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Grannus Expansion Pack Exploration Gameplay - Epona: Rosmerta Mining Operations


GEPEG_Unconscious

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  On 1/22/2021 at 6:40 PM, OhioBob said:

I'm interesting see what you'll find

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Right back at you. Got to see a little bit in the stuff below

 

Destination Sirona: Crew Sendoff

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Titan payload bound for Brovo making its insertion burn around Sirona

Its been a long build-up to this point, but most of the pieces are in place to facilitate the exploration of the the Sirona system, so lets get the last few piece on their way. I, personally, am hyped.

Airmed Hardware

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Brovo Payload Insertion and Landing

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Only one main component left to send to the ringed planet, the crew itself

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In addition to the crew, two auxiliary components also left for Sirona at this window

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Well, this was a very large update. Everything in here felt like it should be included together though. Hope you enjoyed it.

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Destination Outer Solar System: Pre-planning the Next Missions

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The upper stage of a Typhoon rocket carries Precedence-Epona and its kick stage to orbit

 

A short interlude here. While waiting out the transit time to Sirona, transfer windows to Epona, Cernunnos, and Sucellus opened up. These bodies (and Epona's moons) are the last planetary bodies to recieve a dedicated science mission to them. Once these probes are in orbit, KSC will have successfully performed robotic exploratory missions to every known body in the Grannus System.

(Yes, we have been to Sucellus before during the Caireen mission, but there was no dedicated science mission performed near it, so it was never consider explored by a probe)

 

Precedence-Epona

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Precedence-Cernunnos

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Oracle-Sucellus

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And Soon...

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I have been following this mission report for a little while now (yes I'm a lurker), and just wanted to say keep up the good work! I find it interesting how you use the Orca for most interplanatery transfers. I tend to just completely build a new ship from scratch for every mission and have been trying to break that habit.

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@Daedalus3000 welcome aboard. Glad you are enjoying everything. Like darwinpatrick said, subassemblies are key if you want to design a mission off a standardized platform. What I normally do is build a payload, save it as a subassembly, then open the file with the transfer vehicle (like the Orca) and bring in the subassembly to assess my dV. Also, in my opinion, standardizing your launch and transfer vehicles is a nice way to constrain your builds and give the save a sense of continuity. That being said, the current iteration of the Orca is at its limits at Sirona (payload capacity of 25-29 tons to Sirona one-way), so a new generation of transfer vehicles will be made for the outer solar system.

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Destination Sirona: Damona Exploration

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Dave Kerman takes in the view of Brovo while analyzing experiments performed on-board Triton

 

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Exploration time! (Can you tell I'm excited to be doing this?) First up on the Sironian moons to explore is the outermost one, Damona. The small size and low gravity should make it an easy first target. But before we get there, lets get actually get everyone into the Sirona system first.

 

Checking in on the rest of the flotilla first

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And here are the stars of the show, the crew

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One moon down, two to go, and already the mission has a more Kerbal spin to it than expected. Honestly though, it kinda makes the experience more exciting. Next up, Airmed.

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Destination Sirona: Airmed Exploration

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Wencan looks out in the distance at the shear slopes that are a common feature on Airmed

 

Time to explore the innermost moon of Sirona, Airmed

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And that's Airmed. Two moons down, one more (and my most anticipated) to go.

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Some ramblings and other notes from the Airmed mission:

I actually lost the orginal lander sometime either during puttering around the little base (where the lander was occasionally within physics range) or during the rover exploration part. I tried switching over to it when prepping for departure and only found a flag. No parts spread over an area due to a falling R.U.D. and no sideways lander at the bottom of a hill. I think one of the times it loaded intermitedly into physics, the craft loaded below the terrain (have had this happen to rovers after bon voyage load ins, but never another craft). Wouldn't be surprised if the 7 degree slope it was on was also a factor. Since this was a game loading issue, and not a player issue, the crew got a shiny new lander (with only about half the fuel loaded in) spawned where the original should have been. Had there been proof the lander fell over because of the slope it was on, I think a Mark Whatney -esque rescue could have been performed with the Brovo lander and still get the crew to Brovo's surface for a fuel resupply, but this mission already had one risky plan.

I'm pretty sure I need to up Snacks consumption as well. The three have spent 53 days just in their Hermes craft and only consumed about a third of the supplies in there (the base amount the mod adds, which I think is 150 units for the Mk 1-3 capsule) and I would have expected more. Not trying to make these missions a super realistic play-through but I was expecting supplies to be more of a constraint. Might have to look into it when they return from Sirona.

And lastly,  an enjoyable science result from Airmed:

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  On 2/6/2021 at 4:36 AM, GEPEG_Unconscious said:

I'm pretty sure I need to up Snacks consumption as well. The three have spent 53 days just in their Hermes craft and only consumed about a third of the supplies in there (the base amount the mod adds, which I think is 150 units for the Mk 1-3 capsule) and I would have expected more. Not trying to make these missions a super realistic play-through but I was expecting supplies to be more of a constraint. Might have to look into it when they return from Sirona.

