What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Draco T stand-up guy]

Bankrupted yet another career

Edited October 23, 2016 by Draco T stand-up guy

[RoboRay]

1 hour ago, obi_juan said:

Uh oh... The air on Duna is so thin that the electric propeller will not give the same trust... I am not sure if that plane will be able  to fly on Duna... Glide is sure, it seem a good design. 

 

Now I am not sure, but I think that the pressure on the surface of Duna is the pressure on Kerbin at 30 or 45 km.

Kerbin's atmosphere at 10km is about the same air pressure of Duna at the datum.  And Duna's gravity is less, which helps with flight.  So, if you can manage flight at 15 km on Kerbin, you're good for low-level flying at Duna.  You may have to dodge some mountains, but you can get around.

Edited October 23, 2016 by RoboRay

[Martian Emigrant]

Well a few things here.

Yesterday I rebuilt my "Elon Rocket". Meaning building a two-piece-re-usable-rocket to carry 100 Kerbals to Duna and back.

Kinda works....WIP.

That's it. That's what it is....WIP.

http://imgur.com/a/JiNt7

The only problems left are:

No one can get out (Because they can't get back in).

And the ship as a tendency to explode over the KSC and then crash the non-exploded parts on the KSC.

I am working on that.....

But today I played with 1.2 and made a 2 Kerbal research plane.

http://martianarepeopletoo.imgur.com/all/

 

 

Great view from the front

 

Ok from the back

 

Doesn't have to "Landed"

 

Maybe it's because I am playing with the texture settings but the images are just gorgeous.

 

1.2 is alright.

 

ME

 

PS I had Jeb walk to a tree....Darn, you can't climb them.

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by Martian Emigrant

[AccidentsHappen]

I made the final adjustments to my new heavy lifter. It was pretty much fine on the first flight, but improvements can always be made! Since KSP has no props and i really couldn't be bothered making any, I used Jet engines and christened it the C-140 Super Hercules (real imaginative, I know). I'm currently flying it to the North Pole, and after landing and taking off agin from Keurope(?), I decide to have a final rest stop before commencing the final leg of the journey. Samantha Kerman spotted a flat area suitable for landing, and Val banked down towards the ground. I went to open my landing gear, and of course it reckons that they can't be deployed because they were stowed (yet it worked every other time). So instead I just banked a little further West and landed in a lake, safe and sound! Now I'm figuring out how to land on the ice with only my forward landing gear...

Maybe I should make a big tray and make it move at the same speed as the descending plane. Then I'll touch down (very) slowly into holder and brake with the tray... But that's just an idea. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

8 minutes ago, Martian Emigrant said:

 

Duna kinda looks like play-dough...

Sweet looking plane, too! I'm a sucker for fixed gear craft. 

Edited October 23, 2016 by AccidentsHappen

[Martian Emigrant]

9 minutes ago, AccidentsHappen said:

....

Duna kinda looks like play-dough...

Sweet looking plane, too! I'm a sucker for fixed gear craft. 

That's the level of technology that was available to me .

 

ME

[kraden]

@eddiew it seems to me that Thatmo is intended to have an orientation like that of Uranus, where the poles face laterally in comparison to most bodies. This means that each pole nearly directly faces the sun once per year. That would explain the biome you were seeing. 

[flatbear]

Attempted a burn to moho

[TheKingsHill]

Today I wanted to get a satellite to the lunar orbit, but as I have RemoteTech installed it required a connection to Kerbin. Yesterday I had attempted to set up a KeoStationary commsat constelation but I messed up horribly and my conncetion to the KSC went out.

In the end I endt up launching 5 rockets, each with their own satellite. Only 4 of them made it into orbit. 
Each satellite had 2 antennae, one omni directional for direction connection to the KSC, and a cone satellite dish to aim for missions.

The 4th satellite never made it to orbital insertion due to an error in the staging system that caused the fairings to prematurely deploy, throwing the rocket around. 

