I landed a probe on Duna, but I screwed up at the last second by forgetting to turn off the thruster on landing and it tipped over. So instead I decided to try to learn how to fly a plane in KSP.
(http://i.imgur.com/SbwUC2Y.jpg)
Welcome to JebAir! We have arrived at our cruising altitude of 36,000 feet (hey, us Kerbals have small feet, okay? No, that doesn't say anything about other parts of our anatomy!) We will arrive at wherever we're going in, uh... however long it takes us to run out of fuel. So sit back, relax, and prepare for crash landing.
(http://i.imgur.com/Q4TU2na.jpg)
Note that the seat belt light is on; there may be some turbulence.
(http://i.imgur.com/l6oBCp6.png)
Eh, who needs a runway, anyway?
Okay, it turns out that shooting the sun is a bad idea...
(http://i.imgur.com/t4aGMG2.png)
So I decided to try starting a Minimus base. I've got a design that should work, but when I landed the first module, I found that now I can't go back to the space center for some reason. Tried googling for a solution, but haven't found one...
(http://i.imgur.com/ywwQ9KR.png)
Even if I do find a workaround for that bug, I need to modify my launcher design to be able to lift heavier modules, because I just barely made it to Minimus (note the low fuel in the liquid fuel tank, and also I'm out of RCS fuel).
edit -- it apparently thought the RCS thrusters were on even though they were off and out of fuel... turned RCS on and off and it allowed me to go back to the space center. Then I went to the tracking station and deleted a different mission and it deleted both that mission and the one I just flew... :-(
Okay, turns out the workaround for the problem is to land on landing gear, rather than directly on the wheels, since apparently the game doesn't count the wheels touching the ground as the probe being on the ground. :psyduck:
edit -- my rover is roving on Minimus. Driving on Minimus is like driving on ice, because of the low gravity, so I can't accelerate, decelerate, or turn quickly.
(http://i.imgur.com/mP8wpFp.png)
edit2 -- and this is what happens when I tried to turn sharply on Minimus:
(http://i.imgur.com/1t5pDZ2.jpg)
Yeah, the next task is to send Jebediah to the Minimus base. Currently I've got three fuel modules at the base (with engines disabled, to avoid another launch into the side of a mountain).
(http://i.imgur.com/gyg6KEO.jpg)
The newly-renamed Jebediah Kerman Memorial Station, named for the first Kerbal to die on Minmus, now has a population of 6, in 2 living modules and 3 fuel modules.
(http://i.imgur.com/DlZLsVK.jpg)
Edit - Make that 5. RIP, Nielbree Kerman, who died from jetpacking off a mountain.
Got annoyed with the modifications to my launcher causing it to explode, so I went down a different route last night...
(http://i.imgur.com/h99GLZa.jpg)
As they watched the jet-powered school bus speed away into the distance, Harbo, Shelry, and Raydrin wondered how they were going to explain this to their supervisor.
Got some KSP playing in while I was on a plane the other day, and I finally managed to successfully land on Duna.
(http://i.imgur.com/j33Ttme.png)
Landed a manned mission on Duna for the first time, and it's mostly intact. The bad news is that the part it lost is the docking port it needs to connect to the service module in orbit for the fuel to return to Kerbin. Oh, and its parachutes, too.
(http://i.imgur.com/8JnlYfn.png)
And now they're safely back on Kerbin. They landed on the ice cap at the North Pole.
(http://i.imgur.com/r3yWSc8.png)
I started building a space station. Currently it only has a core module and a hab module with space for 11 kerbals. There are currently 4 kerbals on board: one in the core module and three in the hab module. Next things to build will be an RCS tanker to refuel the station's tanks, and a capsule to shuttle kerbals to and from the station.
(http://i.imgur.com/3gIgifg.jpg)
edit -- got annoyed trying to dock a refueling tanker, and installed MechJeb. I feel dirty now. :roll:
edit2 -- Shelry is not enjoying his stay on the Interkerbinal Space Station:
(http://i.imgur.com/0Ck4SWZ.jpg)
So I decided to send a rover to Eve. It was going perfectly, until...
It landed in the ocean. And so close to an island, too.
(http://i.imgur.com/E2vKP1o.png)
Yeah Eve is a cow to get to, even harder than Duna IMO. I landed but I have 0 fuel to get back home. Whelp.\
(http://i.imgur.com/XASOh94h.jpg)
I sent another rover and managed to land on dry land this time. The spacecraft I use to send these rovers actually deploys four of them, but since I can only control one at a time, and a craft that you don't control won't deploy its parachutes, I can only actually land one, and the rest crash into the surface.
