What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Tyko]

2 hours ago, papuchalk said:

BTW can you advice a challenging game mode ? i did career mode twice, fully opened tech tree twicce. Starting for the third time is not really funny. Especialy the early stages are a bit boring.

What you guys did instead ? 

Science mode with 30%-50% science returns and a 2.5x scaled system...it's a challenge just to get things into orbit and your ships get a lot more interesting when you need the extra DV to get anywhere. Add in USI Life Support and you'll have a very interesting game.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Tyko

[ProtoJeb21]

I've done a lot of stuff since my last post on this thread. While the Hermes II vessel was on its way to Moho, I decided to bring some more cargo to my Minmus base construction site, including an enormous habitation module. However, it was delivered down to the surface by four boosters that can be flown away from the base site...and one of them crashed into the solar power module, knocking off EVERY last solar panel, even though none were deployed. So now I have to somehow dispose of that module and send out a new one.

At around the same time, I sent a set of base connectors to Minmus, but the vessel didn't have enough dV for a Minmus capture (how pathetic of me). I also landed two parts of the original Minthe station on Minmus and did some re-organization of Zemyna Station. Recently, I brought four new modules to Zemyna to "fix up" the station, but everything is low on monoprop, and I have more ambitious projects to focus on.

 

I downloaded Kerbal Engineer Redux to help with my interplanetary missions (and other projects as well), and it turned out that Hermes II didn't have enough dV for a circular Moho orbit, let alone a return to Kerbin. Even worse, I messed up my Moho capture burn, so I ended up wasting even more fuel just to get into orbit. At least I now have a dedicated science vessel in orbit.

With Hermes II at its destination, and an Eve transfer window opening up, I decided to do a mission for the Explore Eve's Atmosphere challenge. I developed a small Eve station wedged between a command module and an engine module, which can be split apart and re-attached to let the station into Eve orbit. The craft, named Ausra, was actually designed before the Eve challenge was posted, but I was able to do only a few modifications to make it eligible for the challenge. A total of five Kerbals were sent aboard the craft, two of which would stay on the station until a future mission can come pick them up. The remaining three will return home - and yes, it has enough dV to actually GET back to Kerbin. However, before its departure, I needed to add two solar array and communication arms to Ausra Station. To do so, I also sent up a small "worker bee" probe to help move the arms into their proper positions. Once that was done, the spare transport vessel was deorbited, and I plotted a two-burn Eve ejection. My first burn would get me into an eccentric orbit, before a second burn would send me to Eve. However, KSP gave me incorrect parameters for my second burn, which led to multiple mid-course corrections that resulted in my "fuel efficient" Eve transfer maneuver costing more fuel than a direct transfer burn. Either way, Ausra safely arrived at Eve and prepared for a Gilly encounter.

Things quickly became more complicated, as transfer windows for both Duna and Dres opened up, and my Hera I probe was about to enter Jool's SOI after four and a half Kerbal years of travel. First I designed a large lander probe for Dres that not only has enough dV to visit multiple biomes, but will double as a relay outpost for ships beyond Duna orbit. My transfer burn wasn't the best, though, and I will be doing a mid-course correction near Kerbol apoapsis.

Meanwhile, I designed two twin landers for the Duna system: Braciaca V and Braciaca VI. The former will be landing on Duna, while the latter is heading for Ike. Both are equipped with three Science Jrs, three Mystery Goos, and enough dV to land on multiple biomes. They share similar design traits to the Dres lander, Vesta, and are also robotically controlled. 

With those three new vessels set to arrive at their targets in no less than 100 Kerbal days, I had plenty of time to focus on Ausra before Hera I began its series of Joolian moon flybys. @Matt Lowne's Low Tech to Gilly video proved to be an extremely helpful guide, and I managed to get my first-ever landing on the pathetically tiny moon. All five Kerbals got out for a group photo once Ausra had "landed". Following that, I did a jump over to the Midlands biome to gather even more science. Ausra had a mobile science lab on it, which mean I could do as many Mystery Goo and Science Jr analyses as I wanted to. In addition, it was armed with every single science experiment in the game, and could collect Crew Reports, EVA Reports, and Surface Samples because, well, there are Kerbals on it.

