MoridinUK's Space Program help thread.

[Randazzo]

Many people balk at the idea, but there's always Mechjeb. I don't hesitate to use it when I need a precise landing. As long as you've done it yourself before, there's no harm. You might even learn something from watching it perform, I certainly have.

[MoridinUK]

Mechjeb? I've read about it, I may have to download it if I don't get better soon lol!

[JAD_Interplanetary]

I haven't used it, but there is also the Trajectories mod. It will show you a more precise landing location base on your current descent profile and takes the rotation of the planet and atmosphere into account.

[MoridinUK]

Having finally completed some contracts it was time to accept some new ones! A base for Minmus, A base for Duna, and a Karbonite run from Mun to Kerbin orbit!

Perfect I thought, I'll design a lifter to bring 800 rather than 500 karbonite to kerbin orbit, then have the Claw on Sun Station 1 grab it and transfer the karbon into the station ready to blast it off out of Kerbin's Soi!

So here is the Mun Karbonite Lifter taking off..

We get into orbit with no problems and I set it up for a Mun encounter, while waiting for that I decide to 'hop' Lander closer to the Mun base, refuel her and then send her off to try to complete part of a very old temp scan contract!

However, I blow loads of fuel and she's stuck

I set up a node on Space Station 1, her parent station, and then see how close she gets to the current site:

That is in a couple of days, I hope I have enough DV to get up to her and dock! I really need to retire these old ships that dont have a kerbal engineer part on board..

My Mun Karbonite lifter comes into it's encounter and we burn to come down over the base:

Looks nice a straight forward:

It happened just like that.. honest it did, there were not several 'attempts' in the simulator... Ok there were, it was awful! Firstly I placed a node over the base to see how much dv I needed to burn off to kill my speed, about 550-600 dv in around a 50 second burn, so 50 seconds out from the base I start burning... and ended up landing beautifully 25km away... Had to go back to the approach as the 300 dv left wasn't enough to get me there. Next good attempt got me to within 235m, with 0dv left in the tank and only saved by these amazing landing struts. Another attempt and I got confused and drove it into the ground... bang...

But eventually we got there...

So lets transfer the karbonite and refuel...

NO NO NO

Ok no biggie lets just move closer...

Easy right?

Nope, because I forgot that SAS went off as the Kerbal got out, so this went into a slow gentle spin and ended up on its side! Careful use of reaction wheels and opening and closing those struts and I got it up right and then moved closer... we learn we learn....

Success! except...

Can you spot it? Can you? yep 888dv... I thought I'd checked it full in the VAB but I must have only filled 2 of the 4 tanks... well that should be enough to get me into orbit right?

Flying really carefully to not waste too much dv...

In orbit, but this ship has no docking port or rcs. Space Station one can burn for it, it doesn't have a huge amount of fuel though it does have KAS fuel ports so could refuel her in orbit, if I can park them within 20 meters... Tug has no fuel ports and is orbiting the wrong direction so that means launch a rescue (ruining proffitsssssssss) or

Sun Station One is ordered to Mun... it has a good amount of dv, only needs to pick up the karbonite and has a claw equipped probe that can grab the lifter and dock it!

So very frustrating sorry no pics of my silly accidents! i'll try to do better, I'll also try to cut down the number of what may be dull pics!

[Ten Key]

. . .and a Karbonite run from Mun to Kerbin orbit!

Perfect I thought, I'll design a lifter to bring 800 rather than 500 karbonite to kerbin orbit, then have the Claw on Sun Station 1 grab it and transfer the karbon into the station ready to blast it off out of Kerbin's Soi!

So here is the Mun Karbonite Lifter taking off..

Forgive me, but. . .if the above lander is meant to ferry fuel from the munar surface to Kerbin orbit, why does it have parachute canisters on it?

[MoridinUK]

A good question... so that it can complete any mun karbonite contract, some of them want you to bring it back to KErbin's surface...

