space Station' (Mun, Minmus and Duna). Not sure if there is a mod conflict somewhere or there are just too many contracts in the pool and the good ones haven't floated up yet.

If you want to make a report on the B&S thread I can take a look if you like.

[Death Engineering]

On 4/17/2016 at 6:40 AM, severedsolo said:

If you want to make a report on the B&S thread I can take a look if you like.

Appreciate the offer. I may do that if the situation recurs on future playthroughs, but this career is under 1.0.5 so I'll let it go for now, being an older KSP.  Thanks for the reply, tho!