New Horizons Travelling Circus -- INTERLUDE: Everything is Broken

[KAL 9000]

No gratuitous explosions!  

[Just Jim]

2 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

No gratuitous explosions!  

Perhaps no explosions, but some of those amazing screenshots of Sonnah in the Kerbin sky really make up for it!  

[Dman979]

What's all this about explosions?

Eh?

Need I break out Rule 2.3f?

Spoiler

Ok, folks, you heard it here first: I'm getting a new computer within the month, so I'll finally have an easy way to work on TAC-SD. I don't want to make promises I can't keep, but expect to hear something about the state it's in by mid-August.

And don't worry- the Boffins can test all the early versions as much as they want.

 

[Cydonian Monk]

Quite the abomination, that mix. But if it works, it works. At least it wasn't dragged to space by its nose. 

And after watching a plane slide off of the runway last night, I'm starting to wish I hadn't used lander legs in a few places. That's neither here nor there yet, so...... Here's hoping for a KSP v1.2 oiled-up-leg/wheel fix. 

[insert_name]

I find whack a kerb to be an acceptable replacement for tac self destruct 

Edited July 7, 2016 by insert_name
Stupid autocorrect

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

No gratuitous explosions!  

I know,. I know.  It pains me, too.  Mais aujourd'hui, c'est le vin.

 

2 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Perhaps no explosions, but some of those amazing screenshots of Sonnah in the Kerbin sky really make up for it!  

I keep thinking the same thing myself.  Plus I've never been to any of the custom bodies in this system, even the old ones have been revamped with KASE, there's no dV map to tell me how to get to any of them, and all trips beyond Sonnah's SOI have to spend an extra 1800m/s or so to get into a reasonably low Sonnah orbit so this Neanderthal can figure out how to do a transfer.

 

2 hours ago, Dman979 said:

What's all this about explosions?

Eh?

Need I break out Rule 2.3f?

No need at all.  Any and all words remotely resembling "hurry the Hell up!" were completely absent from my post.  All I did was wish you good luck in fixing it

 

2 hours ago, Dman979 said:

  Hide contents

Ok, folks, you heard it here first: I'm getting a new computer within the month, so I'll finally have an easy way to work on TAC-SD. I don't want to make promises I can't keep, but expect to hear something about the state it's in by mid-August.

And don't worry- the Boffins can test all the early versions as much as they want.

 

This is a consummation devoutly to be wished.  When you wish upon a space station being hurled from a gas giant by a nasty and hard-to-spot Kopernicus bug that occurs when reparenting Kerbin, your dreams might come true

 

2 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Quite the abomination, that mix. But if it works, it works. At least it wasn't dragged to space by its nose. 

I more frequently drag them up by the cheeks, so they can maintain a pointy end on their nose   But your nose-mounted tank made me rethink that approach.  I think next time I might do multiple stages on the bottom, too, staging off the lifter engine and leaving a proper OMS engine on the stump of the tail.  I didn't do that with this ship due to that moving the CoM too far aft for comfort on the initial ascent.  But with more technology, who know?

 

2 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

And after watching a plane slide off of the runway last night, I'm starting to wish I hadn't used lander legs in a few places. That's neither here nor there yet, so...... Here's hoping for a KSP v1.2 oiled-up-leg/wheel fix. 

I hope nobody was hurt.

The problems with lander legs are extremely troubling.  I encourage everybody to chime in on and VOTE UP bug #9557 on the bugtracker.

 

38 minutes ago, insert_name said:

I find whack a kerb to be an acceptable replacement for tac self destruct 

Except that the projectiles remain forever, so it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

I more frequently drag them up by the cheeks, so they can maintain a pointy end on their nose 

I don't ever remember being drunk enough to say this, or being told about it later by survivors.  So I figure the forum cleaning crew is totally blotto.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 5: Saturday Night on Serran

Spoiler

 

When we last saw the Circus, Mitzor had just left Eli's SOI on his 4-day trip home and the Serran Probe Plane had landed for the night.  The tale resumes the next morning on Serran, when the probe plane got a good look at its surroundings for the first time.  It had looked all streaky at night but dawn revealed it as a vast expanse of cracked, dry, gray mud.  This would soon become a theme.

