Long-term Laythe Mission (pic heavy) - ^_^ With Part 45 ^_^

[Scotius]

Thank you very much. I wonder how much fuel Mallard can carry to orbit. In 0.24 it could be useful as a refuelling shuttle.

[RocketPilot573]

Good to see you back!

[Brotoro]

Thank you very much. I wonder how much fuel Mallard can carry to orbit. In 0.24 it could be useful as a refuelling shuttle.

The Mallard is a small plane. Even if it gets to orbit over half of its liquid fuel and most of its oxidizer, you're still only talking 200 units of fuel and 100 units of oxidizer...and some of that is needed to return (about 28 fuel and 34 oxidizer)...and you'd also have to subtract what you'd need for orbital maneuvers (plus you'd probably want to add some RCS to the plane for docking, cutting into its payload capacity).

In my experience, small SSTOs aren't useful payload carriers (except when the payload is kerbals).

Edited September 14, 2014 by Brotoro

[SuperWeegee4000]

Yes yes yes yes yesyesyesyesYESYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS--

I mean, ahem, um, very good to see another installment, and best of luck with the next.

[-RanZ-]

sweet, I was hoping this would continue again!

[AppleDavidJeans]

Brotoro, first of all, welcome back. Four months pass by, and idly, I check the thread and boom! I see this new installment! Yeeeeey!

Second, Squad's adding in the popular Spaceplane Parts mod in the next update. Maybe you could add those in now (they're coming in officially anyway later) and write those parts into the series saying that the mission was selected to test a prototype set of new parts.

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe - Part 35

Tedious Tylo Travels

OK, it was time to bite the bullet and finally do the long drive back from Tylo's north pole to the base camp at the equator. It was another big bunch of driving...so pardon me if I wandered off and did some other things during the excursion.

As you may recall, we had left Aldner and Nelemy at Tylo's north pole, having successfully planted a flag in the weird terrain of the polar trench. On the way back south, the boys stuck to one of the main valleys that would take them southward somewhat west of their path up to the pole.

In the image below, you can see the headlights of the rover as the Aldner drives south. Because of the low angle of the sunlight at high latitudes, frequent stops were required to allow batteries to recharge. At least Nelemy got a lot of time to do some reading.

The terrain in Forodwaith is fairly flat, so once the angle of the sunlight improved at lower latitudes, the going was easy. That is to say, it was possible to use MechJeb's rover autopilot to assist with the driving.

Aldner's next target was the very dark feature shown on the map below...the darkest feature in this area of Tylo. The map shows the flag at the north pole, the position of the Fido rover "Shadowfax" (the capsule icon) north of the dark patch, and the collection of ships at the main Tylo base area near the equator at the bottom of the image.

Aldner: "I can see the dark area ahead. Jebidiah's old KerbalMaps survey data says it's supposed to be a low, flat area, but it appears that the dark area is quite high. I'm beginning to wonder if Jeb was even at Tylo, given the inaccuracy of his maps."

Nelemy: "Dude! So you'd say the dark area is rather towering?"

Aldner: "Um...sure."

Nelemy: "So, like...dark...towering?"

Aldner: "You want to name it Barad-Dur, don't you?"

Aldner: "Aldner to Hellou. Come in Vall base."

Hellou: "Hi, Aldner. How's it going?"

Aldner: "We are roving the dark patch now. It looks like basalt. We'll stop and get the darkest rocks we can locate."

Nelemy: "Hellou-dude! Is it pure evil that makes the rocks so dark?"

Hellou: "No, Nelemy. More likely it's the iron content compared to the lighter rhyolite areas. But if you find any pure evil, be sure to bag up a sample."

Aldner got surface samples while Nelemy stayed in the rear cabin. Then the boys continued south into lighter terrain.

Interlude 1

During the drive south, an alarm that I set months ago in Kerbal Alarm Clock reminded me that a set of DoubleTugs needed an apogee kick to circularize its orbit out beyond Tylo. After this burn there were two sets of DoubleTugs ready for return to Kerbin: The "DoubleTug Train" and the "SP Tug A". I'm starting to lose track of which Tugs are which...but I guess it doesn't matter. Both sets will be sent back to Kerbin during the next transfer window.

Also at this time, I took a break from driving rovers and built a ship to take a replacement crew for a longterm stay at Minmus Base (now that the dangerous Kerbol-flares had abated). Below, Base Commander Milski Kerman and his crew: Gergan, Cammon, Jenlan, Fredoly, and Dunsel.

The "Minmus Runner" was built to carry the full crew of six, and has the ability to return them to Kerbin quickly if any nasty Kerbol-flare activity rears its ugly head. The crew are housed in standard capsules (instead of Hitchhiker modules) to improve their chances of surviving a fast return re-entry at Kerbin, if necessary. There is also a Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank as part of the payload for carrying extra propellant to the Minmus Orbital Refueling Station.

The payload was met in orbit by the old Kerbin Nuclear Tug for the push to Minmus. This is a very old Tug from back before the days of Senior docking ports, so the connection was kind of wobbly during the burn to Minmus, but it worked out OK.

Below: The Tug fires to put the payload into Minmus orbit.

Then the Minmus Runner separated and carried the six crewmen down to Minmus Base. It was decided that the ship should be park right next to the base (rather than over 2.5 miles away as had been done before) to facilitate a fast escape.

The unmanned Tug then rendezvoused with the Fuel Station in Minmus orbit to transfer the X200-32 Fuel Tank and some extra fuel to the station.

Tedious Tylo Travels Two

Back to Tylo for more driving! How Aldner and Nelemy should proceed south from Barad-Dur was a bit of a conundrum because there were lots of steep features in the way, despite what Jeb's KerbalMaps indicated. Swinging to the left (east) would have taken them back to the Dead Marshes and they would traverse the same terrain that they covered on their way north. That would be boring. Swinging right (west) would take them further afield...and there was a large scarp along that path. So Aldner chose the central route toward a very tall feature...but it looked like there might be a path through the mountains there.

Below is a overview of the path south from Barad-Dur. Nelemy named the very prominent feature Minas Tirith, and the less-prominent feature to the left Minas Ithil.

As the boys drove south past Minas Ithil, it turned out to be a substantial mountain in its own right. The reason Minas Tirith looked so much taller is because there is a large crater just to the north of Minas Tirith, giving the mountain a very steep and high north face.

Below is the view of Minas Tirith in the distance, and an overview of the area, looking southward. Aldner's plan was to skirt around the rim of the Minas Tirith Crater and make for the pass, as shown in the overview below.

The next two views show Shadowfax navigating the rim of the large crater.

The pass northeast of Minas Tirith was over 8200 meters in elevation. KerbalMaps shows nothing that high in the area, let alone the much greater height of the Minas Tirith peaks.

Aldner got a little careless on the down-slope beyond the pass (read: I was busy trying to take some screenshots from the side), and the rover made quite a flying leap. It landed hard and blew out six of its eight tires...the biggest blowout event of the journey. Fixing the flats was difficult because the newly-fixed tires in the front would cause the rover to buck up into the air (er...vacuum) hard enough to blow the tire again. Some quick-clicking allowed me to fix the flat again mid-buck, and all was well after that.

