Manifest Destiny

[NoobTool]

I started a new savegame with the end goal of colonizing the Jool system. This goal is somewhat inspired by the Jool 500 challenge (although I won't be completing all or even many of the objectives for that challenge). I thought maybe if I feel like someone's watching, I'll actually continue to work on it, so I decided to start a mission report. The early stages of the savegame will basically be powerplay (boring) aimed at unlocking the tech tree quickly. I was thinking of skipping the documentation of these early missions, but for the sake of full disclosure, I'll do a quick and dirty description.

 

First things first. Settings:

I'm playing on a full stock install. I'm using standard normal settings with the exception of the funds penalties. This slider has been placed at 10%. This is to help with hiring the several hundred Kerbals that will be required to complete the goals of this savegame. Even at 10%, hiring 500+ Kerbals will be a challenge (but I have a plan).

After collecting some science from around the KSC, We were ready for our first launch. Here's the vehicle:

There's a "Swivel" under the shroud above the decoupler. This craft was able to launch Jeb into an orbit just grazing "in space high" (>250km) over Kerbin. It was intended for everything above the decoupler to soft land, however the re-entry turned out to be a little too steep, and we lost everything to atmospheric heating except the command pod and parachute. This meant we weren't able to collect experiments from the lower atmosphere (They didn't get collected on the way up) or after landing back at Kerbin, so it didn't return as much science as it could have. Still, not bad for a first launch:

After touching down, there were quite a few low level atmospheric focused survey and surface science collection missions available from mission control, so we picked them up:

And built this in order to complete them:

A couple of the contracts happened to be on the other side of Kerbin. I doubt this craft would've had the range to reach them (definitely not for a return flight), so we just left those alone for now. After picking the low hanging fruit, and picking up a few other contracts that would be incidental to our next mission's objectives, we researched the tech that would be necessary for our next launch:

Our next launch would send 2 Kerbals to land in multiple biomes on the Mun in this:

Imagine there are a couple of solar panels and a battery between the command pods. Apparently this picture was taken before they were added. We were able to land in 2 biomes, returning science from each, as well as plenty of orbital EVA's. We also picked up a contract for a focused observational survey of the Mun after landing there, otherwise we likely would've been able to land in at least one more biome. 

There was a bit of excitement on this mission. After hearing from Gene about the new contract to be completed, Jeb aligned the spacecraft using the onboard reaction wheels (and physics warp) for an easy launch into a polar orbit. After reaching the poles, Jeb decided he'd collect the EVA report, seeing as Bob had collected nearly all of the others. After releasing the controls and exiting the command pod, the craft began to spin violently, throwing Jeb into the abyss and nearly tearing Bob's command pod free. Apparently while aligning the craft on the surface, Jeb had inadvertently maxed out the trim on the roll axis. Since Bob didn't know how to set the SAS, Jeb talked him through operating the trim controls. After a few moments the craft's spinning slowed, but not to a stop (does anyone know if there's a command for resetting trim back to neutral?). Using his EVA pack, Jeb was able to rendezvous with and wrestle his way back aboard the spinning craft. The recovery crew would have their work cut out for them hosing out the interior of Bob's command pod. After collecting the data required for the contract, they burned for home.

This mission returned a good amount of science and funds:

With that, there was plenty of science to unlock the seismometer and the gravioli sensor:

Next up, a nearly identical craft was sent to Minmus, this time also carrying a seismometer and gravioli sensor. It was able to land in 6 separate biomes (Greater Flats, Lowlands, Slopes, Midlands, Highlands, and Poles), collecting experiments from each, and returning what Gene called "a buttload" of science:

We then researched the tech that would be necessary for the next phase of our program:

That brings us up to speed on the current state of the program. The next mission might take a while. It'll be a bit tedious, but should unlock at least most of the rest of the tech tree. I'll try to post a teaser soon.

Thanks for reading!

 

Edited May 5, 2017 by NoobTool

[Urses]

Nice constructs you invent there...

I like your plane estetics.

Good luck on your target, realy courious why 500+ kerbals

Funny Kabooms 

Urses 

[NoobTool]

15 hours ago, Urses said:

Nice constructs you invent there...

I like your plane estetics.

Thanks! Glad you like it. The plane is actually pretty fun and easy to fly.