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Snacks is one of the reasons I decided to go back to the 6-hour day with the most recent upgrade (GEP v1.2.2).  It just didn't seem to work well with the 90-hour day.  Though I must admit that I really haven't tested Snacks with the new calendar.  But I suspect the default setting of 3 snacks per day should cause snacks to be consumed at the same rate as in the stock game.

(edit)

Even if you haven't upgraded to v1.2.2, you should be able to add the new calendar to your existing install just by copying the file GEP_Primary/Kronometer.cfg from the v1.2.2 download to your installation.
 

Edited by OhioBob
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That could be it. With the current settings (1 Snack/meal/kerbal, or 3 Snacks/day/kerbal), only 3 snacks were consumed on the 3-4 day (about 28 hours I think) transit between Airmed and Brovo. Not going to add anything until after this mission, but I will drop the Kronometer plugin and see what happens.

While I think the 90-hour day was a cool concept (it made the planet pack stand out when I first came across it a couple years ago), in practice it was not the easiest to follow. I recall in an earlier version of KSP trying to use the 90-hour day and fighting against something related to time (I think I was trying to space out launches by using KAC alarms as reminders for every one Nodens day, but KAC still considered one day as 6 hours). As a result, I have always used a time system similar to how you reworked the Kronometer plugin.

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  On 2/6/2021 at 3:45 PM, GEPEG_Unconscious said:

(I think I was trying to space out launches by using KAC alarms as reminders for every one Nodens day, but KAC still considered one day as 6 hours).

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I thought KAC had upgraded to work with Kronometer, but maybe not.  I know at one time it was definitely a problem.  In my experience there's just too much that seems to be configured around the 6-hour day that the 90-hour day just didn't work very well.  Plus to me it just felt really weird having only 3 long days per year.  I've tested the new calendar in GEP but I haven't actually played a game with it, so I don't know how well it will work in practice.  If you decide to use it, I'd appreciate feedback.  Having months might take some getting use to, but I didn't want to eliminate the 90-hour period altogether, so adding months seemed like a good way to keep it as part of the game.

(edit)  Now as I think about it, it might be a good idea to modify Belisama's orbit so that each new month starts with a new moon.
 

Edited by OhioBob
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  On 2/6/2021 at 4:49 PM, OhioBob said:

I know at one time it was definitely a problem

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The issues I encountered with the interactions was many versions ago (could have been as far back as KSP 1.4.3) so I would not be surprised if the two play better now. Plus the new system sounds more intuitive as well. 6 hours to a "day", 15 "days" to a month, 3 months to a year. It would be fun to know how many times Nodens has gone around Grannus in this playthrough. I could convert from the Kerbin time of "year 4, day 117" but I would rather have Kronometer do that automatically.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Destination Sirona: Brovo Exploration

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Dave Kerman runs a slew of surface experiments shortly after the crew arrive at Cantaloupe Island

And here we are, at the last moon to explore in the Sirona system. I've been waiting a long while to explore here and now its finally time to do so.

But before we explore, we gotta get down there first.

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Brovo Exploration

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And there we go, all three of Sirona's moons landed on and explored. Now all we have to do is get back home...

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@GEPEG_Unconscious, something doesn't look right with your terrain textures.  I believe the bump map isn't working.   This is something that I often had trouble with when I was converting all the textures over to using the new shader.  The screenshot below is what the terrain should look like:

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I never completely figured out what caused it, but I have some ideas.  First, what version of KSP are you using?   In some of the older versions there was an issue with the shader not working on certain planet templates.  If you're using v1.8.1, this problem would affect Brovo.  There's a patch that should fix it (if you haven't already installed it): 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wom007ur6bw0hqy/GEP_Patch_011020.zip?dl=0

Another thing that was suspected as being the culprit was having KittopiaTech installed.  If you have that installed, I recommend removing it.
 

Edited by OhioBob
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  On 2/15/2021 at 4:38 PM, OhioBob said:

The screenshot below is what the terrain should look like:

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Oh! So it wasn't a setting on my end that was preventing the dunes from showing up. I kept messing with the visual settings in the main menu thinking my terrain quality was not high enough. Dropped the stuff from the 1.8.1 folder into my gamedata, and sure enough, new terrain!

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Guess this means another mission to Sirona (and I guess Toutatis) in the future for some better surface pics.

For the record, the link above is for GPP, not GEP. It still provides the bump maps, but does not play well with EVE and/or Scatterer. I think it overwrites the GEP configs and looks for the GPP ones. I went back to this post and grabbed the other patch and everything looks like it is working as intended. I never grabbed the patch because I wasn't seeing what was shown in the example image (large squares of varying textures), but I did have a couple other minor issues, mostly around Belisama (surfaces had a somewhat metallic sheen and at certain altitudes there would be a second ghost terrain in the distance). Will do some additional testing later to see if those issues were also fixed by this patch.

Never had KittopiaTech installed so can't confirm that would also cause weirdness.

Edited by GEPEG_Unconscious
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  On 2/15/2021 at 5:54 PM, GEPEG_Unconscious said:

Dropped the stuff from the 1.8.1 folder into my gamedata, and sure enough, new terrain!

