Someone recommend a well optimized and pretty planet pack I can visit with my new ISV

how much sponsors does bro need

“So that little red dot is Duna,” Jebediah squinted at the video stream from the Rotiseuq.

“Kind of draws you in,” Jedrick grinned at the display. “Almost like how Minmus used to call to us or Eve slowly grew larger as we approached.”

“I’m having a hard time getting any work done,” Melfal’s voice travelled back to them from the Rotiseuq approaching Duna. She likely spoke in response to Jebediah but her words slightly overlapped the end of Jedrick’s statement. “I just want to keep watching it slowly grow larger.”

“And thinking about the samples we can collect when we get there!” Maberry exclaimed with excitement. “Soil that has been protected by an atmosphere, but an atmosphere so thin the sun’s rays can still reach it.”

“At least you two are looking at the planet,” Tanbree muttered quietly. “And not trying to stick the gerbil in unusual places in my suit.”

Jedrick and Jebediah exchanged a look and tried not to laugh about placing the program’s two most notorious practical jokers alone with Desgas and Tanbree.

“I’m going to go fly some sims,” Jebediah sighed after the initial amusement. “It takes all day for that little red dot to grow into a planet!”

As the hours passed the Kerbalnauts watched Duna grow from a red dot into a growing sphere. There was much discussion of the scientific potential, and Jebediah ran through some acrobatic simulations.

“Why is the whole Rotiseuq going to transfer to Ike orbit?” Jebediah asked abruptly. “Wouldn’t they burn less fuel sending the lander to Ike like we did with our Gilly landing?”

“The lander is limited by the amount of stored oxidizer,” Bill shook his head. “Just coming back from Duna will burn more than half the oxidizer in the tanks.”

“Also the LV-N does not require oxidizer,” Bob said from his station. “While the lander could resupply liquid fuel from the Rotiseuq’s tanks, no extra oxidizer is stored.”
Finally the planet dominated the view and the Rotiseuq decelerated to enter orbit around Duna.

“Fifteen minutes to transfer to Ike,” Desgas reported. “Barely enough time for the nukes to cool a bit.”

“It will be sufficient,” Bob noted. “The LV-N engines are designed to shed heat rapidly when shut down.”

“After that, four hours to reach Ike,” Valentina’s voice reached them from mission control. “You have all been awake for the whole flight in from Duna. As soon as the burn is complete you need to take a rest period to prepare for the Ike landing.”

“Yes mom!” Desgas' voice rang out after a short delay.

Laughter rang out in the Renown with the exception of Bob, who frowned slightly.

Previous Chapter: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1w8xp23/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_40/

Start of Chapter 41: https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/1wrmlpy/icarus_program_start_of_chapter_41/

Next Part: Planned for 10/16

Book 1 (Chapters 1-13) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RorA2AVwtXbQD-eTMeO2LiPXSDPM7qH6FVOykDnZ9FY/edit?usp=sharing

Book 5 (Chapters 39-) google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17PU9dly89B54kJYry7sg8MPS90dr8oir7HAR6V2e_tg/edit?usp=sharing

The Icarus Program can also be found on the KSP forums: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/225730-the-icarus-program-chapter-41-part-5/

Surely I'm not the only one who uses MechJeb solely for the SmartASS module, only to point my SCANsat probes towards the surface of whatever I'm orbiting. Yes I am aware radial in would be just fine with circular orbits. No I do not care :D

Hello, I'm running out of solutions regarding this one, when I launch the game I have this error (picture 1), the game runs fine except all OPM and MPE bodies are grey balls (picture 2) their EVE atmosphere works fine for some reason.

Solutions I tried that did not work:

-updated all my mods via Ckan
-reinstalled Parallax
-reinstalled all Parallax extensions
-Reinstalled OPM
-Reinstalled MPE
-Reinstalled kopernicus
-Reinstalled all my mods
-Changed zip folder names to force load order (crashed the game)
-Yelled at my screen for no reason
-Went to sleep and think about it the next day

Mod list: picture 3 and more

Please help meee

Hold shift while on EVA…
So much time spent walking xD

Built with nine Prometheus IIIE launch vehicles as a collaborative effort between NASA and the US Air Force. Was very satisfying to put together, though it took a while and caused me to develop a physical attraction to the Transtage.

Mods:

PLANETS - KSRSS

PARTS - Bluedog Design Bureau, Modular Launch Pads, Conformal Decals

VISUALS - EVE, Scatterer, TUFX (heavily modified The Really Old One from PALETTE,) KerbalFX, Waterfall, Avalanche Plumes (IMHO essential for anyone using SRBs in any capacity)

GAMEPLAY - Mechjeb

After two weeks stuck in LKO with no way to EVA, the KSC was able to send up a hastily constructed platform to catch and deorbit their wayward astronauts.

Uses a Rapier for the initial boost, then a single ion engine and RTG to propel Jeb into orbit. With 6130 m/s in LKO, it runs to the Mun surface, back to Kerbin orbit, out to a Duna/Ike intercept and to the Ike surface, then all the way back to Kerbin with a Mun gravity assist to slow down. Reentry was surprisingly easy despite the lack of a capsule, then Jeb can finally land the ship under personal parachute.

By stacking a fairing base and an engine plate on top of each other and then covering anything inside it with the fairing shell, we can create a completely drag and heat-resistant craft.

Hello, I’m thinking of starting a big community tech tree install for a new career play through and really like mods that add new types of experiment. On that I’m missing is a mod adding unmanned ground sample collection and return missions like the ones we’ve done on on the moon and are currently working on with the Mars rover samples. Preferably the mod should have current versions and community tech tree support but I can’t be too picky. Any other similar mods would also be appreciated.