Beyond the pass was a downslope (ride those brakes, Aldner!) leading to an invitingly smooth, gently sloping and rolling area that Nelemy named The Pelennor Fields. This was a nice place to camp for a while.

When the boys proceded to the south end of the Pelennor Fields (with Nelemy riding on top of the rover), they found interesting angular features at the base of the hills there.

Nelemy: "Dude, those look like teeth. Like the mountain is a big mouth biting the valley. I don't like them. Let's not go near them, Dude."

Aldner: "Nah. They look more like toenails. Like the mountain is a big foot stomping down on the valley. Maybe ready to take another step further out where we are."

Nelemy: "Dude, you ain't helping."

The terrain to the south of the Pelennor Fields was steep enough that Aldner had to drive a long switchback across the slope to get the rover up out of the valley. Below is an overview showing their course out of the Pelennor Fields and on toward some craters to the south.

Nelemy: "Aldner-dude, I'm BORED! This drive is taking forever."

Aldner: "Why don't you read some more of the book?"

Nelemy: "Already finished it."

Aldner: "Ah."

Nelemy: "Dude...doesn't it seem like they should have just used the giant eagles to carry them straight to Mount Doom to begin with? It would have saved a lot of time."

Aldner: "Yeah. Send in the whole squadron from multiple directions at once, flying under the radar. I don't think the author understood the proper use of air power."

Nelemy: "Yeah."

Nelemy: "Hey, Dude. Why don't we sing some songs?"

Aldner: "Let's not."

Nelemy: "Aww, come on! The wheels on the rover go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the rover go round and round, allll across Tylo!"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "The radio on the rover goes beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep. The radio on the rover goes beep beep beep, allll across Tylo!"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "The pilot of the rover says 'I'm all grumpy, I'm all grumpy, I'm all grumpy'. The pilot of the rover says 'I'm all grumpy', all across Tylo."

Aldner: *click*

Nelemy: "Dude? Um...Dude?"

Interlude 2: Vall Venture

Meanwhile, on Vall, Hellou and Emilynn were doing some exploring of their own. They loaded up the Fido rover with supplies and headed southeast along Athena Basin...a much easier drive than Aldner was having to deal with.

The south end of Athena Basin was separated by a ridge from the next basin. Emilynn had some fun leaping the rover across the ridge into Minerva Basin. There were no blown tires in the weaker gravity of Vall.

Hellou: "Emilynn! Warn me before you do something like that."

Emilynn: "You mean my 'YeeeHA!' wasn't enough of a warning?"

Hellou: "Something a little sooner would be preferable."

*Radio crackles*

Nelemy: "Nelemy calling Vall. Nelemy calling Vall."

Hellou: "Hi, Nelemy! How goes the drive?"

Nelemy: "Oh...OK. But boring. I can't talk to Aldner. I think he accidentally switched off the comm circuit."

Hellou: "Yes? The intercom circuit from the rear cabin to the cockpit has an override."

Nelemy: "It does? Let's see...The selector says OFF, ON, VOX, and EMRG."

Hellou: "Yeah...that last setting."

Nelemy: "Gee, thanks, Hellou-dude! Tylo out."

Hellou: "OK, Nelemy. Talk to you later."

Emilynn: "Mmmm...That might not have been a good idea to tell him that."

Anyway... The place I wanted to send Emilynn and Hellou was the next basin to the south of Minerva, which they named Juno Basin. This basin has a small area (see map below) of negative elevation, and I wanted to see if the same buggy behavior happens there as it did when they drove to the lowest spot on Vall (several episodes and KSP versions ago).

And indeed it does. When the Fido drove to sufficiently low elevation below zero, the surrounding landscape went dark despite the sun being in the sky. Hellou's suit lamps on EVA could light up the rover and ground. The 53 meters shown on the altimeter indicate NEGATIVE elevation (hard to tell because the display has no minus sign).

Just at the edge of the dark region, at a negative elevation of less than a meter, I positioned the rover just inside and outside the boundary, and then took the two frames being animated below:

I'm sure our heroines have a lot more exploring to do for the next few months, so I'll leave them to it.

Tedious Tylo Travels Three

Back on Tylo, the boys were heading south toward a couple large craters.

Nelemy: "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with B."

Aldner: "Um...Bop?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "Um...brace?"

Nelemy: "No."

Aldner: "OK...what?"

Nelemy: "Boulder."

Aldner: "You already used 'boulder'."

Nelemy: "It's a different boulder."

The first of the two craters the boys visited, Nelemy named Legolas. They drove through a cleft in the crater wall, then circled around the east rim of the crater, occasionally stopping for samples on the steep wall.

South of Legolas came the crater that Nelemy named Gimli. It was smaller and darker, and they skirted around on the inside of the west rim.

South of Gimli, Aldner drove Shadowfax along a large dark feature that Neleny named Mirkwood. It was not as smooth as Jeb's map data indicated, but they made good time there.

Interlude 3: Asteroid Adventure

Back on Kerbin, testing was underway for the Kerbin Guardian Project hardware. The Guardian was designed to protect Kerbin from asteroid impacts. Below we see the ship. It launches on the new Kerbodyne Big Advanced Reusable Rocket with reusable core and (if the game designers would cooperate) reusable boosters. The Guardian ship is derived from the Big Advanced Tug, with the addition of radiation shields to protect the crew capsule from the gamma and neutron flux while the nuclear engines are in operation. An asteroid Claw/Recovery-Unit sits on the very top.

Below is an abort simulation: If the rocket veers off from its flight path, all engines are shut down, the boosters are separated on their parachutes, the nuclear engine nacelles are separated on their chutes, and the capsule is pushed free by six sepatrons. The sustainer and tug body fall to crash and explode, but chances are (tests show) that three or four of the side boosters, all of the nukes, and the crew capsule would be safely recovered by parachute.

The project's first crewed test flight began as Guardian 1 lifted off with Commander Adly Kerman and pilot Rondorf Kerman on board. The rocket boosted vertically to 13 km where the side boosters burned out and separated. The sustainer started its gravity turn at 14 km. The boosters are equipped with parachutes and landing legs so that they can be recovered at KSC (if the game supported this...I certainly hope it will soon).

The nuclear engines were used to assist the sustainer core into orbit so that enough fuel remained in the core for it to return and land at KSC on its engine flame.

The Guardian 1 mission was tasked with checking out the ship in orbit for a long duration, and chasing down any small asteroids that might appear during its mission...any Class A or B for this initial test mission.

As it so happened, a Class B object was spotted approaching from below Kerbin. It was already within Kerbin's sphere of influence when spotted, and its orbit was nearly perpendicular to the Guardian's orbit (slightly retrograde, in fact). So...How do you catch an asteroid?

Step 1: Perform a burn to extend the apoapsis of Guardian's orbit out to the point where the asteroid's orbit crosses through the plane of the Guardian's orbit. That took a burn of 599 m/s in this case.

Step 2: At the apoapsis point, perform a burn to shift the Guardian's orbit to match the plane of the asteroid's orbit. This is done at apoapsis because that is the most fuel efficient way. This was a big burn of 1286 m/s because of the 113-degree plane shift needed here. If you know ahead of time what plane the asteroid will be in, you could save fuel by launching from Kerbin into that plane to begin with.