(http://i.imgur.com/x8qw0mJ.png)
Sure, this is the craft file including the launcher (http://cesiumcomics.com/Stuff/KSP/Duna%20or%20Bust,%20with%20Rovers.craft), and this is the craft file for just the rover (http://cesiumcomics.com/Stuff/KSP/Duna%20Rover.craft).
Thanks, will take a look at them now. I already make a rover loosely based on your design and it is really stable and even upon losing a wheel it's still quite speedy, still haven't gotten it anywhere though because I'm having problems getting the rovers to redock wince they are too heavy for the attraction force of the small docks to pull upwards (I really want them to be able to re-dock with the landing craft, and I would be able to using RCS on Mun but I would rather not have to rely on that).
(http://i.imgur.com/YbtjxQe.jpg)
Yeah, docking isn't really needed in practice (right now), but I thought it would be an awesome little feature and felt the need to do it. Though in my current design I have RCS tanks on the lander so the rovers can refuel, which makes docking necessary, I'm also thinking of other things I could add to the lander to make the rovers more portable.
EDIT: Suddenly got bored of complex rovers and space missions, so decided to build some really simple planes instead. Got a single engine plane to 1708m/s, with a nice arc covering quite a distance.
(http://i.imgur.com/dKK4WqN.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/m2OttbS.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/y7czCLt.jpg)
Made a larger one but it's 7am so I should stop and sleep maybe.
I landed the rovers' deployment ship on Gilly. It was a bit tricky to find a flat enough spot that the ship wouldn't fall over.
(http://i.imgur.com/JBD85ee.png)
I've also designed a spaceplane-based launcher for my rover, for potential use on Laythe. It's still got some bugs to work out, though, and trying to work out its bugs revealed why I can only land one of my four rovers on Eve: if you have more than one ship in atmosphere (but not landed), and they're more than 2.5 km apart, the game will forget about any non-active vessels. I accidentally killed one of my pilots that way while testing my spaceplane-based launcher. So, to keep the plane from getting more than 2.5 km away from the rover, I added a parachute to kill its speed... and the parachute kills the plane instead.
(http://i.imgur.com/nOCQVFU.jpg)
Oh crap, this isn't Laythe...
(http://i.imgur.com/2c3cFMR.png)
...and the festival of errors continues. A little problem in my spaceplane design (aside from the gitched-out struts).
(http://i.imgur.com/fjWlkdv.png)
So I downloaded 0.22 and started a new Career Mode game. In one of my missions, I accidentally killed Jebediah when I told him to jump out of a perfectly usable spacecraft and he fell to the ground. In this version of the game, once you kill a kerbonaut, they're supposed to stay dead. Except right after I completed a successful Moon landing using Bill Kerman, I noticed Jebediah just came back onto the Available list. He's been resurrected, apparently.
Nice landing, Jeb.
(http://i.imgur.com/kdYo4hM.jpg)
Here's my quick guide to getting 29.9 Science from the very first mission using only a capsule.
1. Crew Report from inside capsule: 1.5
2. EVA, while hanging on ladder do EVA Report (flying at Kerbin's shores (this may be a bug, but staying on the ladder of any landed craft for an EVA report on Kerbin counts as "flying" in that biome, which is counted separately from actually being on the ground)): 5.6 (now get back in)
3. EVA again, let go of ladder, EVA Report (Launch Pad): 2.4
4. Sample (Launch Pad) 9.0 (now get back in again)
5. EVA, walk down to ground just away from Launch Pad, EVA Report (from KSC): 2.4
6. Sample (KSC): 9
7. Climb back in, recover vehicle.
TOTAL SCIENCE: 29.9
If you wanted to take the time to walk your kerbal down to the water, another EVA and sample would probably put your first mission over 40 points.
A new version of KSP was released today (0.23.5, also known as the Asteroid Redirect Mission version). I started a new Career Mode game, and haven't really gotten to any of the new features yet. You've been playing KSP too long if you can immediately figure out what's wrong with this picture:
(http://i.imgur.com/S59BKgM.png)
I forgot to include any science equipment, and I forgot to include a decoupler and a parachute so Jeb can get home alive...
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/orbital_mechanics.png)
"To be fair, my job at NASA was working on robots and didn't actually involve any orbital mechanics. The small positive slope over that period is because it turns out that if you hang around at NASA, you get in a lot of conversations about space."
I started a new game over Christmas break, and today I launched a Duna lander mission. Got into low orbit around Duna, detached my lander stage, and then noticed my mistake...
(http://i.imgur.com/5DrQa0Y.png)
Whoops, it has no engines!