This post is starting to get really long, so I'll quickly summarize everything else:

• Ausra left Gilly and got into an eccentric orbit that dipped into Eve's atmosphere. After a risky aerobrake and MORE SCIENCE, I deployed one of Ausra's two little descent probes. It had extremely limited control and got close to burning up, but in the end it managed to survive.
• Ausra was put into a stable yet extremely eccentric orbit around Eve so I could focus on Hera I, which had entered Jool's SOI at the time.
• Hera I performed two flybys before a Jool capture burn: one past Tylo, and the second past Vall. The probe got into a rather eccentric Jool orbit and performed three Laythe flybys before heading into a stable orbit around Bop, using all but a tiny drop of its fuel. The mission was incredibly successful, but I can make a much better Jool probe for when the next transfer window opens up.

Spoiler

 

[eddiew]

2 hours ago, papuchalk said:

BTW can you advice a challenging game mode ? i did career mode twice, fully opened tech tree twicce. Starting for the third time is not really funny. Especialy the early stages are a bit boring.

What you guys did instead ? 

Mod! Get Community Tech Tree, Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes, and populate your late game with more stuff to do. Then make it challenging enough that the late game only comes... well, late in the game. I tend to plan careers that last several months of daily play.

Currently I'm using Galileo's Planet Pack + Grannus Expansion Pack, which gives me a much bigger number of worlds and biomes to hit than stock.

To go with this, I have only 20% science returns, but with DMagic Orbital, Scansat, and a couple of other mods to give me more ways to get that sweet sweet data. Some of these don't unlock until late in the tree, giving me reasons to return to the local moons after I've gone interplanetary. MPLs become very desirable, and the ideal mission returns data to homeworld orbit for processing (or takes a lab out with it).

I mod my science returns so that surface samples are worth 5x as much - or exactly 100% of usual accounting for the 20% global modifier. This makes it really, really desirable to land boots on the ground and come home. All the probe science of a biome is roughly equal to one rock, so it is always worth sending kermanned missions, even if the probes go first.

I also adjust the costs of the tech tree, such that later nodes get progressively more expensive. The first 3 tiers have standard costs, and after that they start to increase. The last node in my (heavily modded) tree costs 24,000 science. The nodes before that are 18,000 each. The standard "endgame" 1000 tier costs me 5000 - multiply that up by the number of nodes and you can quickly see how much more data I have to farm.

The custom scaling results in it being a relatively normal start, and reaching Minmus/the moon/Iota isn't a gigantic chore that takes hours of grinding on the ground, but it forces me to go interplanetary on 70s rocket tech. I can't unlock nuclear engines without leaving the homeworld's SoI. Last career, I sent a research station into Mars orbit with no ability to bring them home. Several fuel barges and landings later, they had generated enough science to figure out a return trip, and it was marvellous fun  

Edit: also, personal rule - no probe landings on vacuum bodies outside the homeworld SoI. We haven't figured out how to do that in 2018, the kerbals are clearly in the early days of their space race. If it can't land with a parachute, it needs to land with a pilot. This will immediately force a much larger payload, and makes you start planning for return missions instead of one-way quickies.

Edited February 26, 2018 by eddiew

[LordFerret]

On 2/25/2018 at 3:45 PM, HansonKerman said:

Heh, yeah but how are you gonna get back to Kerbin?

I never send crew (intentionally) anywhere without a ride back home. Eeloo is no exception...

 

 

23 hours ago, Ace in Space said:

Landing legs on multi-module bases = kraken bait. Also they will make it harder for modules in your base to link to each other. What I ended up doing, which is working quite well, is to use the engines the modules flew in on as legs - they have landing legs but only to reduce impact on landing; when they settle into their final position the legs retract and they sit on the engines. I would absolutely recommend this method.

