Learn more about Kerbal Space Program's The Dunation mod over here and check out our own list of best Kerbal Space Program mods. I really loved The Martian, but I wasn’t prepared for The Dunatian to make me love it more, and in a new way. Recreating favourite pieces of fiction in a game mod is far from an original concept, and when I started playing for this mod I expected to spend my time celebrating a detailed historical re-enactment. Fresh new pilots should probably avoid this mod entirely. Long-time players of KSP can expect to finish The Dunatian in around five hours. I’ve spent a few hundred hours playing Kerbal Space Program over the last seven years, but even in my experienced hands the demands of rescuing Bill from Duna had me trying and failing for several hours. It’s good thing I’m an unrepentant save-scummer, or The Dunatian would have been a short book, ending with a rover crash in chapter three. I’d read and watched about The Martian’s main character’s incredible self-discipline, but for the first time I was being asked to exhibit some of that same patience myself. Better Duna Reworks the stock solar system to future a more realistic Duna, by moving Bop and Gilly to orbit around Duna, and Ike to orbit around Eve, Better Duna 0.4.3.4 for KSP 1.12.2 The RAT Pack Air Turbines that generate power from flowing air The RAT Pack 1.0.0.0 for KSP 1.7.3 Everything is Awesome A New Dimension for KSP. I was going beyond a safe speed, and it wasn’t long until a bump and a skid sent my precious rover rolling over, spinning parts loose and bouncing along a gentle trail of explosions until Bill was dead. While driving across the featureless, desolate landscape of Duna, I started getting bored and picked up speed, trying to make the drive finish faster. In the same way, playing The Dunatian gave me an interactive, bone-deep connection to a story I’d already experienced through a book and a movie. I think the Apollo astronauts landing on the moon was pretty amazing, but it wasn’t until I breathlessly landed my own KSP lunar lander that I felt how amazing that journey was.
Real-world physics-or something close enough for government work-has always formed the backbone of KSP’s challenges and the thrill of its successes. Seriously, I don’t care that this is fictional: NASA should be very proud that someone even imagined that they could pull off this many impossible tasks at one time.
While I’m stressing out about that, I also launch a long-range supply drop full of snacks to keep Bill alive for a few years until help can arrive. My supply probe ends up matching speed with the huge NASA ship, and I pipe over gallons of fuel as the exhausted long-range crew and the little robot probe rocket into interplanetary space together. I’m busy prepping that resupply flight and running through the intense mental maths involved in making an orbital rendezvous happen between two craft on dramatically different orbits. The lander is docked on the far side and the tanker that brings fuel up from the surface is docked at the far end.The multiple flights I’m juggling basically follow the plot of the book: Bill’s departed crew are coming back for him in their interplanetary vessel, and they need to resupply without slowing down into a gentle low-Kerbin orbit. The data courier is just coming in to return a load of science to kerbin. I'm currently using both systems for the Mun. If you're mining fuel on the surface with the kethane mod then you can afford to use a larger lander and take the lab with you to do a more effective job on the surface. If you bring your fuel with you then it makes more sense to use a smaller lander to go to the surface and collect science then bring it back to orbit. (refueling missions, kethane mining, resupply or crew change, ect.)Īs for the orbiting lab VS the lander lab, it depends on your fuel situation. Your newly unlocked tech can then help support the science mission that made it possible.
By transmitting you instantly gain science to unlock more of the tech tree back home. You transmit because transmitting AND returning a sample gets you more science than just returning a sample.Īlso, normally you use one of these on a long duration mission where you try to hit every biome on a planet or moon. There's a maintenance crew scheduled to add some in a couple of days, but panels added in EVA always end up a little crooked. Unfortunatly this lander was designed and built using inferior weed and I forget the solar panels. So I store duplicates in the lab and pod then return them to kerbin with 2 seperate data couriers. While the lab will maximize your transmit value, you need to do multiple returns to get all of the science in a location. Then I get a third set of samples and store those in the pod for a seperate return. Then I get another set of samples and store them in the lab to return. The idea is to land and do goo and material experimets and take surface samples then process them in the lab and transmit. It carries 3850 dV worth of fuel and should be able to get anywhere on the Mun and back to base. It operates from my Mun base doing suborbital hops. Recently I built a lander with a mobile lab. I used to do exactly the same as TWC_Xcorps.