[MoridinUK]

I haven't used it, but there is also the Trajectories mod. It will show you a more precise landing location base on your current descent profile and takes the rotation of the planet and atmosphere into account.

I use the trajectories mod! I tend to get it set up to overshoot, I find the thought or hurtling towards the base as a little shocking... What I really need is a higher TWR then I can kill that horizontal velocity much quicker...

Do you use Trajectories and aim up exactly for the target?

It isn't clear there but the base i lined up with the circle for the center of Mun.. I guess I'm aiming too far past the target huh?

[MoridinUK]

My career may be over. I can't load any vehicles in my VAB. Which makes building over time really tough. Any ideas?

[Randazzo]

My career may be over. I can't load any vehicles in my VAB. Which makes building over time really tough. Any ideas?

Depends what you mean.. does the game crash or something?

[MoridinUK]

I was bring melodramatic an empty craft file did it.. lol..

[MoridinUK]

There was much to be done at the KSC. Firstly the Sun station 1 burn for Mun in an effort to save the stranded Karonbite lifter. Desperate for funds the Kerbals were definitely trying to solve their self made problems without spending more money.

A few hours until the Mun encounter, plenty of time to make a serious messes.

This is a Karbonite Base for Minmus with a small orbital base/fuel lifter. It will compelete 4 contracts, a Minmus base one, a Kerbin Station one, a plant a flag and a drill 1000 karbonite on Minmus job! All yummy cash, slowly getting close enough to improve the R+D complex to level 3.

I failed to get a pic of the explosion. It was impressive! I also failed to hit revert and just hit space centre as if on autopilot, as you can see not much was left from the ships destruction. The log said that a jumbo became detached from a monoprop tank. That is the very centre stack and for a while I had no idea what caused it. You may spot it in that VAB pic... yep I didn't pay enough attention and had placed a launch stabilizer that runs through the centre stack!

It wasn't only money that we lost, the KSC flags were lowered to half mast. I tried to find a save but there wasn't a recent one and I should live by my mistakes really huh?

I thought it best to replace my lost crew with some rescues as this would give me experienced Kerbals, or so I thought.. This cheap little lifter, can get up into orbit on its own using the core.

We pick the chap up and return to Kerbin, without droping the middle stage! Neat! The chap had one xp and no stars so this would be a slow way to recruit experienced kerbals! So I just hired some more victims. Feeling brave again and having to complete those missions to keep losses low we return to the Minmus base launch.

It flies! My using goodspeed fuel pumps to keep the thing balanced and to hold on to the mainsails as it drains fuel from the top tanks. Total Dv over 7k so should be good.

Driving to Minmus, Chris Rea eat your heart out!

The burn for Minmus was in two stages, the normal burn to get into the right plane and then the big boost out to Minmus. 250dv ish and then 950ish so there is plenty right?

Kerbin Base contract for a little extra cash! YaY But take a look at the DV 204! WHAT!

So planning carefully I think I can get us into a stable Minmus equatorial orbit, ut ouch I'm short by only 300 dv ish of being able to land.. sigh.. Wondering if using the monoprop in the claw module to do some of this. but I still think I'll need to send a refuel mission.. grr..

Then the KAC brought me back to Mun for Sun Stations capture burn...

And then on to training flight 201 to set up for their Minmus Landing!

A sad and annoying day.. We learn! I can only assume that the Kerbal engineer thought I would separate the Base up sooner than I did!

Design of Minmus Karbonite rover base shamelessly stolen from the 5th Horseman!

[MoridinUK]

With the Minmus base almost totally out of gas, Tug was recalled to Kerbin to refuel before being sent out to refuel the hapless Minmus base.

Once en route out of Mun's Sphere of Influence attention was called back to Lander and Space Station 1. The Space Station was on it's closest run to where Lander was grounded on Mun, and so she lifted off and set up a somewhat tricky intercept...

