Progress with a Personal Reflection

1 | May 12th, 2013 | Posted in The R&D Life

So I just want to throw this out there: you can get really, really far in the game, like so:

Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 12.51.16 AM

Im trying to max them all out at one time. ;)

As for a personal note, I took a screenshot here for a reason:

Screen Shot 2013-05-12 at 1.15.43 AM

October 11, 2007 was the first day that I shipped hardware as a project manager. I worked in unpressurized flight support equipment (FSE) for on-orbit replacement units (ORUs) on the International Space Station for about a decade. As a kid — when I was playing this fine game — I wanted to be an aerospace engineer and work on a space station. Mission accomplished. The ammonia pump that was just replaced on the ISS was a unit that flew in hardware that I helped integrate in our facility and at NASA Kennedy Space Center. Its weird to know that people in space use things that you built. Its also really cool.

Anyway, that first delivery was two sets of FSE for the Direct Current Switching Unit, which switches the power draw from the solar arrays to the ISS batteries and back again. The FSE provides a mechanical mount that mimics the flight interface on the station: in the case of the DCSUs, thats some heaters underneath to keep it from freezing, a big stanchion through which a captive ACME screw is threaded for fastening, and a port for the connector, all covered with a white, 17-layer multiple-layer insulation (MLI) blanket. Theyre white on the outside to shed heat, and the blankets themselves alternate metal foil and insulative layers that keep everything at the right temperature as it moves around the Earth. Id been a project engineer on other builds, but being in charge took six months off of my life. I wouldnt trade that experience for the world.

My favorite blanket story is on the aforementioned pump module FSE. Its a big blanket, say 42 x 56 wide and about 28 tall. Its got these handles all over it to help the crew members fold the blanket back and fasten it down with hook-and-loop tape. Well, it turns out that the crew thought that they could use those to translate themselves around the ORU. It, uh, wasnt designed for that. So I ended up at KSC with a hole punch and our best technician. At one point, we had a big 8x8 timber as a striking surface, and we were using said punch to go through 17 layers of blanket and the webbing of the handle. Lets just say that sledgehammers were involved. But once we had holes in the handles, we could put these nice metal bars as stiffeners so a stray astronaut wouldnt just rip a handle off and go floating into the night

Wildlife Study Cannot Be Done

3 | May 5th, 2013 | Posted in Uncategorized

Im going to start RD Mission-specific pages here, because thats what makes the most sense from a findability/SEO perspective, but I can tell you that you just cant do Wildlife Study. You get a Not enough power message. How do I know? I got to 22 PR modules. 22. Still no dice. This is a very mature mission — over 10 years — and so Ive built that baby out to completion in terms of putting crew on, etc. So if 22 modules cant do it, well, it cannot be done.

01 Wildlife Study Needs Power

Ive been doing this all wrong.

6 | February 17th, 2013 | Posted in Uncategorized

So the way to *really* play the game is to pick one mission and carry it to conclusion. What crew is needed to do that one RD task? What module resources do you need? How do you plan the mission?

Im going to do that on the game, and it will be boring, but I just sit here and listen to The Killers or something while I do it, and its a break from all of my graduate school reading. Ill be putting these together as WordPress pages. Then I can use the blog for other things like mission planning and how to play the game—launch, landing, that sort of thing.

New Mission: AGGOMT1

11 | July 13th, 2012 | Posted in Mission Planning

So Ive decided to start from scratch on a mission. I picked up one of the missions that I have and ran with it for several RD projects. I didnt make any notes here because I was playing lazily and unfocused, but I thought that Id try something new: playing all the Agricultural, Earth Watch, Geology, and Meteorology tasks. These use a small, focused set of crew: the lone agronomist, the lone environmentalist, two geologists, two meteorologists. There are also calls for the three biologists and the communications and computer specialists.

My station is as follows:

Two power/radiator combinations
Two crew/one emergency module to get eight crew on station.
One hangar module, which I always put off of the bottom of the docking module.
One lab module and one comm module, as these RD tasks do have remote sensing capabilities

My equipment layout is as follows:

Eight suits / two MMUS / one Pod, which gets you throw most anything.
16 satellites and 8 PAMs, as I like the 2:1 combination
24 Gen Res Pacs, because thats all these tasks will require at first.

I always put my hangar module and comm module up first, followed by a power/rad the next flight and a crew/emer the following. That gets me a habitable station right away; after putting up some satellites in the fourth flight, I put up the other crew and the emergency module up. One more round of satellites and then its time to put up PACs and get to work. This makes for a quick turn-and-burn to the building, but if youre good with landing, youll be able to fly the flights right on each other and do all the above before the end of October 1987.

Im off to go have fun!

Bio-1: Final Crop Inventory Breakthrough, Commercial Laser Crew Juggling, Start of Forest Inventory

3 | October 16th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

Theres one final breakthrough in Crop Inventory, and here it is:

Click for full-size image.

The wording on that is weird, because a contract implies that youll keep doing the research. [Sorry, that's 11 years of government contracting talking.]