The mud  was, perhaps, not surprising considering this area was the Central Ocean Basin, but OTOH, how long had the water been gone?  Surely if it had been any time at all, the dry, dust-filled wind would have erased the cracks?

Or so the Scientists debated.  The Boffins, however, were more interested in the fact that the plane was burning daylight just sitting there, and eventually launched it while the Scientists were still arguing.  This goaded the Scientists into deciding where they wanted it to go next.  This turned out to be NE towards the nearest high ground.

 After covering many klicks of very boring, gently undulating former sea bottom, with the only change being a that larger pattern of cracks was visible from higher altitude, some hills appeared on the horizon ahead and a faint brownish tinge seeped into the unrelenting gray.

Between the old sea floor and the hills were 3 additional biomes.  First there were the Dried Banks, then the Mainland, with a few small dry lakebeds called Ocean Floor mixed in here and there.  The Boffins guided the plane down onto each in turn so the Scientists could do their thing.  The scenery continued to be uninspiring.  The Dried Banks were also cracked mud, except it was more brownish.  And the Mainland was just gently rolling, boring, featureless brownness.  Finally, the Serran Probe Plane reached feet of the hills, which proved to be the Dead Continents.

They certainly looked pretty dead.  Long dead and heavily eroded.  And also covered with a fractal crack pattern, tiny at the small scale but spanning acres of ground on the distant hillsides.

This finished up all the biomes on Serran except for the Northern Ocean Basin, which was far to the WNW of the plane's current position, about 1/3 of Serran's circumference away  In between was a large area of mixed Mainland and Dead Continents, so everybody agreed to fly over that to see if anything more interesting appeared.  It turned out to be a pretty fruitless endeavor.  The Mainland was as dull as it had previously been, just more of it, and the Dead Continents were mostly just scattered ranges of very old, tired, worn-down hills.  And all just an endless expanse of dull brownness.  Where was all the color seen from orbit?

The landings so far on the Mainland and Dead Continents had been rather perilous, however, due to the many undulations of the ground.  The Boffins didn't want to try to land on them in the dark.  It was now about noon and there was still a lot of westing to make, so the Boffins turned the plane back SW to find the shore of the Central Ocean Basin again and follow it.  That way, should dark catch them, they'd be within easy reach of a decent place to land.

Then it was a long, boring trip for the rest of the day, with the soul-deadening, brown, Dried Banks and Mainland to starboard and the somber gray remains of the Central Ocean stretching to the horizon to port.  As dusk was falling, however, the plane finally reached the NW corner of the Central Ocean basin, marked by some Dead Continent hills in the distance.

So the Serran Probe Plane flew to the very corner and landed for the night.  The Central Ocean Basin looked just as it had in the morning, just gray, cracked mud with occasional, barely noticeable undulations.  They looked bigger in the evening than they really were, thanks to the long shadows.  During the night, Sonnah rose and passed over, with the other moons and distant Vanor all shining.

Eventually the sun rose again and the plane took off, heading WNW again.  It had a long trip over Mainland and Dead Continents between it and the Northern Ocean Basin.  There was one last look back at the bleak expanse of the Central Ocean Basin.

This morning there were a few more interesting bits of topography along the way.  A few.  At long intervals.  And they were a bit bigger and slightly more jagged than previously seen, but still all quite old and bedraggled.  And all the same, depressing, cracked brown as before.

 

 

Eventually, after what seemed forever, the geriatric topography finally died out and the long-sought Northern Ocean Basin appeared ahead.  It looked pretty much like the Ocean Beds and Central Ocean Basin, except it wasn't so cracked.  In fact, once the plane landed to do Science!, it looked like textured koncrete.

This completed the mission of the Serran Probe Plane.  It had done all the Science! it could do.  But it still had slightly less than half a tank of fuel.  What to do with it?  Eventually everybody decided to head for the north pole in hopes of finally seeing something interesting.  It was still a bit before local noon and they were already at 45^N, so getting there before dark seemed easy.  After that, who cared?  So the Boffins had the plane take off and head due north.

