Bugs Unbound: A mission to Proxima Kirbani

[EnderiumSmith]

After exploring Cercani, the agency prepares to aim for the next destination: Nova Kirbani C, a small red dwarf orbiting far out from the binary pair, with 4 planets detected. The mission specialists selected are:

Takane Kerman - Chief Pilot: A kerbal with a rather grounded history, she proved her spacial navigation skills inside virtual reality before getting a career at mission control plotting trajectories for probes, including the ships hauling fusion fuel from the outer system.

Rayleigh Layman - Chief Scientist: Famous for being the first kerbal born on Laythe, she comes from a corporate outpost set up for prestige before the colonization wave even began.  The transition to self sufficiency during her childhood inspired her interest in planetary science

Polta Kerman - Chief Engineer: A specialist in fusion technology that oversaw the ³He mining operation around Urlum, he gathered a loyal following back on Kerbin for his series of introspective music, often released in conjunction with the arrival of the ³He shipment

Katya Kerman - Second in Science: Hailing from a less developed region of Kerbin, she managed to score an apprenticeship with one of the best scientists on the continent, thus becoming a renowned scientists in the field of stellar wind interactions

16 other kolonists to oversee ground operations

Part 1: Planetfall

HMS Tempos of Wind Chimes lifts off from the Mun

Passing through the glare. Due to a miscalculation the ship ended up with much tighter margins than expected. Some deltaV saving manuvers will be needed.

Gravity braking off Sian, the third planet in the system

Gravity breaking around your destination is tricky, as you cant change your speed relative to it, only a third body. Instead you must burn at apoapsis to raise your periapsis back to the planets orbit, to encounter it tangentially, thus limiting the normal component of your capture burn relative to the star. About 2/3rds of deltaV can be saved this way if you fly well. Weather this is worth it is another question., as while the capture went from 1400 to 300, another 1100 must be spent to get to low orbit, so the total saving is less than half

This little asteroid moon of Sian provides an amazing view of the icy planet bellow

Exploring on a lawn chair

A mining ship is constructed to source raw materials, as the starship only carries the minimum amount required. The onboard factory and orbital shipyard will turn the ore into material kits. It will also top up the starship with hydrogen as the afterburning mode is much more efficient at conserving fusion fuel

Probing Sian. So it turns out the atmospheres in this mod are complete nonsense. I had to rebuild the atmo configs from scratch for this one especially

Leaving Sian

Trying the same gravity break, this time it wasnt as efficient but the ship is bleeding mass from converting ore to fertilizer so the longer transfer added some deltaV

Passing by Narath. While the presence of oxygen is a strong biosignature, the planet is a lot more bleak that it was hoped for. The very thin atmosphere combined with the frequent flares of its parent star restrict life to the oceans, which are slightly greenish

Entering low orbit and preparing to deploy the colony. Also is should point out this planet is the buggiest ive ever seen, with bugs i didnt even think were possible

Observing the rock formations. For some reason these things are very laggy so ill have to disable them

Planetfall. A crumple zone was used on the underside to allow landing with just parachutes with the help of lithobreaking. This will serve as habitat until a large one can be built

The colony. Since the planet is tidally locked, solar arrays can provide constant power, even if a mod i cant find is causing them to only output a third of their power when the sun is low in the sky. Does anyone know how to fix that?

Time to resupply the starship so it can visit the other planets

To be continued...

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[EnderiumSmith]

Part 2: Starfox

With its new habitat and fuel scoop module, HMS Tempos of Wind Chimes heads to the only gas planet in the whole trinary: Elius. A quaint little ice giant at the outer edges of the system with a couple of icy moons, this planet likes to stay away from the busy life in the inner system. Traveling here does however reveal quite an anomaly, you could fit at least 2 more planets in the gap between the inner and outer system, yet they are nowhere to be found, just an asteroid belt at best. What happened in the early days of this system to cause such a gap, being so far away from the rest of its companions to avoid any possible interaction.

The outer moon of the ice giant is covered in a thick layer of organic compounds staining it brown

The inner moon is more geologically active and has fissures of solid ice in places

Entering low orbit and deploying the particle scoop. I dont quite understand how spacedust is supposed to work. The abundance is set right, if even a bit low, yet the hydrogen tank fills instantly, which cant be right as the ship would burn up if it was passing through so much mass

The last moon of this system is an asteroid in a a far retrograde orbit

Returning home with full tanks to pick up the next lander

A ball of LOX is also added to fuel the landers from. I could have scooped it up from the atmosphere but i didnt make the config and the delivery rockets have plenty of fuel left when they arrive

The inner planet of Iro. While i did bring a rover, there was no screenshots to take. While the geometry was technically rendering, what was supposed to go on top was complete nonsense. Anyway this is the smallest planet in the system and has an ocean of low melting point metals at the substellar point

Transporting the Sian lander. Sian is the biggest planet in the system, yet its primarily icy composition make its surface gravity lower than Narath or Kerbin. A 3 stage lander will be needed for this one

Of course the atmosphere isnt loading now. Sian has a Duna type atmosphere made mostly of CO₂ with traces of H₂. Seismic scans detect the presence of a subsurface ocean so its possible life exists under the surface, if the ice isnt so thick it freezing back up from the pressure

Returning to the asteroid to refuel on hydrogen. Of course with the fusion tanks now full it has triple the deltaV in dry mode even if it runs out

Calculations show that to go from Proxima Kirbani to the inner system it would take as much deltaV as it took to get here in the first place, so i guess it ends here instead

Given that the Galaxies unbound series is so buggy, what other interstellar destinations are there to visit?

Overall i liked this system even if its a bit small. It reminds me of Extrasolar from the old days, which was also extremely buggy

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Edited July 19 by EnderiumSmith

[Iapetus7342]

Nice mission there! How'd you get a copy of GU?

[EnderiumSmith]

3 hours ago, Iapetus7342 said:

Nice mission there! How'd you get a copy of GU?

i got it before it was down, but someone reuploaded it now. Not that its of much use with the level of bugs it has.

[Iapetus7342]

Ok. Nice to know.