The Karbonite Travelling Circus Chapter 6 -- It All Goes Dark

[Geschosskopf]

Chapter 1: Getting Started

INTRO

The repeated supernovae of 0.24, 0.24.1, and 0.24.2 again wrought havoc, destroying everything that had been before, although there are rumors that something probably survived in a separate, parallel universe. But back in the "real" universe, the supernovae had left many new things in their wake, so out with the old, in with the new yet again. First off, money now matters. Second, the new universe has Karbonite instead of Kethane. And for added fun, we have NEAR, Deadly Reentry, TAC Life Support, and even Remote Tech 2. Plus some fun stuff like the super-cool MKS mod, Lack's SXT to help lift all that, and Station Science. So on with the show.

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After the usual stumbling around and a LOT of testing of parts, the boffins decided they'd saved up enough money and had sufficient tech to start setting up a satellite communications network. This would allow cheaper probe missions, would allow completion of some of the more extreme test contracts, and would allow transmissions from the far side of Mun, which was the next target on the science agenda. The plan for the network was that it would last forever, without needing to be upgraded, to support eventual operations on all planets. This is one reason for the delayed start of the project.

Anyway, once the necessary tech and money were available, the boffins designed the initial stage of the communications system, the satellites KGN-01, 02, and 03 (Kerbin Geostationary Network). These had the mission covering the entire surface of Kerbin and a useful amount of space around it, plus be able to link to future statellites at Mun and Minmus. Because no network yet existed, the KGN satellites would have to be boosted to orbit with crewed rockets. This made for a long payload, so the NEAR Demons caused problems, but eventually the boffins came up with a reasonably cheap way to placate them:

Note that the current version of FAR/NEAR again likes high-mounted SRBs. This seems to vary with each new update. Anyway, it made it to orbit although it was a real fight, so the boffins decided they'd have to get a bit more aerodynamic tech before launching the other KGN satellites.

Once safely at 100km, the payload looked as shown above. The satellite has enough batteries to last when eclipsed by Kerbin for realism, not because it will actually need them while on rails. It has 6x DTS-M1 antenna: 1 coned at Kerbin, 2 for aiming at the other KGN satellites, 2 to be aimed at future Mun satellites, and 1 set to "active vessel". It also has 3x KR-7 dishes, 2 to be aimed at future Minmus satellites and 1 set on "active vessel". Below that is the rocket necessary to carry the Kerbal up to 2868km and get him back again.

In due course, Jeb parked KGN-01 in kerbostationary orbit directly over KSC, then came home. Then it was time to get some better tail feathers for subsequent launches, and the boffins had heard these grew in Munar orbit, a place no Kerbal had yet been. So the boffins designed a cheap rocket to go look for them.

In a nod to the NEAR Demons, the previous arrangement of science parts had been totally revamped. Instead of bulky external pods, now they were neatly enclosed in Universal Storage containers. There were also some totally novel experiments provided by DMagic. The major use of SRBs is a new policy to save money. Also note that the boffins had discovered that the NEAR Demons preferred the SRBS not to have nosecones. After an uneventful trip, the Mun Orbiter Mk 1 duly returned with the bigger tail feathers it had gone to find so the boffins redesigned the KGN launch vehicle and got back to their main project.

This flew no problems and soon KGN-02 was in place about 120^ around from KGN-01 and KSC.

In an effort to save even more money, the returning KGN crews were directed to land at KSC. The 1st fell a bit short but the 2nd nailed it. Such landing accuracy with parachutes is a rare thing for the KTC so deserves commemoration.

Then it was a repeat to get KGN-03 in position.

With this, it became possible to use probes anywhere on Kerbin and out to usefully high orbits around it without any difficulty at least once the Communitron-32 with its 5Mm gets invented. In the meantime, probes will need still need dishes so will be limited to operating in space, not the atmosphere. So still not much doing on some of the really bizarre test contracts, although with all the "active vessel" dishes on the KGN satellites, probes can fly out ot Minmus no problem.

So now the boffins decided to test their new system by putting a probe into polar Kerbin orbit to map it and test out the new scanners for Karbonite and other resources. The other resources can be found with standard dish antenna, actually. Anyway, Karbonite uses the "Open Resources System", which is significantly different from the familiar Kethane. No more hex grid with limited and depletable quantities that takes forever to scan. Instead, everything is available in limited but inexhaustable quantities everywhere, but has concentrations called "hotspots" which allow must faster resource collection. IOW, the system is based variable collection rates than on a total amount. Should be interesting.

Anyway, here's the cute little rocket designed for this job, with .... tailfeathers supplied by Porkjet's Spaceplane+ mod.

The long-range dipole still not having been invented, SCANsat Kerbin required 4x DTS-M1 antenna, 1 for each KGN satellite and 1 to scan Kerbin for resources. Plus it had the low-res SCANsat mapper, the SCANsat biome scanner, and the Karbonite scanner. The SCANsat instruments return science so at least this mission wasn't a total loss on books as the KGN satellites had been.

The various instruments are pretty power-hungry so it needed a fair amount of solar power. Here, the boffins decided to use some SXT panels. Each is nearly as powerful as a Gigantor but is immobile so they needed 1 for each direction. But this was still lighter and cheaper than using Gigantors and it all seemed to work OK.

The SCANsat mapping was uneventful so attention focused on the Karbonite scan, which would have implications for future missions elsewhere. Discouragingly, the boffins noted that at least on Kerbin, the Karbonite hotspots were all in mountains. Hopefully this isn't going to be the normal thing elsewhere.

