Finally getting the time and interweb to get my nose into this detail dude, sorry for the delay man.
First thing to be launched is the TUG, it will be very important to aid in the orbital assembly of this mothership
All good projects need a good assembly drone. Like how you're using them as well to push from parking into assembly, especially pieces without control sections themselves.
I like how this looks as well. Multiple smaller short range on the 'planet side' and longer range, large dish on the deep space side.
Wooo, extending crew tube. Lots of time for these.
Artificial gravity section
2D realism.
Sub-ship docking head and R&C module copulas
Very smart how you've got the sub-ship docking head packed in there, and this
Docking of both sub-ships to Poseidon
is an awesome piece of mirrored engineering.
Triton colony ship crew section
Triton Surface Laboratory
Triton Surface Habitation
Neptunian moons exploration ship crew section
Not to enforce my rules on things, but these
should be the
industry SFS standard for manned long term crew quarters.
Cargo spine launch and assembly
I've seen enough genius to know where this is going...
Fitting all pods into their respective slots
Called it. And that small, totally useless from a game stand-point but totally realistic in the real world additional bracing and docking hold on the spine side of the cargo pods to increase its structural rigidity.
Triton Sub-ship main fuel tank
Triton Sub-ship nuclear electric propulsion stage, rendezvous and final assembly with the ship.
Exploration ship main fuel tank
Exploration ship main propulsion
The shape on the nuclear/electric engine.
Ion engine stack, ten is required
Fission reactor stack, ten is required
Mission commander: How many ion engines is it fitted with?
Cosmo: yes.
That must've take an age to turn on and check 720 ion engines. And disconnect all those disposable RCS modules
Propulsion stack fuel tank racks & fuel tanks (four sets of tanks are needed)
Assembling Earth Injection Burn fuel tanks
Delivering Earth departure fuel rack & docking to EIB fuel rack
Delivering Earth departure fuel tanks (ten sets of tanks are needed)
When you can't make a staged interplanetary expedition vehicle, use carefully measured drop tanks. Brilliant idea.
Topping up the fuel tanks (four top ups required)
Not gonna lie, but I want this refuellers babies. You coulda gone with a 200t mega-tanker, but went with craft no bigger than needed, but with enough aesthetics to make it more than just a tube with docking ports around it.
Imitation is the finest form of flattery, and although I don't copy much, this
will be a feature of future 2D and 3D missions if you don't mind dude?
Sending the probes into Neptune
The little details, especially the data collection arm.
Neptune unmanned hypersonic aircraft (spoilers: he's not coming bacc)
Sending the hypersonic aircraft into Neptune (Change of mission plan, this vehicle will fly about Neptune's atmosphere and transmit data to the orbiter flying above, it's not coming back.)
It's a shame drag is so fucked in 1.4.
With those out of the way, we can start exploring Neptune's moons, starting off with Thalassa. (The ship will release one orbiter for every moon, which will be tasked with mapping the body, followed by a manned landing.)
Rendezvous with the ship and transfer to Larissa
Transfer to Proteus & capture
Transfer to Nereid & Capture
I love the lander design. It's enough LEM to look cool, but not too much to be another Apollo copy. Good idea re-using and re-fuelling it between each visit, simplifies everything immensely
Once landed, the ship will fire explosive charges onto the surface to induce seismic vibrations, which will be picked up by the sensors equipped by the lander.
The first practical application of orbitally deployed weapons in SFS history. Change my mind.
This must've looked like the Klendathu drop from Starship Troopers.
[Desire to kill bugs intensifies]
Unmanned cargo landers drops their cargo, before flying off and crashing far away.
The dropped cargo sheds their protective fairings and begins its mission.
The impactor probe crashes into the surface, generating a seismic event so the sensors can obtain a reading.
Unmanned Triton aerial vehicle flies high above to obtain readings about Triton's supposed ultra thin atmosphere, before landing back down safely.
Realistic sensor design and deployment methods. These, the moon packages and the Neptune atmosphere probe/unmanned hypersonic drone are exactly the point of the entire challenge.
Some sweet flying there to bring it back down onto the base as well man.
the 4-manned lander lifts-off to rendezvous with the orbiting ship.
Ha, that lander base separation though...
(Of course, we have to release the two microsats we're tasked to bring to Neptune by third-party agencies)
Taking contracts as well Cosmo?
Setting up the Pluto observatory
Landing the Pluto observatory and fission reactor. After the reactor has landed successfully, the observatory will detach its protective fairing to reveal its telescope.
Probably the best part of this entire mission. Not cos you needed to go to Pluto, but just simply cos you could. And the pack job as well is (as usual) really well thought out.
All information allocated by the landers and the observatory will be relayed to Earth via this very orbiter.
Ha, that Voyager though...
Conclusion. Styx is
really flat...
Inspection crew launch, to perform inspections on the completed Poseidon section.
One more feature the laboratory module on Poseidon has is a state-of-the-art workshop equipped with the latest additive manufacturing machines, chemical synthesis booth and electronics assembly bench, allowing the crew to fabricate nearly any spare part they require for ship repair.
This comes in convenience with an EVA tube located on the same module which can support up to 2 EVA operators at once, this feature allows the crew to quickly fabricate the part and conveniently hand it to a pair of suited up engineers.
Since the ship is almost a kilometer long, the EVA crew will not be crawling their way all across, they will have a motorized puller that will pull the astronauts to any length of the ship they require to get a repair or inspection job done.
All of these are exactly why I never put any restrictions on you. Absolute realism, even on things that almost no-one else would consider. Little things like 'of course the ship will need to be externally checked before departure. And how are those engineers going to get around the exterior of a 1km long ship? And if they find problems, how are they going to fix them?'.
I've always had a high opinion of your work, but this has gone waaaay past my expectations into 'hory sheeet' territory. My only regret is I can't articulate how impressed I am with this that'd justify the sheer man-hours you've poured in since September.
That being said, a mission well done Magos Explorator