The 5th satellite went up and I felt satisfied with my attempt at recreating a TDRS constellation (or at least a poorly imitated version of it) and having a near 24 hour connection period. 

Once satified I began developing my Lunar satellite. These would become my Knowledge series rockets. The L-Knowledge-1 reached orbital velocity but ran out of fuel before reaching the proper height for a rendevouz with the Mun. The L-Knowledge-2 was modified and successfully entered Mun SoI and began orbiting the Mun at a height of approximately 20,000m. There was a lot of science recieved. 

My TDRS constellation, every single satellitethat was a part of this was equipped with a low resolution scansat radar. This allowed me to get a low res scansat map of almost the entirety of kerbin. A few minor adjustments to the TDRS-1 should allow me to complete my low resolution scan of Kerbin.

Before my KSP began to crash (I now have to figure out why it's repeatedly crashing) I was intending on creating a satellite to enter the Mun's SoI and land. This satellie would provide valuable ground/biome information of the Mun and become a key piece of my communication array between Kerbin and the Mun. 

This will most likely happen tomorrow. Afterwards I will either land a rover on the Mun to really collect data or begin developing a space station in LKO.

[CatastrophicFailure]

So... I picked up a contract to retrieve a part in solar orbit. Should have looked at it a weeee bit harder first.

It was on a highly eccentric retrograde orbit from within the oribt of Moho out to nearly Duna.

Crap.

Spoiler

Might as well give it the ol' "I should know better than this by now" try, right? Spend nearly a million on this:

Didn't notice till after I launched it. Those big xenon tanks are expensive. With a triple-nuke kicker stage just for icing that will also end up as interplanetary debris.

Whatever this thing is they're sending me after, it'd had better be important!

 

Thanks to MechJeb, getting the intercept is pretty easy... now comes eleven kilometers per second of velocity change. Nearly three hours of ionizing. Oh, at only half throttle, because it's halfway to Duna. Here go the drop tanks:

Finally bring it to a nice, smooth stop less than a hundred meters away, and what do we have?

A BALLAST TANK?!? A FLIGGITYFLARPING BALLAST TANK? Y'ALL SENT ME ALL THE WAY OUT HERE FOR AN EMPTY BALLAST TANK?

OF ALL THE !@($(*@#!%)(!#$^%)(&!#$%()&!!!!!!!

 

Got it, now to turn around and go back the other way for another 12 or 13 km/s/.

Suborbital flight over the Sun. Twice.

 

Here go the boosters. In 90 days or so they'll meet a fiery end. Completely neglected to include any experiments for some low-over-the-sun science. At least I can switch back & watch 'em burn.

 

Nope, completely forgot while managing course corrections and another deep-space recovery. And now I see someone got kicked out of Duna orbit and I'll have to go fish them out too. Finally brake this stupid tank into Kerbin orbit. But I also neglected to include any way for getting it down.

 

Cue another expensive rocket. Look at the pretty view!

LOOK AT IT!

 

After a ridiculous amount of headache clawing everything together, I now have this monstrosity.

Oh, and the recovery stage is completely out of fuel. I'll still have to use the ion engines to deorbit.

 

Reentry is dicey. The whole thing starts wobbling around like a spinning top. Fortunately, that big heatshield slows things down fast.

And, splash. Someone with more money than brains is getting their ballast tank back. Right over their big, green head.

All for a lousy 300 grand. I spent at least four times that, and a ridiculous amount of time & effort.

Flarp.

 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

Did some test flights at the Venutian world Niven in @Galileo's Planet Pack. I went looking for those lakes on what seems like an obvious and complete desert world. Then I made a dV tester craft so I could extract the land/launch requirement and add it to/create a solo (per planet) chart with the most pertinent information for the many, many landers to come, starting with Niven; inspired by the Planet Wiki for stock and for OPM.

The south pole is a natural Pod Racer and MotorCross Arena... HYYYYPE!

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by JadeOfMaar

[dangerhamster]

At the "fly one gazillion tourists" stage of the 1.2 career. As a bit of relief fitted some part testing contracts in between the bus runs. Which turned up some silly testbeds....