Anyway, after this, the boffins decided to get back to research (they still had nearly $3M in the bank from the previous orgy of part-testing) so sent another Munar Orbiter with a few more instruments that had been developed in the meantime. Then it was finally time to do a Munar landing. In the interests of being cheap, they designed the smallest Mun rocket they'd yet built, with the tightest margins of delta-V. And it looked like this:

This rocket had to be launched straight from the ground, no muching about circularizing. The upper stage had to do everything from the transfer burn to the orbital adjustments needed for safe re-entry.

The Mun communications satellites not yet having been set up due to waiting on even more powerful antennae, the lander had to talk to the KGN satellites and had 3x DTS-M1 antennae for that. It also had to land on the near side of Mun, but this was all dark so it ended up landing on the terminator.

There were all sorts of contracts associated with landing on Mun so the mission broke even on launch cost, plus got substantial science bonuses. After doing experiments and planting a flag, the lander headed home.

The lander returned safely, just BARELY. Even with multiple aerobraking passes, there was only about 15m/s left in the tank after the de-orbit burn. But the science haul was outstanding and led to many important discoveries. Still, the boffins decided not to push their luck any more, especially given the need to take even more new instruments to Mun, so they designed the Mun Lander Mk 2.

This version had rather more delta-V for safety, mostly coming in the form of relatively cheap SRBs, so didn't cost much more than the original. And thus the 2nd Mun landing went off with much less anxiety.

The boffins still have a lot of money in the bank and are pondering their next move. There are many contracts on offer to build a science station in Munar orbit. They'll lose money but the scientific gains are substantial. However, the boffins really want the 2.5m docking ports before doing that. Previous experience with a short-lived station in Kerbin orbit, using the Station Science .625m docking ports, showed the difficulty of launching the big components balanced on such small parts. So who knows what the future will bring.

Edited September 2, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Tw1]

The travelling circus returns!

[Nahim]

At last! This project will answer all my questions aboult Karbonite, remotech and TAC!

[Geschosskopf]

At last! This project will answer all my questions aboult Karbonite, remotech and TAC!

Hopefully mine, too. Karbonite and Remote Tech are brand new to me. I've messed with TAC Life Support some but never seriously. However, I really want to do the MKS/OKS thing and that kinda required TACLC and Karbonite.

BTW, be sure to get the other nifty TAC mods, Fuel Balancer and Self-Destruct (best mod ever!).

[Geschosskopf]

CHAPTER 2 -- Mun Preliminaries

FLASHBACK

A little while before the events chronicled in Chapter 1, the KTC boffins had attempted a major project--to use the Station Science system to get lots of science. They invented these parts very soon after the supernova made them start afresh, at a time when the KTC had very little money and nearly no rocket parts. Nevertheless, the boffins gave it a go, spending nearly the entire budget on a station that was only in orbit for a few days and hardly accomplished anything scientific. This set the whole space program back and the rest of the time before Chapter 1 was spent begging money doing a huge amount of part testing.

However, the boffins' dreams of building a proper science station never faded, even if it would be a white elephant. So they kept watching the film of the original station while doing what was necessary to be able to afford it. This archival footage can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMzUy6EgK7M

This is my 1st KSP video. Comments welcome.

NOTE: Ethernet says he'll be revising the payoffs for Station Science contracts in the next update.

BACK TO THE PRESENT

The boffins knew they'd need a lot of money for their station. They also iknew they had to buy communications satellites for further Mun exploration. This led to even more part-testing. However, the existence of the KGN satellites enabled some extremely dangerous but irresistably profitable contracts to be carried out with probes. Here are a couple of test vehicles, testing 3.75m rocket engines under bizarre combinations of speed and altitude. Such contracts quickly brought in about half a million ketnavos and much science.

With the bank account rather fat, it was time to send up the Mun satellites. 2 of them, MOS Leading and Trailing (Mun Orbit-Sharing), to be placed in orbit around Kerbin just ahead and just behind Mun's SOI. Between them, they'd cover all the surface except a tiny sliver of the far side, and all useful space around Mun. And they themselves would be the 1st probes sent out any distance, relying on the KGN satellites. They looked like this on the pad:

And they looked like this on the way out to their stations. Each was equipped with 4x DTS-M1 antennae, 1 aimed at each KGN satellite (which reciprocated) and 1 coned at Mun. They also carried 3x of the new KR-14 dishes, 1 each to be aimed at satellites that someday will reside outside Kerbin's SOI and 1 set for active vessel. They also carried a fair amount of fuel and RCS due to the need for large maneuvers at and near their stations.

MOS Leading went out 1st and reached its station uneventfully. And to begin with, it looked like MOS Trailing would be no problem, eiither.

HOWEVER, MOS Trailing fell into an unexpected Mun encounter that shot it out to a higher Ap, then had a 2nd unexpected Munar encounter while trying to recover from this a coule of orbits later.

This shot it out as far as Minmus. Eventually, MOS Trailing ended up back Mun's orbit but further behind that desired. By then, however, the boffins were tired of messing with it. Besides, it was time to get some more money and science. So for the time being, MOS Trailing sat ineffectual and ignored.

This money and science was supplied by a few more part tests and a 3rd crewed landing on Mun. The lander also earned way more than it cost by taking an experimental ion engine with it to test on the surface.

After this, the next thing needed was mapping of Mun, which required getting MOS Trailing where it was supposed to be, so the boffins set to work on that again. And AGAIN the probe unexpectedly encountered Mun, this time on a collision course. Frantic efforts at Mission Control managed to give it a Pe of just 3500m in the nick of time, and fortunately the ground wasn't quite that high there, but it was a very near-run thing. However, this was the last such experience and finally MOS Trailing ended up where it was supposed to be.