However, practice with Intercepts is slowly paying off and Lander met up and docked easily... But yes that is only 1.9 (tonnes, litres?) Of LF left...

She was refueled and set up to disengage, and burn for the last sector which required a temp scan, it was at Mun's south pole. This was at any height above 6200ish. Lander would burn for it and then back to Space Station 1, which would then burn for Kerbin, either to be decommissioned or refueled. Lander itself may be retired if we can attach enough parachutes...

Yep that is an intercept with 0.3 km on it, I said I was getting better at them:

Once just out of Mun's SoI Tug made a correction burn to bring down her Peri to a LKO. This somehow dumped her back in Mun's SOI for a while but hey ho...

Training flight 201 burned for Minmus touch down:

Group graduation photo:

and a scaredy frog pilot making the take off launch... Dude chill out it's Minmus man!

All that was left was for Space Station 1 to make that burn for home and here is a shot of Kerbin Rising just after her burn...

Space Station 1 was in an orbit that was only 30-40 off being in a Mun Polar plane. Her orbit once back in Kerbin's SoI is going to be fun but we will bring her back to LKO while we figure out what to do with her....

Not much to report just a simple tidying up exercise except....

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************

The door to HIS office burst open from the inside..

"Jeb, Bill, Bob get in here...." Yelled a seriously disgruntled Wernher von Kerman, then he remembered they were all off world and had been for some time.

He closed the door and looked back at the annoyingly calm looking Kerbal representing TAC-Life Support industries.

"Mr Kerman" the almost smug, TAC-LS rep patiently started, "We are offering you the latest technologies to help support long term Kerbal survival. This will enable you to send your space program so much further, surely you must be pushing at the boundaries of the 'old' ways by now?"

Von Kerman smarted under the 'Mr', it always annoyed him how so few of his countrymen, by adoption, understood that it was Von Kerman. He rolled his eyes...

"Let me be frank." He started as he brought his fingers together in front of him and sat back down with a calmness that belied the rising bile of concern within. "Our Space Program has had great success, but often very near misses, just last week we had an explosion here that killed, KILLED, 3 of our latest recruits." (Actually they have mysteriously reappeared and I've no idea why or how, all the space craft were where I left them so they couldn't have been restored by some old save I hadn't noticed) "This is not a program that wants to take on new challenges and extra risks..."

"I understand, Mr. Kerman, but with your window to Duna opening soon, you must know that your mission time will start to edge into the order of years, will the 'Old' way really suffice? I also understand that you've signed on to be supplied by our sister company USI Kolonization Systems?"

"Yes, we felt their technologies will enable us to er, firstly build off world, but secondly," Von Kerman coughed in embarrassment before finishing, "produce fuel contingencies so that our missions will be less prone to unintended 'challenges' such as the Minmus base, or worse, what may happen if someone fails to 'carry the one' when calculating the fuel for the Duna Mission's return."

The rep smile disingenuously and Von Kerman started to think that perhaps he thought he was stupid.

"Of course, but with our tech, you can make full use of USI's systems and build real colonies! Years, Mr Kerman, they could be up there for years, or even permanently!"

"Permanently!" Thought von Kerman to himself, "hmm I wonder if labour is easier in low gravity..." He shook his head to lose himself of such silly thoughts...

"We really haven't reached the end of the possibilities with the 'old' way yet, my young Kerbal, and I'm very unhappy to hear you call it that! We have now established a tradition along with a history that has served us well!" He realised he was using the past tense but continued anyway. "The combination of enforced obesity and metabolic repressing drugs has done wonders for meeting our Kerbonaughts' physical needs! They never even poop!"

The allure of space travel over years and sustainable colonies was starting to excite the old scientist despite himself. The fleet was gathering back to Kerbin, once in LKO they could be modified with the new tech, or retired if necessary, the training flights where nearly home... a colony on Duna though.. that would be awesome....