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That looks much better. :)

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Guess this means another mission to Sirona (and I guess Toutatis) in the future for some better surface pics.

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I noticed that things looked a bit off on some of your earlier screenshots as well, but I thought maybe it was because of KS3P.  I have no experience with that mod so I didn't know what to expect.  But after seeing the Brovo screenshots it was clear that the bump maps weren't working.

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For the record, the link above is for GPP, not GEP.

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Yep, I linked to the wrong one.  I've fixed it, but you already found it on your own.

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I never grabbed the patch because I wasn't seeing what was shown in the example image (large squares of varying textures)...

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Fixing the "farm patch" bug is the original reason for the patch.  I had pretty much forgotten about the problem of the bump maps not working until I was reminded after seeing your screenshots.  I figured it was probably part of the same problem that the patch was designed to fix.  I just never connected those dots before now.

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...but I did have a couple other minor issues, mostly around Belisama (surfaces had a somewhat metallic sheen and at certain altitudes there would be a second ghost terrain in the distance).

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Belisama uses the same template as Brovo, so it's likely you'd see problems there as well.  (In fact, all bodies but Grannus, Sirona and Nodens use the same template)

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Never had KittopiaTech installed so can't confirm that would also cause weirdness.

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I doubt Kittopia is the problem.  There was a time when some of us were doing some testing and it looked like Kittopia might be the cause, but I don't believe that anymore.
 

Edited by OhioBob
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  • 1 month later...
  On 2/17/2020 at 7:35 AM, GEPEG_Unconscious said:

Introductions:

Hi all. My name is GEPEG_Unconscious. The posts I put here are records of adventures I have touring the Grannus system. Hope you all enjoy them.

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An overview of the Grannus System based on the Tracking Station numerous gravitational and visual observations

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Wait here, I'm really curious

Taranis, Sucellus, Epona; I recognize those names. They were characters in the Fall From Heaven mod for Civilization 4. What are they doing here?

Maybe the guy who made the interplanetary mod liked FFH, so he used some names as homage?

Maybe the guy who made the interplanetary mod is the same one who made FFH, and he recycled some names?

Maybe they are, like, super common fantasy names that any random name generator will spawn?

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  On 4/15/2021 at 1:10 PM, king of nowhere said:

Wait here, I'm really curious

Taranis, Sucellus, Epona; I recognize those names. They were characters in the Fall From Heaven mod for Civilization 4. What are they doing here?

Maybe the guy who made the interplanetary mod liked FFH, so he used some names as homage?

Maybe the guy who made the interplanetary mod is the same one who made FFH, and he recycled some names?

Maybe they are, like, super common fantasy names that any random name generator will spawn?

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Taranis, Sucellus and Epona are all Celtic deities, as are all the other bodies in GEP.  That's the naming theme that was chosen for GEP.  Any reuse of these names from another mod is only coincidence.

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  • 2 months later...

Destination Sirona: More Whales than Star Trek IV

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The crew, back aboard Triton, depart Brovo.

Y'know, they say finishing out a bachelor's is a full-time job, but the last four months have been non-stop work and that still did not feel like enough time to get everything complete. But it is done, so now there is time for other things once again...

Anyways, Dave, Bill, and Wencan Kerman have been around the ringed gas giant and its moons for long enough. Lets bring them home (and possibly rescue them on the way...)

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And that is Sirona explored. This mission took far longer than I thought, but it got done in the end. Now onto Epona.

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Destination Outer Planets: Filling in the Gaps

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Oracle-Sucellus successfully entering polar orbit around Sucellus

Dave, Bill, and Wencan Kerman returned to a very different Nodens compared to when they left. Society seemed to have undergone some sort of cultural revolution, with a newfound penchant for rather....opulent Snacks consumption. Belisama always seemed to be in slightly the wrong place too. They tried not to think about that too much...

The folks at KSC had not been fully single-tasked on the Sirona mission either. There were a number of exploratory probes moving around the central and outer solar system that required attention in preparation for future missions. In addition to the one above at Sucellus, probes arrived at the remaining two un-surveyed planets in the Grannus System:

Epona,

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and Cernunnos.

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Lastly, a technology demonstration.

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The fully loaded Beluga is now waiting for a transfer window to Epona to open up, after which the Epona exploration mission can begin in earnest.

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Destination Outer Planets: Camping Out for a Midnight Release Far Too Early

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The Beluga and its two pods, still radiating off heat from its burn an hour prior, leaves Nodens

A window to Epona opened shortly after the three craft were joined, so let's not waste any time using it.

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It has been awhile since I last perused the Atomic Rockets website, but this mission brought the 1975 Lighter and Tanker mission plan back to the forefront of my thoughts. This mission outline has always stuck with me for some reason. I remember thinking the mission was rather absurd when first reading it - experimental and very dangerous engines on the Tanker, a long ROI (7.8 years in that outline), and the need to go far out of the way to get the resources required. Granted, the intent of this mission and the Lighter/Tanker one are different (get a crew home safely vs starting orbital fuel depots), but it may have been more realistic in its execution than I originally thought (at least until the discovery of water ice on the moon nowadays).

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