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Kerbal Space Program

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Valentina Kerbal and the Hercules Mk3 on the Mun.

It may be a while before she gets back.

 

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Edit: And my next flight, despite forgetting to put back on landing gear after some modifications, made it to the moon and back into Kerbin orbit, but not quite enough juice to get back down into the atmosphere.

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Wooooooo, I successfully performed a stable orbital intercept, transferred all the science and the pilot from the stranded moon pod, and made it back to Kerbin. The only black spot on the whole thing is that I needed to restore the autosave once, not because of any maneuvering mistakes, but because the parachutes were on the final stage with separating the last engine, so I ripped my chutes off when I hit the atmosphere the first time. I don't feel too bad about that though, if it was a piloting mistake I would have just lived with it, but a stupid thing like that *shrug*

Also, I ran out of thrust just before getting my orbit to hit the atmosphere, but thankfully I had a comical amount of mono-propellant on board and was able to provide the last 50 m/s of retrograde thrust with RCS.

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OK, last post in my big combo. Zeus, I figured out why i had such problems with contracts and you didn't. They put in a patch on November 9th that overhauled the contract system and made contextual contracts that react to the technologies you have unlocked. The contracts I was getting were to visit locations on Kerbin that I guess you were supposed to use airplanes to reach, but I never even unlocked the techs for that since I'm here to go to space, not play with jets.

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OK, last post in my big combo. Zeus, I figured out why i had such problems with contracts and you didn't. They put in a patch on November 9th that overhauled the contract system and made contextual contracts that react to the technologies you have unlocked. The contracts I was getting were to visit locations on Kerbin that I guess you were supposed to use airplanes to reach, but I never even unlocked the techs for that since I'm here to go to space, not play with jets.

 

Ah, that explains it then.

 

I'm actually starting to get curious about the space plane stuff. I might start delving into that soon after I finish my current project. I've had some pretty great moments recently and managed to capture a few good screenshots so I hope to get in here and post some of my latest exploits soon.

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Started playing this again after a long while. It seems that re-entry has become much more brutal. Also, gathering, storing, and transmitting science data is quite confusing at first.

 

Still love this game, though.

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Started playing this again after a long while. It seems that re-entry has become much more brutal.

 

You can no longer just slam directly into Kerbin at escape velocity, but I've found that you can still get away with some pretty high-speed entries through nothing but good aim. The trick is to aim for the very edge of the planet, that way you lose a lot of your speed going horizontally through the thin high atmosphere.

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Yeah, heat shields and shallow angle of re-entry does the trick. Took some experimenting though.

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I finally figured out a decent rocket design that I can use as a basis for my future Pollo space missions, got on Mun orbit, and managed to return home safely. The re-entry is damn scary every time. Plus, I really need to work on my gravity turn skills and the stability of my rocket.

 

I guess my next target is to land on Mun or Minmus. I hope I have unlocked landing gear already. Not even dreaming about stuff like docking yet.

 

I like the progression of the Science mode, but I hate how the science works. I had to repeat the Mun mission because I had reset the Mystery Goo Containment Unit and Science Junior after inspecting them, having assumed that this would not cause me to lose the data of the experiment but would simply close the hatches thus avoiding potential problems upon re-entry. I also don't understand why you lose a percentage of the science points if you decide to transmit the data instead of storing it. Oh and having to go outside the ship to collect and store data in order to free up space for more experimental results is just ridiculous.

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I've been continuing to play this game a ton and have started making some pretty significant advances in my overall plan to conquer the solar system.

 

To reach my goal, I've laid out a set of smaller objectives to get me there step by step. Coincidentally, the contracts I've been getting in career mode have been lining up almost perfectly with many of those objectives giving me a steady influx of cash to offset the cost of each of my endeavors. To make this all feasible, I am making liberal use of the 'revert flight' functionality to discover the best designs and not be constantly broke. I know some people hate to use that but the way I look at it, launching test flights and seeing how far you can take a design without having to eat the costs is no different than real life engineers designing these things and running them through simulations so they can calculate everything before they hit the launch pad. Once that part is down though, shit gets real and I do my best to handle whatever mishaps may occur.

