Adventures in KSP: Roving Eve

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. I have currently set my sights to the neighboring planets, Eve and Duna. Join me in my quest for exploratory glory!

After losing a rover en route to Eve, I refitted the design with solar panels and some scientific instruments, which I formerly wasn't able to employ due to resolution-issues with the interface. Other than the added solar-panels on the tanks of the nuclear engine stage and the detectors on the front, there wasn't a difference to the former version, as I was confident that I could actually get this thing to Eve, given that I didn't run out of electricity.

Nothing but two large rockets strapped to an automatic car, really...

Gamification of Christmas Gifts

This Christmas my family got together as we used to, each bringing one general-purpose gift that everyone could at least technically enjoy. To handle distribution of those as well as the basket full of cookies and chocolate that my grandmother brought along, I made a simple dice-game that gave the whole thing randomness, competition, and something akin to an economy. Let me elaborate:

There is a real gift for each family member in a santa-bag. At the end, everyone should have one of these. As they are wrapped up, you only know the contents of your own gift, but you can guess by size and shape (and temperature, more on that later) whether you want them or not. The grandma-stuff is bonus material and does not need to be distributed evenly, thus allowing for an actual winner of Christmas Eve.

The first phase works in the following way: Each player/family member takes turns rolling a pair of dice. A pair of either 1s, 2s, or 3s allow the player to take one bonus gift from the grandma-box. Any six and the player picks a regular gift from the bag. A pair of 4s, 5s, or 6s means the player must exchange their own regular gift with one that another player has already taken. The first phase ends whenever all regular gifts have been distributed (and are now secured for their respective owner). Over the course of the first phase, a mystery frozen-box my father had brought as a gift was the most coveted item, changing hands several times with my cousin and his wife trading it back and forth between them when they'd have to trade in order to keep it in their household. My uncle got it in the end and as it turned out that it was full of delicious frozen wild-boar steak, the calamity from those who had lost this prize was great.

The second phase kicks into gear with the war for the remaining grandma-gifts. A pair of 1s, 2s or 3s still means you can take one from the box but a pair of 4s, 5s, and 6s now means you can steal one of the grandma-gifts from someone else. On a six, one would unwrap their own regular gift. The phase ends once all grandma-gifts are out and all regular gifts are unwrapped. During this phase, as the market for sweets and cookies was definitely saturated, the fight was on over a bag of noodles, of all things. It ended up with my older cousin but I was able to strike a deal with her afterwards, exchanging it for something else. Cooked and ate them yesterday, tasting the sweet taste of victory over both my other cousin and my uncle.

So, the whole gift-ceremony took well over an hour and everyone was having a blast. I recommend gamification of your gift-giving ceremony, if your folks are up to it. A belated merry Christmas to those of you to whom it applies from MadZabGaming!

Adventures in KSP - Preparing Eve Exploration

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. I have currently set my sights to the neighboring planets, Eve and Duna. Join me in my quest for exploratory glory!

So, Eve's the next target. Close to the sun than Kerbin is, Eve is a dense planet with gravity that is a bit higher than on Kerbin and an atmosphere that is quite dense too. Having landed there during a play in a previous version of the game, I know that the planet is pretty much impossible to explore with a manned vessel if you intend to get your astronaut back to Kerbin. This is what made me chose this as my next exploration target over Duna, which I intend to land a Kerbal on. Eve is going to get robotic exploration only, because the only thing I could think of that would get back out of that atmosphere and gravity-well would be some sort of really efficient space-plane and I'm horrible at designing and flying aircraft so forget it.

Adventures in KSP - Minmus Exploration

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is now Minmus, the outer moon of the home planet Kerbin. Let's get into it!

Getting to Minmus is a bit harder than getting to the Mun, as it is quite a bit further away from Kerbin and its much lower mass means you have to hit it somewhat more precisely in order to get caught by its field of gravity. Landing there on the other hand is easy as pie, since it has very obvious flat areas that have a zero-elevation and the low gravity means you don't have to reverse-thrust to much in order to land softly enough. All in all a good test-run for interplanetary travel. Thus the first ship I designed was more of a test-craft than a mission-specific design. Let me explain:

Adventures in KSP: Some Housekeeping

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

So, before going any further into deep space, I decided that current projects, like my presence on the Mun and the Kerbal Space Station (henceforth abbreviated to KSS) needed some refinement. I had read up on the bug that had destroyed my first Munbase and had found a somewhat working solution to it (editing the safe-file) should it come up again. First order of business was enlarging and remodeling the KSS though. I didn't like the thruster-section I had docked to it and it would need more docking-ports than it currently had in order to grow into something like the orbital platform I had in mind. Getting to work on the space-ship designer, I constructed a re-usable orbital vehicle designed for docking with parts and then moving them about in space, called the Deliverator. The Deliverator was the first segment I sent up into orbit, thus allowing me to send any other object up to a somewhat stable orbit and then be able to go fetch it with the Deliverator.