So, with communications all around Mun finally established, up went SCANsat Mun, a rather spiffy looking little rocket.

The SCANsat software had in the meantime beein upgraded to show Karbonite on the map display and Mun proved to be covered with high concentrations of it pretty much everywhere. It was all over the maria and in and around most craters. SCANsat Mun also paid bills by testing some decouplers in Munar orbit for a very significant payday. With the bank account back over $450K and with the Munar communications system tested, it was finally time to blow the wad on the long-desired Science Station, which the boffins decided would be at Mun.

From them as don't know, Station Science consists of a 15-ton, 4-Kerbal lab module which is required for all experiments but can only do 1 experiment, "Plant Growth", by itself (as shown in the video above). To do the other experiments, you need 1 or 2 cyclotrons, which weigh 35 tons each and require insane amounts of electricity over a long period of time. Once you have these things, you can then send up small, light, cheap modules containing the experiments, run them through the lab and cyclotron(s), and take them home to get the science.

So the 1st thing to do was to get the lab module into Munar orbit. Based on experience with the original "station", the boffins chose a 250km altitude to warp fast through the long run-time of the experiments. The lab rocket looked like this and cost $112K

And once it got in orbit, it looked like this:

It had a big docking port on the rear end for cyclotrons and a cluster of small ports on the front for experiments and anything else wanting to stop by for a visit. It also carried enough life support for the crew to remain on station for nearly 2 years. Which they'll probably have to do because getting this station set up pretty much drained the bank account again, as you'll see. But to help with that, the lab module has a retractable magnetometer boom to periodically do regular science contracts in Munar orbit as they become available (there's a tiny probe with a thermometer in Kerbin orbit now for the same purpose). Anyway, the lab module managed to reach Mun without trouble and then stood by to away the 1st cyclotron.

Then it was time to try to get a cyclotron module up. The boffins wished they'd invented 3.75m rockets (they'd worked OK in the tests, after all) but none were available, so 2.5m would have to do. After much thought, they came up with this thing, which managed to fly quite well the 1st time, NEAR Demons be damned, much to everybody's amazement. But that was fortunate because it cost $291K so pretty much drained the bank account again.

Mun Cyclotron #1 looked like this once unwrapped. It was all 1 huge probe. Up front was a fully functional fission reactor (from Near Future) to provide sufficient power. The cyclotron itself, all 1 big piece, is the large thing with the black coils around it. Below that was just the rocket needed to get it there.

Mun Cyclotron #1 made it to Mun no problem, although by the time it rendezvoused it had nearly exhausted its fuel. Also, it had used a lot of monopropellant just maneuvering its vast bulk around.

Also, there was some problem with the docking system, causing an inability to select the target port until the ships were nearly touching already. However, despite all these things, the 2 ships came together as planned.

And thus Science Station Mun was declared open for business. But building it had again reduced the KTC to penury, so it will probably be some time before it sees any use. And it still needs 2nd cyclotron to do all the contracts it was built for. Still, it looks cool and there's hope that subsidies will soon become available to help defray the cost. Otherwise it will be a long slog through many part tests .

Tune in next time to see what happens when the KTC has money again.

[undercoveryankee]

RT2 question: Why do the KGN satellites use KR-7 dishes for Minmus? The DTS-M1 will reach Minmus and weighs a lot less.

[Geschosskopf]

RT2 question: Why do the KGN satellites use KR-7 dishes for Minmus? The DTS-M1 will reach Minmus and weighs a lot less.

Well, partly because the DTS-M1 just BARELY reaches Minmus, close enough that iti's a concern if the satellite and Minmus are on opposite sides of Kerbin. Sure, in that case, another KGN satellite should be on the Minmus side of Kerbin, but what if Mun is in the way at the moment? Then the KGN on the far side of Kerbin would have to jump in.

And partly for variety (making it easier to tell at a glance which antenna is doing what), and partly because the KR-7 looks cooler than the DTSJ-M1 IMHO, and isn't animated so has a smaller memory footprint (I'm running an assload of mods in this game), and partly because the weight difference isn't enough to worry about compared to the rest of the satellite and its crewed launcher.

But mostly because this is the KTC, the hallmark of which is combining extravagance with cold pragmatism and a touch of madness. I mean, with the payoffs as they are at present, why do Station Science at all? Becuase it's a grand gesture! Because it's potlatch! Because the boffins are in armed rebellion against the cruel tyrany that the accountants have recently imposed! IOW, if the boffins are willing to blow $400K on a science station that will NEVER justify the effort or expense (rather like the ISS ) just to poke the accountants in the eye, then using a KR-7 where an DTS-M1 might have worked is only to be expected

[Mister Spock]

Wonderful thread! Really enjoying it.

I'm just starting a Karbonite game myself, and I'm wondering what benefit we gain from using ScanSAT to scan for Karbonite, since one can just toggle on "Karbonite hotspots." Is it that scanning will give you a more accurate/detailed map? Can we read the scanned map in-game while flyinr or riding a rover?

Anyway, please keep the updates coming.

Edited August 14, 2014 by Mister Spock

[Geschosskopf]

I'm just starting a Karbonite game myself, and I'm wondering what benefit we gain from using ScanSAT to scan for Karbonite, since one can just toggle on "Karbonnite hotspots." Is it that scanning will give you a more accurate/detailed map? Can we read the scanned map in-game while flyinr or riding a rover?