Also tried out the go-karts rovers to collect maximum science from KSC on the cheap.

 

 

[Guest]

My Jool Grand Tour mission is off Kerbin. 

After a lot of R&D, I ended up with a three-module configuration.

As with the Duna/Ike mission, the crew module is a Mk 2 command module with two pilots and a scientist. The orbiter also carries a Science Jr and mystery goo. Unfortunately SOMEONE forgot to install the parachutes, so I'll have to send up another mission with some -- fortunately the module has a docking port I can use to attach them. 

For Val, Bop, and Pol I'm using a lander that's identical to the one I sent to Duna and Ike. 

For Laythe, I will be sending down a remote-controlled plane, the Gnat 1. It carries a similar science pack as the Val/Bop/Pol lander, but should be able to return from there. I'll also attempt to use that for a high-atmosphere pass of Jool itself. 

And Tylo... Tylo will have to wait. Neither of my landers has the dV for the return trip, and I don't have relays good enough to zap back the science.

Currently the combo is fully fueled and parked in a highly elliptical orbit around the Mun, waiting for a suitable transfer window.

Final refueling in Mun orbit done. Ready to take on Jool!

[ZentroCatson]

Today I continued my 1.2 career. I finally got the budget to upgrade the R&D complex, so I can now transfer fuel. Why did I need to transfer fuel? Well, there's a station in Kerbin orbit that I wanted to get into a Mun orbit, so i had to refuel the 2nd stage of the launcher that got it into LKO.

Pics:

Approaching the station with the refueling thingy...

I decided to make the thing re-usable, so here it is descending near KSC.

Off to the Mun!

Sadly, I didn't get as much science as I hoped from it. I don't understand how the MOLE biology lab works and I forgot to add the required experiment modules for the MOLE research lab, so I had to make a resupply mission after it got into Munar orbit. Though I had a contract for a rendezvous in Munar orbit, so I squashed two bugs with one booster 

But there was another problem. @RoverDude nerfed the USI-LS greenhouses into the ground, meaning the life support time was very limited. I tried reconfiguring the greenhouses into recyclers, but it didn't work even though I tried it with an engineer and had the required resources for it. I'll try asking in the USI-LS thread.

Next priority is to rescue Eriisa Kerman from the surface of the Mun. It will be a tricky mission, but I've done pin-point landings in earlier careers, though that was a long time ago... We'll see, I'll report back after the mission!

[Overland]

Messed with rocketry for the first time in years and not trains (not really)

From trains!

[Boganaut]

Resumed 1.2 career game. Successfully transferred a ship to Duna orbit, detached Ike lander and deployed rescue ship to the surface of Duna. LZ was a bit off and Bill Kerman now needs to walk about 12 hours. Might need a lead weight, some alarms set and a bit of cash set aside for a new keyboard. Trouble is, 4 Kerbals need picking up! Bill's plan though is to use his engineering skillz to operate the ISRU, refuel and hop closer to the others.

Back on Kerbin, Valentina snuck 3 extra passengers onto what was meant to be a test flight of a my first 1.2 spaceplane. She took off with Bob and two others aboard! Ascent was straightforward. Bob wanted to be dropped off at LPC Station in LKO, but there wasn't enough fuel - just enough rocket fuel to de-orbit. Descent was lined up well and range looked pretty good during the glide. Things got a bit hot though and the tail blew up. Descent remained stable though. Approaching KSC, the glide was a bit too good and the drag no enough even with brakes etc deployed. It was decided to pull up and present more surface area to slow the descent... bad plan! Lift was lost and the craft went into a bad corkscrew which slowed lateral motion and became a deadly flat spin. With the missing tail, arresting the spin was nearly impossible. Eventually the flight stabilised into a straight nosedive. Valentina tried in vain to pull up, but the gyros weren't enough. So she kicked then engines on to full throttle! The ground was looming large at this point... only a few thousand metres altitude and they were up in the foothills of the mountains west of KSC. With the additional speed, the elevons were able to do their job and haul the craft onto a horizontal trajectory just in the nick of time - the craft's shadow loomed large as the prograde marker moved up to the horizon line and 30 seconds later they landed in the grasslands without a scratch (well, apart from the missing tail).