Or, you could forget engines and landing legs and go with gear/wheels. On both my Mun and Minmus bases, I dropped drivable modules onto the surface and merely drove up and docked... set the brakes and walked away. Never had any visits by the Kraken.

 

 

15 hours ago, Ace in Space said:

Nice. You should try to use Ike to pull the orbits in, conserving fuel.

I actually have three relay constellations around Duna, an outer, middle, and inner ring. Two were planned, the third was just an oversight (forgotten about) from the initial SCANsat mission. The inner ring, 2G, at 250km, which will pick up and relay signals from the simplest of antenna on the surface, like rovers and such. The middle ring (the SCANsat leftover), 15G, at 1000km, is just there doing its thing, relaying. The outer ring, 100G, at 5000km, is the big punch back home. With much tedium involved, all three constellations are nearly perfectly circular orbits... very little drift involved save for the inner ring.

 

 

20 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

This post is starting to get really long, so I'll quickly summarize everything else:

Put groups of them in spoilers maybe, with a leading visible image? That took a while to load, for me.

Edited February 26, 2018 by LordFerret

[JadeOfMaar]

44 minutes ago, eddiew said:

Mod! Get Community Tech Tree, Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes, and populate your late game with more stuff to do. Then make it challenging enough that the late game only comes... well, late in the game. I tend to plan careers that last several months of daily play.

Currently I'm using Galileo's Planet Pack + Grannus Expansion Pack, which gives me a much bigger number of worlds and biomes to hit than stock.

- this big snip needed a certain anime heroine's oversized scissor blade -

After getting a load of headache with my main sandbox game last night, I'm considering sweeping all the dust off my KSP 1.3.0 science game (which is GPP 2.5x).  Or starting new in a similar loadout but staying at 1x so I can reach further (into another planet mod) sooner. As ever, your machinations and personal rules are interesting as all heck.  

Edited February 26, 2018 by JadeOfMaar

[Hotel26]

2 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

take-off to get myself pointed the right way

On the take-off hover, there's a few seconds, ascending, to swivel the craft on course before lighting the aft-burners...  VTOL on Duna turn fastest when stationary!  No doubt, this is already your practice.

But a tractor is already handy!  Good save.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Hotel26

[eddiew]

50 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

After getting a load of headache with my main sandbox game last night, I'm considering sweeping all the dust off my KSP 1.3.0 science game (which is GPP 2.5x).  Or starting new in a similar loadout but staying at 1x so I can reach further (into another planet mod) sooner. As ever, your machinations and personal rules are interesting as all heck.  

Do eet, careers can be fun - you don't really need to accept many contracts either with the world-firsts on offer these days   Personally I found 3.2x was slow and painful. Everything took ages, and everything needs lots and lots of parts which dragged my framerates down to uncomfortable lows (and GPP is already a big system with large delta-v needs). I prefer an exploration game with plenty of new places to go, and a reason to visit them all.

Aside from that, I only really have one criteria when working out mod bundles; I like to have some technology left to unlock at all times, because I instinctively feel like the game is 'finished' when I've researched all available tech. I appreciate there's a lot of people think the game starts at this point, but you know, different strokes and all that   Everything else tends to fall out of this goal.

For the interested, my CTT-rescaling patch is included below... @JadeOfMaar had quite a hand in it at the time   I don't even have a 50k node in my current game, but the sheer weight of the tree at the back end makes it very likely that meaningful choices must be made, and that potentially several missions will pass between unlocks. Early nodes are untouched, so that you can get to your local moon with no additional pain. A few later nodes are immune, specifically plane parts and KF small wheels, because while they are nice to have, they don't really get you any closer to obtaining moar science, which you absolutely will need to focus on! Apply this patch to a well-modded game with 20-30% science, and you'll most likely have to admit you can't unlock everything... 