Step 3: OK, here's where I made a mistake. I noticed that the Guardian's apoapsis was not quite touching the asteroid's orbit. So I foolishly dropped back to periapsis and made a little adjustment burn to change the apoapsis. Then I looked to see about rendezvousing with the asteroid...BUT it turned out that on the Guardian's next arrival at apoapsis, the rock would be somewhat short of that point...and on the orbit AFTER that, the rock would be about that same distance BEYOND the apoapsis point. Instead of tweaking the apoapsis point, I should have made another burn at apoapsis (right after the plane shift burn there) to raise the ship's periapsis in order to increase its orbital period such that it would arrive back at its apoapsis at the same time the asteroid got to that point. Silly me. (I thought the asteroid was still far enough out that I'd have plenty of time to fool around in orbit, but that wasn't the case.)

Step 3b: So, instead, I had to push the Guardian's apoapsis out further to lengthen its orbital period and get a rendezvous with the rock (see plot below). And then I'd have to make a bigger burn at the intercept point. Sloppy. But it got the job done.

Step 4: Plot Rendezvous. I placed a maneuver node at the intercept point, and then I dragged the prograde/retrograde AND the radial-plus/radial-minus handels as needed until the projected orbit matched that of the asteroid's orbit, including having the same point where they would leave Kerbin's SOI. That big 1230 m/s burn could have been smaller if I had not made my earlier mistake. But the Guardian has fuel to spare, since it's designed to handle larger asteroids as well as small ones.

Step 5: Rendezvous Burn. Below, we see the Guardian 1 most of the way through its rendezvous burn as the ship and the rock approach the intercept point. After the burn, the asteroid was located about 5 km from the Guardian. Then it was just a matter of pointing at the rock...thrusting toward the rock...if you miss, point retrograde to the ship's motion relative to the rock and stop at the point of closest approach...then lather, rinse, and repeat until you are close enough to start the docking.

Step 6: Docking. Before docking, I lined up the Guardian so that it was pointing retrograde relative to its ORBITAL motion. Then I kept that attitude while using the RCS to slide over behind the asteroid and grab it with the claw. This way they ship would be pointed in the correct direction to immediately retrofire and slow the asteroid down for capture (no need to rotate the asteroid).

Step 7: Point to CoM. After docking, free the pivot of the claw and adjust the ship's direction as needed so that the ship is pointed at the Center of Mass of the asteroid. Then lock the pivot. I only needed a tiny tweak here.

Step 8: Retro Burn to slow the asteroid and ship into Kerbin orbit. Before retro burn, I dropped the empty rear tank of the Guardian so that it would continue out into interplanetary space.

So...Adly and Rondorf had themselves a 25-ton rock in a highly eccentric Kerbin orbit. They performed a plane shift at the node of an equatorial orbit (I targeted the Mün for reference) to put the rock+ship into an equatorial orbit...and then they did a retro burn to dip the rock+ship into Kerbin's atmosphere to do an aerobraking maneuver (followed by an apoapsis burn) to settle the rock+ship into a circular 140 km orbit around Kerbin.

After that, Adly and Rondorf did a retro burn to target the rock for a landing at KSC.

After the retro burn, the crew flipped the asteroid around, then detached the Claw/Landing-Unit from the rest of the ship (leaving the Claw/Landing-Unit attached to the asteroid). Then they quickly shifted the Guardian aside and did a prograde-and-upward burn to put their ship back into a stable orbit. (They could have followed the rock down to land at the same time, but I didn't want to risk having the ship and rock wander too far apart and have one de-spawn...or risk having to handle too many things at once during landing.)

Below, the asteroid and the attached Claw/Recovery-Unit flaming into Kerbin's atmosphere headed toward the KSC.

After the asteroid had passed through the entry flames, I found out that I had made another mistake: I had not made an action group for deploying the eight parachutes on the Recovery Unit (and pressing the spacebar did nothing). So I was frantically right-clicking on all of the chutes to get them deployed (in the mayhem, I accidentally cut one of the deployed chutes loose). I managed to get them all deployed above 800 feet...which is where they began to fully deploy in tweaked sets of two to gradually slow the rock to about 10 m/s (it would have been under 10 m/s had the other chute not been lost).

The asteroid landed safely in the field west of the R&D building where the eggheads would have handy access to it. The Claw/Recovery-Unit was detached and recovered to reduce the part count in the vicinity of the KSC.

Back in orbit, Adly and Rondorf still had an excess amount of fuel on board, so they rendezvoused with the Big Gas Tank (and an attached tug) to offload the excess propellant before landing. It turned out that they couldn't dock butts together (well, who can?), so the tug detached, flipped around to dock with Guardian and grabbed its excess fuel, and then undocked and fliped around to redock to the Big Gas Tank.

Finally, our hard working asteroid hunters performed a retro burn to return their ship to the KSC. I was trying to land them near their asteroid for a nice photo op, but they had a different idea and touched down via parachutes near the Astronaut Complex so they wouldn't have to walk as far.

Tedious Tylo Travels: Finale

Back on Tylo, Aldner had driven from Mirkwood into Nelemy Basin through a handy crater (which turned out to not be much of a crater), and was heading for base.

Nelemy: "Are we there yet?"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "Are we there yet?"

Aldner: "No."

Nelemy: "Are we there yet?"

Aldner: "Look, if you make me stop this rover and come back there, you're going to regret it. We'll get there when we GET THERE."

And finally, after driving a distance greater than halfway around Tylo, Aldner drove the Shadowfax rover up to the Tylo Habitat B module and let Nelemy out.

Nelemy: "All right, Dude! Home at last! Let's party with the snacks!"

Aldner: "Bye."

*Aldner drives off in Shadowfax*

Nelemy: "Dude! Where are you going? Dude!"

Aldner: "I'll be staying at Tylo Hab A. See you in a couple weeks."

So ends the great Tylo drive, with Aldner stopping at Tylo Hab A, several kilometers from Nelemy. A map of the route is shown below.

But Wait, There's More! Maneuver Mayhem!

At the same time that Aldner and Nelemy we making the Great Tylo Drive, Thompbles and Kurt were dealing with the incoming payloads for exploring Bop and Pol.

The Bop ship was coming into the Jool system first. It had originally been targeted toward Laythe, where I thought it would be best to use Laythe's atmosphere to aerobrake the payload into Jool orbit. But I later realized that a gravity-assist capture would be better (after having done that with the Tylo exploration equipment). The original trajectory toward Laythe would not work for gravity-assist capture because the ship was not coming in tangentially to Laythe's orbit...so the trajectory would need to be shifted.

As long as the path was being shifted, it was decided to shift it out for a TYLO gravity-assist capture. This has the advantage of leaving the ship in a higher orbit, which is a plus when you are headed to the outer moons. So, just inside Jool's SOI, a maneuver node was plotted with prograde/retrograde (to adjust when the ship arrived) and radial +/- (to shift the trajectory out to be tangent with Tylo's orbit) as shown below. The Tylo passage was adjusted so that the apoapsis of the resulting orbit would be out by Bop's orbit. The trajectory was also adjusted in the Normal +/- direction so that the resulting orbit was much closer to the inclination of Bop's orbit. This tweak only required 52 m/s of delta-V.

Below: The parallel DoubleTugs of the Bop ship perform the Tylo-pass targeting burn.