[Morpher]

Continued my career with remote tech by placing a couple of satellites in orbit that are going to carry the signal from my KEO network to other satellites in kerbin's SOI, mostly satellites dedicated to interplanetary communications in highly eccentric orbits

 

[eddiew]

Oversaw a new dawn in space technology...

Spoiler

And thus did kerbalkind attain the technology that would allow them to venture among the stars. A new wave of exoplanet finding begins, seeking likely targets within range of the Olympus One and its successors. Within years, it is hoped, kerbals will finally learn the answer to the oldest question, a question passed down through the generations. A question of deep import, whose answer will shake society to its roots. A question that has united the world, ended war, and driven kerbalkind to focus entirely on space exploration, because it is so very fundamental for kerbals to ask... are alien snacks better than theirs?

Thoughts on warp drives in spoiler...

Spoiler

In all honesty, it's not quite Star Trek   The Alcubierre drive allows you to conserve either linear velocity, or angular momentum - which sounds good, but actually both are a problem when what you really want to do is punt between stable orbits at 100km altitude. I opted for angular momentum conservation because my brain finds that slightly easier to process - but really, I don't understand how to pilot Olympus One effectively 

It's easy to get to a target in a few minutes. It's also easy to arrive with over 10km/s orbital velocity, making it impractical to stop. I worked out how to raise/lower an orbit, and how to circularise, but it requires being at PE, AP, or the two points midway between them. Meaning you're back to waiting on orbits to swing round. That's not so bad when you're talking about bimbling around the moons of a gas giant, because you can ping between them and cheese the gravity assists, but when you want to, say, go to Duna... that's actually quite hard. Most likely you'll arrive with somewhere around 4-6km/s orbital velocity, which is worse than a conventional transfer.

There is a get out - you can warp to your PE, then timewarp/coast to near the edge of the SoI, warp to your PE, timewarp... etc. Each loop, you'll lose some velocity, just as if you were doing multiple gravity assist passes. Eventually, you'll jump back to your PE and be in an eccentric orbit, which is easy to sort out within a couple of passes. The annoyance is that Duna only slows you down by about 70-80m/s on the way out, so when you want to wash off 3km/s... that's a lot of warping back to PE. It's possible, but it's not necessarily an efficient use of play time vs just going with conventional rocketry. Return to Kerbin is a little easier; it'll drag a good 500m/s off you each pass, and 6 warps isn't as horrible as it sounds.

As far as I can see, the optimal way to travel by warp is to establish a circular solar orbit until a radial line from the sun would pass through both you and your target, then warp straight at it. With angular momentum conserved, you then tend to enter the planet's SoI and basically fall into it, but that's easy to solve while it's still a speck in the distance. Of course, the problem with this is... time. As noted above, there are only 4 points on your orbit when you really want to be warping, and you have to wait for one of those. You can reduce this by dropping to a low solar orbit, but it's still going to take some time. Ultimately, you end up choosing real-time, or game-time, but you're going to have to pay for the trip with some form of time.

 

Epilogue
What a long career this has been! Geebus, I think it started somewhere back at the end of July - although it honestly feels more like February. From humble beginnings on a harder-than-hard setting, I've gone through 1-kerbal Mun landings, to the first crew on Duna, to having boots on every planet in stock, plus OPM, plus Rald. It's absolutely been a career of firsts for me, and I've had a lot of fun with it. And I've had landers that crabwalked up hills, hatches that wouldn't let the crew back in, fuel lines where only one side is connected, things that blew up when trying to get down onto Eve, rovers that pinged into the air if stopped for more than a minute, and ships flung over backwards by kerbals that got stuck underneath them.

