The New New Jersey Space Program (3.2x Beyond Home + BDB)

[bigyihsuan]

Once again I'm playing KSP again. And once again I'm playing on a non-stock, rescaled system with BDB (this time it's Precursor's Planet Pack Beyond Home at 3.2x scale, with Real Fuels).

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/a/u2hEhQP

This is the program of the New New Jerseyans: Escaping from the double front that is Philadelphia and New York City, they've decided to go somewhere else to make their pizzas and bagels and taylor hams.

Play session #0.

Spoiler

First orbit.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by bigyihsuan
new run

[bigyihsuan]

Play session #1

Did some contracts, struggling to get sufficiently powerful engines to shove things larger than ~0.5t into orbit.

I also designed a "Secondman" launcher, pictured below with an early version of the TaylorHamRadio communications satellite, which unfortunately doesn't have enough antenna range (or I didn't set the range/DSN multipliers high enough).

https://imgur.com/a/B0a1soO

[bigyihsuan]

Play session #2

https://imgur.com/a/aCmVvcN

The inaugural launch of the TaylorHamRadio v1 communications satellite, which is majorly lacking in power generation.

[bigyihsuan]

Play session #3

A new TaylorHamRadio 1.1 with improved fuel capacity and solar panels: one on an Atlas, and one on a Delta-ish rocket, . Also launched the BearlySunny solar observation probe.

The Atlas one didn't have enough dV to get past low-Frontier orbit. The Delta-ish one got farther, with an apoapsis at geosynchronous altitude, but couldn't circularize.

My current goal is to get communications at Frontier-synchronous  orbit so I have constant probe control.

https://imgur.com/a/3SKS5lw

[bigyihsuan]

Play session #4

Some successes, some failures

We managed to launch more TaylorHamRadio 1.1s, with 2 on their way to orbits specified by contracts. Also, a Nimbus weather satellite was deployed for science.

However, when trying out manned flight it was quickly determined that parachutes are near useless in Frontier's thin atmosphere; either a landing stage is needed or more drogue-like parachutes are needed. RIP in peas Jeb, Val, and some third pilot kerbal, you will be missed until you respawn in 24 hours.

https://imgur.com/a/ggjnkc0

[bigyihsuan]

Restarted my save, but using 3.2x Beyond Home: 

I blatantly cheated skipped the early tech tree did some advanced probing of the KSC area to skip some of the tedium.

https://imgur.com/a/Vm5TPsD

Accidentally sent this little guy interplanetary.

[bigyihsuan]

Play session #1

https://imgur.com/a/7ZkIdwF

Some more hax careful KSC probing, I have more parts available. Sent up a comsat, and a science probe interplanetary (intentionally this time)

[bigyihsuan]

New save, again, because I found a better 3.5x rescaler for Beyond Home: https://github.com/Morphisor244/Beyond-Home-Rescale

Also switched over to use RemoteTech, I wanna try it out again.

A good start: default RemoteTech settings have mission control not at the launch site.

[bigyihsuan]

Playsession 0-ish

https://imgur.com/a/2Bs4qe4

Typical early-game stuff, as well as spamming KEI to unlock the tree faster. Kerbal Construction Time is set to VerySlower, so it takes 24 days for a small rocket.

[bigyihsuan]

Play session 1

https://imgur.com/a/ZPhaTQA

Comms are hard. Good thing I have something shoved up there, now I don't have to worry as much about comms.

Up goes an OOG-derived relaysat, as well as a low-altitude ScanSat, also based off of OOGs. Also designed a modular flat-pack relay sat for geostationary (rhostationary?) orbits that can be stacked on top each other. It's no Starlink, that's to be sure.

What's weird is that some antennas are breaking of inside the fairing, but I don't know if it's because of Simple Adjustable Fairings, lack of autostruts, or something else.