Two days later, a similar trajectory shift was applied to the Pol Ship's trajectory to shift it away from its originally-targeted Laythe encounter and bring it in toward a close pass by Tylo that would leave it in the red-dotted-line orbit shown below that had an apoapsis out near Pol's orbit. This shift required 96 m/s of delta-V.

Back to the Bop Ship, which we see passing Tylo below. It got as close as 751 kilometers from Tylo.

The plot below is somewhat confusing (because of that blue orbit in there that would result from making another Tylo pass, which we will not allow to occur). The Bop Ship is a little ways to the right of the point marked "Plane Shift Burn" at the apoapsis of the Bop Ship's orbit. That 84 m/s burn will shift the Bop Ship into the plane of Bop's orbit.

Immediately after the plane shift burn, another burn was done with prograde (to raise the periapsis away from Tylo's orbit) and radial (to shift the major axis of the Bop Ship's orbit to match that of Bop's orbit) components. This took 410 m/s of delta-V. Yes, I know it would be more efficient to combine burns, but I get too confused if I don't do it in stages.

Bop was not situated in its orbit in a place where an intercept burn could be done right away. So a maneuver node was plotted for the next time that the ship would reach Bop's orbit that would lead to an actual intercept with the moon. This 197 m/s maneuver was saved for later (it's great the way maneuver nodes are saved with the ship for later use nowadays!).

While we were waiting for the Bop Ship to come around again for its next maneuver, the Pol Ship had its close encounter with Tylo, passing within 491 km of that moon, resulting in a gravity-assist to capture the Pol Ship into an orbit around Jool that touched Pol's orbit at apoapsis. Then, when the Pol Ship reached its apoapsis, a 46 m/s burn shifted its orbit into the plane of Pol's orbit.

Then the Pol Ship did a 414 m/s prograde burn to lift its periapsis safely away from Tylo's orbit and target it for an intercept with Pol.

Next, it was time for the Bop Ship to make its burn (plotted earlier) that targeted an intercept with Bop.

Finally, both ships were on course for intercepts with their moons. The Pol Ship arrived at Pol first, and a simple 174 m/s retrograde burn at closest approach dropped it into a 420 km circular orbit. After moving some fuel around, the two Tugs of the Pol Ship each had 78% fuel left in their main tanks (and full tanks on the nuke nacelles). Loads of fuel! Gravity assist is a wonderful thing. The fuel tanks of the rovers and landers were also full (the three 'tuna can' tanks in the adapter and below the rovers are empty).

The Bop Ship needed only 43 m/s to put it into a 440 km circular orbit around Bop. Its fuel situation was similar to that of the Pol Ship, with over 75% of its main tank propellant remaining.

And for the Finish... the two DoubleTugs waiting out in Jool orbits were boosted back toward Kerbin. This actually happened during the same time period as the Bop and Pol maneuvers above, but these ships were being handled in a separate save file (I use separate save files to keep down lag). Now I need to cut and paste some ships between the different save files, and the mission can continue.

Next Episodes: The explorations of Vall and Tylo finish up, and the exploration of Bop begins. Plus, the new refueling systems should arrive at Laythe.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Brotoro

[macdjord]

Hellou: "No, Nelemy. More likely it's the iron content compared to the lighter rhyolite areas. But if you find any pure evil, be sure to bag up a sample."

But, uh, don't eat any of it.

[Scotius]

Hmm. I have a feeling Aldner will not partner with Nelemy for another mission anytime soon Which inevitably should lead to Thompbles and Nelemy forming another Dynamic Duo Very entertaining chapter.

[DaserTheGamer]

Nice to see that your writing skills have improved so much since part 1 brotoro!

[Brotoro]

Bad Bug

Well, THIS is unfortunate: I've run into a Danny2462-level bug.

My new Refueling Station on Laythe uses the Claw for rover-planes to dock to the Station. My new Fuel-Fido also uses the Claw to dock to and refuel ships. The Fuel-Fido works fine...but the bug happens when I try to dock a plane to the Refueling Station.

When the plane rolls up and butts against the Claw of the Refueling Station, docking occurs....and then the surface of Laythe vanishes and all the vehicles in the vicinity drop into the ocean level that was beneath the surface. Explosions occur and the ships discombobulate upon hitting the water.

Bugger.

I did multiple tests. It doesn't matter which part of the plane docks to the Claw...the surface of Laythe vanishes. So I tried docking the plane to the Claw on the Fuel-Fido rover...and, again, the surface vanishes and mayhem ensues. Note that everything works fine if I am controlling the Fuel-Fido when I dock to the plane...perfect docking with no problems.

I found out that if I get the plane lined up ready to dock to the Refueling Station, and then start the plane slowly rolling toward the Station, and then switch away to another ship.....the docking occurs without any planet-shattering consequences. OK...so that's a work-around. But, still... bugger.

So the bug only rears its ugly head when trying to dock to a Claw that is on the passive (target) ship...and not when the Claw is on the active ship. BUT...this is very strange, because one of the first things I tested when the Claw was released was docking to a passive ship that had a Claw, and this worked fine in my tests on the field at KSC.

Has anybody heard anything more about this planet-destroying bug that was featured in Danny's recent videos? Is there a known cure for this?

Note: I am still running version 23.5 (I don't know what version Danny is running).

Edited October 4, 2014 by Brotoro

[RocketPilot573]

Bad Bug

Um, claws and asteroids are FILLED with TONS of bugs, basically, never ever use them unless you want to break your save file and maybe your install too. Unfortunately, .24 does not fix this and I highly doubt .25 will either.

[macdjord]

For the moment, can you simply make sure to always use the claw-side as the active participant?

[Scotius]

"Ahem. Dear developers. If any of you is reading this excellent After Action Report, please kindly consider adding a fuel line\pipe\cable to stock parts. It will make lives of many of your devoted players much easier and simpler.

- Scotius."

[Brotoro]

For the moment, can you simply make sure to always use the claw-side as the active participant?

This is a problem when you are trying to dock your BirdDog rover-plane to the stationary Refueling Station: The Refueling Station has the claw, but it isn't mobile, so it's difficult for it to be the active vehicle (other than using the trick of changing the focus off from the plane just before it docks).

[The Error]

Fun stuff. I'd suggest a return to docking ports if possible, otherwise a politely and/or strongly-worded letter to the devs, along the lines of "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot."

[mattihase]

I made you a TV tropes Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LetsPlay/BrotoroKSP

does anyone mind fleshing it out with content?

[Scotius]

Very cool idea +rep.

[Brotoro]

Long-term Laythe - Part 36

Pol Project

Last episode the ships for exploring Pol and Bop arrived into the Joolian system, and Thompbles and Kurt remotely wrangled them into orbits around their respective moons. They continued this mission by remotely deploying probes around those moons

Below, the four comsats were separated from the Pol exploration ship and allowed to drift away and apart. Then their solar panels and high gain antennas were deployed.

The core of each comsat is a stack of five Oscar-B propellant tanks with a Rockomax 48-7S engine. This gives the comsats way more delta-V that they need for their mission, but it could also make them useful in the future if they need to be moved around (even from moon to moon). Three of the comsats were boosted into 600 km equatorial orbits, spaced out around the orbit. Since I don't actually have any communication mods installed, I wasn't too picky about getting the comsats spaced out equidistant around the orbit.