But it's still been a lot of fun

I am however quite pleased to be able to bring it to a graceful end - for once not dictated by increasing instability or incompatible game updates. I'll probably take a step back from KSP for a week or two, and with 1.2 out and mods still catching up, this feels like really good timing to do so   Next career... mmm, dunno yet, really. I think I want to try Galileo's planet pack, and probably some different tech mods. KR&D has been great fun, but it's also stopped me from really investigating Near Future properly and has meant I've mostly stuck with the same ship designs, so maybe I'll leave that out and really learn Near Future next time. I also need a goal... having a finish line has been nice, because it's kept me focused and stopped me bailing out, with the result that I've seen more of the game than in any previous career. Tempted to think of something involving FTL Drives - maybe look at establishing mining colonies in every system, if it becomes possible to ping between them quickly. I dunno, I'll work it out later  

Edited October 24, 2016 by eddiew

[septemberWaves]

@eddiew What I saw of that playthrough was incredibly impressive. You have some very nice vehicle designs and have inspired me to use KR&D in my own major playthrough (which I will begin once OPM and XPC are updated for 1.2, since I tend to feel like something's missing without those mods).

[eddiew]

Glad to have given you some ideas @eloquentJane   My best advice for KR&D is hold off using it until you've hit the end of the tech tree. It's very easy to end up with starter-level parts that outclass the late game stuff, and then you just go through the game with the same rocket ship that gets incrementally better every launch (i.e. those Investigator class spaceplanes that ended up with 8km/s after ascent to LKO) ^^;

To help myself stay out of temptation, I ran it with a custom parts.cfg, making the initial buy-in for the game-changing things more expensive. When it costs 375 science to add 10% ISP, it becomes much tighter as to whether you should unlock the next tech node instead   I reduced the level scaling however, so that you can ultimately go deeper into improvements without the cost spiralling out of control. Config code below for the interested (formats better in Notepad++ than this editor).

Spoiler

// Install R&D-Module for all parts with the same stats (only applicable settings will be used for each part):
@PART[*]:HAS[!MODULE[KRnDModule]]
{
 	MODULE
	{
		name = KRnDModule
		
		// All parts:
		dryMass_scienceCost				= 30
		dryMass_costScaleReference		= 1		// the base science cost scales with the original mass, in this case 20 science for 1 ton
		dryMass_costScale 				= 1   	// eddiew; this is hard to balance because small parts are so cheap and big ones so expensive. nothing here can make the mass matter less.
												// 30->60->90->120->150 = 450 PER TON to reduce the mass by half. 
												// nervas start at 3 tons, costing 1350 to halve. beyond this point, they often aren't much impact on the vessel anyway...
												// rapiers start at 2 tons, costing 900 to halve.
		dryMass_improvement				= -0.1	// -10% for the first upgrade
		dryMass_improvementScale		= 1
		
		// Engines / RCS:
		ispVac_scienceCost				= 125   // eddiew; ISP and thrust are, imho, 3 of the most powerful things in here.
		ispVac_costScale 				= 1.0	// eddiew; the maths is not what it says on the tin? each upgrade costs: (previous upgrade cost) + (scienceCost * costScale ^ level)
												// 125->250->375->500->625 = 1875 for a 25% increase in ISP, e.g. nervas at 1000
		ispVac_improvement				= 0.05	// +5% for the first upgrade
		ispVac_improvementScale			= 1		// the improvement increases each level by: improvement * improvementScale ^ level
		
		ispAtm_scienceCost				= 125
		ispAtm_costScale 				= 1.0
		ispAtm_improvement				= 0.05
		ispAtm_improvementScale			= 1

		fuelFlow_scienceCost			= 125
		fuelFlow_costScale 				= 1.0
		fuelFlow_improvement			= 0.1
		fuelFlow_improvementScale		= 1
		
		// Reaction Wheels:
		torque_scienceCost				= 20    // eddiew; not life-changing, really. why be super expensive?
		torque_costScale 				= 1.0   // eddiew; still no multiplier here. 20->40->60->80 = 200 science to double the torque in a part. big whoop.
		torque_improvement				= 0.25
		torque_improvementScale			= 1