Spoiler

// Tech Tree Scalar by JadeOfMaar + EddieW

@TechTree:NEEDS[CommunityTechTree]
{
	// Excluding things like rover wheels and jet parts. These do not really get you to space any better
	// and imho shouldn't be so expensive.
	// Note that the mk3 parts are allowed to get more expensive.
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[fieldScience]]	{ @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[highAltitudeFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[advancedMotors]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[hypersonicFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[aerospaceTech]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[aerodynamics]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[supersonicFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
	
	
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[10000]]
	{
	   @cost = 50000
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[4000]]
	{
	   @cost = 24000
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[2250]]
	{
	   @cost = 11250
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[1500]]
	{
	   @cost = 5250
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[1000]]
	{
	   @cost = 2500
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[550]]
	{
	   @cost = 1100
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[300]]
	{
	   @cost = 525
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[160]]
	{
	   @cost = 240
	}
	@RDNode,*:HAS[#cost[90]]
	{
	   @cost = 95
	}		
	
	// put the excluded parts list back to their original costs
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[fieldScience]]	{ @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[highAltitudeFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[advancedMotors]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[hypersonicFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[aerospaceTech]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[aerodynamics]] { @cost *= -1 }
	@RDNode:HAS[#id[supersonicFlight]] { @cost *= -1 }
}


// move KerbalFoundries' smallest wheels into a lower tier (alongside the buggy wheels from stock)
@PART[KF_WheelSmall]:NEEDS[KerbalFoundries]
{
	@TechRequired = fieldScience
}
@PART[KF_WheelTiny]:NEEDS[KerbalFoundries]
{
	@TechRequired = fieldScience
}

 

 

[Mr. Peabody]

2 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I just had one of those awesome KSP moments.

I'd gone up from Kosmodrome Aelita to fetch another module. I was a bit sloppy with the slide rule and ended up with very tight fuel for the return trip. I'm also new to Duna re-entry and didn't judge my return entirely perfectly and was coming short, which meant I burned as much of the little fuel I had as I could to get in closer. That meant that I had no margin for precision manoeuvring at the end, and was pretty pleased when I managed a nice soft landing about 1.5 klicks from the base... with 11 m/s left on the fuel gauge. 

"Not too bad," I thought. "I'll just have to drive the fuel tanker here to refuel her."

Then I thought, "Wait a minute. What's that on my cargo bed?"

It's a tractor.

What do tractors do?

They pull.

This also solved my one significant niggle with the Cyclone: it lacks steerable landing gear. This was hard to avoid since I wanted to make it pretty robust for the bumpy Dunatian terrain. Consequently, I burned precious fuel on take-off to get myself pointed the right way. Now I can just tow it into position with the Massive-Kerguson. And I didn't even plan it that way!

This may be a bit of a stupid question, but doesn't having an open flat-bed with cargo on it drag like hell?

[Atkara]

4 hours ago, papuchalk said:

BTW can you advice a challenging game mode ? i did career mode twice, fully opened tech tree twicce. Starting for the third time is not really funny. Especialy the early stages are a bit boring.

What you guys did instead ? 

For me, unlocking the tech tree was just the first step. The next is to expand my business. This means sending crews and infrastructure, on and around every planet & moon a Kerbal can set foot on. I'm almost half-way there.

Once that's done, I'm thinking of tourist contracts, crew rotations and possibly, installation maintenance, if needed.

Long term goal, boring at times, but what can I say? It's the business

[Starman4308]

Pioneer 1, having completed its primary mission, sacrificed itself for Science in the upper Venusian atmosphere.

I then spent most of the rest of my evening putting these three relays into a polar, 35 Mm orbit of the Moon, ensuring near-100% coverage of the lunar surface, and furthermore assuring contact with 4 Mm Communotron 16 antennae even when the Moon is at apogee and just barely outside direct contact range with the DSN antennae on Earth.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Starman4308

[Kronus_Aerospace]

I feel as if this is not what the average KSP folder looks like.