Technically, there's no real need to scan at all for any ORS resource because there's at least a trace amount of all of them everywhere. The only difference a hotspot makes is in the amount of time needed to collect the amount you want. If you're at (or near) a hotspot, you fill the tanks very quickly. If you're in a trace amount area, it might take all day, but it will still happen.

That said, I like doing the scanning (probably a habit from using Kethane, where I HATED scanning) and using the SCANsat with Karbonite makes a pretty picture that is in fact available for use in the game by vehicles other than the one that scanned the planet. Chapter 3 shows an example of this but I had a technical problem posting it last night. In the meantime, RoverDude has a YouTube video showing what it looks like, here:

http://youtu.be/lMozN4jpxbU?list=UUy90MKgI4LJ9Jhqc8Kr61ww

I'm not entirely sure how this works. SCANsat used to have an antenna you had to mount on non-mapping vehicles for them to be able to use the map, but this part is now missing. Still, non-mapping vehicles can use the map. Maybe this has something to do with Remote Tech. When I was doing this just now with a lander, it was tied into the communications network and the scanning satellite was still in Munar orbit, so maybe that's how it got the map. Or maybe it's assumed the map is downloaded into the vehicle's memory and you don't need an antenna or communications to use it. I just don't know.

[undercoveryankee]

I'm not entirely sure how this works. SCANsat used to have an antenna you had to mount on non-mapping vehicles for them to be able to use the map, but this part is now missing. Still, non-mapping vehicles can use the map. Maybe this has something to do with Remote Tech. When I was doing this just now with a lander, it was tied into the communications network and the scanning satellite was still in Munar orbit, so maybe that's how it got the map. Or maybe it's assumed the map is downloaded into the vehicle's memory and you don't need an antenna or communications to use it. I just don't know.

All I know is that SCANsat as of 7rc4 allows any vessel to use the map. No requirement for a part or communication device. The SCANsat maintainers haven't suggested an in-universe explanation. I'd go with "any command pod or probe core is capable of storing maps. You start with a copy of whatever was in the file at the time of launch, which is updated whenever communications permit."

SCANsat doesn't try to keep track of what individual vessels know and always shows the current state of the map, so the explanation only really works if your vessels usually have access to communications. I sometimes leave the actual antenna parts off manned ships that aren't planning to transmit science, but in-universe I would say those ships still have voice-only radios and can ask KSC to look at the map and suggest coordinates.

[Mister Spock]

Geschosskopf, thanks for the link to that video. It was very helpful.

All I know is that SCANsat as of 7rc4 allows any vessel to use the map.

So I assume I just click the SCANsat button whenever I'm using another vehicle, even if that vehicle has no antennae at all? I'll go try it now...

[undercoveryankee]

So I assume I just click the SCANsat button whenever I'm using another vehicle, even if that vehicle has no antennae at all? I'll go try it now...

Right. On the old versions of SCANsat that required a part to read the map, the button wouldn't appear unless you had the part. If you have the button, you have the functionality.

[Geschosskopf]

All I know is that SCANsat as of 7rc4 allows any vessel to use the map. No requirement for a part or communication device. The SCANsat maintainers haven't suggested an in-universe explanation. I'd go with "any command pod or probe core is capable of storing maps. You start with a copy of whatever was in the file at the time of launch, which is updated whenever communications permit.

Thanks for the info.

[Geschosskopf]

CHAPTER 3A -- The Minmus Mission

EDITOR'S NOTE

Due to repeated technical problems trying to post Chapter 3 as 1 post, it had to be broken into 2 parts. Part A here just covers the Minmus mission and it's immediate aftermath. Part B will cover the Karbonite Mun Lander.

MINMUS

It turns out the KTC wasn't as broke as previously thought. Instead of just $450K in the bank when they built Science Station Mun, they actually had $4.5 MILLION, so money isn't really an issue at present. The mistake seems to have been caused when the head boffin reflexively gagged on his whiskey when presented with the budget paperwork the 1st time, what with money only just having been invented. This caused droplets of whiskey to spray on the paper, one of which dissolved the ink of the last zero in the bottom line.

However, what the boffins wanted to do was send a Karbonite lander to Mun, but all designs for this were so heavy as to really require 3.75m rockets, which hadn't been re-invented yet. It turned out the recent supernovae had blown the necessary blueprints to Minmus, so the 1st step was to send a normal lander there to retrieve them.

This was just the exact same rocket as had been used for Mun several times so was actually a bit excessive for Minmus, but not extravagantly so. Anyway, it had no problems en route and the lander came down on the large area of high ground known ironically as "Lowlands Mesa", where it did in fact locate the 3.75m rocket plans and many more things besides.

However, on the way home, the Mun Kraken, apparently still stirred up from the recent supernovae, struck again, causing yet another unexpected encounter with Mun. This made the Minmus lander take another long orbit to get back home and also somehow kicked the vital MOS Leading satellite into a big eccentric orbit between Mun and Minmus.

The lander fortunately had enough life support to take the detour but it did cause concern so this is what the boffins dealt with first. And it ALMOST hit KSC on landing.

And it brought back quite a lot of missing blueprints. In fact, thanks to the various exploratory contracts associated with Minmus, it set a new KTC record for the most Science! obtained from a single landing.

Then the boffins set to work getting the MOS Leading satellite back in place. Remembering the difficulties they'd had with MOS Trailing, the boffins were expecting a war with the Mun Kraken and filed into Mission Control armed with enough whiskey to withstand a long siege. First, they toyed with various maneuver options until they found one that would bring the satellite out in front of Mun again at the correct altitude, just too far ahead.

