Some updates on my career mode

Jeb x Valentina · September 17, 2023

Hello dear kerbonats; it's been quite a while since I post an update on my career mode,

First of all, we went to Minmus to repair a rover

Spoiler

I also managed to unlock the poodle; it's VERY efficient

The poodle stage was in fact, SO efficent it even had spare fuel, so I "accientally" crashed it instead of using it to land cuz why not (it's the big fuel tank in the background)

It was a very accurate landing, just a few meters away from the rover. Got a fun drive.

After a bit of no-screenshot taking, I launched a space telescope for a contract

Spoiler

Let's get this baby into an escape

After some time, we finally got to kerbol orbit, so I ran some experiments

It was PAINFULLY slow, as I packed no batteries other than the OKTO.

After that, Jeb went to plant a flag on Minmus (which I forgot to screenshot)

Spoiler

Yes, that is a spark in the landing stage. It somehow game me more delta than the terrier.

Hi little Ice cream ball

Experiment time

Lil' wingnut

Re-entry

Using the mobility enchancer to dive cuz why not?

RevanX_LSR · September 18, 2023

By the way, sparks give more delta-v than terriers since they are very light. They save 0.3tons in a 3 ton spacecraft (which causes it to lose 20+% of dry mass!) engines in stock are just so heavy.

Jeb x Valentina · September 18, 2023

9 hours ago, RevanX_LSR said:

By the way, sparks give more delta-v than terriers since they are very light. They save 0.3tons in a 3 ton spacecraft (which causes it to lose 20+% of dry mass!) engines in stock are just so heavy.

Big w, however, as a non-DLC user, I always suffer kraken attacks if I just place undersized engines and use fairings to cover stuff up. Wish stock KSP1 had engine plates

RevanX_LSR · September 19, 2023

12 hours ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Big w, however, as a non-DLC user, I always suffer kraken attacks if I just place undersized engines and use fairings to cover stuff up. Wish stock KSP1 had engine plates

twitch engines are pretty good in that case. Not a big ISP sacrifice and they’re radial.

Also, you can upload ur screenshots online and insert the link in this forums to upload images

Jeb x Valentina · September 19, 2023

10 hours ago, RevanX_LSR said:

twitch engines are pretty good in that case. Not a big ISP sacrifice and they’re radial.

Haven't unlocked yet

10 hours ago, RevanX_LSR said:

Also, you can upload ur screenshots online and insert the link in this forums to upload images

That's what I did... wdym?

RevanX_LSR · September 19, 2023

1 hour ago, Jeb x Valentina said:

Haven't unlocked yet

That's what I did... wdym?

ohh… didn’t open the spoiler tabs.

Jeb x Valentina · September 19, 2023

33 minutes ago, RevanX_LSR said:

ohh… didn’t open the spoiler tabs.

Yeah, don't worry

Jeb x Valentina · September 21, 2023

Moar updates

After the telescope, I picked up a remerkably EZ contract to take 2 tourists to orbit and back.

I launched them along with Bob inside a ~~fairing~~ very cozy pure stock 3-seater capsule; but this was no ordinary orbital mission; no, Bob's gonna take some sweet science from the northern ice shelf.

Here are some images of the flight:

Spoiler

The 3 bois chatting before launch

LIFTOFF!

Gravity turn

Decoupling those SRBs

Orbital insertion burn

Forgot to capture 2nd staging event

Hello hello ice shelf

Deorbiting 1 orbit later cuz ~~I'm dumb~~ the tourists wanted to stay more time up

3rd staging event

Re-entry

The crew's tanning a bit aren't they???

Science- Wait, get back in the ship?

After re-entry

It's chute time!

Cut the main chute cuz we don't rlly need it

Can we just stop to appreciate this shot?

TOUCHDOWN-

Oh dear... Looks like we actually needed the main chute...

Nah, the crew is ok, just a bit shocked... I guess...

They are up!