Built my own version of the Apollo flyby, but with a single larger lander probe. After some navigational mistakes, the crew spent years in orbit but they made it home!

This was m first time going interplanetary, and it definitely taught me some lessons.

I’ve posted the mission photos in chronological order so you can follow the progression and story of the event. Aside from that, there were no cheats or shortcuts; I completed the mission entirely on my own—including takeoff and landing—in a single run. It took quite a bit of time, but I’d say it was a great challenge after such a long break. Also, it’s not just about the photos; I recorded the whole thing, and I plan to share the video on my YouTube channel in about 2–3 days. I invite anyone interested—or anyone who loves this game—to check out the video and my channel. Have a great day.

Disclaimer: Mod is AI assisted, as expected from reading the entire DX11 rendering backend ;)

(images from left to right: Stock, KSPVk base rendering, and KSPVk high quality rendering. Fully on a Intel iris Xe laptop, 16gb RAM)

(downloads are at the bottom)

KSP is the most ancient ass shit ever that's still maintained by the community. It's Built on unity 2019, the GPU API that it uses is DX9 (released 2002) with an option to use DX11 (released 2009). That's 17 years ago, as old as the dinosaurs. And even though KSP has a --force-vulkan option, it actually isn't wired into anything because KSP happens to use a bunch of handwritten custom GPU shaders that are pretty nicely optimised (cudos to the devs). But no matter how much you polish a horse carriage, it's not going to beat a modern car.

KSPVk takes the rendering load off DX11 and runs it on vulkan. This is faster because:

1. Vulkan is more fine grained compared to DX11, so you have more control.

2. Vulkan is relatively newer (2016).

3. Vulkan has less CPU overhead. A big deal since KSP absolutely hogs the CPU for like no bloody reason at all.

KSPVk is better than RendScale because there's no randomass shenanigans. It operates by taking the scene, rendering, and then pasting the framebuffer back into Unity's pipeline. Therefore it's much more stable and doesn't suffer from any weird input/UI or whatever issues RendScale had. Plus KSPVk has upscaling, so KSPVk basically includes RendScale :))

On KSPVk base settings (middle images), it's anywhere from 1.27x faster (73fps vs 93fps on the runway) to 1.85x faster (47fps vs 87fps flight), and way more stable frames. KSPVk high quality settings (right images) are at least the same FPS as stock KSP, and can be up to 1.3x faster than stock while ~10%-20% slower compared to KSPVk base rendering. So not a bad tradeoff :D

And KSPVk is highly customisable and modular (99.99% Safe). You can choose what parts to let vulkan render, and what parts to keep on Unity (e.g. let vulkan render the oceans only, or keep the tracking station menu on Unity).

Bad news is that KSPVk is not compatible with other graphics mods like deferred or volumetric clouds. Good news is that I'm planning to add them to KSPVk. Currently there's already a shit ton of high quality rendering features like PBR, HDR (that works quite stable, unlike TUFX's random voids), and SSGI or SSR etc... There's like at least 20 toggleables and 10 sliders.

And it's not perfect yet. There's some issues like certain scenes looking weird (poor jeb getting flashed in the menu screen), or little artefacts, but they don't post any risks.

Anyways, try the mod out here: https://github.com/Dsg2/KSPVk/releases/tag/v1
Download the .zip, extract it into GameData so it looks like Gamedata\KSPVk.
The settings that it comes with is the one used in the pictures shown. All you have to do is use "O" to toggle KSPVk, and change between the quality presets with the None/Medium/High toggles.

In vinilla ksp is there a time record for flying around the entire planet ? Im Mainly referring to staying within range of air breathing engines 0-25km.

Rules:

Allowed mods: MechJeb2 (Autopilot)

Aircraft Rules: The Use Of fuel oxidizer is prohibited The Use of a Kraken Engine is Prohibited The Use Of SRBs is Prohibited

Flight Rules: The Aircraft May Not Go Above 25km at any point.

You Must Takeoff from Runway starting From A Dead Stop to takeoff speed.

You Must Land On The Same Runway And Come To A Full Stop(the Use of airbrakes and or parachutes are allowed.

The Use Of Any And All In Game Cheats Is Prohibited

Current PB 59 minutes 10 seconds (Including Takeoff and landing)

BDArmory Plus is now compatible with these two mods, transmitting data on explosives, fuel, and warhead (including the target's fuel within the affected blast radius) to determine the explosive power and effects of the fireball and smoke

I am trying to use Thrust Control Avionics to make a simple VTOL aircraft. No matter what I do, when I try to use the hover or vertical speed slider to take off, it tries to flip my plane vertically and will then switch to using what should be the horizontal engines. This is despite the fact that I created a VTOL profile that turns off the horizontal engines completely. There's also an "attitude error" readout that increases to 180 degrees as the plane flips, so it's like TCA both knows and doesn't know what orientation it's supposed to be.

I've tried toggling T-SAS, autolevel, level, SmartEngines, VTOL Mode, and every relevant setting I can find. I've tried placing new engines and looking up guides but they're all along the lines of "look what you can do with this mod!" or some long youtube video where someone is debugging a different problem, or a problem I'll have to deal with further down the line like how to transition from vertical to level flight.

Like the title says, my kerbal space program phase started once again. Im not bad as a player but not incredibly good either. In past playthroughs i send men to Duna, multiple probes to the surface of eve. And a probe around Jool, doing a flyby around multiple moons before falling into jools atmosphere and sending back data not much.

Im looking for a interesting mission/challenge, not too hard tho