The fourth comsat was boosted into a polar 600 km orbit for better coverage at high latitudes. The map view below shows the final arrangement of the Pol comsat constellation. The capsule icon is the Pol exploration ship located in a 420 km equatorial orbit. The probe icon on the surface of Pol is a science package that Nelemy Kerman left behind on Pol during the initial exploration of all Kerbol system bodies using Mark Twain ships.

In addition to the comsats, the Pol ship also carried two robotic science landers. These will be landed on Pol at locations where our kerbals can visit them later to retrieve the results from their science instruments and Goo containers. For now, Thomples just separated them from the Pol ship and shifted them into slightly different orbits so that the docking port on top of the rovers would be clear.

Bop Business Begins

Just as at Pol, the business of exploring Bop began with the deployment of a constellation of four comsats.

The arrangement of the comsats, three in equatorial orbit and one in polar orbit, is shown below. The lander icon in the inclined orbit is the Clark Lander that Thompbles Kerman used to land on Bop during the Mark Twain exploration mission over a decade ago, sitting in the orbit where it had rendezvoused with the Mark Twain mothership. The probe icon on the surface of Bop is a science package that was left at the location of the Kraken corpse by Thompbles during that mission. The lander icon on the surface is the Lewis Lander from that expedition (the ship Nelemy had used to land on Pol, and which was then carried over to Bop). The Lewis Lander had been landed by remote control later, and then made several hops across the surface of Bop to check out more locations.

The Bop exploration ship didn't bring along any small science landers, but one of the two Fido rovers was fitted with radiographic equipment to conduct an un-kerbaled mission before the crew arrives at Bop. Thompbles separated the Bop Radiography Fido (BRF) rover remotely and sent it down to the Kraken site.

The BRF rover first did a plane shift (the Kraken is located at high latitude) and then used the signal from the old Clark probe to target the landing site.

Below, the BRF rover descends toward the landing site. Yes, the altitude of the rover was at 16 kilometers when it was only 3 kilometers from the probe -- the surface of Bop is very irregular.

Thompbles: "And...down. The BRF has landed. Looks like 750 meters from the Kraken."

Kurt: "Good job! Telemetry shows all systems are green. Drive it on over."

Kurt: "How does it handle? Like a fancy race car?"

Thompbles: "Hardly. The TR-2L Ruggedized Wheels do a good job at getting traction...but you need to be careful when stopping. Just slamming on the brakes makes the rover tip forward. You need to apply reverse power to the wheels to slow down first, and then tap the brakes gently to finish stopping."

Kurt: "Wow...the Kraken just got brighter."

Thompbles: "The Fido has sade-facing high intensity illuminators to light up the area. The angle of the sunlight is pretty low at this latitude."

Kurt: "Hey, there's the science package you left behind over by the tentacles."

Kurt: "Hmm...The VanAllen detector reading is increasing as you get closer to that beastie. Was the Kraken radioactive when you last visited it?"

Thompbles: "Don't know. VanAllen Kerman hadn't built his handy little portable detectors back then. How hot is it?"

Kurt: "Not a huge amount of radioactivity...but the signal is definitely greater than the background."

Thompbles: "Interesting. I'm driving the Fido around to the other side. That's strange... I don't see the other science package. I left two of them behind during my mission, but I don't see it."

Kurt: "Weird. Maybe it's in a little crater?"

Thompbles: "No. There's nothing deep enough to hide it here. I wish these rover navi-cams had better resolution."

On the far side of the Kraken, Thompbles maneuvered the Fido into position and then decoupled a small X-ray Source Rover (XSR) from the side of the BRF rover. The XSR rover is powered by two RTGs and has an X-ray illuminator (and specially shielded probe body electronics).

After directing the BRF rover back to the other side of the Kraken, Thompbles deployed the two X-ray detector panels. (Yes, I know those look an awfully lot like Gigantor XL Solar Arrays, but they aren't. Instead of solar cells, these panels have arrays of X-ray detectors.

Below, an overview of the Bop Radiography Fido rover and XRS rover at work. The BRF can move along getting high scans with the mast-mounted detector array, and then turn around a backtrack with the bottom detector array in position for a low scan. The XRS mini-rover is repositioned as needed. It's a long, tedious process to get the images (long exposures are needed because the X-ray flux from the XRS is not huge), so Kurt leaves Thompbles to his work.

A couple days later, Kurt checks back to see the results.

Kurt: "How goes the X-raying, Doctor Thompbles?"

Thompbles: "Have a look. I have the rovers partway through the high scan, starting from the tentacle end."

Kurt: "Cool. What's the white blob?"

Thompbles: "That's the beak of the creature. It's made of some material that's stops the passage of X-rays much better than the rest of the body."

Kurt: "Freaky. OK...I'm off to the south tip of the island to collect some samples."

Thompbles: "Are you talking the Fido or a BirdDog?"

Kurt: "BirdDog. That way I can get back faster if needed.

Thompbles: "OK. Drive safely."

Mallard Maneuvers, etc.

Meanwhile, back at Kerbin, the next transfer window to Jool opened up and it was time to send off the Mallard seaplane ship that has been waiting in Kerbin orbit. The Mallard's trajectory is plotted below. (The other transfers shown are, from top to bottom: two Double-Tugs returning to Kerbin; the Fuel Stack about to reach Jool; and the replacement Laythe crew's ship enroute to Jool.)

The Mallard was sent off to Jool was the usual two-part escape maneuver, with the first half of the burn taking the ship nearly out to the Mün's orbit. But, when the ship was returning to periapsis, I plotted the second half of the maneuver to Jool...and it turned out that the Mün was going to be in the way. No problem: I just let the ship orbit around again and then sent it off to Jool on the next periapsis pass.

The Mallard's trajectory out to Jool was ending up below the plane of Jool's orbit. Previously, I would have set a Kerbal Alarm Clock alarm to remind me when the ship would get to an orbit node to do a plane-shift maneuver, but now that KSP saves maneuver node data with your ships, I set up the 209 m/s plane-shift and fine-targeting maneuver right away for a Laythe intercept, and then set KAC to remind me when it's time (this is handy because I won't have to remember what I was wanting to do next...the maneuver will already be set).

Five days after the Mallard left Kerbin, Thombles had to take a break from doing remote X-rays to handle the entry of the Fuel Stack payload into the Joolian system. It only required sneaking the ship across the SOI boundary at 1x speed, and then a tiny targeting adjustment of the upcoming aerocapture at Laythe.

But before the Fuel Stack reached Laythe, I had to hop away to the ship bringing the replacement crew to Laythe for their plane-shift/fine-targeting maneuver...which only required 77 m/s because that orbit node was far out from Kerbol.

Fuel Fido Fun

...And then we hop back to Laythe where Thompbles is directing the incoming Fuel Stack ship toward aerocapture at Laythe.

Below, the Fuel Stack ships makes a flaming pass through Laythe's atmosphere. I did not build a heat shield as part of this payload. Instead, I assumed that all of the ship parts have the necessary thermal ablation coatings...but I always worry about those rover wheels. So I'm assuming that they are wrapped in nomex/kevlar bags that can handle the heat...but that means I'll need a kerbal at the landing site to remove them before I'm allowed to drive it around.