Leaving a bad review

At least the atmospheric and ore scanners survived the fall

Flag

I also sent this goofy probe to orbit 4 a contract, but don't have much footage of it

And I (tried) to send this rover to another rover on minmus to grab and drag it to its target location, again, there's not much footage, this time cuz the mission was... aborted

Spoiler

Orbital insertion burn

The payload has been released, and is now heading for minmus-

Wait a sec... WHY ARE THE WHEELS BROKEN!?

Welp, that's it. If anyone knows that went wrong, please help.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Jeb x Valentina

Jeb x Valentina · September 21, 2023

btw, here's the file for the tourist craft:

KerbalX - Capsule 2.0

Jeb x Valentina · September 24, 2023

Yet again, It's time for more updates. This time it's only a single mission, (and a tiny contract) but boy, it was MASSIVE.

A few days after the failure of the Hauler II, (The rover mentioned in the previous report) I decided that I'd not let it happen again. So, I built a much cheaper version of it, but that thing could still get the job done...

We first made sure that it worked, by klawing a mock-up of the target rover:

Spoiler

Great! It works! But it looks like we've grabbed the wrong side...

Realigning...

Better!

Adjusting the klaw a bit...

The tests were a resounding success!!

However, we still had to address last time's issue with the wheels... My theory is that the fairing's ejection force was to blame.

But before testing that, I got a contract too good to decline...

So, we got to work

Oddly, the decoupler didn't fall even after decoupling with a strenght of 0 (for Jeb's safety). Huh

Anyways, it was time for the big deal, the fairing testing. I also decided to assemble the whole skycrane, in case it was also be affected

I first tested it with the default fairing values:

Spoiler

The wheels broke!

I then Tried clamshell deploy with ejection forces less than 30:

Spoiler

{

Testing the eingines just in case the rover gets toasted:

This time, the wheels were intact, confirming my theory, so, I decided to launch:

Spoiler

Max-Q:

SRB sep:

Faring se- WHAT!?

As the fairing deployed, the panels crashed into the rocket, obliterating it:

The rover somehow survived, so I decided to try and lithobrake it instead of reverting the flight, cuz what's the fun in that?

Spoiler

The wheels survived? whoa.

Uh.... I thought we'd splash down or fall at the beach...

Lil' boom in the bg

EVACUATE!

Boom. It's a miracle we didn't hit any facility directly. The flight log confirms the fairing was to blame for all of this...

}

We crashed just next to the astronaut complex...

But hey, at least a reaction wheel and antenna survived the accident!

Gimme those funds back :mad:

Spoiler

Crash site

HERE COMES THE MONEY!!!

We only got 1.7k funds out of the 16k rocket (including the 7.5% discount strategy I've got)... 10% Let's try again!

This time, instead of a fairing, I used another thing... See if you can spot it before I reveal it, in this nice ground shot:

Spoiler

Max-Q, thankfully the rover survived it:

SRB sep:

A little shot from a "camera" mounted on the...

Heat shield! An innovative (but pretty heavy) fairing solution!

Due to that, I had to turn the rocket a little to drop the shild, then get back, up, that's why I don't have clar pics of it gettin separated. Perhaps it's in the background of this pic? Idk.

Orbital insertion burn:

MECO:

3rd stage ignition:

Set the rover to hidernate, to save battery.

As you can see here, I really tried to optimize dV:

And the minmus transfer burn was slightly more expensive than expected...

Starting burn:

SECO:

After some staging checking, the skycrane was ignited, and burned for a painful 3 minutes straight...

Done!

After 2 weeks in cruise phase, we finally got in Minmus' SOI

Capture burn:

Retro burn:

Adjusting our orbit 4 the landing...

Once our orbit was aligned with the target, It was time to land...

Spoiler

Deorbit burn:

Landing process:

TOUCHDOWN!

After that, the skycrane was separated, and landed nearby to relay signal from the rover (which was actually unecesary thanks to a level 3 tracking station, but very necesary later on...)

Spoiler

With the skycrane (from now on referred to as the lander) already landed, it was time to drive off to the target, which was sadly much further than expected...