15 hours ago, Urses said:

Good luck on your target, realy courious why 500+ kerbals

Here's the reason for 500+ kerbals. Not sure if I'll make it that far, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

[NoobTool]

Here's the teaser I promised:

The Super Locust is designed for multi-role exploration and science collection. Here's the launch vehicle with the Locust in the fairing on top:

The transfer stage has landing legs, docking ports, its own probe core and RCS. It's meant to be reusable (I have a few uses in mind for later). The plan is to take the Locust to the Mun first, land it and the transfer stage, refuel, and then set about collecting two of each experiment from every biome on the Mun (I mentioned that it would be tedious). Once completed, the Locust and the transfer stage will rendezvous in orbit and transfer to Minmus to do the same thing there. One set of experiments will be stored in the storage container on top, to be returned to and recovered on Kerbin. The second set of experiments will remain in the command pod on the Locust on Minmus. These experiments will serve as "seed stock" for my planned science farm on Minmus' surface. I'll try to document this mission a little better than other missions have been so far.

[Urses]

If you don't try you will never know for sure

Funny Kabooms 

Urses 

Edited May 4, 2017 by Urses

[StupidAndy]

looks interesting! I'm looking forward for more!

[NoobTool]

The Locust launched for the Mun and has since been happily munching away on all the science and ore that the Mun has to offer. The launch went pretty well, and we made it to the Mun with plenty of fuel to land both the Locust and the transfer stage. I was a little worried that we might wind up having to use the Locust to refuel the transfer stage in orbit. I don't have MechJeb or KER, so no handy ^V readouts, and while I could calculate the ^V myself, I typically just go with my gut (that would be too much like work). Using the Locust for this would've been a pain, since the Locust wasn't really designed for that. I'm sure it could do it in a pinch, but probably couldn't spare a lot of fuel on a trip from the Munar surface to orbit and back.

Anyway, Pics!:

Spoiler

Sitting on the Launchpad, conducting pre-flight checks.

Ditching the SRB's.

Separation of the LF boosters shortly thereafter.

The Mainsail doing what she do.

Main stage separation. The Thuds on the transfer stage are attached to crossfeed enabled decouplers. They're there to help the Poodle with the final push to orbit. I ditch these while periapsis is still well within Kerbin's atmosphere. I try to design my lifters to leave no debris in orbit (I don't like clutter).

Ditching the fairing. I'm not sure why I did this manually instead of staging it, but I ruined my picture.

Burning for a Munar encounter.

The Locust looking somewhat locusty awaiting landing of the transfer stage on it's next orbit.

The transfer stage landed ~30m from the Locust, not bad!

All hooked up and ready to refuel. 

Apparently there's a glitch with heat generation/dissipation and timewarp. Despite having sufficient cooling on board, after exiting timewarp, my radiators were saturated and my ISRU was at nearly 12000K! I'm glad nothing blew up, but it took a while for all that heat to dissipate, slowing us down a bit. We also landed a bit closer than we should have to the dayside terminator, meaning that after refueling, we were in near total darkness. Thankfully, the Locust is equipped with fuel cells. Valentina however, was cursing the engineers for not including landing lights.

We've done a few hops so far. I'm sure we missed a few experiments here or there, but data collection is going well. We're still figuring out the best way to collect all the science efficiently and effectively. So far we've collected around 60 experiments (double that if you count both copies of each). This may take a while. 

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited May 5, 2017 by NoobTool

[xendelaar]

the thought of getting 500 kerbals to Jool makes my head spin. good luck with your endeavour!

i enjoyed reading your progress . so your goal is to inhibit the jool system from a fresh career game? is it mandatory to unlock the entire tech tree first?  if i look at your tech tree i think you would almost be able to start designing the "ark for jool". well... you would at least have to unlock the mammoth node off course!

[NoobTool]

11 hours ago, xendelaar said:

the thought of getting 500 kerbals to Jool makes my head spin. good luck with your endeavour!

Thanks! I know it's a bit ambitious.

11 hours ago, xendelaar said:

so your goal is to inhibit the jool system from a fresh career game? is it mandatory to unlock the entire tech tree first?

My reasoning for using a fresh career game is that the vessel count is likely to get pretty high (as you can imagine). I wanted to be able to focus that vessel count on the goal at hand, and my other career saves already have assets spread out throughout the system. The reason for wanting to unlock the tech tree as a first step has to do with my plan for funding the program. I plan on using the patent licensing strategy (science to funds) along with a sizable science farming operation to (hopefully) provide me with a substantial, steady, and reliable source of revenue independent of contracts. This again will allow me to focus my time and resources on the end goal.