Adventures in KSP - Salvaging the Munar operation

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it

After having lost MunBase Alpha to a game glitch / massive malfunction in the reverse-thruster, Ed Kerman is alone on the Mun. He has the rover and even a MunShot I lander but the latter doesn't have the fuel to get back to Kerbin so using it to get home isn't an option. I imagine the Kerbals at the space center working feverishly to salvage the Mun situation. At this moment I really want to go further out, explore new places but I can't leave the situation on Mun in shambles like that. I need a permanent presence there. So I launch another MunBase Alpha, identical to the first one. During the approach to the crater where the rover is waiting, I notice another anomaly, sparkling on the ground. It's on the edge of another crater. That is interesting, I decide to slow the lateral movement of the base down to land closer to it. Have Ed drive there in the rover, then stage an expedition to it. It never gets that far. The station runs out of fuel during the descent, leaving about three kilometers of drop between it and the ground with nothing to slow it down but the puny RCS-maneuvering thrusters. It slams into the ground, destroying the lander can, killing its occupants. But the habitat is lying there, intact. A place where Ed Kerman could drive the rover in order to finally find shelter?

Adventures in KSP - Disaster and Despair on the Moon

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

The plan was to send an unmanned rover to the Mun and pick up my two stray astronauts who were waiting on the surface. If the vehicle had fuel left after that it could also be used for expeditions around the area - there might be more anomalies around after all. The flight went well and pretty soon the rover was approaching the Munar surface. Disaster almost struck when I tried to slow down above the surface to then detach the rover from its nuclear thruster, which exploded below it. After the dust had settled I checked the rover and, much to my surprise, found it unharmed. Using its RCS-thrusters, I was able to flip it upright and extend the gear - the vehicle was on the Mun and ready, about ten kilometers from my astronaut who was stranded halfway between the MunArch and MunBase Alpha. I went for it.

Adventures in KSP - The MunArch

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

Feeling the need to reach the mysterious anomaly as fast as possible, as I was running out of game-time due to some real-life scheduling coming up soon, I decided that the best course of action to reach it fast would be to sent another rocket to the Mun. Now, reaching a specific spot on the Mun is, with my amateurish abilities in orbital physics and piloting, a rather fuel-intensive exercise but I didn't need to get whomever I was sending up there back because now I had a MunBase where they could go after exploring the anomaly. So I fired up another Munshot I, the trusty ship that had sent my first manned Munar mission successfully there and back again, figuring I could use the fuel originally reserved for the return-trip in order to fly the thing to a landing-spot near the anomaly - and then walk the rest on foot.

Adventures in KSP - Anomaly at MunBase Alpha

In this series of posts I'll tell my progression (and my throwbacks) at the brilliant Kerbal Space Program. The current object of my exploration is the moon, or Mun as it is called in KSP. Let's get into it!

So, I didn't have a MunBase in this version yet and only one of my Kerbals had travelled to the Mun and back. The addition of electricity in this version asked for a new design in MunBase. I went and designed the base to be a two-pod affair, with a two-person lander-can on top, below it a habitat that would in theory offer room for four astronauts but go up empty for now, to be filled up later. Below was a fuel-tank and a thruster, eight sturdy landing-legs and, of course, a large asparagus-style four-stage rocket to get the thing to the Mun. On the top I added an RCS (mono propellant for maneuvering-thrusters) tank, a mast and some solar panels to be extended when the thing was landed. I was in good hope when the rocket proved to be enough to get the thing beyond a low Kerbin orbit and on course to the Mun.

Adventures in KSP - Introduction

I've recently re-started playing Kerbal Space Program and, after some fiddling about and learning the new mechanics, I have decided that the game is good for some write-ups to be published here. Today I'll start off with just some introduction on what KSP is and what makes it so fascinating for me (and, apparently, the community).

Kerbal Space Program, still in development and not yet a final product, pulls a rather elegant conceit that taps into aspects of me that I haven't enjoyed as much since having been a child. The concept is simple: KSP doesn't put pressure on you. It does away with superfluous stuff like opposition or competition. In sandbox mode, it just tells you "here is a solar system, with a realistic physics engine. Here is a space-port with realistic bits and pieces for you to put together rockets, planes, probes and rovers. Now have fun with it!". Not more, not less. And then you start to learn and every step feels like you have actually re-treated steps of real-life space-exploration. I was proud when I managed to get a rocket into orbit for the first time. Long practise and trial-and-erring led to me actually landing on Mun (the moon of the home planet in the system), before there were even landing-gears and such luxuries in the game. By now, trips to the moon are somewhat routine for me. Next target? I don't know - Eve (Venus)? Duna (Mars)? One of the moons of Jool, the outer gas giant, which are supposed to hold ancient alien artifacts?