 

[Starman4308]

13 minutes ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I feel as if this is not what the average KSP folder looks like.

The only reason mine doesn't look like that is because I delete old crash report folders.

Heavily modded KSP installs are not the stablest thing in the world...

[Kronus_Aerospace]

1 minute ago, Starman4308 said:

The only reason mine doesn't look like that is because I delete old crash report folders.

Heavily modded KSP installs are not the stablest thing in the world...

Oh I don't doubt it, but I only have several mods installed, none of which change much at all.

[Castille7]

Yes, I've seen these before 

[qzgy]

47 minutes ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I feel as if this is not what the average KSP folder looks like.

Mine looks pretty similar. You're not alone my friend.

10 minutes ago, Castille7 said:

*Old timey radio voice* The New Castille 7 Broadband towers! Featuring 136.2 Jiggerwatts of Kerbal Brain frying radiation and a superstructure as stable as on of dem rocket thingies to hold it all together! Yours for just 999,999.99 funds! Thats right, its not even a million! *end of oldtmey radio voice*

Really though, whats the power rating on that thing?

[Castille7]

1 hour ago, qzgy said:

*Old timey radio voice* The New Castille 7 Broadband towers! Featuring 136.2 Jiggerwatts of Kerbal Brain frying radiation and a superstructure as stable as on of dem rocket thingies to hold it all together! Yours for just 999,999.99 funds! Thats right, its not even a million! *end of oldtmey radio voice*

Really though, whats the power rating on that thing?

Thanks for the laugh! Another funny thing about this, there is a Castille that actually sells these, first and last name same as mine...too cool 

@qzgy

Really though, whats the power rating on that thing?

Didn't check, it's late and I shut down for the night, I'll check it out soon and let you know

Edited February 27, 2018 by Castille7

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

feel as if this is not what the average KSP folder looks like.

 

Nope, totally normal. I have multiple game folders filled with more folders like these going back to like 0.19... 

[JadeOfMaar]

Some more Thor Tech experimentation, innovation, and some jubilation.  

Even more VTOL design opportunities arise with the Razor Hybrid WarpJet able to to dual duty as an intake (but only if facing the wrong way and moving at > Mach 0.8). Anyone who's seen the Swat Kats cartoon knows where this is going.

And some Skylon intercooler revelry with this big plane. Speed + draggy radial intake + EC + Oxygen = LqdOxygen --> Oxidizer.

And for those who missed it, that's the stock aerospike firing, not the Thor Tech version.

Edited February 27, 2018 by JadeOfMaar

[XB-70A]

Today was a bit special as I finally launched my first 100% stock flight to Duna. All the precedent ones were made with adjusted engine files for the fun, but now I just wanted to try it without these doped Mk-55 Thud:

Here it is, the Mercury Mk. IV, currently the tallest and one of the heaviest craft I ever built in stock. Nearly touching the roof of the VAB, it is, however, pretty simple with only two stages, all of them recoverable for economical reasons according to Mortimer.

 

Powered by 15 Vector engines, the whole system is easily kicked out of the atmosphere with an initial TWR of 2.14.

 

 

 

However, it did not carry enough fuel to realize the circularization, and had to be released after having placed the apogee to 120 km, the spacecraft being left alone to carry on the mission. The circularization was a bit perspiring as its initial TWR was awful at the best, requiring more than two minutes of burn for 1.3 km/s.

 

 

 

Then the main stage realized its reenter decently, needing a short burn of five seconds with only six engines to help it a bit around 17 km of altitude, then it descended smoothly through the sky until the final burn starting at 700 m with around 900 m/s still available.

 

ARRRRRGGGgggg... my poor keyboard arrows are still crying of pain two hours after it,

 

 

Hopefully, everything went well as the touching speed was around 1 m/s and the RCS helped me to make it fall smoother, ensuring a good return of 272 666 funds.