11 hours ago, xendelaar said:

if i look at your tech tree i think you would almost be able to start designing the "ark for jool". well... you would at least have to unlock the mammoth node off course!

As crazy as it may sound, I'm actually planning to use SSTO spaceplanes almost exclusively once I have the tech tree unlocked. Things are going to get... Bigger.

I am making (slow) progress. I haven't had a lot of time to play recently. Primary science collection on the Mun is nearly complete. I think I have one more biome to collect from. I did however pick up a few data collection contracts for the Mun that I'll complete before transferring to Minmus (more tedium). Minmus should go much faster (fewer biomes, and I should be able to do more hops between refueling).   

[NoobTool]

The Locust's primary mission is finally complete. We returned enough science to unlock the rest of the tech tree and initiate the patent licensing strategy at 100%. Sadly, I didn't realize that there was a reputation requirement for the program, so that'll have to wait for a few more contracts.

A few photos from the rest of the trip:

Spoiler

One of our frequent refueling stops between biome hops. As long as the biomes were sufficiently close together and Val didn't waste too much fuel on landing (landing lights would've been helpful, as she often and loudly lamented), the Locust could do 2 hops before refueling. Most of the time we refueled after each hop, unless we found ourselves in a particularly poor ore patch.

The Locust wasn't really meant for long distance roving. She's pretty top-heavy and doesn't climb slopes very well. The wheels are mainly there for tooling around a landing site, and facilitating docking with other craft on the surface for refueling. We did stretch her legs here though. We hoofed it from the northern Highlands to the Poles.

After collecting nearly 200 (x2) experiments, it was time to head for Minmus.

Here we are setting up a rendezvous between the Locust and the transfer stage.

Final approach

And Docked

Burning for Kerbin on the first leg of our journey to Minmus.

A Plot of our route

We arrived in low Minmal orbit some 11 days later.

Then landed on the surface with plenty of fuel to spare. There was even enough left in the transer stage to top off the Locust before setting out.

I was right about Minmus going faster. Here's a shot from the Poles (the final biome we collected science from) with Kerbin and Kerbol looking on.

I forgot that the return probe wouldn't have coms for the return flight, luckily piloting it using only "track prograde" wasn't much of an issue. It had way too much ^V.

Re-entry, burning those ants to try to empty the fuel tanks.

It touched down under the drogue chutes at around 12m/s, sacrificing the heatshield, reaction wheel, and one of the engines. The container was all that we were worried about. It housed a pretty valuable cargo.  

Nearly 13000 science!

More than enough to research the rest of the tech tree, and initiate the patent licensing strategy when we're ready.

Thanks for reading!

[NoobTool]

So... I took a bit of a long break from KSP. Anyway, I've done a few more contracts for this playthrough, nothing terribly interesting, but I'll do a quick run-through just to keep this thread alive.

Spoiler

Firstly, we still had some science collection contracts on Kerbin active (the ones that happened to be on the other side of the planet). The engineers at the SPH whipped this up in order to complete them:

Little time or effort was spent in optimizing the design, but Jeb was pleasantly surprised by her performance. He loves this thing. Capable of cruising at 1700+m/s at 23+km for long distances (just have to watch the temp on the cockpit). Jeb was able to complete the contracts and return to land at KSC in under an hour MET. This included a polar circumnavigation, multiple atmospheric data collection waypoints as well as landing for multiple surface waypoints. A few shots from the flight:

Next up, we had some Kerbals floating about in orbit awaiting rescue. Our engineers had the perfect craft to go pick a few of them up:

The Bat is a medium-range light crew transport. It holds 6 kerbals, has a Mk2 shielded docking port, and minimalist but functional RCS. We collected 3 of the 4 kerbals in LKO that you'll see in this next shot, as well as the one in higher orbit, turns out he was on a collision course with the Mun in less than 1 orbit, so he was especially glad to be rescued, considering his previous employer had neglected to inform the KSC of the severity of his situation.

The fourth kerbal in LKO wasn't willing to part with his vessel, so we had to send up something else to go get him.

The WomBat's body plan is similar to that of the Bat, but the docking port has been moved to the nose, and the cargo bay houses a "micro tug". The WomBat is meant for light salvage and recovery operations. The micro tug has parachutes for objects too large or ungainly to land while attached to the WomBat's nose.

Luckily Nelbo's craft turned out to be pretty ideal for the WomBat to carry. We also picked up another rescue contract before launching this mission, so we lifted off unmanned, to have room for both kerbals.

Another happy landing!