After the aerocapture, an apoapsis-kick of 53 m/s puts the Fuel Stack in a stable equatorial orbit at 140 km.

Below, Kurt returns from his mission to the southern tip of Dansen Island.

Kurt: "Hey there, Thompbles, I'm home."

Thompbles: "Welcome back. How was the trip?"

Kurt: "About the same as always. I was getting a little sniff of kethane on the detectors at the very tip of the island, so I brought back samples for a more detailed study. But what's this big surprise you were telling me about over the radio?"

Thompbles: "The Kraken X-ray project is done. Have a look at the result:"

Kurt: "What the hell? There are rocket parts inside the Kraken corpse?"

Thompbles: "Yes. It looks like an LV-N nuclear rocket motor, an old-style Probodobodyne OKTO probe body, and some FL-T200 tanks."

Kurt: "Yeah...I guess a dinner like that would choke anybody. Um...are we missing any nukes?"

Thompbles: "Yes. That looks like the remains of the small nuclear tug that brought the first robotic Fido Probe rover to Laythe. Remember, we expected to find it in orbit here around Laythe, but it wasn't here when we arrived."

Kurt: "Yeah. We thought some malfunction had caused it to crash. So... yon beastie ate it between the time of the Fido Probe mission and ours...and then went off to Bop to croak?"

Thompbles: "Looks like it. Anyway...it's time to bring the new Fuel Fido down for you to test. The bigwigs at KSC are all excited about this test because of the extra money we'll get from it. It's all about the new contract scheme they worked up back on Kerbin."

Kurt: "Whatever. I was going to test it anyway."

The Fuel Stack payload had three Fuel Stations on top. Thompbles ordered the B and C Fuel Stations to separate and make small orbit shifts. They will be stored in Laythe orbit until needed somewhere on the surface.

The remaining part of the payload was made up of Fuel Station A and the Fuel Fido rover. The payload separated from the Big Advanced Tug, and then performed a retro maneuver with its four Rockomax 24-77 engines to target it for a landing at the main Laythe Base area on Dansen Island.

Below, the payload passed through the entry flames as it approached Fido Bay. Again, imagine along with me, the heat protection wrapping the wheels.

At around 2,500 meters, the Fuel Station's parachutes were deployed and the senior docking port was jettisoned from the bottom. I hope there's nothing valuable below it.

Next, the landing legs of the Fuel Station were extended, and then the Fuel Fido was separated to free fall. Note: The ship was being controlled from the probe body on top of the Fido rover so that I'd end up following the Fido down at this point. Wait for it... At around 700 meters, the parachutes on the Fuel Fido were deployed (then they began to fully open in tweaked pairs between 600 and 500 meters).

I then had to switch back to the Fuel Station to perform an evasive maneuver. With similar payloads in the past, I'd follow the rover down, wait until it landed, and then immediately drive it out from under the descending upper part of the payload. But I had to have the Fuel Station do the evasive maneuver here because: a) I'm not allowing myself to drive the rover until its wheels can be de-bagged by a kerbal, and the Fuel Station descends faster than the Fido rover.

The evasive maneuver was successful, and the Fuel Station ended up passing alongside the Fuel Fido on its way to landing first.

I made a mistake here: I was following the Fido down, taking scree shots, when I was supposed to be controlling the Fuel Station to fire a short burst of braking thrust just before landing. As a result, the Fuel Station landed at a bit over 10 m/s and broke one of its landing legs.

Thompbles: "OK. Both payloads are down. I'm getting a warning indicator on a Fuel Station landing leg."

Kurt: "Hell's blazes. That thing won't work right without all of its legs fully extended. OK, I'm off to check it out."

Kurt hopped into a BirdDog and rovered on over to the landing site, which was about 320 meters south of the Laythe SSTO landing site.

The first order of business was to fix the landing leg on the Fuel Station. Would it work...or would it immediately snap again under the load of all that propellant? Well...it worked. Yay, Kurt!

Then Kurt removed the heat protection bags from around the Fido's rover wheels. And then he apparently buried them in the sand, since I don't see them anywhere. Yay, Kurt!

Now for the big test (for which Kerbal Motion LLC is being milked by KSC for a big contract fee)... Would the Advanced Grabbing Unit (The Claw) work for the innovative refueling use? Activate the Claw! The Fuel Fido has eight seats mounted on top (so it can double as a bus), and Kurt climbed aboard one of them.

Test #1: The Claw on one end of the Fuel Fido is supposed to be at the correct height to dock to the trailing edge or tip of a BirdDog wing. It's harder than you might expect, because you have to hit a surface with the small middle part of the Claw...you can't just grab onto anything within the fingers of the Claw. Result: It worked like a charm. The ships were docked, and transfer of propellants was possible.

Now, of course, the concept of using a claw to grab onto an airplane to refuel it might seem a tad silly... But what I'm picturing is what is pictured below: A nice propellant transfer hose that can be unreeled from the claw and connected to the target vehicle (aren't imagination and PhotoShop wonderful?). So until SQUAD gets around to giving us a simple refueling hose for our kerbals to attach on EVA, I'll fake the ability with the Claw.

Test #2: Kurt tried docking the Fuel Fido to Fuel Station A. It worked like a charm. The advantage of the Claw method over my older BirdDog/GasStation docking method is that the Claw can be used to dock to greater variety of vehicles with less fiddly maneuvering around trying to dock ports. And I'm just picturing hoses, remember. I know the concept of a hose is high technology, but come on, SQUAD, please give us hoses.

Test #3: Note that in the first two tests, Kurt docked to the BirdDog and Fuel Station, but he didn't actually transfer any propellants (the Fuel Fido didn't actually have any fuel in it at this point -- it was landed empty to save weight). But for this next big test, Kurt drove over to the Laythe SSTO and docked with it (hooked up hoses) to pull propellants out of the SSTO and fill up the nine FL-T200 tanks on the Fuel Fido.

Kurt: "Yoink!"

Thompbles: "Say again?"

Kurt: "Nothing. Just grabbing some fuel. Don't mind me."

But what is Kurt up to? Ah...wait and see. Because next he drove the now-heavy-with-fuel Fuel Fido over near Laythe Base 1 and docked the Fuel Fido's Claw to the standard Fido rover that was sitting there. Yoink! Curiouser and curiouser. Why was he doing such things as these?

Then Kurt moved over to the control seat on the opposite corner of the Fuel Fido. He actually had a spot of trouble here: Walking along on top of the Fuel Fido is not easy...and he ended up falling through a gap between the tanks. He fell to the ground...but his head was still up between the tanks, so he couldn't get free. He spent a couple minutes wishing that SQUAD would give kerbals a "bend down and crawl" function...but eventually I tried clicking on the closest command chair, and was given the choice to board it...so I guess that means he was able to climb up between the tanks. Otherwise, this could have been embarrassing.

Kurt then drove over to GasStation 1, the first BirdDog refueling station that had been landed on Laythe. It was emptied of liquid fuel long ago, and is now just a navigation hazard and game lag inducer.

Kurt docked to the old GasStation (picture the Claw being used as a Claw here), and then raised the landing legs on the GasStation:

Then with the GasStation safely lifted into the air, Kurt drove the defunct GasStation off to the south. Note that all of the fuel weight in the Fuel Fido and the weight of the other Fido docked to the back were needed so that the Fuel Fido could carry around the old GasStation without any danger of tipping over.