		// Solar Panels:
		chargeRate_scienceCost			= 20    // eddiew; much higher initial, no multiplier
		chargeRate_costScale 			= 1.0
		chargeRate_improvement			= 0.1   // eddiew; increased to 10%. 20->40->60->80->100->120->140->160->180->200 = 1100 to double the power of a panel
		chargeRate_improvementScale		= 1
		
		// Landing Legs:
		crashTolerance_scienceCost		= 10	// eddiew; much higher initial, no multiplier
		crashTolerance_costScale 		= 1.0
		crashTolerance_improvement		= 0.15  // eddiew; really, it won't change your game that you can come down with a bang. PWYW.
		crashTolerance_improvementScale	= 1
		
		// Batteries:
		batteryCharge_scienceCost		= 20    // eddiew; 
		batteryCharge_costScaleReference = 500	// the base science cost scales with the original capacity, in this case 10 science for 500 charge-units
		batteryCharge_costScale 		= 1
		batteryCharge_improvement		= 0.2	// eddiew; 20->40->60->80->100 = 300 to double the power of a 500 EC battery. this CAN lead to OP ion drives, 
												// but 1000 still isn't huge. you will be using this on bigger batteries
		batteryCharge_improvementScale	= 1
		
		// Generators (eg RTG):
		generatorEfficiency_scienceCost	= 20	// eddiew; efficient RTGs make for OP ion probes... 
		generatorEfficiency_costScale 	= 1
		generatorEfficiency_improvement	= 0.1   // 20->40->60->80->100->120->140->160->180->200 = 1100 to double the power output
		generatorEfficiency_improvementScale = 1
		
		// Converter (eg Ore-Converter or Fuel Cells):
		converterEfficiency_scienceCost	= 50	// eddiew; x5. fuel cells could get out of hand quickly for ion drives.
		converterEfficiency_costScale 	= 1
		converterEfficiency_improvement	= 0.05  // eddiew; but this will make it very expensive indeed to make them uber
		converterEfficiency_improvementScale = 1
		
		// Parachute Strength (cut and deployment speeds):
		parachuteStrength_scienceCost	= 50	// eddiew; x5. but really, who cares? how often does chute speed affect you?
		parachuteStrength_costScale		= 1
		parachuteStrength_improvement	= 0.3
		parachuteStrength_improvementScale = 1
		
		// Max Internal- and Skin-Temperature (for withstanding re-entry heat):
		maxTemperature_scienceCost		= 50	// eddiew; much bigger
		maxTemperature_costScale		= 1
		maxTemperature_improvement		= 0.1   // eddiew; reduced to 10%. 50->100->150->200->250->300->350->400->450->500 = 2750 to double the heat tolerance. this may still be too cheap.
		maxTemperature_improvementScale	= 1
		
		// Fuel Capacity (amount of fuel a tank can hold):
		fuelCapacity_scienceCost		= 20	// eddiew; it doesn't alter that you have to carry the mass of that fuel, but it becomes more effective than reducing dry mass
		fuelCapacity_costScaleReference	= 1000	// the base science cost scales with the original capacity of a tank (sum of all fuels), in this case 5 science for 1000 fuel units
		fuelCapacity_costScale			= 2
		fuelCapacity_improvement		= 0.05
		fuelCapacity_improvementScale	= 1
	}
}

 

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by eddiew

[RX2000]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

So... I picked up a contract to retrieve a part in solar orbit. Should have looked at it a weeee bit harder first.

Yea I pretty much always pass on any contracts that have to do with solar orbits. They are almost always way more trouble than they are worth.

[SmashingKirby148]

2 hours ago, eddiew said:

Oversaw a new dawn in space technology...