In addition to the missions, The KSC has seen some upgrades and renovations, and everything is now state of the art. We've also done a round of hiring.

Now, time to get these recruits trained up!

Thanks for reading!

Edited July 10, 2017 by NoobTool

[NoobTool]

I realized after flying this mission that I had done a poor job of documenting it. I took 3 screenshots, all of which were taken before leaving Kerbin's atmosphere. I thought about reverting to an earlier save, and re-flying the mission to better document it, only to realize that I hadn't created a hard save after previously posted missions. That persistent save is now no more, so I'll have to make due with what I have.

Spoiler

The goal of this mission was to begin building up our communications network. The plan was to place 3 equilaterally phased relays into a shared equatorial orbit of Minmus, as well as placing a survey satellite into polar orbit. This represents our first real infrastructure investment. I intend to limit infrastructure development within the Kerbin system to Minmus, as Minmus is the more logistically useful target.

Here is the Launch vehicle:

The Falkor is so named for its resemblance to the luck dragon from A Neverending Story. It's designed for light to moderate density orbital asset delivery at intermediate ranges, primarily servicing Kerbin's SOI, although deliveries to Duna or Eve SOI's may well be possible especially if aerobraking is employed (untested). 

Here's a shot of the payload. The relays are designed to be modular, upgradeable, and serviceable. These relays are obviously overpowered for use within Kerbin's SOI. They will also serve as nodes on my deep space network. My main reason for using them here was for this mission to serve as a dry run. I plan to use these relays at Jool.  Once the Falkor had reached the insertion orbit and jettisoned the survey satellite, they were assembled in orbit. The one standard size docking port you see was docked to the shielded port on the nose of the Falkor to allow for one of the assembled relays to dock there. The other 2, once assembled, are docked to the ports to which the front and rear dishes are attached in this picture. After releasing the first relay to circularize into its destination orbit, the remaining 2 relays were docked together and left in the insertion orbit, while the Falkor burned for home.

The phasing isn't as pretty as I would've liked. To be honest, this was my first attempt at this type of insertion, and without mods, it's entirely possible that my calculations weren't accurate. It's also possible that the maneuvers I described above were enough to alter the insertion orbit enough to alter the phasing to the extent seen here. The velocity of the final orbit is only ~30m/s after all. There was also an issue when tuning the orbit of one of the relays. I thought I had limited the thrust of both engines to 0.5%, however I had limited the gimbal on one of them instead, leaving the engine at full thrust. When I throttled up to adjust the orbit, the relay veered off course, winding up on an escape trajectory before I figured out the problem. Getting it back on course took some doing, so that seems the most likely culprit. Whatever the case, this will have to be good enough.

We also now have a rough idea of the ore distribution on the surface of Minmus.  This will help when selecting landing sites, and any other surface infrastructure we decide to place on the surface. Which brings me to a quandry: initially, I had intended to only refuel on the surface of Minmus, meaning that nearly all of my craft headed to interplanetary destinations would be required to have on board mining and refueling equipment and be capable of a Minmus landing from their initial launch. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, at least some of my craft are going to be quite large, and the missions will have very high part counts. This makes it prohibitive to build and place an orbital fuel depot large enough to meaningfully refuel vessels of such size, while maintaining a part count that wouldn't make docking the 2 vessels together anything less than dangerous. I also want to limit infrastructure development within the Kerbin system so that my vessel count can be focused on the Jool system. There are however, undoubtedly instances where obrital refueling capabilities would come in handy. I guess I'm looking for opinions/ideas on the subject. Your input is welcome and appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

Edited August 6, 2017 by NoobTool

[Wallygator]

This is really good.   Keep up the great work!

[NoobTool]

On 8/10/2017 at 4:57 PM, Wallygator said:

This is really good.   Keep up the great work!

Thanks! I don't really have a lot of time to play, so I can't promise frequent updates. We're approaching a Jool transfer window, so I do have some pretty big missions planned for the near(ish) future though. Stay tuned!

Edited November 16, 2017 by NoobTool

[NoobTool]

Another mission in the books. Our Jool transfer window is fast approaching, so things are about to get a lot more interesting. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. This mission was primarily a training mission to season our new recruits. We did however make room to complete a few contracts along the way. A few tourists, some rescues, etc.

Spoiler

The Centurian is an extended range medium capacity crew transport. It is seen in this mission showcasing a few of it's primary roles: crew transport, crew training, space tourism, and rescue operations. It has room for 36 Kerbals, and houses mining/refueling equipment in the ventral opening cargo bay amidships. Some monoprop and an antenna were added for this flight to fulfill the requirements for a Minmus base contract.