 

 

Then it was finally the time for the crew of Mercury to leave for Minmus, the next checkpoint and resting place. More than 2.4 km/s having to be recovered.

 

 

 

Descending and landing on the mint ball. Everything went erh... nominally, or simply it was boring. Now it was the time to play a bit of Russian roulette... really!

 

 

 

To be honest, it was my first operational use of drills and a converter since I discovered this game more than 3 years ago now... I simply didn't know how to use them at all, so I just placed them a bit "like this, we'll see", and it worked! Three days were sufficient to fulfill the tanks and to be ready for the next step.

 

 

 

 

A step which was not as joyful as I expected it to be, as the best transfer window I found was requesting more than a year and half of waiting. Funnily, I'm always unlucky with launch Duna, every time I'm getting some terrible waiting time, while everything is always perfect for Eve and Moho...

Well, now we'll see. I guess that 3.1 km/s of impulsion should be enough to take care of the braking, circularization, and landing maneuvers on the red dot. After a second refueling I guest the best will be to go to Ike to refuel once again and to take some science points, before leaving back definitely to Kerbin.

Edited February 27, 2018 by XB-70A

[Guest]

6 hours ago, The Dunatian said:

This may be a bit of a stupid question, but doesn't having an open flat-bed with cargo on it drag like hell?

On Duna, not really. A feather pillow wouldn't drag like hell there, the air is so thin. On anywhere with a thicker atmosphere, it depends on the cargo: this tractor definitely would, but with a more streamlined cargo it would be fairly reasonable.

Longer answer in case you're interested in a design discussion.

My first (deployed) plane with a flatbed design like this was the Pelican. 

With that sharply abbreviated fuselage, it has the aerodynamic efficiency of a cardboard box, and payload modules like what you see there didn't exactly improve things. However, the main mission for the craft was to deliver station modules down rather than haul stuff up, and drag on the way down is only a problem in that it requires a bit more precision with entry as there's less room to fly yourself home if you miss. So ultimately this was a very successful design -- it did the job I wanted it to do extremely well.

However, a secondary mission for the Pelican was to fly fuel up from my refinery on Laythe. This eventually became its primary mission, and the lack of aerodynamic efficiency really bit with that: I burned most of my payload getting out of Laythe. It was so bad I ended up redesigning the craft and the tanker to be more slippery. 

That's a great deal better. It's not the slipperiest plane in the hangar but it's good enough: it will haul that fuel tanker to LKO while it's still full, and that's a Rockomax 64's worth of fuel in it. This meets my mission requirement. I've also used it to haul up payloads wrapped in fairings, and it does that very easily as well.

The plane you were looking at there is the Cyclone, which is an evolution/re-adaption of the Pelican design for Duna: it's rocket-powered only of course, and it has VTOL capability, which dictated the bigger fuselage and nacelles. It's still fairly streamlined, like the Pelican 2 though, and hauling up fuel should be fairly smooth going, especially given its much larger internal fuel capacity.

Bottom line is, aerodynamic efficiency is important but it's not everything: like any characteristic you can compromise on it to gain something somewhere else. 

 

1 hour ago, XB-70A said:

Funnily, I'm always unlucky with launch Duna, every time I'm getting some terrible waiting time, while everything is always perfect for Eve and Moho...

It's not luck, it's orbital mechanics. Kerbin's and Duna's orbital periods are closer to each other than Kerbin's and Moho's or Eve's. That means Duna launch windows are less frequent than Eve's or Moho's. In fact Duna's window comes up least frequently of all, because the orbit is the closest match.

Put another way: the easier it is to get somewhere, the less frequent the launch window.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Guest

[Ace in Space]

I am very pleased to report that the most critical phase of my attempts to save the Onyx Station mission has succeeded!

Step one was to put the scanner in polar orbit so I could look for a good spot to put the mining base. I found a few nice hotspots right on the equator, so the next step was determining which one of them to use. Good old haulerbot has to be one of the first things in on the base anyway because it's necessary for the assembly of modules, and it just so happens to have kerbnet access, so I put it into orbit and used the altitude scanner to find a decently flat place within one of the hotspots.