Then they didn't QUITE circularize it there, so that over the course of the next orbit Mun would close to the desired distance, then did final circularization and final tweaking of the orbital period.

Much to everyone's surprise, this series of maneuvers came off without interference from the Mun Kraken. This was both good and bad. On the good side, it meant work on the actual project of the moment, the Karbonite Mun Lander, could begin immediately. The bad was that the boffins were all fightin' drunk, so while their overall concept was sound, mistakes were made in the details. But that's the subject of Part B, which will follow immediately.

[Geschosskopf]

CHAPTER 3B -- MUN MISADVENTURES

As mentioned previously, the boffins wanted to do a Karbonite-based mission to Mun. At its present state development, Karbonite equipment is all big and clunky, so their lander designs pretty much needed 3.75m rockets. These having been obtained finally, the boffins set to work finalizing the Mun mission.

The basic idea was to totally pillage all the Science! from Mun's various biomes with a reusable lander and a Mobile Lab. However, instead of having to send a large orbital fuel tank to refuel the lander as had been done at Minmus prior to the Supernovae of '24, this new lander would refuel itself on the surface using Karbonite. Karbonite being available on every square inch of the surface, the lander wouldn't be forced to miss any biomes. Also, Karbonite itself can be burned as fuel in special rocket engines (insane TWR, pathetic ISP), so there was no need to carry a refinery along. So if the lander didn't need to go up to refuel, the boffins ultimately decided it could also just lug the Mobile Lab around with it, this not adding too much to what was already a very massive vehicle, and thus eliminate the whole time-consuming process of many dockings. But the lander was complicated a bit in having to carry 2x radial drills, there being no good way to use the single ventral drill when the vehicle also needed a heat shield. The boffins thought about jettisoning the drill for reentry but that would have made the lander even more top-heavy and complicated, so settled for a more brute-force approach. And the result was this:

Everything above the adaptor with the RCS tanks on it was the Karbonite Mun Lander, which weighed 72 tons when loaded with an initial batch of Karbonite sufficient for landing. As such, it needed rigid box girders for landing gear, and it and its lifter weighed about 550 tons on the pad. This whole monstrosity cost $312K.

And it blasted into orbit like it owned it, sending the NEAR Demons scurrying for cover. And everything worked fine getting it to Mun, too. including the new 3.75m upperstage engine from SXT.

The Karbonite Mun Lander was equipped with a Karbonite scanner of its own, as well as antennae to communicate through the satellite network and scan Mun for other resources. The integrated map display shows the Karbonite hotspots in pink overlaid on the biome map. As you can see, Mun is largely 1 big Karbonite hotspot except for the highlands and poles.

Farside Crater, which had already been visited by a conventional lander, is the one just left of center in the picture. Just west of it is a circular pink area of Midlands, which was chosen as the Karbonite Mun Lander's initial target. And down it came to an exciting landing, relying on its massive TWR to stop at the last moment. But stop it did and everything seemed to be going just fine.

But then depression set it. First, when the pilot climbed out of the lander can on top, he hit his head on the big parachute and immediately fell off all the way to the ground. And the boffins having neglected to put ladders near the experiments up there just below the can, this made it next to impossible to collect the data and bring it to the Mobile Lab. Even worse, the boffins had sent the ship fully crewed so the pilot couldn't even get in the door of the Mobile Lab anyway, and sending one of the scientists out to get the data ran into the same access problems with the experiments that the pilot had encountered. But fortunately, at least the Kerbonite drills and all worked flawlessly.

So after much frustration and nearly running out of EVA fuel and accomplishing nothing, the boffins reluctantly decided to cut the mission short. They'd use the Mobile Lab to refine and transmit this 1st batch of data and rearm the experiments. Then they'd hop over to 1 more biome to make sure the lander could do that, then bring that data home as with a conventional lander. The boffins selected a small Highlands Crater located a short distance to the SE, at about the 8 o'clock position just outside of Farside Crater, and the refueled lander jumped there.

In the pic above, the horizon is the rim of Farside Crater and the Highlands Crater is the big depression near the center just short of the horizon. The Highlands Crater's bottom was liberally covered in many very deep craters, leaving very little good landing areas inside, but skillful flying prevailed and again the Kerbonite Mun Lander came down safely. However, at this point, yet another design flaw become apparent.

By now Kerbol was nearly overhead so the panels had rotated nearly horizontally. And they were mounted so close to the lander can's hatch that they formed like a floor just below it. Thus, when the pilot step out, hit his head on the parachute again, and fell off the ladder, he landed on the panels and broke 2 of them off. However, this made it easier for him to get back in the cockpit with his surface sample. Why one of the guys in the Mobile Lab didn't do this is probably due to the boffins having turned off communications to them as the Mobile Lab wasn't going to be used on this landing anyway.

However, it was now definitely time to try to bring the beast home.

The Karbonite Mun Lander was equipped with an inflatable heat shield which expanded to about 3m diameter to protect the radially mounted drills. However, this never having been used before, the boffins forgot to deploy it until the drills started getting dangerously hot. Still, the Karbonite Mun Lander survived reentry intact.

And it came down reasonably close to KSC. Yet another design problem turned up at this point, with the right parachute only have a single canopy instead of 3 as intended. However, it worked well enough that the vehicle landed without further damage.

The boffins were of course quite disappointed with the meager Science! returned given the expense, but were at least happy that the overall concept had worked OK. And the accountants were happy to recover about 1/4 of the total launch vehicle cost. So now the boffins are back at work rectifying the various faults of the Karbonite Mun Lander and plan to send out an improved version in the near future.