The terrain along the way was no more impressive than previously.  It might have been that the hills were higher and slightly less eroded, but OTOH such things covered smaller areas and were further apart than closer to the equator.

The only interesting thing noted on the long trip north was a change in the optical illusions.  It had long been apparent that there were streaks of white coming off the highest points of ground along the horizon, which the Scientists had ascribed to dust blowing off the hills.  Now, in the higher latitudes, these changed from white streaks to rainbow streaks.  The Scientists couldn't explain why, but all agreed this was a pleasant change from the unremitting drabness of Serran.

Finally, the Serran Probe Plane reached the north pole.  This proved to be just as disappointing as the rest of the place.  2 low, decrepit ridges met at a low spot hardly distinguishable from its surroundings.  That was all.

This trip having been a waste of time, and the plane now down to about 1/4 of its fuel, the end of the mission was fast approaching.  And everybody was in dire need of some gratuitous explosions to cheer them up.  So the Boffins headed SW to reach the nearest part of the Northern Ocean Basin.  The plan was to hit horizontally at high speed to get a tumbling cascade of explosions.  Instead of landing at 40-50m/s had it had before, this time the Serran Probe Plane would land at 150m/s.

To everybody's relief, this produced exactly the desired result.  The plane broke up on impact and the tumbling pieces exploded over a long stretch of seabed.  It was GLORIOUS! 

Somehow, the central Universal Storage module of delicate Science! instruments survived the multiple infernos, bounced several times, and then rolled about 2 klicks from the initial impact point.  It came to rest still on edge as darkness fell and Sonnah set in the distance.  A fitting end to the mission, one more piece of forelorn detritus added to the desolation of Serran.

The Sonnah Science Plane had snagged about 800 Science! points, which was something.  But at Mission Control, the Boffins and Scientists were equally dispirited.  They had had such hopes for Serran, viewing it as a possible 2nd Kerbin.  Now they knew it was nothing of the sort.  Instead of a pleasure garden, it might better serve as a low-maintenance place of exile.  About the best that could be said about it was that it was pretty much all excellent rover country.  But hey, if those pesky the Gen-113ers wanted to go there to kill themselves in hotrods, good riddance.

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

By this time, Mitzor was approaching Kerbin in the Eli Lander.

And about this time, the Boffins realized they hadn't put a decoupler between the fuel tank and the heat shield.  But the lander still had 1400m/s and a TWR > 1 on Kerbin, so they weren't too worried about that, provided the engine didn't burn up during the aerobraking.   So they had Mitzor come in at 45km and burn just enough at Pe to capture.  Many parts on the bottom on the lander got fairly hot but nothing quite exploded.

Mitzor did 2 such passes, after which his Ap was 350km.  So the Boffins had him do one more pass at 45km.  This, however, proved to be just low enough to keep him down, so instead of being able to pick his landing place, everybody had to watch as the lander slowed and headed down to a spot of its own choosing.  The Scientists were especially troubled because Mitzor's can was packed with most of the data from Eli.

Fortunately for all concerned, the lander decided to come down in the ocean.  Of course, it was pretty much at the antipode of KSC, but at least the Science! was safe.  Once the chutes were streamering, Mitzor jettisoned the unused heatshield which took the fuel tank with it, leaving the lander can to float down gently at 3m/s.

Mitzor brought home about 850 Science! points.  This, combined with the 600 he'd already transmitted and the 800 from the Serran Probe Plane to give the Circus 2200 Science to play with.  They spent this on 3.75m rockets and a number of other, less-useful things.

Tune in next time for when the Circus decides what to do with its new toys.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Mister Dilsby]

You know, I read a report like this one... and then I go back to the threads that say "this game needs some kind of in-stock narrative because career mode sucks boring!"... and then I come back here and read about the joy a little imagination can bring to an endless expanse of 'cracked grey mud'... and then I smile a little wider.  