He realised he was whistling to himself as his fingers stroked his chin while his eyes stared out of the window at the VAB and the Launch Pad.

"Please, Mr TAC-LS," Von Kerman smiled at the pun... " Leave the proposal with me, I will give it some thought and share it with the Kerbonaughts once they are back, it is their lives we'd be putting in the hands of your technology. The 'old' way may seem bizarre and quaint to you, but it has never lost a Kerbal, to hunger, asphyxiation, or even a desperate need to find a lavatory. I will need their input before making a final decision."

"Of course" Smiled, the TAC-LS rep as though he had already won his company the contract... "Take all the time you need, and of course, you must consult the brave Kerbonaughts!" He stood up, and held out his hand gregariously, his face festooned with that ridiculous grin with which he had started his pitch.

Von Kerman did not swing round from his chair to shake the outstretched arm, he was still staring out of the window, imagining a colony of Kerbals on Duna, or in an orbital base around Jool... what a view that would have...

TAC-LS retracted his hand and sneaked out the door quietly, all the while that goofy, over confident smile was beaming from his face....

*******************************************************************************************************************

So yeah this is the deal guys, I'm terrified of installing TAC life support, after all I haven't had the safest space program full of nothing but success so far, but I installed USI to go along side Extra Planetary Launch pads and so really thought installing TAC LS would make that much more meaningful.

I'd like your input though, am I making my life extremely extra hard? for no real gain or will it be FUN (Dwarf Fortress style I expect)

[Th3F3aR]

My 50 cents on that, it'll be like dwarf fortress, it'll be hard, it'll be just another way you need to think. And after all, Kerbals without Lifesystems will disappear.

I took that step and was absoloutly frightened, but i did it and it was awesome, more funny and more intense

BTW: Nice report, well done on that training flight

[MoridinUK]

I'm getting ready for an update but I need some help!

I docked my karbonite lifter to sun station 1, transfer the karbonite over, I then went to try out the converter, but I didn't think it would work as I forgot fuel pipes out of it! All my karbonite had vanished! Does anyone know how I can edit the save to put that Karbonite back? All advice welcome!

[MoridinUK]

The entire space program seemed to be coming to fulcrum, a point of extreme change. All the current missions had been tagged as complete urgently, and only missions required to help complete these were to be permitted.

In head office there was definitely the view that the program needed some more challenges and perhaps a couple of less concurrent missions!

However the first alarm to trip off was actually the old rover it had reached the point in it's orbit that looked most like it 'may' be able to see the Sun!

The technicians stared at the empty reading on the electricity meter with dismay, just as they were about to switch off, one of them notcied the SAS light was somehow back on. Flipping on the remote flight controls, they scribbled about on paper to ensure their first move would put the panels in the direction of the Sun and voila! They had power again! The ship had about 2400 dv left in it, but is in an awful orbit. The orbit does get another minmus encounter in about 15 or so orbits, or 489 days... :S The team are tempted to leave the pile of trash, sorry, sorry, the outrageously expensive space probe, out there until then and bring her down to minmus. She can't get anywhere else with her dv, except maybe out of kerbin soi....

The need to recall all active crew was important and so a 3rd mission based on the training flight ship was launched.

This one is to fly to minmus, pick up the base crew, land for some flag fun and then come home. If other missions are still taking time, it may pop out of kerbin SOI and try to pass by Mun, on the way, but it may have enough fuel in it, to meet the base, give is enough fuel to land, and still return to Kerbin. Mission priorities, will be decided later... there is a good 11 days of changing our minds before it get important.

So she burns for Minmus:

and STOPS half way through, stage away the big tank and still no good... What the...

Decoupler was set the wrong way around! no to Minmus:

As training flight 303 pulled off and away from Kerbin, so training flight 101 hurtled back towards home...

A no hassle splash down, pity it was so far from KSC..

Totally forgotten how many evas these guys had done so this was nice :

and my first 3 star crew:

Tug is up next, circulising her orbit around kerbin for refueling...