Five kilometers to the south is the landing location of the sky-crane that landed the original Fido Probe on Laythe. And it is now the designated Laythe Base junkyard. Five kilometers puts this stuff well outside the range where they would possibly be a hazard to landing BirdDogs and spaceplanes (and, more to the point, this reduces the nasty lag I'm getting around the main base area). Kurt stopped next to the old sky-crane, extended the GasStation's landing legs, and undocked from it. Success!

But wait, there's more! Kurt returned to the SSTO, offloaded some of the fuel from the Fuel Fido, and then drove over to grab GasStation 2. This GasStation was also almost depleted of fuel (and what little was left, Kurt yoinked into the Fuel Fido...that's why he needed to offload some fuel at the SSTO first).

Then Kurt picked up the GS2 (raised its legs) and drove off to add it to the junkyard collection. Look at all that lag reduction, kiddies!

Next, Kurt returned the regular Fido to the Laythe Base 1 area, and then returned to the SSTO to put all of its fuel back into it. Note: There was no safety violation in having the SSTO unable to do an emergency escape-from-Laythe (in case of tidal wave or whatnot) because they also have the RASSTO RAPIER-powered SSTO at the base if needed.

And Kurt was still not done! He's a wildman today! While dropping off the GasStations at the junkyard, Kurt noticed that the old sky-crane still had lots of fuel onboard (hooray for storable propellants!). That sky-crane was designed to land Fido Probes on airless worlds like the Mün or Vall...but on Laythe it was only needed to perform the de-orbit maneuver -- parachutes did the rest of the job. So Kurt docked the Fuel Fido to the sky-crane and was able to pull out five tanks of fuel that will be kept in the Fuel Fido to be used in refueling ships.

Test #4: Yet another test? Indeed! Indeed, I say. Because the Fuel Station is designed to refuel BirdDog rover/planes (without the intermediary Fuel Fido), and that needed to be tested. So Kurt drove the Fuel Fido back over to the Fuel Station, and then hopped on board the BirdDog to try docking it to the Claws on the stationary Fuel Station.

And here's where things went bizarre. The lower Claw of the Fuel Station is located at the height of the BirdDog's wing's trailing edge (and any other plane that uses the same basic design, such as the Airedale plane/rover). But, when I backed the BirdDog up against the Claw of the FuelStation.......

.....the surface of Laythe suddenly vanished...and the BirdDog, Fuel Station, and nearby Fuel Fido dropped downward (to what I assume is sea level).....

.....and exploded.

.....and the game crashed. Or at least wasn't responding well. I couldn't pan my camera around. But I could switch to Map view...and things looked normal...

.....but when I switch back from Map view I got this weirdness.

When I restarted the game, it took me back to the same spot, with Laythe intact, and the pieces of the exploded ships appeared above ground and fell down. Some more explosions occurred. Kurt had survived in his cockpit, and parts of the Fuel Fido frame survived, but the Fuel Station was completely gone. (Oddly, the SSTOs and the original Fido Probe, off in the distance, survived. Maybe they didn't fall? Or maybe they didn't fall so far because they were near the shore. I didn't check.)

As it so happened, Danny2462 had posted a video where he found this same bug several days before it bit me (although HE was trying to dock two Claws to a kerbal to see if he could rip him apart...but that's Danny for you). I remember being amazed at how Danny could always manage to find these outrageous world-killing bugs when I'd never run into any such thing in all my years of playing KSP. I remember I was quite smug about it, in fact. Now you see what happens if you scoff at Danny, even in the privacy of your own mind.

Happily, I had done a QuickSave before beginning Test #4, so the world-shattering Bad Bug did not destroy my world. So I loaded up the old save, and tried again... Ka-boom. Hmmm. I tried docking to the Claw with the BirdDog's engine, and not the wing... Ka-boom. So I tried docking the BirdDog to the Fuel Fido (not the Fuel Station)... Ka-boom (see below).

Ah. Docking the Fuel Fido to the BirdDog had not caused this disaster, but docking the BirdDog to the Fuel Fido DID. Apparently it only happens when your active ship is trying to dock to the Claw of an INACTIVE ship. To test that, I lined up the BirdDog to dock with the Fuel Station, started the BirdDog rolling, and then switched ships before they touched...

...The result? Successful docking with no worlds disappearing. Actually, it ended up that I had switched over to the nearby Fuel Fido (and not the Fuel Station), so apparently two inactive ships can dock via Claw, but an ACTIVE ship can't dock to an INACTIVE ship's Claw without disaster ensuing. Still...it's a work-around.

This whole thing really surprises me because the first thing I did when version 23.5 came out with the Claw was build the Fuel Station and do test dockings at KSC. It worked fine there, even when the ship with the Claw was inactive. So I'm not sure why I'm getting this problem now. (I'm still using version 23.5. I don't know what version Danny is using.)

Anyway... SQUAD? A little help here?

But, the world doesn't end just because of a little game bug (well...in this case, I guess it tried to), and there was still work to be done. The Big Advanced Tug that had brought the Fuel Stack to Laythe still had lots of fuel in it, so Thompbles remotely directed it to dock with Laythe Space Station and offload the extra fuel. Then the Tug was shifted to a slightly higher orbit to await sending it back to Kerbin for re-use.

Tylo Time: Exploration's End

While all this fun with comsats, radiography rovers, transfer maneuvers, refueling tests, and planetary destruction was going on, our intrepid heros on Tylo were spend several productive months exploring. Sure, they found out that a little alone-time was needed after long excursions, but they are both team players, so I'm sure they managed to work together to accomplish their mission objectives.

Below, we see the boys obtaining samples from the whitest-colored region of Tylo that was nearby (having already sampled some of the darkest-colored areas). Nelemy name the white area "Gandalf."

But all things must come to a close, and this is also true of the Tylo exploration. So Aldner and Nelemy spent a couple weeks video conferencing with Hellou (who was still on Vall) to winnow down their extensive rock collection to the size allowable in the Tylo Lander's ascent stage. Then they drove over to the lander and packed everything on board in preparation for liftoff from Tylo.

Aldner: "Tylo to Vall. OK, Hellou, we have all the rock boxes, freezer samples, and data sticks on board."

Hellou: "And my book?"

Aldner: "Yes. Um...wait. Nelemy, have you see that book anywhere?"

Nelemy: "No. Not for weeks now, Dude."

Hellou: "WHAT!??"

Aldner: "Nah, we're just kidding. I have it right here in my snack bag."

Hellou: "Arrgh. Don't get any chocolate on it."

Aldner: "Yes, ma'am. "

Hellou: "And stop making me worry more when I'm already so worried about you guys making it back into space."

Nelemy: "No, Hellou-dude. It's LANDING on Tylo that's really hairy. Getting off of Tylo is a piece of cake. Um...Aldner-dude, is there any cake left?"

Aldner: "He's right, Hellou. Because we were able to use the Fido to transfer fuel to the lander, making it off Tylo will be easy."

The liftoff sequence of the Tylo Lander is shown below. The two lander cabins, two (full) fuel tanks, and four Rockomax 48-7S engines constitute the ascent stage of the lander. Immediately after liftoff, the two empty tanks (and their attached engines and landing legs) are jettisoned and allowed to fall back to the surface.