[Geschosskopf]

40 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

You know, I read a report like this one... and then I go back to the threads that say "this game needs some kind of in-stock narrative because career mode sucks boring!"... and then I come back here and read about the joy a little imagination can bring to an endless expanse of 'cracked grey mud'... and then I smile a little wider.  

When I was small, I had simple, inert toys like little plastic airplanes.  They didn't fly, they just sat there.  So I had to run around holding them, making engine and machinegun noises, and imagine they were landing on mountains (the furniture) where their totally imaginary pilots had imaginary adventures.  Flying a drone around on Serran is pretty much the same   It's the folks who grew up playing with named action figures straight out of cartoon shows, or video games with pre-generated characters following a scripted series of events, that complain about having to think up a context for their rockets.

To be honest, though, the only joy on my end was from seeing my hastily designed and largely untested drone get to Serran and then fly quite well there.  It was also one of the few things I've ever made where looks played a large role in the design (of the plane, not its lifter).  I don't know about anybody else, but I thought the Serran plane had a snazzy sci-fi look to it, all cobbled together out of low-tech parts.  It's a design I might well use again.

But the rest of it?  Serran has all the monotony of Duna only with out the polar caps and anomalies.  It's not a place I'll go back to in a hurry.  I figure Mun must be the new focus of the Circus.  And there's a reason for going there, too.  Parking orbits are impossible at Kerbin due to the Kopernicus bug caused by reparenting Kerbin so interplanetary fleets have to wait in Sonnah orbit.  If they're going to do that, they might as well be fairly low for Oberth.  Problem is, it takes nearly 2000m/s from Kerbin to circularize inside Mun's orbit   But if you built the ship at Mun, or at least refueled it there, then that wouldn't be such a problem.  So I can see turning Mun into a major industrial site.

[Angelo Kerman]

Heh, mentioning cartoon characters turned action figures reminded me of playing with GI Joe figures as a kid (the 3" ones) and flying their planes off of aircraft carriers made of shoeboxes. Fun stuff. Anyway, thanks for a fun ride with your neat probe. Maybe some rich Boffins will take their dragsters there and try to break the sound barrier...

[Geschosskopf]

8 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Heh, mentioning cartoon characters turned action figures reminded me of playing with GI Joe figures as a kid (the 3" ones) and flying their planes off of aircraft carriers made of shoeboxes.

Yeah, with those, you still build your own worlds and stories around them.  One of my nephews had a huge collection of another series called "Rescue Heroes" or something, and we used to have a lot of fun with them.  We'd build skyscrapers and other buildings out of whatever was hand, fill them up with other action figures, then have a massive disaster strike so the Rescue Heroes had to do rescues and fight fires.  In the process, I taught him the Incident Command System, so he can now manage such incidents in real life

 

8 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Fun stuff. Anyway, thanks for a fun ride with your neat probe. Maybe some rich Boffins will take their dragsters there and try to break the sound barrier...

Perhaps, once the Circus is solvent enough to afford pensions to retired Boffins, that will become a thing.  It certainly would be in a sandbox game.  The Northern Ocean Basin seems smoother than the Central, so might make a good analog for the Bonneville Flats.

I see you've tweaked up MOLE.  I plan on giving that another go, although it will have to orbit Sonnah instead of Kerbin due to the Kopernicus problem.  Will that work or do the experiments have to be done in Kerbin orbit?

[UnusualAttitude]

17 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

They certainly looked pretty dead.  Long dead and heavily eroded.  And also covered with a fractal crack pattern, tiny at the small scale but spanning acres of ground on the distant hillsides.

 

17 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

This morning there were a few more interesting bits of topography along the way.  A few.  At long intervals.  And they were a bit bigger and slightly more jagged than previously seen, but still all quite old and bedraggled.  And all the same, depressing, cracked brown as before.

 

17 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

The Mainland was as dull as it had previously been, just more of it, and the Dead Continents were mostly just scattered ranges of very old, tired, worn-down hills.  And all just an endless expanse of dull brownness.

