Rouady Central

I had a few odd things happening with my chutes and contracts not being completed (when they obviously were).  So I removed some mods and tried some different things and i think it is clear now. FAR was making my Sounding Rocket chutes fail.  It is removed as not critical. I was not succeeding at the first launch contract because a sounding rocket did not count.  It was fine once I used a built-in rocket.  So, I simply will avoid that contract until I am ready or do a quick built-in launch to fulfill it.  Either way, my contracts are messed up so it is early and easy top restart. CKAN is reporting a new Historical Contracts, Interstellar Fuel Switch, AVC, and Real Plume for Stock, so I am updating those. Adding Distant Object Enhancement (original config), ELP, Procedural Parts, Stock Visual Enhancements and Kopernicus. Ready to start again!

This will be a log I maintain about my first career using the new Kerbal 1.1 update.  I consider it my birthday present from Squad. To set the stage, I have played Kerbal for a while and I was interested in taking advantage of the new stable 64-bit version to be able to use many of the mods I enjoy in one context.  Due to memory limitations, I previously needed to create different install of KSP so that I could experiment with different mod setups without freeze-ups and crashes. Supposedly, this will solve that problem.  Let's see! Since it is newly released, many mods I like have not yet been updated or are still considered in  a testing state.  Part of the value of this blog is to keep track of the mods I use and when they are added and updated to identify issues if they arise. Anyway, I have done my first major mod install on a fresh 1.1.  I used CKAN for the following mods: KER, MechJeb,[x]Science, Capcom, Contracts+, KJR, Portrait Stats, RCS Build Aid, Unmanned before Manned, Module Mgr, Decouple Heat Shields, Historic Missions contracts, Kronal Vessel viewer, Ship Manifest, Universal Storage, Raster Prop Monitor, USI Freight, KSP-AVC, Procedural Fairings, Chatterer, EVE, RealPlume, Scatterer, Planetshine, FAR, DMagic Orbital Science, RealChutes, SCANSat, Tarsier, SpaceY Heavy Lifter and Expanded, MKS/OKS, USI-LS, Karibou Rover, Karbonite, Sounding Rockets, Mkerb Science, and a couple others that were installed as dependencies. I manually installed the following (some are testing versions): Kerbal Alarm Clock (Trigger Tech), Community Tech Tree, Toolbar, KSP Achievements, Ambient Light Adjust, Launchpad Countdown (Athlonic), Infernal Robotics Core, KIS, KAS, and Tweakscale. I got Interstellar Extended and the Part Rework for Robotics, but I am holding on them.  They seem unclear on how up-to-date they are and they are not critical in the early game. Some mods I really want for a variety of reasons are simply not updated so I will wait for them.  They are not critical early game either, but I don't want to launch any Kerbals until I get Final Frontier (for example) so I don't lose the history.  Some others I will watch heavily for include: Transfer Window Planner, Texture Replacer, Hullcam VDS, Octosat, Near Future set, Surface Experiments, Taurus HCV. There are some other nice-to-haves, but that list above do some unique things that I miss until they are added.  Others are more for 'plussing.'  Part of that is other worlds and I am waiting for those to update as well. Now, the moment arrives when I start this monstrosity and create a new career! Fingers crossed...

Well, things seem to be mostly working.  No sign of Tweakscale though.  Could be the items I am using.  I have set many things up, but I'll tweak the interface for a while. Anyway, ready for my first contract.  Very simple.  Collect science.  Easy enough.  I'll use my first sounding rocket for that (no launch). I'll simply get the temperature reading at the pad. I have received two achievements for getting more than $100K (which I started with) and completing my first contract.  However, the ship fell over with only one launch stick attached, I will try three for balance. Next up is first flight and 2 contracts.  The Nazi A-3 contract and the "get something to fly" contract!  This should be pretty easy with the sounding rocket. Odd. The rocket launch went off and an achievement was created for a first launch but the contract did not appear fulfulled.  Also, the parachute came out, but provided no braking so it crashed.  The A-3 contract was fulfilled.  After the crash, it went to a weird orbital view.  Okay, it looks like there are a couple bugs... Rocket height achieved was 11,870 meters.  It was called "First Sounding Rocket."  743 m/s V in one stage.  NO science, but no parachute either! So, I tested the parachute that comes with sounding rockets a bit.  It actually seems to act as extra weight!  Very odd.  I am trying to remove FAR and/or RealChute and see if it then works right (is it a conflict?). First CKAN updated both Planetshine and Contract configurator.  Now I removed both FAR and RealChute to find the problem.  If it still fails, then I don't know. <"Getting started".> First test it looks like FAR screwed things up.  Rocket did not go nearly as high either.  Also, I cannot get rid of the First Launch contract.  I feel like the achievement thing is in the way.  Very odd. I think I want to restart without FAR and maybe the achievement thing to see if that is the problem. New test, no FAR, no Achievements, RealChute returned.  I can live without FAR since I don't do a lot of airplane stuff anyway.