So next opened the intercept window for the Sun Station and the karbonite Lifter with so little dv.

Finalise the intercept:

Coming close together...

There is no RCS or docking port on the karbonite lifter and so it is on to... THE CLAW...

and finally they were together YAY!

Having just completed the transfer of karbonite to the sun station we noticed it's DV had drop a lot too... Karbonite is very heavy stuff! So I click on the Karbonite converter, I only need 500 of the 800 intact for the contract and nothing happens... DOH! I'd forgotten to put on a fuel pump for the converter! But what is this? ALL THE KARBONITE Vanished!

I learnt I needed to update Regolith to version 0.1.7! Hurrah

Now I know what I did next, some will think is cheating, but there was no way I wanted to go get that Karbonite again, not when it took so long and so I installed hyperedit and gave my self 797 of the 800 back. So I then pop out a Kerbal on EVA right, to use soem KAS pipes to solve my converter problem only to realise the space station has none! I should have had about 8!!

My Karbonite Lifter un docks with 1751 DV of her own left and heads for the karbonite base.

However I boched the landing a bit....

Yep only 474DV left... I burnt 1280ish dv on landing on Mun... God help us when we get to Duna...

Also when I connected up a pipe the whole station slide some way down the hill. I need to get some pylons down here.

So I refueled, and stole two of the pipe ends from the base, she doesn't have many any more! and launched back for an intercept directly over head..

We got docked up easily enough...

And then I forgot the interesting pictures as My kerbal on eva connected up the converter to the fuel tank and check the lfo conversion was working! YAY! then decouple and Sun Station 1 completes her burn for a Kerbin orbit that is just inside SOI.

That should complete the return Karbonite contract! Sun Station refuelled the Lifter, who'll be heading home as it has no life support on it and needs a kerbal to fly...

The Sun Station also has a kerbal on it and a small science package to complete outside Kerbals' SoI. Then he'll fly home and we will only be waiting on Jeb in Mun Mission Again, training flight 201 and training flight 301 before we can start to examine the TAC-LS systems.

The program will be ensuring that all systems are fitted with cores so that Kerbals are, er, dispensable.. no no no only sent when truly needed!

I know it is a long update but thanks for listening...

[MoridinUK]

As Sun Station one dirfted out of Mun's Soi the contract to return 500 Karbonite to a Kerbin Orbit completed YAY

The Sun Station Immediately burnt for an Kerbin escape SOI:

This was exactly what had been planned. This entire session should be simply completing burns to secure Kerbals and craft, bringing them all home asap.

Next up was Training Class 201 with their landing:

Ended up Splashed down just east of KSC! Science was good!

XP not so good!

Now this was annoying, I think the bit they missed was leaving Kerbin soi. I jumped to the ship as it went over the escape line and it sat there with no orbit line at all. Panicking I fired the burn to bring her back within Kerbin's soi and the orbit came back. I guess the game never registered that they had been out of Kerbin's soi. Now we have to send them all again! Grr...

Next up was the MunKarbonite lifter, this was being retired as it is too underpowered to do the job!

Which means that the Minmus base was all that was left.

Despite carefully setting up the burns to park her in Minmus orbit using the remaining 204 dv reported by the engineer, it all went wrong. That Dv was grossly overestimated.

The base was going to be left in a crazy useless orbit, much like the Rover, if I wasn't careful. We tried using the rcs on the Claw..

but this was burning monoprop fast and not slowing the base much at all. All crew were transferred to the Base which caused an another annoying discovery, there are 4 Kerbals on this thing, not the 3 I thought there were!

The claw was redeployed to the other end of the ship..

The 'lifter' part of the deployment was ditched, it's core shut down to preserve power and left to drift while Claw tried to save the Kerbals...

Yep we started with 500 monoprop and had only 130 left by the time we were safe in Minmus orbit, maybe we could have saved the Lifter too but better safe than sorry!:

However Training flight 301 is only a few hours behind but only has space for 3 Kerbals... we will need another rescue mission...