  Reveal hidden contents

And thus did kerbalkind attain the technology that would allow them to venture among the stars. A new wave of exoplanet finding begins, seeking likely targets within range of the Olympus One and its successors. Within years, it is hoped, kerbals will finally learn the answer to the oldest question, a question passed down through the generations. A question of deep import, whose answer will shake society to its roots. A question that has united the world, ended war, and driven kerbalkind to focus entirely on space exploration, because it is so very fundamental for kerbals to ask... are alien snacks better than theirs?

Thoughts on warp drives in spoiler...

  Hide contents

In all honesty, it's not quite Star Trek   The Alcubierre drive allows you to conserve either linear velocity, or angular momentum - which sounds good, but actually both are a problem when what you really want to do is punt between stable orbits at 100km altitude. I opted for angular momentum conservation because my brain finds that slightly easier to process - but really, I don't understand how to pilot Olympus One effectively 

It's easy to get to a target in a few minutes. It's also easy to arrive with over 10km/s orbital velocity, making it impractical to stop. I worked out how to raise/lower an orbit, and how to circularise, but it requires being at PE, AP, or the two points midway between them. Meaning you're back to waiting on orbits to swing round. That's not so bad when you're talking about bimbling around the moons of a gas giant, because you can ping between them and cheese the gravity assists, but when you want to, say, go to Duna... that's actually quite hard. Most likely you'll arrive with somewhere around 4-6km/s orbital velocity, which is worse than a conventional transfer.

There is a get out - you can warp to your PE, then timewarp/coast to near the edge of the SoI, warp to your PE, timewarp... etc. Each loop, you'll lose some velocity, just as if you were doing multiple gravity assist passes. Eventually, you'll jump back to your PE and be in an eccentric orbit, which is easy to sort out within a couple of passes. The annoyance is that Duna only slows you down by about 70-80m/s on the way out, so when you want to wash off 3km/s... that's a lot of warping back to PE. It's possible, but it's not necessarily an efficient use of play time vs just going with conventional rocketry. Return to Kerbin is a little easier; it'll drag a good 500m/s off you each pass, and 6 warps isn't as horrible as it sounds.

As far as I can see, the optimal way to travel by warp is to establish a circular solar orbit until a radial line from the sun would pass through both you and your target, then warp straight at it. With angular momentum conserved, you then tend to enter the planet's SoI and basically fall into it, but that's easy to solve while it's still a speck in the distance. Of course, the problem with this is... time. As noted above, there are only 4 points on your orbit when you really want to be warping, and you have to wait for one of those. You can reduce this by dropping to a low solar orbit, but it's still going to take some time. Ultimately, you end up choosing real-time, or game-time, but you're going to have to pay for the trip with some form of time.

 

Epilogue
What a long career this has been! Geebus, I think it started somewhere back at the start of August - although it honestly feels more like February. From humble beginnings on a harder-than-hard setting, I've gone through 1-kerbal Mun landings, to the first crew on Duna, to having boots on every planet in stock, plus OPM, plus Rald. It's absolutely been a career of firsts for me, and I've had a lot of fun with it. And I've had landers that crabwalked up hills, hatches that wouldn't let the crew back in, fuel lines where only one side is connected, things that blew up when trying to get down onto Eve, rovers that pinged into the air if stopped for more than a minute, and ships flung over backwards by kerbals that got stuck underneath them.

But it's still been a lot of fun

I am however quite pleased to be able to bring it to a graceful end - for once not dictated by increasing instability or incompatible game updates. I'll probably take a step back from KSP for a week or two, and with 1.2 out and mods still catching up, this feels like really good timing to do so   Next career... mmm, dunno yet, really. I think I want to try Galileo's planet pack, and probably some different tech mods. KR&D has been great fun, but it's also stopped me from really investigating Near Future properly and has meant I've mostly stuck with the same ship designs, so maybe I'll leave that out and really learn Near Future next time. I also need a goal... having a finish line has been nice, because it's kept me focused and stopped me bailing out, with the result that I've seen more of the game than in any previous career. Tempted to think of something involving FTL Drives - maybe look at establishing mining colonies in every system, if it becomes possible to ping between them quickly. I dunno, I'll work it out later  

