A thirsty fleet demands a bigger fueling vehicle!
Visibility from within the cockpit is ****.
One of those thirsty fleet vehicles is the interplanetary oiler, which needs to burn off its payload to make orbit, so let's gas one up!
Now, there was a question of landing capability. Doing test landings, all parachutes and a full-throttle powered burn couldn't slow the thing down enough to stop the RCS tanks (because they're in an obviously vulnerable position) from exploding, upon touchdown. Those test landings were done with full payload tanks, though, so with the payload drained, it would hopefully be safe to land.
This is a make-sure-you-get-it-right vehicle, since an attempt to abort will result in you having to land with full payload tanks, thereby peppering your command pod with RCS tank shrapnel. If you get it to its destination, so that it can offload that excess fuel, then you're golden.
Now, catching up with the Eve fleet. Formation flight!
Okay, it's a
loose formation....
My efforts to get the ships into similar orbits, immediately upon their encounter with Eve, were unsuccessful.
Well, **** it. We've got fuel, so let's start maneuvering. The station hub was first in the queue to capture, getting quite a view of the planet's mercury oceans, in the process.
Then, the backup spacebus got a close look at several lakes and impact craters.
Next, the first fuel ship, burning over several larger lakes/seas and craters.
The lander was next in the queue, and while I thought about just dropping it straight onto Eve, but ultimately elected against that course.
Then the station power module came up for its capture. Those big solar arrays each normally have a power output of 14.00 around Kerbin. Near Eve, it's thirty-four to thirty-six. (You're actually close enough that variation in your altitude above the planet produces a measureable impact on your solar panels' energy output.) This helps run those ion engines at full-throttle, even without full exposure of the solar panels.
Then the damaged spacebus. It's still doing quite well for fuel, but I still don't want to risk sending crew back on it. Ultimately, one
dumb shmuck brave pilot will attempt to fly it back to Kerbin, while the other two crewmembers will be evacuated to the spare passenger slots on the fully functional spacebusses.
Almost finally, the undamaged of the original spacebusses, which got quite a view of a crater formation, including a couple of partially-flooded craters.
The second fuel ship lagged behind the rest of the fleet by over a day. It got a look at the terrible orbital ribcage that I had constructed around Eve, prior to getting pulled in.
This ship came in on a nearly-polar orbit, and performed its capture burn over the most boring chunk of land that Eve has to offer.....except for that zit. I may have to find out what that's all about.
Thus it came to pass that Eve's ribcage would have a sternum.
And I left off with the screenshots, shortly after the landing craft ditched its transit stage. Now, I made an effort to ensure that the spent stage's orbit would catch Eve's upper atmosphere and eventually crash into the planet. Then, I used the lander's NERVA to distance itself from the debris, which blew the spent stage away just hard enough to put it back into a stable orbit.
I guess you wouldn't know I'd been, if I didn't leave behind some kind of navigation hazard.