Awaiting takeoff.

After reaching orbit, our first destination is Minmus, where we will collect the crew of the Locust, and a Kerbal or 2 stranded in orbit.

The crew of the Locust were quite happy to be returning home.

After refueling, we briefly hopped outside of Kerbin's SOI to pick up the Kerbolar orbit mission patches before setting up a Munar encounter.

Gregson Kerman had been stranded at the Munar north pole for weeks. He had called dibs on the last seat on this flight, so our other friend in Munar orbit will have to wait for another flight.

When we arrived, he was waiting outside, not wanting anyone to steal his seat.

We were able to pull off a free return from Munar orbit. No time to waste, Jool awaits!

Home on the horizon.

Upon returning home, all of the Kerbals on board, with the exception of Gregson, were promoted to rank 3. Just in time for our first missions to the Jool system.

I believe our next missions will be destined for Jool. I'm planning 3 flights for this transfer window. We'll be introducing the "Big Dogs" of the fleet. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

[NoobTool]

This will be a somewhat lengthy post. We've launched all 3 of the craft headed for Jool. All 3 are on their way to Minmus, where they will refuel before departing for their final destination. I'll give descriptions of all 3 craft, as well as their roles on this particular flight. 

First up is our scout craft:

Spoiler

 

The Eagle Ray is designed for amphibious operations. It is capable of landing and lifting off from both land and water. It can carry 6 Kerbals, and houses a full science package as well as mining and refueling equipment. Its primary role on this mission will be to scout possible locations for our first surface outpost on Laythe.

Here's a shot of the science package.

And the mining/refueling equipment. Also pictured are the hydrofoils that allow for amphibious operation. It also has a Mk2 docking port and RCS. After it's primary role on this mission has been carried out, the craft will remain on Laythe to serve as an exlporation vessel, as well as a light crew transport.

Lifting off from the KSC runway, it is (barely) capable of a minmus landing.

It carries little oxidizer, and is capable of reaching orbit without it, although a brief burn with the rapiers in closed cycle mode increases range.

Here we see the cargo bay open, and solar panels deployed.

As I previously implied, margins on a flight to the surface of Minmus are somewhat slim, so I might refuel The Eagle Ray in orbit. We'll see how our fuel reserves look once we reach Minmus orbit.

Next up, as promised, we have one of the big boys of the fleet:

Spoiler

The Osiris is primarily designed for delivering very high volume, light to moderate density payloads to orbits at interplanetary destinations. It is also capable of delivering high density payloads matching the heaviest lifters of the fleet (>450tons) to LKO.

It houses mining/refueling equipment in the ventral opening cargo bay, as well as an airlock for ease of ingress/egress during surface operations.

The airframe is pretty versatile, allowing for many configurations. Pictured here is a version meant for large part recovery. It's even theoretically capable of bringing home asteroids up to a certain diameter.

And here's a version outfitted with cargo bays for... reasons. There's also a passenger variant (not pictured) capable of carrying 250+ Kerbals.

On this mission, the Osiris will be delivering the bulk of our Jool communications constellation. This is one of the very high part count missions that I mentioned in a previous post.

Note the part count.

We'll be flying these larger craft with graphical aero effects set to minimum to keep the framerates somewhat playable (playable means something entirely different when playing KSP as compared to when playing just about any other game).

Making note of the control input here, you'll notice that the craft is very nose heavy. The design isn't terribly well balanced. Luckily, reaching orbit requires very little player input. As the fuel drains, the COM can be shifted rearward substantially, making atmospheric flight much more forgiving.

With the fairing deployed, we get our first look at the payload.

A closer look at the payload. The 3 large relays will be outfitted with 4 dishes a piece. These will be deployed into a high polar orbit around Jool (probably between the orbits of Bop and Pol, maybe even beyond the orbit of Pol). The 4 clusters of smaller relays each contain 3 coms relays and a survey satellite. One cluster each will be deployed at 4 of Jool's 5 moons (we'll do Tylo later). This should provide adequate ground coverage of the moons with minimal (if any) interruption.

Headed for Minmus.

Finally, we have another heavy lifter, This one delivering our first surface outpost to the Jool system:

Spoiler

The Czar Galactica Mk 5 is also primarily designed for light to moderate density asset delivery, this time with a bit more focus on deployment of surface assets.