In such an ancient, blasted landscape, I half expected Marvin the Paranoid Android to appear complaining to your probe about how he had waited five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years for your probe to turn up, so that he would have some company...

[Geschosskopf]

18 minutes ago, UnusualAttitude said:

In such an ancient, blasted landscape, I half expected Marvin the Paranoid Android to appear complaining to your probe about how he had waited five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years for your probe to turn up, so that he would have some company...

Hehehe, it's a pity the plane's probe core didn't survive so it could say that someday

 

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Moar?

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Moar?

Well, thanks, but it'll be a day or 2 probably.

 

[superstrijder15]

On 8-7-2016 at 5:39 AM, Geschosskopf said:

When I was small, I had simple, inert toys like little plastic airplanes.  They didn't fly, they just sat there.  So I had to run around holding them, making engine and machinegun noises, and imagine they were landing on mountains (the furniture) where their totally imaginary pilots had imaginary adventures.  Flying a drone around on Serran is pretty much the same   It's the folks who grew up playing with named action figures straight out of cartoon shows, or video games with pre-generated characters following a scripted series of events, that complain about having to think up a context for their rockets.

When I was a child, my and my brother managed to play with the lego's being soldiers and heroes and stuff. It was actually really funny. 

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 6: Highway 61 Revisited

Spoiler

 

Having decided to make Mun the main spaceport for exploration outside the Sonnah system, Mission Control set about figuring out how to make that happen.  The 1st step was mapping the place and scanning for resources, to which end a probe was soon on its way.

 

The boffins soon discovered that the best time to leave Kerbin for Mun was when Mun was almost perfectly aligned between Kerbin and Sonnah.  This minimized the time spent in Kraken-invested Kerbin orbit.

 

About a week later, next time Kerbin and Mun lined up, off went the 1st Mun Lander, looking for some much-needed Science!  Due to his demonstrated reliability and advanced institutionalization, Mitzor commanded.  This would be the 3rd Sonnahian moon he had visited (plus Kerbin, of course).  Gilree was sent as a back-up flight control system, although she wasn't told that.  And to start building up staffing for the future Mun base, Mission Control tossed in a couple of artificier strikers (Marllian and Philing) to give them some seasoning.  The attitudes of the crew varied considerably.

 

Shortly thereafter, Geofrod and Ferrod had the last of their staples and stitches removed and were bolted into a new MOLE vehicle destined to orbit Sonnah between Kerbin and MUn so as to avoid the Kraken.  There had been much consultation with the manufacturer Wild Blue to make sure it would work in a different SOI.  The new station had plenty of room to grown, in case it should prove useful later.  Geofrod and Ferrod endured the launch in glum silence.

 

By this time, the 1st Mun Lander had landed safely in the relatively benign-looking Highlands.

 

Then it was back home, where a special surprise awaited.  Yes, it's the new reentry effects

 

The flames proved harmless enough but a real danger appeared in the form of the WhoopsTooShort Mountains and Old Shinytop.  Fortunately, they managed just barely to scrape over a gap between 2 peaks with just enough momentum to land on the lesser eastern slopes.  The remains of their service module impacted just below the crest on the west side, sadly out of view while all eyes were on the capsule and its cargo of Science!

 

After this, the Boffins designed a rather extravagant 3.75m asparagus lifter for some interplanetary MagSats the Scientists had cooked up for Eve and Laythe.  Not taking any chances on the dV, this time.  These rockets cost about half a million each, but each contract paid 2 million and also offered about 1000 Science! points, so it was all worth it.  These would park at the edge of Sonnah's rings until their windows arrived.

 

At this point, Geofrod and Ferrod reported that they'd completed all their experiments.  Thus, the Boffins now had to design a ship to go bring the Science! and the 2 sciencemates home.  Then figure out the best time to launch it to rendezvous with Sonnah Station.

The shuttle eventually arrived at the station.  Much to their relief, Geofrod and Ferrod managed to transfer all the data without dropping any this time.