Turned out, the first one I flew over happened to be pretty flat. It was on a slight incline but relatively smooth, so I dropped haulerbot down to mark the spot.

So now that I had a designated site, it all came down to whether I could get the fuel truck and the fuel lifter down in this area.

It turns out I was not quite correct in my estimation of fuel. Through abuse of quickload/quicksave and lots of trial and error, I determined that that the fuel truck was just short of having enough fuel to land, and I knew the lifter couldn't spare any more. It was close enough that I even tried flipping it over and lithobraking with the crane, but even that wasn't quite enough. So things were not looking good. No truck, no fuel production, no mission recovery.

But then I said, "what about those non-critical crafts in orbit?" I checked a few, and found that the Science Lander had a good amount of fuel left. Thus, Peter Kerman bravely sacrificed his ability to land his craft in order to save the mission.

 I had to lighten the picture in photoshop because this docking took place right behind Ike, so it was dark.

With the extra fuel, I was able to land the fuel truck with just under 60 units of fuel left, surprisingly close to the site I picked with the haulerbot; and from there the truck could drive over and park next to it. That was on the second try. The first time, the truck landed safely but managed to flip over somehow and was stuck like a turtle on its back. I drove over with the haulerbot to give it a shove and flip it back over, but apparently the kraken didn't like that, because both rovers went flying away in a random direction at warp speed, spinning wildly, and then exploded. So I loaded a save and tried again, and this time landed the truck upright.

Then it was the lifter's turn. I was totally right when I said I was cutting it real close with the fuel. So close, in fact, that I wasn't able to burn retrograde quite as long as I would have liked and still have enough fuel to touch down gently. It ended up landing about 2 kilometers away with only 18.46 units of fuel left.

But that's fine, that's what the fuel truck is for. So I guess the hardest part, or at least the hardest foreseen part, is over. Next step is to land the components for the mining base and begin construction.

[Jett_Quasar]

My latest ship design is a real BLAST!

You can download both the stock and modded versions of the craft here:
https://kerbalx.com/Jett_Quasar/craft

 - Jett

Edited February 27, 2018 by Jett_Quasar

[Tom kerbin]

landed on the mun then exploded

[papuchalk]

9 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

I feel as if this is not what the average KSP folder looks like.

 

mine looked very similar, untill I run KSPx64 version on DX11, which solved problem with low memory. If you have similar issues try it 

How to force DX11

1. Create shortcut for KSP
2. Open its properties
3. In the target line, add " -force-d3d11" without the quotes (the intial space does matter)
4. Accept/apply changes (you can also add " -popupwindow" for fake full screen mode)
5. . . . .
6. Profit!
   Now enjoy KSP with 40% less RAM usage!

 

If you have crashes dou to mods, i solved this by CKAN mod installer

Never had a crash since that.

Oh and also upgrade of PC helped a lot, but mainly with graphic performance and overall faster performance. But Stable it was before upgrade

[MaxwellsDemon]

Launched the next module (Nut, a 'Spektr'-inspired module) for the 'Mir'-type Hotep space station, and managed to dock it.   Each time I think it's going to be easy, and each time there's a curve ball... still, mission accomplished.

The other occurrence was something worthy of the facepalm-moment thread.  I landed an automatic lander on Minmus-- almost but not quite on top of an automatic lander that was already there.  Nothing blew up, but the new lander fell over on its side.   Still scratching my head on what to do about it.   Of course I neglected to quicksave on the way in--  "what could go wrong?"  

A "simulation" indicated that attempting to take off horizontally merely left me skimming along the surface of the Greater Flats until things started to explode.  I notice, though, that I'm pointing at a semi-distant hill that looks sort of ski-slope-y.  I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't try that next...  I just need to keep the speed low enough to keep the thing intact till I get there.