With room for 26 kerbals, she's also capable of delivering high density payloads to LKO

The dorsal bay consists of 3 CRG-100 and 1 CRG-25 cargo bays.

The ventral bay is composed of 3 CRG-100 cargo bays and the forward loading cargo ramp. It also houses an airlock for ease of ingress/egress during surface operations.

I'm going to keep the full payload under wraps until deployment (which should be pretty spectacular), but I'll give you a shot of a mock up of the bulk of the outpost we'll be delivering.

Technically, there's room for 28 kerbals if you count the research lab and all the cupolas, but we're going to call the nominal capacity 20 just to leave them some leg room.  The base is designed to be expandable. This isn't everything on board, but it gives an idea of the scale of the base.

This is another of the very high part count missions.

Conducting pre-flight checks, we get a good view of the absurd engine layout. She's pretty overpowered even for a craft of this size, but she manages >35% payload mass fraction to LKO when maxing out her payload capacity, so whatev.

Again, flying with graphical aero effects set to minimum to preserve framerate. Even so, re-entry and deployment at Laythe will be challenging to say the least.

Proving the "overpowered" point.

Solar panels deployed. They are stowed under the doors of the Mk2 cargo bays offset into the Mk3 fuselages. I'm not sure this has any useful effect. The solar panels are attached to the Mk3  fuselages, so I don't think they're actually occluded inside the cargo bays. It sure does look cool though. 

A beauty shot on our way to Minmus.

Our flotilla on it's way to Minmus.

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited August 17, 2017 by NoobTool

[Wallygator]

5 hours ago, NoobTool said:

First up is our scout craft:

Nice design!

5 hours ago, NoobTool said:

The Czar Galactica Mk 5

Holy crap!

[NoobTool]

30 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

Nice design!

Thanks! I haven't tested it at Laythe. Hopefully it works just as well there. I know the rapiers will have less thrust at sea level.

33 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

Holy crap!

Now you know what I was talking about with the orbital refueling. Can you imagine docking that thing to something big enough to refuel it? It would be begging for a Kraken attack.

[Wallygator]

16 minutes ago, NoobTool said:

Now you know what I was talking about with the orbital refueling. Can you imagine docking that thing to something big enough to refuel it? It would be begging for a Kraken attack.

Please do this.

 

Edited August 17, 2017 by Wallygator

[NoobTool]

52 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

Please do this.

No promises. I'm not sure I have the patience for that. 

[NoobTool]

I have bad news. I've been experiencing computer issues of late. Increasingly frequent blue screen crashes, not just in KSP. I'm afraid it may be a ram issue. This has resulted in one corrupted save (the sandbox save that I use for craft testing) and having to re-install KSP. I had been playing this save on the 1.3 pre-release, but I currently have the current full-release version installed. This save is incompatible. This leaves me with a couple of options. Option 1: opt back in to the pre-release (with fingers crossed) to continue this save; option 2: start a new sandbox save starting with the missions currently in flight. Let me know what you think.

[Alpha 360]

This is amazing!! I would personally vote for option 2 because 1.3 is more stable than the pre-release and would be able to hold more craft with higher part counts. Please continue!

[NoobTool]

So... I got a bit side-tracked. I began working on other projects in KSP while this save was incompatible, and I have since begun taking classes. But there is good news. Firstly, KSP has since been updated to the full release version of the pre-release that this save was started in, meaning that this save is once again compatible with the full release version. I plan to pick it back up and continue. Second, my distraction has borne fruit that I think will be useful in this endeavor.

https://kerbalx.com/NoobTool/Wyvern

The Wyvern is a helicopter with some capabilities that should prove quite useful at Laythe. I've even worked out a way to get it there (I think). I won't be sending it just yet, as doing so would eat up pretty much the remainder of my budget, and it won't be terribly useful until I have multiple surface outposts on Laythe. Something to look forward to.

I've also modified my overall plan for the colony. Though I hadn't expressly said as much in this thread, my original plan was to have assets spread fairly evenly throughout the Jool system. I realized however, that since this program relies heavily on air-breathing SSTO's, Laythe is the most suitable target for colonization. I still plan on 500 kerbals, and I still plan to have at least 1 surface outpost on each of Jool's moons, but Laythe will be the focus of the colonization effort, and will be home to most of the Kerbals living in the Jool system.

I'll be picking up where I left off. We have 3 craft headed to Minmus for refueling en route to the Jool system. Once those craft are safely on their way to Jool, we'll continue banging out contracts to hire more kerbals and acquire funds to continue working toward the goal. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!