Because Tylo is an airless world, it's most efficient to pitch over very quickly and take a low trajectory out (as long as their are no tall mountains downrange).

The boys made it to a circular 80 km orbit with over 18 percent of their fuel remaining.

They did launch a little early, and the low trajectory was fast, so they got into an orbit that was a little ahead of and lower than their orbiting Tylo Station ship. But the ascent stage had so much fuel left that they used the lander to perform the rendezvous with the main ship by pushing their orbit out so they would meet the main ship less than one orbit later.

The view out the lande cabin window:

Aldner maneuvered the ascent stage into place over the Tylo Station, but because the lander had no RCS, the final docking maneuver was done by the main ship.

Below, Nelemy seems to be enjoying transferring over to the main ship via EVA.

The boys transferred all the samples and data over to the Habitat module of the main ship, then set their historic ascent stage adrift and shifted their orbit away from it.

Back on Tylo, we see that one of the side tank units apparently had destroyed itself on impact, but the other one was intact. And the flag survived, which is always nice.

Next, the boys rearranged their ship. They separated the Habitat module and the central Double-Tug from the ship...

...Then the remaining parts of the ship slid out sideways, allowing the Double-Tug to dock with the Habitat module (which is essentially a duplicate of the Vall lander/habitat modules).

The hardware that will remain in Tylo orbit consists of two Tugs (with more than enough fuel to be sent back to Kerbin), a triple-tug adapter, and the unused, fully-fueled Tylo Lander B that some future kerbals could utilize to land on Tylo in the future.

Our heroes then shifted the orbit of their ship, which Nelemy named the "Gray Haven Express," and settled in for a little zero-G rest and relaxation before the next phase of their mission, which will be to head off to Bop.

Vall Venture: Vamoose

Similarly, our heroines on on Vall were wrapping up their many months of exploration on the surface of Vall.

Emilynn: "Have you got everything you want? We aren't coming back if you forgot your purse."

Hellou: "Double- and triple-checked. Everything stowed. I'm strapped in. Do you need any help?"

Emilynn: "Nah. I've already done this once before...and we aren't under the gun this time."

Hellou: "That's true."

Emilynn: "The station's approaching. Hold onto your hat, Chickadee. Time to go!"

The Vall Lander lifted off on its six Rockomax 48-7S engines for a leisurely climb into a 164 kilometer orbit.

Emilynn did a quick rendezvous and docking with the Vall Station ship and had 15.5% of the lander's fuel remaining. Below, Hellou seems to be enjoying the EVA transfer over to the Habitat module. I imagine this got less entertaining after all the trips needed to transfer across all the samples and data. To bad they couldn't wait for a later version of KSP so they could just use the connecting hatches.

The Vall Lander was separated and left in Vall orbit for use by future explorers. They just need to bring along about five tanks of fuel and all the consumables they want. The main Vall ship will soon be heading off to Bop where our heroines will meet up with Aldner and Nelmy to explore that dark and spooky Joolian moon.

Next Episode: On to Bop!

Edited October 6, 2014 by Brotoro

[Scotius]

Big Cleaning Day at Laythe Base The Claw truly is an awesome tool.

[Brotoro]

So... I tried opening my old Save game file (the one I've been using forever...the one with the Longterm Laythe stuff in it) in KSP Version 0.25 ("Do not pass through version 0.24; do not collect $200."). A few mods needed to be put into place so that certain ships would still load with some mod parts.

Results... A lot of my ships had strange gaps in them (see below). But this is because Squad changed the size of the inline torque wheel part. Maybe I can do a mass-replace of this part in my Save file with the size 1 torque wheel part (what used to be the old ASAS part).

A stranger problem occurred when with my newer BirdDogs. The large arrow below shows that the small control surface on the back of the vertical stabilizer is now magically levitating. But it still works. The weirder problem is that the rear Mk1 fuselage has shrunk in size (small arrow shows the gap between it and the forward Mk1 fuselage). But the front Mk1 fuselage is still its original size. The bottom view shows that the gap goes all around the part. It's just shrunk. But the plane holds together OK.

Not all of the BirdDogs were affected -- the fuselage parts on Aldner's original BirdDog are both fine. But all other BirdDogs, and the Airedale plane, have the weird shrunken tank.

The SSTO Spaceplanes aren't showing any fuselage problems, but the new elevons are embedded far into the wing (unless they are supposed to be like that).

The Bad Bug that makes the surface of Laythe vanish when I dock an active ship to an inactive ship that has a Claw on it...still lives:

1) Ready to dock...

2) Dock! Surface of Laythe vanishes!

3) Ships fall down. No panning control of camera...

4) New-fangled explosions occur from off screen and continue exploding:

Alas.

And I ran into another very nasty bug (or variation of the same bug...but no Claws were involved). When I tried to separate one of the spaceplanes from the Laythe Space Station and move it away via RCS, it was as if the plane was stuck in molasses, moving away very slowly...and when I turned off the RCS, the plane was dragged back toward the Station...then the Station began to squirm and flex and break apart:

...and then most of the parts fell down (see below). A few of the parts were still in orbit, but I assume the rest were heading toward destruction at sea level. This was over the night side of Laythe, so I can't tell if the surface vanished or not.

Anyway, after restarting the game, I was able to undock and move the spaceplane away as normal. So I don't know WHAT caused that squirming destruction.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Brotoro

[Giggleplex777]

Hmm... Could it time to start a new project now? Looks like it got hit the hardest this time.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[Cydonian Monk]

Yeah, it's not pretty in my Legacy save either (the one I've been compiling my saves into only about half as long as you... since 0.19.1). In stock KSP on OS-X I don't even have enough breathing room under the new "SpacePlane+ified + pretty new explosions" RAM limit to open the save. In 64-bit Linux it looks about like your's - misshapen craft, odd new collision meshes causing things to go boom. Especially hurts that I've used copious amounts of the old Mk1 fuselage and the SAS modules. Oh well. That's part of the reason I started fresh in 0.24.

I started copying the old Squad/C7 parts a couple weeks ago when SpacePlane+ was announced as part of 0.25, updating names as needed to make them unique. Still, I'm just going to leave my old save as-is and not use vim-fu to replace the migrated parts. I only keep it around out of OCD/pack-ratness anyway. Yet a quick %s//g is an option should I want to dig through it again in the future. (Just adds... several MBs of extra parts. Precious, precious RAM.)

Your misshapen Birddogs remind me somewhat of the SR-71. The Blackbird was built for flight tolerances, where its shell and airframe expanded considerably from the heat. As a result certain seams and seals just didn't match up on the ground... deliberately... and the poor things leaked fuel (and who knows what else) when not flying. Even the one at the Air & Space has some odd looking gaps here and there. So maybe the Bird Dog is just jealous?

[billbobjebkirk]

Well, the elevons are supposed to be short like that, but for everything else I see a lot of save editing for you in the near future.

[Tw1]

Not sure what's going on with the fuselages, I haven't noticed that myself. (Don't like that new part much though.)

Perhaps you could edit the position of the fins and flaps manually?

If the changes are consistent across all of them, you should be able to find an adjustment that works, then repeat it on all the planes.

It seems the old and new ones determine where and how they attach differently.