After that breakthrough for Commercial Laser, youve got to juggle crew. Im still working on the right combination for that.

Ive decided to start Forest Inventory in Crop Inventorys place, and you use the same crew: AGR Waite GEO Meinecke ENV Mendoza CMP Whiting. You get 3M of revenue for every turn and a quick breakthrough.

Click for full-size image.

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Bio-1: Robot Systems Dropped, Commercial Laser Started

0 | October 16th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

I hit a rough patch with Robot Systems:

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After getting a no-money breakthrough, I had to change crew, and it turned out that I needed CMP Whiting, who was assigned to Crop Inventory. Ive got this as a bookmark to try the project later on. This is the first time Ive had a crew availability issue, but Im sure that it wont be the last.

I started Commercial Laser instead and got a quick breakthrough with PHY Baxter AER Drew MAT McFarlan:

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Bio-1: Recombinant DNA Payoff and End, Crop Inventory Payoff, Robot Systems Setup

0 | October 13th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

Ive played more than I should between posts when things get this scattered. Im thinking that my screenshots will save me, though. [I play this in Boxer on the Mac and do full-screen snapshots.]

Early in Crop Inventory, the team you need is AGR Waite GEO Travers ENV Mendoza. The geologists are, of course, your only variable here. Well see that in a bit. Its important to note that the Agriculture RD projects often pay off in dribs and drabs. For Crop Inventory, its Cost 1 and Payoff 3 for every turn where you have the right staff and no failed equipment. You also get some payoffs:

Click for full-size image.

Click for full-size image.

After that second breakthrough, you must add CMP Kao to have further progress. This is an easy RD project, which is why I chose it first for this set. Juggling three projects is hard, and I have my first possible conflict with CMPs used on different projects.

The appropriate combination for Robot Systems is AER Howard COM Puhassis CMP Whiting, which is not what I expected it to be from reading the crew bios. Using the crew bios has made RD selection fairly simple and me, contrasted against my time-tested approach of make-it-up-as-I-go. [Hey, I was a kid; when I've done that lately, I just have been lazy.]

You do get an early breakthrough on Robot Systems:

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No payoff, but I got a big one with Recombinant DNA:

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Here ends the Bio-Medical portion of RD for me, as Space Adaptation and Space Sickness dont pay off. Im going to bring up the other four crew I dont already have on station for maximum flexibility, with the eye towards the Exobiology task.. The CHM and BIO folks get used for other projects. Once Ive exhausted their usefulness on those projects, Im going to see if the Space Sickness task has any paid dividends. I figure that I can put that one on long-term maintenance if not, because Ive proven that Space Adaptation doesnt do a damn thing over time.

[Below added later.]

The Exobiology team you want up front is AST Mason BIO Engstrom CHM Felzbaum.

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Bio-1: Changes in Recombinant DNA, End of Military Tech

0 | October 12th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

You get a glimmer of hope in the Recombinant DNA task

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and then you have to change course.

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Adding BIO Engstrom fixes this. You cant start off with Engstrom and Pendle, though. You have to wait for the worm to turn.

Military Tech goes out with a bang.

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Im trying to figure out what the next two projects that I start will be, as I have the team of agronomists, geologists, meteorologists, and environmentalists up on board.

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Bio-1: End of Pharmaceuticals, Start of Recombinant DNA

0 | October 11th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

Another project that gives you the idea that youll get a breakthrough

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and then you get dumped.

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Im starting Recombinant DNA, another money-maker from past experience. The crew descriptions make it pretty clear that CHM Felzbaum has to be on the team. You need BIO Pendle to counteract the personality issue. Its a DOC-free project, so its tempting to start something like Space Adaptation or Space Sickness, but you do run into the potential of needing the other BIO or CHM for that project. Ill also tell you that Space Adaptation goes on for quite some time and has yet to pay dividends for me. I may end up putting it on after the other two Biomedical projects have run their course, just to see what to do.

You can probably guess that Im thinking about a second laboratory. I have more power coming and am saving money for the lab. Juggling three RD projects can be a challenge, but its one Im willing to try.

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Bio-1: Pharmaceutical Breakthroughs #1 and #2

0 | October 11th, 2011 | Posted in The R&D Life

Part of the idea for doing this is to pinpoint RD projects for new players to start right away so they can learn the nuances of the game on the fly. Also, this is something that I always wanted to mark down when I was a kid, and Im sad that theres no love for this in the Web sphere. So now Im running on Pharmaceuticals and two breakthroughs have come right away:

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

That just zooms right on out there, and it can be run with a compact crew. You could run this with one crew moduleat least until the point that it requires four scientists, which it may well do yetand a fourth crewman to do all the satellite launches and debris removal. If you got Crew, Emergency, Hangar, 2xPower, 2xRadiator, and Lab up in four launches along with some pacs, you could have a running lab in six flights: Hangar+Emergency+Pac, Crew and 4Sats, PowerRadiator+Pac, station keeper crewman with PowerRad+Pac, then Lab and Sat/PAM. Succeeding flights would then bring up a satellite complement to keep the system going while bank is made.

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