[Cydonian Monk]

It turned out the recent supernovae had blown the necessary blueprints to Minmus, so the 1st step was to send a normal lander there to retrieve them.

Clever. Reminds me of an old (1996) game, Emperor of the Fading Suns. Civ/4X style in which you research "lost" technology as you progress. (On top of which you needed to pay to maintain your current tech base, and could lose technology yourself.)

Curious to see how well Karbonite works out in the long-game. I wonder if DangIt! could force drillbits to break.... (Assuming they don't already....)

[Geschosskopf]

Curious to see how well Karbonite works out in the long-game. I wonder if DangIt! could force drillbits to break.... (Assuming they don't already....)

I'm also looking foward to learning more about Karbonite. I already like several things about it better than Kethane, such as:

1. No more insanely time consuming hex-by-hex scanning--I'd seriously rather gouge my eyes out with a fork than scan for Kethane.

2. Karbonite never gets used up so you can actually make large-scale, permanent things relying on it. Kethane seems to have been designed to support small, finite operations, like for exploration, not occupation. The industrial-scale consumption I inflicted on it used it up in a hurry (although usually not entirely before a supernova happened).

3. Karbonite can be used itself as a rocket fuel, although it's not too efficient. Still, it creates enough thrust that you don't need that much efficiency.

4. Karbonite's distribution varies with the planet in question instead and is based on its terrain, instead of using the same random hex grid distribution algorithm for them all. As a result, you get logical distributions that make sense for that planet, and don't have situations like last time I went to Laythe where 99.9% of the Kethane was inaccessible due to being in the water.

5. You can get to the Karbonite no matter where it is (on land, in the water, or in the air). This provides variety and multiple challenges.

I've never used Dangit! I've been tempted but then I remember I have enough random failures to suit me just from game glitches and poorly designed vehicles .

[Geschosskopf]

CHAPTER 4: PILLAGING MUN

Curing the various deficiencies of the Karbonite Mun Lander was a quick job once the boffins had sobered up, and soon the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2 was lifing off. It was a bit more expensive, at $348K, but worth every kentavo. It was piloted by Merbal the Kerbal (seriously, that's his name) and the lab contained Hangun "Pistol" Kerman and Oblorf.

The improvements can be seen here, as its sustainer stage did the first 3/4 of the circularization burn:

Most obviously, the solar panels were moved outboard to the radial Karbonite tanks. There was also a ring of ladder segments all the way around the lander just below the 2.5m Universal Storage bay holding 4 each of Goos and Material Bays. This ring was reached by a Y-shaped ladder above the hatch of the Mobile Lab, so collecting the data was the job of the 2 Kerbals in the lab. Not so obvious is that the position of the lander can and the 1.25m Universal Storage science bay were reversed so the pilot wouldn't hit his head on the chute anymore. The 1.25m bay contained a combined gravity and seismic instrument balanced by a combined thermometer and barometer, and a DMagic Orbital Telescope balanced by a box of 8x KAS strut end pieces just in case.

The mission plan was to land at each untouched Mun biome, pick up whatever blueprints were lying around, refuel, and then hop to the next conveniently located biome. All Goo and Material data would be returned insided the Mobile Lab. All the small instruments would be transmitted, processed buy the Mobile Lab if necessary beforehand. Also transmitted would be the "flying over (insert biome name)" EVA reports obtained by the pilot while hanging onto his hatch, and the crew reports. Besides collecting and storing the data from the Goo and Materials, the EVA'd lab resident would also go to the surface, obtain a sample and another EVA report, and plant a flag to help Mission Control remember where the ship had been already. While this latter EVA report could have been transmitted, it plus the surface sample plus the 8x Goos and Materials made for an even 10 experiments returned per biome, which made it easier to keep count of how many biomes the ship had been to by checking the inventory of the Mobile Lab. BTW, once the mission was about half over, the boffins began to kick themselves for again forgetting to install a DMaginc laser surface sampler, so have had to resign themselves to that data remaining forever unknown.

Anyway, the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2 duly arrived in an equatorial oribt and the boffins had a very logical and economical route planned out for it, starting with the East Farside Crater, using its initial stock of Kerbin-derived Karbonite.

Once down, all the available blueprints were picked up by the various instruments. Here we see Hangun returning to the Mobile Lab after having circled the ship clockwise pulling the blueprints out of the various collectors mounted in the Universal Storage ring.

After landing on the west edge of East Crater, the lander made a short hop east to the mouth of the canyon that leads off to the east from the east rim of the crater. The boffins had been concerned that the terrain in this area wouldn't be nice to the big, top-heavy lander, but they managed to find a plateau right at the mouth that was pretty level, although the lander did slide slightly downhill the whole time it was there. Despite having 2 Karbonite drills in the ground. By the time it was ready to fly again, it had slid almost to the flag shown here.

From here, the lander hopped slightly NE to a Midlands Crater. And it was there that the boffins' carefully planned route fell apart. It turned out that the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2 had plenty of solar panels to run both drills, provide life support, and transmit data all at once, but only in Kerbollight. Its 12x 400-unit batteries weren't enough to last out the Munar night running life support, and by this point in time the Midland Craters where the lander currently sat was in the dark. So from here on, the journey of the lander was "planned" (as in, extemporized on the fly) to stay in daylight, with occasional jaunts to the terminator to hit biomes that were about to go dark for a long time. So to chase the light, the lander now went to the north polar region.