 

So first off, I had to solve my number one problem that was limiting how far I could travel from Kerbin without breaking the bank: getting into Kerbin orbit while still having a lot of fuel and spare stages for further travel. To do that, I needed to construct a refueling checkpoint in low Kerbin orbit. So, guided by one of my contracts, I started by launching a simple space station into orbit with some science instruments, solar panels, docking ports and other miscellaneous necessities. Then, I followed that up by launching a second core space station unit with additional batteries, RCS fuel, and other things that I didn't want to try to squeeze into the first part. Once I had my two core components docked together, I put some time in and eventually found a good design for a big refueling ship that I could use to form my space station refueling bay. Four painstaking launches and docking maneuvers later, I finally had my refueling checkpoint with four giant tanks full of fuel.

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Parallel to all of this, I needed more money and science to keep moving forward and had a big contract to set up a base on Duna that I had been sitting on for awhile. So I went ahead and eventually came across a seemingly good rocket design to carry my first base component to Duna. From what I had read on constructing bases, it sounded like having everything on wheels was essential to making it work so I made sure that my final stage had a solid center of gravity and threw a bunch of rover wheels on it. The launch ended up being successful and I made it to Duna orbit without issue. My first adventure to another planet! Once I had achieved stable orbit, I started my descent...

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...and then realized as I was nearing the ground that the atmosphere was thinner than expected and I was still going way to fast even with my parachutes deployed. I hadn't ditched my final stage yet though and still had some fuel so I burned retrograde as long as possible to try to aid in slowing my descent, ejected my final fuel stage at the last moment and...

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Success!

 

Now I may have shattered all of my rover wheels when I landed, had no engineer to fix them, and had to leave two Kerbals perpetually stranded on a desolate planet. But I got so much science and money it was ridiculous. Maybe one day I will try to rescue them or send the rest of the Duna base components to see if I can still dock with my crippled science lab, but for now these two Kerbals will just have to live out their days in their little research unit.

 

With my Duna mission complete and my low Kerbin orbit refueling checkpoint completed, it was time to finally try to tackle another contract I had been putting off: building a base on Minmus. A while before tackling some of these bigger objectives, I had successfully landed the first part of my base, a housing unit, on Minmus. But after that, I had decided to hold off since it required 4000 units of fuel on the base and I hadn't unlocked the rocket components I needed to get a decent sized bank of fuel tanks onto the surface of Minmus to dock with my housing unit. At this point in the game though, I finally had everything I needed and was able to build a rocket that was just barely capable of getting into Kerbin orbit while still keeping its final two stages for the trip to Minmus and the landing. The problem I was having though was that the rocket was just so bulky and unwieldy that every time I tested it, I wasn't able to get it into orbit efficiently enough and kept leaving myself with only the tiniest sliver of fuel in that second to last stage, which wasn't enough to make it to my refueling checkpoint. Unfortunately, I mis-clicked at one point after achieving one of these less than ideal orbits, and returned myself to the space center, losing my 'revert flight' option in the process. That rocket was pretty fucking expensive and I couldn't afford to build another one but the situation seemed completely fucked and I wasn't sure what to do. But then I realized I totally wasn't fucked, I just needed to launch another one of my refueling ships and dock it with my stranded Minmus fuel bay. In addition to that, once I launched my refueling ship and was planning out my intercept, I realized I could also give my Minmus fuel bay some mobility by manually transferring all of the fuel from the final stage back into the second to last stage. So I did that, successfully docked with my lone refueling ship, and then transferred all that fuel back to the final stage before topping everything off again.