Back to the Karbonite lifter for the burn to drop PE into Kerbin's atmosphere and...

MUN! Leave our spaceship alone!

Eventually we work the ship free of Mun's grasp...

Training flight 301 is up next...

But she's come in so soon after the base that playing to get an intercept is not going to be easy...

Careful attention was paid to how much fuel she has on board.

The Karbonite Lifter had Burnt fot the KSC nicely...

He is going to try to land right at KSC, on the land, for the first time in the space programs history...

Looking Good

Maybe we'll try the roof next time?

Home!

All this time no alarm had gone off for Space Station one with Lander attached so someone finally went to the tracking Station to find them.

Last we saw they were in Orbit around Kerbin, needing to bring it down to a LKO...

What the.... What are they doing there....

No engineer and our simulations suggest that is about 900 DV... GULP! They burn retrograde, unsure what else will work... 600 dv though... gulp..

They are back on that orbit, with a small amount left in the tank, enough we hove to pull the ap back within Kerbin's soi. Saving this crew will be hard and the teams are planning to launch a new Tug as well as to refuel the old one to save her.

We have some planned launches ready. Fuel for Tug which is in LKO is next up, we are going to try to catch the Tug as she comes over head! This refuel pod will also have a flight computer to dock onto Tug.. Technicians are considering adding a command pod too, so she could pick up the last Kerbal from Minmus...

So far the way everything is going, looks like TAC-LS is going to destroy the space program lol...

After some fun in the simulation computer in the VAB and with a sketch pad, the Kerbals were at least 30% confident that Training flight 301 could give the Minmus base the 400-500 Dv it needs to land, and retain enough fuel to get home! This will all depend on how much gets burnt coming together for the intercept and whether we can get highly precise distribution of fuel.

[MoridinUK]

The Space Program was stuck waiting for the current missions to complete before beginning any new Kerballed missions.

However, the unkerballed parts of future plans could be built and sent into space.

The first such launch is Mule V1.0. This is a redesign on Tug. Firstly it has it's own Flight Computer, it also has a second LV-N to speed up those burns. The Nose cone was dropped and some auto struts added to the front.

The idea is that payloads can dock on the front and the auto struts connect up to use the ultra efficient LV-Ns to shut them about the system.

And at launch:

And here it is in orbit, with a bit too much fuel left over lol:

The next launch was rather mundane, just a refuel pod for tug:

It was launched to rendezvous with Tug as she passed overhead:

After transferring fuel the refuel pod detaches and burns for the KSC!

Recovered for some cash 'Every little helps..'

Tug was left mostly refueled and upgraded with a flight computer!

Mule then sets up to meet Tug and top her off before she tries to burn for Minmus:

But nope! The DV for the node wasn't dropping and it took me a long while to figure it out! When I attached the flight computer, it set the 'control from here' to that docking port! One I had set the docking port on the front as 'control from here' we could burn in the right direction...

That is it as far as missions go but I have also been designing this:

It is part one of a mission to establish a training base on Minmus. It has enough food for 1000 days with 6 kerbals working in there. It also have an O2 recycler and H2O recycler. It has two ore drills. The idea is that it should be able to build it's own base extensions, hence it can be used to build to grow the food required for a permanent base! It has been designed to attach to Mule and for Mule to shunt it to Minmus, where the bases own DV, 830ish, will land it somewhere near Ore, Water, Substrate and maybe Karbonite too.

Once a training bases is set up, Kerbals can be trained easily to level 3. Hurrah.. Although I could just keep throwing them in and out of the Kerbal system, but I'm unhappy with how easily I lost Space Station one out of Kerbals SOI.... and how easily I messed up Training flight 201....

Mundane Missions like refuel pods will no longer be described in such detail. To cut down on boring pics!

What do you guys think of the base?