So here's a shot of the lander down in the north polar biome. Your humble narrator thinks it's rather repetitive to keep showing pics of landings but this one has good lighting to show the working side of the Karbonite Lander Mk 2, complete with the Y-shaped ladder leading to the ring ladder all around the life support tank. You won't be seeing many more such pics, I promise.

From here, it was just a short hop to an area of the Polar Lowlands biome. After looting there, the lander took a long step south below the equator to hit the Twin Craters before they slipped into darkness.

This landing site was carefully picked to land on a Karbonite hotspot to speed refueling, there not being much time for that. The central area of the Twin Craters is rather short on Karbonite and all around them are Midlands which had already been visited, but there was a relatively flat area at the southern edge of the southern crater that had a lot of Karbonite, so that's where the lander headed. Here, you can see that the Twin Craters are rapidly approaching the terminator so this was a do-or-die mission.

But things went according to "plan", and the lander just barely finished refueling before sundown.

It was now past time to hop back towards Kerbol so the next target was the aptly named East Crater, even though the lander had to go west to get there. Of course, once above the horizon, all its sunlight problems were solved.

Ironically, however, upon arrival in East Crater the lander found Kerbol was eclipsed by Kerbin. However, Kerbol was high enough in the sky that no harm was done waiting for daylight, except that transmissions of various data were delayed a few hours, and every non-essential electrical system had to be shut down for the duration of the eclipse.

By this time, the northern biomes that had been in the dark beforehand were now bathed in light so the lander went back up to the polar region, its first target beging the Northern Basin.

The pic below shows something that happened just before every landing. That is collecting and transmitting the blueprints gathered by the DMagic Orbital Telescope. This instrument doesn't work on the ground so it was always a warning of impending potential disaster when this instrument came on-line after a suborbital hop.

And now, finally, the Polar Crater was getting whatever faint light it could, so the next stop was there.

Thus, there was only 1 cherry biome remaining, the SW Crater. So the lander hopped there.

This being the 10th and last stop of the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2, the whole crew came out for a group picture, once the lander had stopped sliding down the rather steeply sloped hill it came down on. Sadly, the light wasn't very good but you get the idea.

There being 10 stored experiments per landing, and this being the 10th landing, there were now an even 100 data sets in the Mobile Lab. The jolly crew therefore completed their departure checks, making sure all instruments were squeaky clean and properly stowed for sea--er, space--travel, and the lander fully refueled for the last time.

Here's a pic of the route followed by the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2,. The 1 place landed that wasn't a hotspot was the pole biome, but that was far enough ahead of Kerbol's setting that refueling was still possible before sunset. The landing site in the Polar Crater had Karbonite measured in percent instead of the usual ppm, which resulted in complete refueling prior to completing the EVA operations there.

Anway, it was now time to go home. All previous Mun missions had set their aerobraking atltiude at 32km or even more, and had thus had to do fairly large burns to circularize at 100km prior to trying to land at or near KSC. So for this mission, a Kerbin Pe of 30km was selected, which resulted in an immediate landing instead of merely an aerobraking pass. And this time, the boffins remembered to deploy the inflatable heatshield prior to reentry.

Reentry went perfectly, except it brought the lander down about 170^ around Kerbin from KSC. And despite their strenuous efforts, the boffins were still unable to make both of the smaller chutes have 3 canopies, although the lander came down at less than 5m/s (thanks to having burned its remaining fuel during reentry to land just barely in daylight for good photography.

And so the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2, with Merbal, Hangun, and Oblorf aboard, came safely down in some low grassy area near the beach about as far from KSC is it could be.

And this was the payoff.

Transmissions had accumulated about 1800 beforehand so the whole mission scored about 5300 blueprints. The accountants were happy that landing so far from KSC only lost about 30% of the salvage value compared to landing 23km away as had the Mk 1 lander. And all stand in awe of the KTC's mighty reputation, despite having ditched several Station Science contracts now that government subsidies have become available.

Tune in next time. I don't yet know why, but it might involved finally using Science Station Mun. Or it might be pillaging Minmus.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Geschosskopf
Fix typos

[Scotius]

Congrats on well done mission I know a thing or two about trials and tribulations of bringing large, complicated and top-heavy lander to do biome-hopping on the Mun. I salute your bravery and resilience

[Geschosskopf]

Congrats on well done mission I know a thing or two about trials and tribulations of bringing large, complicated and top-heavy lander to do biome-hopping on the Mun. I salute your bravery and resilience

Thanks! And yes, as I recall, you do know a thing or 3 about such missions .

[Scotius]

Ain't that true

One of my first kethane diggers over Mun.

One of my early biome-hopping lander designs soon after Science was introduced.

Two-staged lander. Can anyone say overkill?

[Geschosskopf]

CHAPTER 5: Off to Duna and Other Stuff

After the successful return of the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2, there weren't many missing blueprints left to find.

However, the KTC had outstanding contractual obligations it couldn't get out of so things had to continue. Furthermore, all this mucking about with communications satellites, especially chasing down stray satellites, plus going to Minmus just once and all the biome-hopping on Mun, had consumed a lot of time. So when the boffins sobered up after celebrating the return of the Karbonite Mun Lander Mk 2, they suddenly realized it was only a few days (the KTC, seeing no compelling reason to change, continues to use 24-hr days) until the transfer window for Duna opened. What to do about that?

The natural reaction of the KTC, based on its long tradition, was to immediately start a crash design program for a huge and overly complex flotilla. But then a junior boffin reminded his superiors that this was no longer possible, first, on account of the amount of the newly invented money this would cost and, second, because the Supernovae of '24 had wiped out the manufacturing capability of the fully autonomous probes the KTC had previously relied upon. No, for the time being, the KTC was having to use dumb probes controlled from KSC via all those troublesome communications satellites. And due to the press of other business, the deep space relay satellites hadn't even been designed yet, much less put into position (which they would take a year or so to reach). Egad!