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Not only did I narrowly escape a very expensive disaster, I was now perfectly positioned and had all the fuel I needed to finish my journey to Minmus. So I plotted my course and continued on. The approach, de-orbit, and landing all went beautifully (I feel like I earned that one after what I had gone through). I ended up landing about 8 km from my housing unit and made the not so long drive to my final destination.

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Driving across Minmus.

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The final reunion!

 

Alas, the reunion was bittersweet. It turns out I placed docking ports in the most idiotic places on my first base component and had made it impossible to dock with. Oh well, I'll have to send a replacement housing unit and maybe I can get creative and even ultimately get that first one docked to the greater base too.

 

In the midst of all of this, I've kept a steady influx of Kerbals and cash by regularly accepting contracts to rescue them from various orbits, sent another satellite to Duna, and had an accidental Ike encounter that destroyed said satellite at some point when I was time accelerating for another thing. This game is pretty fun you guys.

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Interesting report, keep em coming!

I finally managed to land on Mun and return home safely last night. Landing on Mun took multiple attempts (I'm not above using quicksaves) but I eventually figured it out. I still don't know how to pick a correct spot for landing (and actually hit it), though, and some of my early attempts failed simply because of the slope of the ground. The micro landing strut (the only one I had unlocked) were not giving me any favors either, and I just barely avoided destroying my engine upon touchdown. Nevertheless, I finally landed safely, planted a flag, collected a shit-ton of science, and, for once, had enough fuel for the trip home. I had to repeat the re-entry phase multiple times because I kept blowing up pieces of my ship. When I eventually realized that it doesn't matter if the Mystery Goo Containment Unit and other science stuff blow up as long as I have collected and stored the data during EVA, I managed to return home safely amid small explosions.

I'm playing the Science mode, so I don't need to worry about resources. I think I made the right choice, because the missions are stressful enough as it is without having to worry about my designs costing too much. I do wish that the Science mode had some kind of contracts, though. For example, I don't know if I get a science bonus for launcing a satellite into orbit (or for that matter, what equipment I should put there to get that bonus).


I think my next mission is to land on Minmus, which actually sounds easier than the Mun mission. After that, I do not know yet. How difficult is a return trip to Duna compared to Mun? I also would like to learn docking, so maybe I will try to build a small space station or something. Do these have any benefits outside fulfilling Career mode contracts and acting as fueling stations?

Do you guys use any mods? Which ones? MechJeb sounds like something I might look into once I'm ready to tackle more complicated missions and feel that I have had enough of unassisted manouvering.



I have no end of respect for this game.

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Mechjeb is the only mod i've used. They actually tied some of ita functionality to the science unlock system so you can't do everything right away.

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Minmus is definitely easier to land on and return from than Mun. It's very small and has very low gravity so getting back up and into orbit takes very little fuel.

 

As far as Duna goes, I'm still figuring that out. It took a pretty beefy rocket just to get my little science lab onto the surface so I imagine getting a ship there and back would probably require setting up some kind of space station in Duna's orbit for refueling (or if you set it up with some light spacecraft docked to it ahead of time, you could launch from Duna, rendezvous with the space station, and then EVA to one of your return shuttles). I'm sure it's possible to do with one rocket, but it seems that landing on other planets and their moons and then returning to Kerbin is nearly impossible without setting up some kind of checkpoint.

 

On the space station thing, I don't think there is much benefit beyond having a station with fuel/RCS fuel that you can dock with and refuel your ship. If you get it in a good orbit it can provide a decent amount of science too if it passes over multiple biomes and you run the science over each one.

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Yeah, Minmus was easy stuff compared to Mun. I would have done the whole trip on my first try without quick loads if I hadn't ran out of electricity upon my return home. I couldn't survive re-entry without SAS. I think I may have drained it all by leaving SAS on while on Minmus, the ship trying to stabilize itself the whole time. Funny in hindsight, but I was pretty pissed at myself at the time.

 

Oh well, at least I got to see the Lesser Sea of Idle Tranquility.

 

 

Ok, Duna landing sounds pretty tough. Maybe Duna orbit first.

