Slow History: A real time no timewarp career

[EnderiumSmith]

Premise: Going places in ksp is always a quick afair, but in real life you often just see the launch then months or years later you hear of the result. This series will try to replicate that by not using time warp. The clock will be set to earth time and on game boot will be warped to the present, only allowing preplanned manuver nodes to be performed in the catch up period. If quickloading is needed due to bad piloting then warp can be used to get back to the previous point. The system will be the OPM Kerbol system at normal scale with no life support mods. High energy transfer will be used quite a lot here, even if transfer window planner struggles in that middle range between hohfmann and brachistochrone.

Part 1: Fleas and Orbiters

Jumping Flea

Hammer stack

Adding an upper stage to the hammer stack makes a good orbiter

Most of the way there

Landed on this steep hill.

Part 2: Moonshot

The Miku series rocket. A swivel and 2 reliants make a decent LV. throttle is needed at maxQ. The 2 side tanks provide enough deltaV for transfer, landing and 1 short hop. the tiny tank in the middle provides enough for return.

Boosters spent, almost in orbit

Going for TMI. the pug takes a while to perform this.

Approaching the Mun

A small step for kerbal, a huge leap for rocket.

A hop to a different biome ended up landing in this rock.

Returning to Kerbin.

The upgraded Miku III going to Minmus. The second rocket went also to there and while it ended up arriving at the descending node by chance, the transfer was also suboptimal resulting in a 3 day transfer instead of the 18h transfer this one achieved. A forth rocket was also sent to the Mun piloted by a new recruit, if you can even call it that considering the probe is required for a scientist to fly it.

A Moho transfer window opens in a week and a few other planets can be brute forced in that time frame. Question is how much i want to farm Minmus for science considering how OP each sea being its own biome is, and if i should do a kerballed mission before a probe arrives at the destination. It is very unlikely the Kerbin system alone will be able to unlock any far future tech since i upped the cost to 10K

[Pipcard]

1 hour ago, EnderiumSmith said:

The Miku series rocket.

Nice.

[EnderiumSmith]

Part 3: Minmus and scansats

Miku IV arrives at Minmus, quite a lot earlier than Miku II

This time the landing was next to the rock rather than on it. It this low gravity it can easily visit a ton a biomes including the poles, returning home with only 1 deltav ramaining and before Miku II even arrives. Because of that Miku II will not produce much science but a survey contract provides some value still. Upgrading the science center to get the last science instrument before the transfer window to Moho opens up is in the works. 3 more rockets of this series are ordered before being deprecated

Returning

Almost hit this lake

This is the Matrioska Scansat. 1 will be deployed to each body in the Kerbin system to scan its surface. The night launch is less than ideal as the engine uses electric turbopumps and it doesnt have enough battery to do the ejection in 1 burn. Data from it will be used to guide the last of the moon landing missions.

 

[Tony Swallow]

Wow! This is a really cool idea! I'm doing something similar in that although I'm allowing myself to time warp for short hops (the 5 mins to the next maneuver) I don't do so to get optimum transfer windows.

Also I'm trying to be as "green" as possible. Rather than Brute forcing a large interplanetary ship into orbit I'm sending up components with empty tanks and then assembling and refueling in orbit.

With my Career I''m up to Day 113. The Tech tree is maxed out, and I've got ships on the the way to Moho, Even and Duna. I've got refineries on Minimus and the Mun. Note that I've been playing on average 1-2 hours per day for over 6 months real time. 

I have found this really rewarding! and I know exactly what you mean by using high energy transfer burns. The Interplanetary ships I have been building are basically massive boosters (which get turned around for refueling and reuse) with a small payload. But with 15K Delta V you can do a lot!

Some of the interesting things that make it all the more real.....

Tech Vs Time Paradox.

Earlier in the career you have less items unlocked, so you build what you can with what you have at the time and send it on its way. Later you will be setting things up with "outdated" tech

For Example, earlier in the Career I sent a craft to Eve to set up a constellation of satellites around Eve and GIlly, as well as a Scanner Sat over GIlly. At the time My Tech tree was mid-range so I didn't have the Narrow Band Scanner unlocked. But I did have  repair satellite mission with the scanner on board, So I used an engineer to attach it to the craft going to Eve. It has only been in the last "week" that it has arrived and I've set up the Constellation and Scanner. Ready for when the ship with the refinery arrives. 

Race to the Launch window.

For my Moho ship I found that if I got a launch within a tight time-frame then I could (should, ship's not there yet) be able to set up the refinery, do a refuel and then send the craft to Eve, Getting s "two-fer" with one mission. However I had to fuel it as quickly as possible to meet the first window. This meant that I needed to prioritise "milk Runs" to fill it up and get the ship underway.  The feeling of satisfaction of getting the ship away was awesome!

All you need is Fuel.

I've set up refineries on the Mun and Minimus. I made the first refineries, then decided that I needed to have upgraded refineries. I'm up to the 3rd iteration which has 3 x 10,000 Liquid fuel tanks and, 4 Large Convert-a-trons and all the power, cooling and so on that I could ever need! I found that setting up the refinery for "set and forget" really helps. Have enough drills that the ore comes in faster than it is processed. Make sure you have enough power (day and night) that it never shuts down. Have lots of cooling so you don't have to juggle tuning of the Convert-a-trons on and off. Unless I'm doing a milk runs with ever orbit there is always a full tank when my refuel-er docks.

Standardisation of craft.

Rather than making a bespoke craft for ever mission, I have a library of components (subassemblies) that  I assemble as required. It may not be 100% optimised but but it does reduce the instances of "Woops, forgot the solar cells" I have a standard "7 Nerv Engine Module" that is now up to iteration #7. with each one "teaked" a bit to make it better. Similarly I have a standardised science module with a mobile processing lab and all the experiments. I have an Interplanetary Transfer Pod (IPTP) which is a lander can, HItchhiker storage container single Nerv and tanks. This is for the single take of getting Kerbs and some storage interplanetary. It has 8K DeltaV, which can kick in After it detaches from the Booster.

Return Capture Boosters.

I have a constellation of 6 Booster, fueled and ready to go, around Kerbin. the intent is that I can have the IPTP come in "Hot" with inadequate Delta V to capture. The Booster will burn to match the IPTP and then backburn to a Kerbin capture. Meaning that transfers can be even faster!

Have a great time with your Career. I find that that "way in which you play" is different for everyone and that there can be so much fun in it!