Many boffins questioned the necessity of going to Duna at all. Given the travel time, it was pretty certain all remaining blueprints would be found on Minmus before the Duna ship(s) even reached their target, much less came home. But the accountants pointed to contractual obligations to go not just to Duna but Ike as well so there was no escaping having to send SOMETHING. And whatever went had to map both bodies. Normally, this would have been a job for probes, which also would have set up a refueling infrastructure while crewed ships set up stations and did landings. But such grandiose projects were beyond the technological and financial means of the KTC.

So in the end it was decided to send just 1 big crewed ship. This ship would map both Duna and Ike from polar orbit, plus do a lot of science in the area, but would not land. Thus, it needed a lot of delta-V not just to get there and back but for substantial maneuvering within the Duna system. Plus every instrument in the arsenal. The boffins toyed with the idea of it being a mothership controlling a swarm of probes without signal delay (that is, an RT "Command Center") but this proved to be impractical for the time being. Thus, the end result was a huge abortion weighing in at about 115 tons for the Duna-bound payload. And it needed an impressively large lifter with a newly invented 5m rocket on the bottom. Surprisingly, the end result only cost about $270K. The KTC has sent more expensive things to Mun in recent memory. They called this monstrosity the "Duna 1".

Those SRBs are the big ones from the NASA pack and the smallest visible tanks are 3.75m. Apart from the NASA SRBs, the lifter is SXT. So are the radially mounted nuclear engines, the boffins somehow having made the LV-Ns only burn liquid hydrogen. which requires ridiculously huge tanks. The boffins considered pushing the mission payload with VASIMR engines, which would have worked just fine except they were hideously expensive. Had the top stage been VASIMRs, this rocket would have cost over $3 MILLION instead of not quite $300K.

The continual taper from 3.75m to 5m in the lower stage caused some concern with SRB separation, especially as radial decouplers haven't been acting as expected since the Supernovae of '24, but putting 2x Sepratrons top and toe resulted in a clean staging.

The boffins had by this point established clear dominance over the NEAR demons so the rest of the rocket made it to orbit just fine, putting the payload into a 100km orbit with about 20m/s to spare, just as planned. The actual Duna 1 vehicle looked like this whle it was waiting the last little while for its departure burn.

Up front it has a KR-14 to talk back to one of the MOS satellites, both of which have a similar dish set to "Active Vessel". This will enable Duna 1 to transmit Science! back to Kerbin most of the time. The round solar panels only rotate on 1 axis so usually only 2 of them will be working. Also up there are a Karbonite scanner, a biome scanner, and a low-res radar mapper. Behind the nose girder is a Universal Storage ring with all the reusable experiments, which will be transmitted. Then there's a 2-kerbal can and a 2-kerbal version of the Hitchhiker from SXT. Behind this are 2 Universal Storage rings full of Goos and Materials (so 8 of each). 2 of each will be used in the Kerbol SOI, and 3 each in low orbit at Duna and Ike. All this will hopefully return safely to the surface on Kerbin. This is all pushed by the 2 radial nukes with over 5000 m/s in the tank and copious RCS to swing the vast bulk around in a reasonable time. Merbal and Hangun, recently returned from Mun, are the crew, and they've got life support supplies for nearly 2 years so shouldn't starve if all else goes OK.

Anyway, not long after reaching orbit, the Duna 1 set off on its questionably necessary trip. It was, however, certainly one of the most ridiculous-looking ships the KTC has ever built. Some boffins said it looked cartoonish.

With the Duna window taken care of, it was time to pay the bills again with some Station Science. Government subsidies have recently become available to defray the immense cost of establishing a Science! station, so finally Science Station Mun would see some action. In its current configuration with 1 lab and 1 cyclotron, it could do the "Prograde Kuarq" experiment, so such a pod was duly sent out to Mun.

While setting up the Munar intercept of this experiment, the boffins noticed that the Mun Kraken had struck again--MOS Trailing was now orbiting Mun instead of trailing it as intended. The laws of KSP physics preclude such a thing from ever happening. An object that enters an SOI must either exit on a hyperbolic trajectory with the same speed at which it entered the SOI, or impact. Nothing gets into a captured orbit unless acted on by an external force. In this case, that external force must have been the Mun Kraken.

The boffins. now quite enured to such things, ignored the problem for the nonce. After all, the ship carrying out the Prograde Kuarq experiment was crewed by Jeb himself and didn't have a single antenna on it. In due course, the Prograde Kuarq ship arrived at Mun without any interference from the Mun Kraken.

And it met up with Science Station Mun, the 4 unknown whiteshirt occupants of which had been feeling rather forgotten up to now.

Then it was just a matter of firing up the cyclotron's fission reactor to pump kuarzs into the pod while the whiteshirts in the lab took measurements. This required a whole day.

But it resulted in a fairly substantial amount of blueprints, which had to be returned to Kerbin.

Then Jeb shoved off and brought the experimental pod back home.

The results were about 500 blueprints and a nice boost to the cash flow. But as all future scientific advances require at least 1000 blueprints, all this was of no immediate help in that regard.

Tune in next time for something hopefully a bit more interesting.

[Scotius]

I use such Science shuttling missions to replenish TAC supplies on board the station. What about you?

[cwhiz]

Those Map-View screenshots....wtf.

[Scotius]

Remote Tech in action Good thing we do not need it in real life