 

Hmmm... by the time you got the warp drives, you have completed most of your goals... I have it already despite only having probes sent to Aden (long story why Aden from Xen's pack orbit's Kerbin ) and the Mun, Jool, Sarnus and Eeloo and Urlum, Polta and Iber (yet another long story why Iber from Xen's pack is around Urlum ). I don't think I have made any manned flights yet. Whoops. xD

That's one thing though about the Warp Drive that I don't get. How to actually slow down around your destination. I went to Duna but was going at 10km/s!! Thank god it was a test flight. xD

I'd say you should try Galileo's pack or even any pack that changes the stock system like Uncharted Lands or New Horizons. I would like to try it, but although I have 24gb and memory is NEVER an issue now (accidentally went up to 9000MB once... despite that horrendous accident, no crashes O.o ) my graphics card, and pretty much my PC, in general, is getting to around 3 years old now, so I have SVE running at 20fps. It's alright, but from what I've seen, Galileo's pack is EXTREMELY detailed, so I would prefer to get a new graphics card first. Instead of getting a new PC I would prefer to keep this one going for as long as possible.

And also, just so I have something to contribute, I will upload something soon, and explain why different moons from Xen's pack are orbiting around OPM planets

[Moesly_Armlis]

With career settings at the most difficult I almost lost two crew members on the first launch.  

 

I reduced the solid fuel amount in the Flea but did not even consider the thrust.  Both Jebediah and Bob were knocked unconscious by the acceleration.  The vessel's maximum altitude was around 500 metre and now no parachute.  The vessel slammed into the ground destroying the Flea booster.  The crew survived and another vessel rolled out now with  1.2 for the thrust weight ratio
.

Spoiler

 

Both crew members  had no issues with the acceleration but the force after the parachute deployed did knock them both out.

Then the team rolled another vessel out with additional fuel.  Jebediah was able to climb into the command module but Bob had to be carried out of the previous command module and then stuffed into this one.

Selecting crew for the next mission that are still unconscious made me laugh at the situation.

 

Very glad to see your engineering skills going towards a train and rocket mash up.

7 hours ago, Overland said:

Messed with rocketry for the first time in years and not trains (not really)

From trains!

 

 

[ThatHomelessGuy]

49 minutes ago, MoeslyArmlis said:

 

  Hide contents

 

Selecting crew for the next mission that are still unconscious made me laugh at the situation.

 

Wait you can have unconscious crew in ksc? I figured they'd loose that state when they were recovered. Heheh I love the idea of that.
I can tell you now you are not going to have fun with 0.1 gloc effects I know you are in it for the challenge though and I can respect that but if your little dudes pass out from just a parachute good luck landing planes or with orbital insertions. I had a kerbal black out mid flight and then go into a tumble which kept them unconscious to the ground. I now fit command probes to all my planes just in case until I tech up to flight computers then I'll just set them to stabilise flight if they are uncontrolled.

Soo Vanilla or modded?

[Moesly_Armlis]

12 minutes ago, ThatHomelessGuy said:

Wait you can have unconscious crew in ksc? I figured they'd loose that state when they were recovered. Heheh I love the idea of that.
I can tell you now you are not going to have fun with 0.1 gloc effects I know you are in it for the challenge though and I can respect that but if your little dudes pass out from just a parachute good luck landing planes or with orbital insertions. I had a kerbal black out mid flight and then go into a tumble which kept them unconscious to the ground. I now fit command probes to all my planes just in case until I tech up to flight computers then I'll just set them to stabilise flight if they are uncontrolled.

Soo Vanilla or modded?

Vanilla is first up then followed by a run using KER.  I traditionally try this type of game play since the introduction of difficulty settings and this time setting all the sliders to the worst condition made me cringe a little.

Edited October 23, 2016 by MoeslyArmlis

[michal.don]

I sent a few interplanetary probes in my RO/RP-0 career. Even without visual enhancement mods, I find the sights of RSS beautiful

Michal.don