The station shuttle duly arrived back at Kerbin and began its reentry.  This was their 7th reentry in the service of the Circus and nobody had told them about the new reentry effects, so they really freaked out.  But more seriously, their capsule refused to slow down in its standard landing profile.  It streamed fire over KSC and continued far out to sea, not dropping below 2000m/s until 9500m and not slowing enough to release even the drogue chute until 300m.  It was a VERY close call but fortunately for Geofrod and Ferrod, the Science! survived.  Their "debriefings" this time were purely cursory.  Meanwhile, the Boffins tried to figure out why the capsule had suddenly become so slippery.

 

The Mun SCANsat had finished its job by this point so the Boffins decided that the next Mun landing would survey a potential site for the proposed Mun base.  They picked one of the Highlands Craters just south of the equator, so the Scientists could get some new data as well.   And because the computer had proven up to the task, this time the crew was all new hands to gain experience.  Gemrys, science striker, plus Jedley, Sara, and Maglie, artificer strikers.

NOTE:  Watching rockets launch at night with Engine Lighting and Sonnah in the sky never gets old.

The specific spot chosen for the landing was inside a small sub-crater in the NE corner of the main Highlands Crater.  Its dark bottom looked foreboding during the final descent but the crew was indoctrinated enough not to care.

This mood continued once on the ground, although some sense of doubt began to creep in...

Everybody agreed that this was a great location for the base.  It had everything desirable, even a view of Sonnah.  Nobody yet knows if Mun is tide-locked to Sonnah but if it is, then no problem.  Even with the sun just below the horizon and the floor dark, the solar panels on the top of the ship were working fine.  So, now it's just a question of acquiring all the necessary tech to build the base.  With this decided, the 2nd Mun Lander started home.  The reentry effects were by now well-known amongst the astronauts so nobody batted an eye and the capsule landed safely just up the coast from KSC.

 

So now it's about 2/3 of the way through Year 1 and things look like this.  In the New Horizons system as a whole, the Circus has 4 ships in interplanetary space.  One is the Mk 1 Atell MagSat en route to gravity brake at Eve, one is a dead probe from before there were solar panels, one is another long-lost contract probe, and the last is the unlamented John B, sloop.  The last 3 were all ejected by Kerbin, either from orbit or after a chance encounter with it.  The Atell ship is crossing the orbit of Laythe.

 

And in the Sonnah system, it looks like this:

Kerbin and its conjoined twin Aptur are at the bottom of the pic.  Next in from there is the Sonnah Station, then Mun.  Inside Mun are 3 interplanetary probes waiting for windows, the Mk2 Atell MagSat and MagSats for Eve and Laythe.  The one in the elliptical orbit is MagSat Sonnah, its mission long complete.

 

Tune in next time for more grinding.

 

 

Edited July 17, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[DMSP]

Nice stuff! Can't wait to see what you make of the Mun. 

[Angelo Kerman]

Really enjoying the series. Glad to see that the experiments worked as well. One question though: It looks like the M.O.L.E. has several "Review Results" buttons in its context menu. I was wondering how you managed that. The science system was built to transfer experiments from the MOLE to the Coach and back to Kerbin, and I'd expect the Coach to have those "Review Results" so I'm surprised to see them wit the MOLE. I'd also appreciate some feedback on the current system if you have time (hopefully to make it easier to use). Glad you recovered the science though!

Looking forward to seeing the next Mun landing and that Eve braking too!

[Geschosskopf]

On 7/10/2016 at 3:05 PM, superstrijder15 said:

When I was a child, my and my brother managed to play with the lego's being soldiers and heroes and stuff. It was actually really funny. 

Yeah, before I had Legos, I had Lincoln Logs.  We'd set up opposing siege lines and then toss golfballs at each other's stuff

 

14 hours ago, DMSP said:

Nice stuff! Can't wait to see what you make of the Mun. 

Well, the initial plan is to get the Ore flowing and then add other capabilities.  Unfortunately, I haven't yet unlocked drills and ISRUs, although the Science! from the 2nd Mun landing should do that.  I'm using Keridian Dynamics to shorten the manufacturing chain for rockets, but I still need quite a few other resources for the various DSEV and Pathfinder stuff I want to use.  The base itself will make heavy use of Pathfinder's system that lets resources flow between detached stuff as long as they're in physics range.  Hopefully this will help Kraken-proof the base (as well as avoid most of the assembly difficulties).

