http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/sho ... lope-Dodec
So I'm tempted to install this mod so I can use airships to have an easy lift-off from Eve and make bases in Jool's atmosphere. Shit could be awesome.
In the meantime, lets talk about my Minmus mission I did a little while ago! I launched Ormal II, which was basically just an Ormal I rocket with a modified lander to cope with lower gravity on Minmus. The flight over and such was repeatedly disrupted by the game crashing, so I had to launch like four times before I finally managed to get to Minmus with my engines off so the game could quicksave before crashing. Hence no pictures. We do, however, get this orbital map view of my descent onto the frozen seas of Minmus!
It's worth noting that for some reason, the crew of Ormal I which was stranded in Kerbin orbit after visit the Mun decided they wanted to be on this mission too. It was probably not a particularly good idea.
We had plenty of fuel, so everything was going well, but the lander stage was RCS-powered, so it was further up, had less power, and even if I wanted to I couldn't land on Minmus with the descent stage because it had no lander legs. As we descended, we made the final burn and began to descend vertically. As we approached the ground, we jettisoned the descent stage and activated RCS thrusters on the lander. Unfortunately three things happened. First, the descent stage hit Minmus, exploded and showered the lander with debris. This debris then knocked the lander around and off course slightly. We also had to correct because the debris was also all over the ground below us. And finally the lander may have lost some thrusters, or was just moving too quickly, so hit impacted hard.
Yeah. The lander legs fell apart pretty fricking quickly, following quickly by the fuel tank exploding and everything else just shattering or tearing apart. I cringed and held on for the command capsule to hit the ground after it had bounced up, waiting for the impending explosion. Yet thankfully, it's made of sturdier stuff, and before long came to an unstable rest on a body with stupidly low gravity.
The KSC exploded in shouting and announcements, and Jeb, Bill and Bob were roused from their beds. It was time for Prime Crew to come into play. A rescue mission, with additional capacity to bring the stranded kerbalnauts home safely. Ormal III was ready. The flight was fairly standard, once more, until we reached Minmus. Landing precisely near Ormal II's capsule was proving difficult. Mostly because yet again, I had dropped my descent stage directly where I wanted to land. But this time, it didn't explode. Much.
Instead we had some fuel tanks, brimming with lovely explosive liquid, right where I wanted to land. And as I came into land, my lander legs got caught on the tank and the whole thing nearly fell over. Aborting the landing, we had to ascend slightly again and try to land a little further away. Although apparently "a little" to Jeb means "over a kilometre".
So the Ormal II crew had to EVA a long way to reach the rescue ship. Rather than walk at a ponderously low speed across Minmus, we instead elected to get there using RCS thrusters to fly. Bear in mind when I say "fly" that when you jump on Minmus, it is very easy to get worried you'll reach escape velocity on your own.
Also apologies for dark pictures, we didn't have time to wait to rescue the crew, so they were on the dark sided of Minmus by the time we got there.
There were some issues with flying very quickly for over a kilometre on RCS thrusters on the EVA suits. Such as being unable to judge your speed. Every time, I managed to overshoot the rescue ship because I was flying too quickly, sending the Kerbals tumbling for anywhere between 100 metres to a kilometre past the ship and needing to send them back. They got pretty knocked about >_>
Finally we managed to load them all up. Sunrise wasn't too far away by then (... with time warp), so I took a few snaps in the light before heading home. I also waited so we could fly towards Kerbin, instead of away from it.
The return was fairly routine. We kept the engines on for re-entry, because I knew the habitation module would make the craft too heavy to risk parachutes alone, so I wanted to use the spare fuel to slow our descent on parachutes.
There were some extra parachutes attached too, just to be safe. Turned out we kinda needed them, since when the chutes opened we lost one of the engines+fuel tanks when it was torn from the lander, and when we touched down the other two engines exploded too. But apart from that, a successful rescue mission! Safely home :3