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You could always send an unmanned probe to land and then transmit data. I've sent a few of those out to help argument my science. 

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Yeah, Minmus was easy stuff compared to Mun. I would have done the whole trip on my first try without quick loads if I hadn't ran out of electricity upon my return home. I couldn't survive re-entry without SAS. I think I may have drained it all by leaving SAS on while on Minmus, the ship trying to stabilize itself the whole time. Funny in hindsight, but I was pretty pissed at myself at the time.

 

Oh well, at least I got to see the Lesser Sea of Idle Tranquility.

 

 

Ok, Duna landing sounds pretty tough. Maybe Duna orbit first.

 

Do you have solar panels attached to your ship? If you are regularly having trouble running out of electricity, I recommend putting a material bay on your ship with a few batteries and all of your science instruments contained within. Then just strap a bunch of solar panels on and you should never have an issue with running out of electricity. I never turn SAS off unless I am in the process of docking two ships and I need them to lock together (SAS can make it wobble so turning it off allows the docking port magnetism to just snap everything into place). The only other thing to keep in mind is that if you don't have the extendable solar panels yet, you might need to angle your ship so your panels are facing the sun so you can get a full charge before going to the dark side of whatever body you are orbiting.

 

And I say go for the Duna landing! It is such a rush. Just accept that that first one will likely be a one way trip. If you have the parts to make a rover, strap a bunch of science instruments to that and land that on Duna so you can explore and collect science from multiple biomes. Just make sure to include batteries, solar panels, and an antenna to transmit everything back.

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Running out of electricity was purely my own stupidity. I had been upgrading my ship as parts became available but had forgotten to include any external batteries, so I was relying solely on the electricity of the command module. For my second mission, I just attached a couple of batteries and I had more than enough of electricity. Thanks for the tip though, I'll try to remember to include some photovoltaic panels for longer trips.

 

Oh yeah, rovers! Maybe I'll go for some sort of simple Mun rover next. Gotta get that science!

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Can you pump fuel through the grabber clamps? I'm considering trying to rescue Valentina by fueling up her current ship instead of trying to pick her up in a different ship, but there's no docking port on her lander.

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After the successful missions to Mun and Minmus, everything I did yesterday ended up in a disaster. First I tried to achieve Duna orbit without studying correct launch windows and delta-v requirements, and unsurprisingly ran out of fuel. After that I decided to launch an experiment heavy mission to Mun to collect a bunch of science. Either the additions to my ship weighed too much or my manouvering was less fuel efficient than before, but I ended up stranded on the Mun without enough fuel for a return trip.

 

Oh well, at least I have clear goal now: to rescue the trapped Kerbal along with the science he had collected. Not entirely sure where I can house him in the rescue ship, though. Maybe I'd better start designing a new ship using large radial size parts?

 

 

This game has so much personality that I feel really bad for all the Kerbal I lose, even if the losses don't have gameplay consequences in Science mode (I think?). I'm not counting the revert flight casualties, though; I consider those as simulations.

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Oh well, at least I have clear goal now: to rescue the trapped Kerbal along with the science he had collected. Not entirely sure where I can house him in the rescue ship, though. Maybe I'd better start designing a new ship using large radial size parts?

 

My plan for this rescue mission was quite ambitious. I designed a ship that can carry a small rover to Mun and return with the stranded Bob Kerman in the third, empty seat of the command pod. The Rover was autonomous but had a seat for transferring Bob between ships, so it wouldn't matter if I didn't land near Bob.

 

I learned two things:

1. A rover with small wheels is really slow.

2. I should really start to pay attention to the delta-v requirements for these missions.

 

I ended up with 200% more Kerbins stranded on the moon, with neither of the ships having enough fuel for the return trip. The distance between the ships is about 30 km so it would take about 50 minutes to reach the first ship using my current rover design (with no possibility to warp time). The rover and the rover landing system works though and could potentially be used to reach new biomes, although the drive would be very monotonous.