 

10 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Really enjoying the series. Glad to see that the experiments worked as well. One question though: It looks like the M.O.L.E. has several "Review Results" buttons in its context menu. I was wondering how you managed that. The science system was built to transfer experiments from the MOLE to the Coach and back to Kerbin, and I'd expect the Coach to have those "Review Results" so I'm surprised to see them wit the MOLE. I'd also appreciate some feedback on the current system if you have time (hopefully to make it easier to use). Glad you recovered the science though!

Looking forward to seeing the next Mun landing and that Eve braking too!

If a part (MOLE or Coach) has completed experiments in it, then its right-click menu has a separate "Review Results" button for each experiment.  Hitting these buttons brings up the stock science report with the option to save or transmit the results.  There's also the button for the stock MPL function of processing experiments, but it's grayed out on the MOLE, saying "lab isn't occupied" even though it's got 2 Scientists in it.  But I figure the MOLE experiments aren't supposed to use that function anyway.  Are they?

The recent tweaks to the MOLE did make it a lot easier (and less buggy) to use.  I need to make another trip there to see if I can get the other half of the return value for those experiments.  When this new MOLE launched, it was before you made the last tweak that prevented experiments from completing on the launchpad.  I installed that version after the thing was in Sonnah orbit, but the experiments were still listed as complete and no LabTime for them ever accumulated.  In fact, LabTime never appeared in the resource window for the station.  So another reason why I need to go back there is to see if LabTime shows up properly in the current version.

Now I have a question for you....  For the Mun base, I want to mix parts from Pathfinder, Planetary Bases, and Keridian Dynamics.  I want to use Pathfinder's dispersed resource distribution system for the whole thing.  If a detached base module is mostly non-Pathfinder parts, what Pathfinder part(s) must it include to take part in the resource distribution?

[insert_name]

just fyi, @BashGordon33 discovered a workaround that protects ships in kerbin orbit

Make a save. Copy and paste the persistent file from the save folder you normally play and paste it in the new save, replacing the persistent in the new save. Play this save folder as soon as you open KSP. The orbits will be messed up, but you have 2 saves so it doesn't matter. You must go to the tracking station when you open the copy save. Then exit and play your regular save as normal. The bug only affects the first save you open, and only affects it once, per every game launch. It's an easy but annoying workaround. 

Just follow these instructions and the bug shouldn't effect your good save.

[Angelo Kerman]

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

If a part (MOLE or Coach) has completed experiments in it, then its right-click menu has a separate "Review Results" button for each experiment.  Hitting these buttons brings up the stock science report with the option to save or transmit the results.  There's also the button for the stock MPL function of processing experiments, but it's grayed out on the MOLE, saying "lab isn't occupied" even though it's got 2 Scientists in it.  But I figure the MOLE experiments aren't supposed to use that function anyway.  Are they?

The recent tweaks to the MOLE did make it a lot easier (and less buggy) to use.  I need to make another trip there to see if I can get the other half of the return value for those experiments.  When this new MOLE launched, it was before you made the last tweak that prevented experiments from completing on the launchpad.  I installed that version after the thing was in Sonnah orbit, but the experiments were still listed as complete and no LabTime for them ever accumulated.  In fact, LabTime never appeared in the resource window for the station.  So another reason why I need to go back there is to see if LabTime shows up properly in the current version.

Now I have a question for you....  For the Mun base, I want to mix parts from Pathfinder, Planetary Bases, and Keridian Dynamics.  I want to use Pathfinder's dispersed resource distribution system for the whole thing.  If a detached base module is mostly non-Pathfinder parts, what Pathfinder part(s) must it include to take part in the resource distribution?

Hm, the "Review Results" shouldn't be available on the MOLE Lab. It's only supposed to be available after the last transfer. I'll have to check and see what's going on. The grayed out MPL is correct; the MOLE Lab configuration doesn't have MPL functionality. You'd have to use the MOLE MPL configuration. I might combine the two labs; people seem to get confused between the two.

For Pathfinder, resource distribution is per module, meaning that only the only resources that can be shared are the ones in the individual modules that aren't required for a converter, and aren't locked. The current version of Pathfinder's MM_KPBS is out of date, but you can get the updated version here. The updated file adds Pathfinder support to KPBS as before, but also adds the needed resource distributors. In a nutshell:

The K&K T200 and T400 serve as multipurpose storage units (default is LFO), and can participate in resource distribution.

The K&K Science Lab is functionally equivalent to the Doc Science Lab, and can participate in resource distribution.

The K&K Habitat Mk2 is functionally equivalent to the Ponderosa/Casa modules, and can participate in resource distribution.

[Geschosskopf]

First off.....

Yay, 1000 views!  Thanks, folks.  That's more than I expected from this, being as it's an early career thing.  Hopefully it will get more interesting soon.

 

9 hours ago, insert_name said:

just fyi, @BashGordon33 discovered a workaround that protects ships in kerbin orbit

....  The bug only affects the first save you open, and only affects it once, per every game launch. It's an easy but annoying workaround. 

This has not been my experience.  For me, the bug happens repeatedly during the course of the same play session.  It only happens when I'm not looking at the ship (IOW, doesn't happen in the tracking station or to the active vessel).  For instance, put something in orbit, go to the VAB, design another ship to dock with the 1st one, put 2nd ship on launchpad, go to map view to target 1st ship, and 1st ship's orbit will have changed.  You can fix it's orbit, but as soon as you turn your back on it, it will change again.  When Geofrod and Ferrod made their 6 trips to John B, sloop, I did that all in 1 sitting and the station's orbit changed every time I looked away.

It was to fix this behavior that the experimental config was developed.  I'd rather not mess with that so have conceded everything between 70km and the edge of Kerbin's atmosphere to The Kraken.  Earth has the Van Allen Belts, NH Kerbin has The Kraken Belt   Other than not being able to have a station in Kerbin orbit, which is of limited value anyway, the bug causes no real harm.  Besides, it gives me an excuse to build a shipyard on Mun.

 

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Hm, the "Review Results" shouldn't be available on the MOLE Lab. It's only supposed to be available after the last transfer. I'll have to check and see what's going on

Well, that might be a side effect of these particular experiments having been completed on the launchpad.  So there's another reason to go back.

 

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

The grayed out MPL is correct; the MOLE Lab configuration doesn't have MPL functionality. You'd have to use the MOLE MPL configuration. I might combine the two labs; people seem to get confused between the two.

I wouldn't combine the functions.  Otherwise folks would think the MOLE was just a 1.875m MPL and never realize it has its own experiments.  That's what happened to me the 1st time I launched it.  This was especially the case because I launched it to fulfill a contract to build a station that included a "science lab".  At that time, I hadn't unlocked the stock MPL but the MOLE satisfied the contract.  Plus, the KotabusGames review didn't mention the unique experiments, either, so I had no idea MOLE had its own stuff until I was rummaging around in right-click menus after it was in orbit.  MOLE kinda sorta needs a wiki like Pathfinder, with a prominent link in the OP

 

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

For Pathfinder, resource distribution is per module, meaning that only the only resources that can be shared are the ones in the individual modules that aren't required for a converter, and aren't locked. The current version of Pathfinder's MM_KPBS is out of date, but you can get the updated version here. The updated file adds Pathfinder support to KPBS as before, but also adds the needed resource distributors. In a nutshell:....

Ah, thanks.  So suppose an unattached sub-base unit has a Pathfinder or supported KPBS tank for RocketParts, and the Keridian part that actually builds rockets.  From what you're saying, that tank such suck up RocketParts from other Pathfinder and/or supported KPBS tanks on other unattached base sub-units that make but don't consume RocketParts?  And thus the Keridian rocket-builder would work?

[Angelo Kerman]

It should, yup