 

I was understandably pretty pissed after this mission. I had promised to save Bob and I was not going to give up.

 

I realized that Bob's ship had just enough fuel to reach Munar orbit, so I designed a new ship with whopping 8200m/s of delta-v, transferred both ships to Munar orbit, and started a painstaking, I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing driven operation of matching the orbits for intercept. At this point I realized that neither of the ships had RCS thrusters. I got the ships within about 1 km of each other, ordered Bob to abandon ship, pick up all the science and aim for the rescue ship. The operation was stressful* as hell and at my first approach I overshot quite a bit. I managed to reset for second approach and reach the ship without running out of propellant. The return trip went well, and Bob** was able to go home for the first time in who knows how many years.

 

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Now I only need to rescue the crew of the first rescue mission.

 

* Made more intense by the Chatterer mod which adds radio chatter to the game and, it turns out, the sound of breathing during EVA.

** The original two pilots were lost, however. After the successful transfer, only Bob was shown in the lower right corner and the other two were not mentioned in the mission report after successful landing. Is there a way to avoid this? What happens if I land an autonomous rover somewhere and return with the ship? Will I still be able to pilot the rover from the space center?

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For your ** comment, I've done a few rescue missions and never saw that. Were you using the three crew lander pod with one empty seat, or two single seat pods? Did you maybe lose them when you reset? I've noticed that resetting/reloading when switching between multiple ships can cause odd issues.

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I used three crew member pod with one empty seat. I did all of the orbital fine-tuning in the rescue ship, then switched to the ship-to-be-rescued through Space Center. I did not reload during the EVA stuff, and when I entered the module, I could only see Bob's portrait. Come to think of it, there might have been a Bob in rescue ship already. Could that be the problem?

 

That is not a such a big deal for me, since I'm playing in Science mode and losing Kerbals has no in-game consequences. I count all three as having made it safely home after a very successful rescue mission. I'm a little worried about the potential of losing contact with an unmanned rover after the carrier ship has returned back to Kerbin, though. At the moment, I can only see my ship in the Space Center. I can take control of the rover by first piloting the ship and then switching between nearby command modules using a hotkey. But what happens if I drive the rover too far for this kind of switching to work, or fly away with the ship?

 

Edit: Nevermind, the rover icon at the top of the Space Center view was disabled. I can jump directly to the rover now.

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Hmm, interesting. I've never used the 3 person pod, I've always just stacked two command pods. 

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Grrrr... I send an unkerbaled ship full of science instruments to Eve with an aim of collecting data from high and low orbits as well as at least the high atmosphere. I noticed that my solar panels started to heat up a lot even though I barely hit the top of the atmosphere and quickly retracted them, and quickly collected all the science that I could from the high atmosphere. Then I fast forwarded a lot and the next thing I knew I had no control over my ship due to the batteries being empty. I did not realize that you can't even extend the solar panels in that situation (although it of course makes sense). I don't think I emptied the batteries by spamming data transmissions but gradually through command module and other systems (my orbit extended to Gilly's orbit so who knows how long I left the panels retracted).

 

From now on all my ships will have a couple of non-retractable panels in addition to my main solar panels. I'm also seriously considering offering some brave Kerbal a guaranteed one-way ticket for my next interplanetary trip. Gotta maximize that science.

 

Eve looked cool, though, even if the shoreline was quite pixelated.

 

2015-12-29_00003.jpg

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Nice screenshot Nappi, I really need to get back on this and make a trip to Eve myself for all that delicious science.

 

On the battery thing, I thought the engines had some kind of alternator and would charge your batteries if you activated them for a bit. I could be completely misremembering though. Also, if the ship had been Kerbaled, I wonder if you could manually extend your panels during an EVA. I've never tried it myself but it seems like something that the Engineer class could do at the very least.

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Yes, the engines will charge your batteries, however, if you have no power left at all, you have no control to throttle them up.

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